With which spearheads Grand Alliance in Bihar announcing that it will accomodate from its quota of 144 seats, the on Saturday expressed hope that it would get affection like a "younger brother" from Lalu Prasad's headed party. Announcing the seat-sharing formula in the anti-NDA grouping for Bihar polls, leader and the coalition chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav told media persons in Patna that his party will share some seats with ally in adjoining Jharkhand- the and Vikashheel Insaan Party (VIP)- its coalition partner since the Lok Sabha polls last year, from its own quota of constituencies. He said the party would declare seats for them in the next two to three days. General Secretary and its spokesman Vinod Pandey said they have presented a demand of over one dozen seats in Bihar. "In Jharkhand coalition government, the is in the role of a younger brother and we have given them respect. Likewise we are a younger brother in Bihar and hope will get the same treatment there," Pandey told PTI-Bhasha. The lone RJD MLA in Jharkhand Satyanand Bhokta has been made a minister in the Hemant Soren cabinet. Soren had met Prasad in RIMS recently and talked on seat distribution in the Bihar polls. The RJD supremo is in jail in Ranchi after being convicted in four cases of the multi-crore rupees fodder scam. The JMM has no presence in the 243-member at present. Its interested in entering into fray in Bihar from some constituencies in the areas bordering Jharkhand. Pictures on social media showed a huge crowd blocking the path near the intersection with South Anne Street and Harry Street. The protest started at the Custom House Quay before moving on to Grafton Street. Gardai said the protesters "dispersed without incident", while they will investigate the organisation of the protest. A Garda spokesman said: "Gardai attended the scene of a protest earlier today, Saturday, 3rd October, 2020, that commenced at Custom House Quay, North Dock, Dublin, and concluded at Grafton Street, Dublin 2, where all persons present dispersed without incident. "An Garda Siochana has no role in permitting or authorising protest marches, there is no permit/authorisation required for such events. An Garda Siochana objective in relation to protests is the prevention of any Breach of the Peace and facilitate ongoing business continuity around the protest event. Advertisement "The Health Act 1947 (Section 31A-Temporary Restrictions) (COVID-19) (No.5) Regulations 2020, as amended are currently in force, and place penal restrictions on persons organising certain events. An Garda Siochana will investigate the organisation of this event. "Individual attendance, social distancing, wearing of masks in public area and other such public health guidelines are not penal regulations. "In supporting the COVID-19 public health guidelines and regulations, An Garda Siochana has and will continue to adopt, a graduated policing response based on its tradition of policing by consent. This has seen Garda members engage, educate, encourage and, as a last resort, enforce. Where potential breaches of the Public Health Regulations are identified a file is submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions for a direction as to how to proceed." By ANI NEW DELHI: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences' (AIIMS) Forensic Medical Board, which was formed to look into Sushant Singh Rajput's death case has ruled out the murder of the late actor in its report. "We have concluded our conclusive report. It is a case of hanging and death by suicide," Dr Sudhir Gupta, AIIMS Forensic Head told ANI on Saturday. ALSO READ| No trace of poison found in Sushant Singh Rajput's viscera: AIIMS sources "There were no injuries over the body other than hanging. There were no marks of struggle/ scuffle in the body and clothes of the deceased," said Dr Gupta who is chairman of the AIIMS Forensic Medical Board comprising seven doctors. The board has discussed its findings with the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is investing the late actor's death case. "The presence of any seductive material was not detected by Bombay FSL and AIIMS toxicology lab. The complete examination of ligature mark over the neck was consistent with hanging," he added. ALSO READ| No conclusion reached in Sushant Singh Rajput death case, says CBI However, the medical board has refused to provide the details as the case it is still sub-judice. (If you are having suicidal thoughts, or are worried about a friend or need emotional support, someone is always there to listen. Call AASRA's 24x7 Helpline: +91-9820466726 for assistance) Whether you like ghoulish tales steeped in history, or exciting ghost hunts complete with spirit-sensing gadgetry, ghost tours across the country are waiting to welcome you and your pet with their spooky arms. Here are our picks for the most entertaining pet-friendly ghost tours in the United States. If weve overlooked a great one, let us know! Old Bisbee Ghost Tours Once a booming mining town, Bisbee, Arizona is now rich with ghostly lore, attracting two- and four-legged visitors alike. On these tours, you and your furkid can sniff out the spirits of residents past, including Nat the Miner, who gave up the ghost to pay a debt; The Lady in White, who rescued three children from the clutches of death; and a cat whose spirit has lingered in town long after its nine lives expired. If youre looking for a family-friendly, educational experience, the Bisbee Historic Ghost Walk will take you on a spirited stroll through the Main Street district, where youll learn about Bisbees unique history. Highest growth In recent years, many important Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have been established to create a positive foundation for the development of economic and trade cooperation between Vietnam and the Americas such as the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement signed in 2000; the Vietnam - Chile Free Trade Agreement signed in 2011; the Free Trade Agreement between Vietnam and Cuba signed in 2018; the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) signed in 2018 which came into effect in 2019, of which Canada, Mexico and Peru were the first 3 countries with FTAs with Vietnam. Currently, the FTA with the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) is also being discussed regarding negotiating possibilities. In recent years, amongst their Vietnamese partners, the Americas have continuously been the region with the highest growth in trade turnover. According to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai, the value of two-way trade between Vietnam and the Americas in the past ten years has increased 3.5 times over, from US$28 billion in 2011 to US$96.8 billion in 2019; of which, Vietnam's merchandise exports to the Americas reached US$73.6 billion and imports from the Americas reached more than US$23.2 billion. Entering 2020, despite the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic, in the first eight months of the year, two-way trade turnover between the two sides still reached US$69.3 billion, up 11.8 percent, of which, Vietnam's exports increased by 15.9 percent over the same period in 2019. In particular, in the first year of implementation of the CPTPP, many Vietnamese businesses began to penetrate some new markets in the Americas, many of Vietnam's key products saw good growth in export turnover, such as textiles and garment exports to Canada in 2019 which itself increased by 21.9 percent over 2018; exports to Mexico increased by 19.4 percent and those to Peru increased by 24 percent. Vietnamese Commercial Counsellor in Canada Do Thi Thu Huong has stated that Vietnamese businesses have many opportunities to cooperate with Canadian businesses as in recent years, the Canadian government has pursued a policy of trade diversification. The US - China trade war is directly affecting the market strategy of some Canadian businesses and the Covid - 19 pandemic has shown the downsides of the supply chain, causing businesses to review and gain fresh demand in order to establish a new supply chain. Meanwhile, Vietnam and Canada are complementary economies, not in direct competition, especially in terms of agricultural products, food, and energy. Vietnamese businesses should actively seize opportunities to join the list of reliable suppliers in the market. Tran Toan Thang, Head of the Industrial and Business Economic Forecasting Department (National Centre for Socio-economic Information Forecast) said that in the context of Vietnam's export decline in many markets, exports to American markets are still the bright spot. This is an important factor in confirming the future potential of these markets. Making further efforts Although the Americas are a high potential market, Vietnamese enterprises path of entering the market has many obstacles. According to experts, geographical distance is the first difficulty because there is currently no direct flight from Vietnam to many American countries. Besides, language is also a big obstacle for Vietnamese businesses. In fact, it is very important to learn about customs, practices, business experiences, and commodities; it can be said to be vital to Vietnamese businesses. According to Deputy Minister Do Thang Hai, the American market currently loves Vietnamese food, beverages, and fruits. But our businesses are facing many difficulties in meeting conditions in these market such as quarantine, food safety, quality, habits and customs. Many businesses do not yet understand the regulations on imported goods, regulations on quality and food safety and the many specific rules of the American market. Therefore, in the near future, businesses should focus on thorough research to meet these standards. Export turnover to the US accounted for nearly 90 percent of Vietnam's total exports to the continent. According to Commercial Counsellor of Vietnam in the US Bui Huy Son, despite the negative impact of COVID-19, spending in this market has increased gradually, a very important signal for businesses exporting goods. It can be said that the market, which imports more than US$2trillion worth of goods per year and is undergoing strong shifts in its supply chains to avoid too much dependence on one market, is createing large opportunities for Vietnamese firms to participate more strongly in the new supply chain. In order to catch the new supply chain movement, businesses should have a long-term, quality and efficient vision, not simply "hunting" for current market opportunities to then sell off in a short time. Specifically, businesses should quickly adapt to the market's requirements in the new situation, always closely follow market movements and policies in order to promptly respond. Meanwhile, it is necessary to focus on perfecting products as well as promoting trade promotion, increasing exports through direct distribution channels or online. On the other hand, businesses also need to ensure product traceability; participate in investment and business cooperation with partners in the US as well as many other countries to improve the overall competitiveness of their products for export. And if the business have a high competitive capacity, the trend of changing the supply chain will always open up new opportunities not only associated with the US but also with many other markets and suppliers, especially the Central American and South American countries, where have huge potential. A 32-year-old Lincoln man was sent to prison Friday for 42 to 56 years for sexually assaulting a young child and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The allegations came to light after Richard L. Andersen was arrested for using a Taser on a woman. Police said he gave them permission to check his phone after he was accused of tampering with a witness in the case and they found four images of child pornography and a photo of Andersen, a convicted felon, wearing a handgun on his hip. They identified the girl being assaulted and Andersen from the hand in the photo, and cellphone data linked the photos to his apartment, according to court records. Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Matt Mellor said the case involved three victims and called Andersen an "ongoing threat." Andersen pleaded no contest to sexual assault of a child in the first degree and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. At sentencing, he apologized, saying he went through a "real hateful spiral." In the end, Lancaster County District Judge Robert Otte sentenced Andersen to the prison time, calling his crimes "horrific." With mandatory minimum terms, he will have to serve 30 years before he's eligible for parole. Latest missing persons cases in Nebraska Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale Contribute: Leave a comment if you find a particular report interesting or want to add to it. Flag as inappropriate. Mark as helpful or interesting. Send your own user report! Translate Sampaloc, Rizal, Calabarzon (157.9 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt : I didn't feel it I guess! because I'm to busy memorizing something so i guess i just didn't feel the shake of the ground. | One user found this interesting. Capas, Tarlac (18 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : I was lying on my bed on the floor then I suddenly felt like I was swaying, I thought it was just hallucinations or whatever. I immediately went here to see if it was an earthquake but there's no report yet, then came back after a couple of minutes, and c | 3 users found this interesting. Navatat, Basista (22.5 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s : It started as light vibrations that were gradually getting stronger for about 3 seconds and then one stronger shake that lasted about 2 seconds. | 2 users found this interesting. Cut-cut Primero, Province of Tarlac, Central Luzon (29.8 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : 1st shake: light, rattling of bed headboard 2nd shake: sudden jolt, same lateral direction as 1st. | 2 users found this interesting. Bautista Pangasinan (21 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Una parang taas baba lang galaw na mahina tapos biglang naging malakas na Horizontal | One user found this interesting. Mapalacsiao, Province of Tarlac, Central Luzon (37.5 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Bed shaking and slight movement of objects on my table for about 5 seconds. | One user found this interesting. Las Pinas, Southern Manila District, National Capital Region (152.4 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) Pandacaqui Mexico, Pampanga (59.8 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 5-10 s Concepcion, Tarlac, Central Luzon (47.9 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short Camiling, Tarlac, Central Luzon (6.6 km NE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s Barangay unang sigaw quezon city (129.1 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s San Fernando Pampanga (71.5 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 5-10 s Pura, Province of Tarlac, Central Luzon (28.4 km E of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s Dagupan City, Pangasinan, Ilocos (44.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 10-15 s (reported through our app / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 10-15 s Santa Lucia, Tarlac (36.4 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) (reported through our app / Very weak shaking (MMI II) Makati city (118.8 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s Santa Lucia, Tarlac (36.3 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt San Clemente, Tarlac, Central Luzon (5 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) Tarlac City, Central Luzon (30.1 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s Cut-cut Primero, Province of Tarlac, Central Luzon (30 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) Baguio City, Hill Top (79.7 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) Fiesta Community, Mabalacat City, Barangay Tabun (49.3 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 5-10 s Salcedo, Tarlac, Central Luzon (35.9 km NE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s Mossoro (17326.1 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt San Carlos (25.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 15-20 s Malakas nagvibrate (reported through (reported through our app / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 15-20 s Baguio (89.5 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s Sta Ines Santa ignacia (16.5 km ESE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s Mabalacat (54.5 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 1-2 s Manda (138.3 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) Angeles Pampanga (233.1 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt Gerona, Tarlac, Central Luzon (23.4 km E of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s A suicide truck bomb attack on Saturday killed at least 13 people in eastern Afghanistan, government officials said. The Interior Ministry said at least 38 people were wounded in the blast in Nangarhar province's Ghanikhail district, when it hit near a mosque as locals were gathering for afternoon prayers. A spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar, Attaullah Khogyani, said 14 people were killed, including one member of the military, and 42 others were wounded. Khogyani said several armed men wanted to enter the provincial district buildings after the explosion but that Afghan forces killed them before they reached the facility. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but both Islamic State affiliates and Taliban are active in the area. Both groups have carried out attacks against the Afghan government, national security, defense personnel, and civilians. The attack happens as representatives of both the Afghan government and Taliban are opening intra-Afghan negotiations in the Middle Eastern State of Qatar to end the country's decades-long long war, following a US-Taliban peace deal signed February 29 in Doha. This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed. Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message of sympathy Saturday to US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump following their coronavirus diagnosis, state TV reported. My wife, Peng Liyuan, and I express our sympathies to you and your wife and wish you a fast recovery, state TV on its website cited the message as saying. Chinese-US relations have tumbled to their lowest point in decades amid disputes over trade, technology, security, Beijings tightening of control over Hong Kong and complaints about abuses in Chinas Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang. Trump has blamed China, where the coronavirus outbreak began in December, of mishandling the outbreak and allowing it to spread. (Natural News) The anti-Trump Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), a so-called public interest law firm, receives gobs of cash from billionaire Fred Stanback, we have learned, Stanback being one of Americas most aggressive supporters of depopulation through abortion, sterilization and other anti-human interventions. Over the past several decades, Stanback has donated more than $200 million to the North Carolina-based firm which, due to his generosity to the cause, earned him (along with his wife) the title of being the SELCs most loyal friends. In essence, Stanback wants to see the United States population shrink as rapidly as possible, and the SELC supports this cause, using environmental excuses to convince supporters that the nation is overpopulated and in need of human remediation. The reason the SELC hates President Trump, by the way, is because the Trump administration has been working to overhaul all the regulations and policies put into place by the SELC and other groups since at least the 1970s. These other groups include the Sierra Club and the Sunrise Movement. Since President Donald Trump took office, the SELC has set itself apart as a widely influential opponent of his environmental plans, notes Charles Fain Lehman, writing for Free Beacon. It is part of a coalition of groups fighting the administrations proposed streamlining of the National Environmental Policy Act a group including the far-left Sunrise Movement and has filed a major lawsuit to block the change. Lehman further notes that the SELC is colluding with other groups to stop other Trump-imposed changes such as the reforms his administration made to the Clean Water Act. Much of what Trump is doing is vehemently opposed by deep state groups such as the SELC. You can learn more by checking out Trump.news. Stanback has ties to Warren Buffet, Planned Parenthood The money that Stanback has funneled to the SELC over the years first went through a donor-advised fund called the Foundation for the Carolinas, or FFTC. This fund allows uber-wealthy people like Stanback to make charitable contributions anonymously, though we know that Stanback has made considerable donations to the fund year after year. In 2014, for instance, Stanback made a $400 million donation to the fund, which represented a mere 19 percent of his overall gifts made between 1999 and 2017. This suggests that Stanback is a substantial donor to the cause, just as he is to others like it such as Population Connection and Planned Parenthood, the latter being the nations largest abortion provider. Stanback is also connected to billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffet, with whom he is said to have a close friendship. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, also has a Stanback Fellowship program that places talented students within the population control movement, according to Lehman. Though a representative from the program denies that the school endorses population control, having stated that research into a subject does not equal an endorsement, we know that both Population Connection and another institution known as the Population Institute are among 45 different organizations where Duke graduate students can work while participating in the program. Stanback also donates sizable funds to the Sierra Club, the Greenpeace Fund, and NextGen America, all of which promote the unsubstantiated myth of man-made climate change and global warming. Stanback is a generous donor to Democrats, too, notes Lehman. Federal election records show that of the quarter of a million dollars in contributions Stanback has made since 1987, 84 percent have gone to Democrats. Prominent recipients include current North Carolina Senate contender Cal Cunningham, Massachusetts senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and both Barack Obamas and John Kerrys presidential campaigns. Warren Buffet, by the way, is also a huge supporter of abortion and population control, meaning he and Stanback are two peas in a pod. Sources for this article include: FreeBeacon.com NaturalNews.com (Photo : Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 02: People walk near the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in lower Manhattan on on October 02, 2020 in New York City. Stocks and markets around the world have fallen in morning trading as investors digest the overnight news that President Donald Trump has Covid-19. (Photo : Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images) STEPANAKERT, NAGORNO-KARABAKH - OCTOBER 1: The emergency entrance to the main local hospital, where several journalists who were wounded during shelling earlier in the day in Martuni were taken, on October 1, 2020 in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh. A decades-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has reignited in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, recognized by most countries as part of Azerbaijan, but controlled by ethnic Armenians since a 1994 ceasefire. Dozens have been reported killed in the recent fighting, in which both countries blame the other for the escalation. Charm actress Alyssa Milano reacted about Trump's COVID-19 infection through Twitter. She said that she doesn't want anyone to get infected with the virus, even her worst enemy in her tweet. Many celebrities tweeted their reaction after the United States' President was confirmed positive for COVID-19. The activist and actress Alyssa Milano, who previously opened up about her battle against COVID-19, was among them. Although she doesn't agree with Trump, she showed her sympathy in her tweet. As someone who has had #COVID19 and still suffers from post-covid syndrome, I can honestly say with all that I am that I wouldnt wish this virus on my worst enemy. Please wear a mask. Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) October 2, 2020 "As someone who has had #COVID19 and still suffers from post-covid syndrome, I can honestly say with all that I am that I wouldn't wish this virus on my worst enemy. Please wear a mask," she wrote. Donald Trump said that he and his wife are currently quarantined in the White House. "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!" he captioned. As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together. Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) October 2, 2020 Melania Trump, the first lady, said in her tweet that she and POTUS are feeling good. She added that all her upcoming engagements were already canceled. The first lady reminded everyone to stay safe, and all will get through the pandemic together. Milano previously revealed what COVID-19 can do to people's hair According to CBS News' previous report, Milano opened up about her fight with COVID-19, saying that the disease caused her hair loss. She posted a video on Twitter, where she was seen brushing her hair. Her clumps of hair can be seen falling as she brushes her long hair. In her post, she said that people should always wear their masks if they don't want to get infected. For more news updates about COVID-19, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Also Read: [VIRAL] Alyssa Milano Who Was Once Slammed for Her Crocheted Face Mask Shows What COVID-19 Can Do To Your Hair This article is owned by TechTimes, Written by: Giuliano de Leon. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. New Delhi, Oct 3 : Massive traffic jams were witnessed on the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway on Saturday afternoon as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cavalcade moved on the 9.2 km stretch to meet the kin of the 19-year-old Hathras girl who died four days ago following alleged gang-rape by 'upper-caste men'. The eight-lane flyway almost came to a standstill as the police closed all exit toll gates of the DND with barricadings all across to stop the movement of Rahul and Congress General Secretary Priyanka -- the second such attempt by the Gandhi siblings in a week. People got stuck on the flyway for more than one-and-a-half hours as each and every vehicle was checked by the police to ensure that Congress leaders could not enter Uttar Pradesh through the stretch that connects Delhi to neighbouring Noida. Before moving to Hathras, Priyanka on Saturday made it clear that she will meet the victim's family "even if the police does not allow her to go there". Speaking to IANS before leaving the Congress headquarters here along with Rahul in their Toyota Innova vehicle, Priyanka said, "I will visit Hathras at any cost even if the police does not allow us." Priyanka drove the vehicle with her brother Rahul sitting next to her. Along with the two leaders, dozens of Congress MPs including Shashi Tharoor are also travelling to Hathras. Speaking to IANS, Tharoor said, "It is a terrible incident and we have to show our respect for the girl. Whatever has happened, nothing worse can happen in this country." Following the travel plan of the Congress leaders to Hathras, the Uttar Pradesh Police has made adequate arrangements at the DND. On Friday, Priyanka Gandhi visited Delhi's Valmiki temple to attend a prayer meeting for the girl who died on Tuesday at a government hospital in Delhi. Priyanka has said that the family of the victim should not feel alone at this point of time. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi was pushed to the ground by Uttar Pradesh Police personnel when he was marching towards Hathras after their vehicles were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway in Gautam Budh Nagar. The Congress leaders were also detained by the Police and a case was registered a against them under the Epidemic Diseases Act. Congress leaders on Thursday alleged that the police resorted to lathi charge on them when they tried to march towards Hathras. The Uttar Pradesh government has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the the death of the 19-year old girl. The Uttar Pradesh government also suspended several officials on Friday evening. Uttar Pradesh Police personnel had sealed the village barring the entry of any mediapersons for the last two days. However, the media was allowed to enter the village earlier today. The 19-year-old girl, who died on Tuesday at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, suffered fractures, paralysis and a spinal injury after the savage assault. -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text VICTORIA, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 2, 2020 / Erin Ventures Inc. ("Erin" or the "Company") (TSXV:EV) announces today that pursuant to a previously announced private placement on September 30, 2020 for Units priced at $0.04 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $200,000.00 (the "Offering") the Company has raised $78,000 by closing the first tranche of the Offering. Pursuant to the terms of the Offering, Erin issued 1,950,000 Units in this first tranche. Each Unit consists of one (1) common share in the capital of the Company and one (1) common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will have a two (2) year term (the "Exercise Period") and will be exercisable into one (1) common share at a price of $0.05. Based on the TSX Venture Exchange's ("TSXV") conditional approval, proceeds of up to $122,000 of this Offering remains available to existing security holders of Erin ("Shareholders") in accordance with the provisions of the existing shareholder exemption (the "Existing Shareholder Exemption") pursuant to BC Instrument 45-534 (the Existing Shareholder Exemption is not available in Ontario or Newfoundland and Labrador). In addition to conducting the Offering pursuant to the Existing Shareholder Exemption, Units will be offered to accredited investors, close personal friends and business associates of directors and officers of the Company, and certain investors who have been advised on the suitability of their investment by registered investment dealers (the "Registered Advisor Exemption"). The Company intends to use 55% of the net proceeds from the Offering, whether fully subscribed or not, to fund further development of its wholly owned Piskanja boron project in Serbia and 45% of the net proceeds from the Offering for general working capital purposes (consisting of payroll 28%, suppliers 11% and contractors 61%). The Company has set September 29, 2020 as the record date for the purpose of determining Shareholders entitled to purchase Units relying on the Existing Shareholder Exemption. The aggregate acquisition cost to a subscriber relying on the Existing Shareholder Exemption cannot exceed $15,000 in a 12-month period unless the subscriber has obtained advice from a registered investment dealer regarding the suitability of the investment. Unless the Company determines to increase the gross proceeds of the Offering and receives TSXV approval for such increase, if subscriptions by existing Shareholders exceed the maximum number of Units proposed to be distributed after having first satisfied the subscriptions of those subscribers relying on other prospectus exemptions referred to herein, subscribers relying on the Existing Shareholder Exemption will be entitled to a pro rata portion of the balance of Units available under the Offering. Existing Shareholders are directed to contact the Company for further information concerning subscriptions for Units pursuant to the Existing Shareholder Exemption, as follows: Contact person: Blake Fallis Telephone: 1-250- 384-1999 or 1-888-289-3746 Email: blake@erinventures.com The Offering is being conducted on a private placement basis pursuant to prospectus exemptions of applicable securities laws and remains subject to final acceptance by the TSXV. The Units, and any Warrant Shares issued, will be subject to a four (4)-month and one-day hold period. One arm's length finder is to be paid an aggregate amount of finders' fees equal to $7,000 and 175,000 broker warrants in accordance with the rules of the TSXV Corporate Finance Manual. In accordance with the requirements under the Existing Shareholder Exemption and the Registered Advisor Exemption, there is no material fact or material change about the issuer that has not been generally disclosed. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Blake Fallis, General Manager About Erin Ventures Erin Ventures Inc. is an international mineral exploration and development company with boron assets in Serbia and gold assets in North America. Headquartered in Victoria, B.C., Canada, Erin's shares are traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "EV". For detailed information please see Erin's website at www.erinventures.com or the Company's filed documents at www.sedar.com. Piskanja is a high-grade boron deposit with a NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource of 5.6 million indicated tonnes (30.8% B2O3), in addition to 6.2 million inferred tonnes (28.8% B2O3). For further information, please contact: Erin Ventures Inc. Blake Fallis, General Manager Phone: 1-250- 384-1999 or 1-888-289-3746 www.erinventures.com 645 Fort Street, Suite 203 Victoria BC V8W1G2 Canada Erin's Public Quotations: Canada TSX Venture: EV USA SEC 12G3-2(B) #82-4432 OTCBB: ERVFF Europe Berlin Stock Exchange: EKV 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 release contains forward looking statements. The words "believe," "expect," "feel," "plan," "anticipate," "project," "could," "should" and other similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, variations in estimated costs, the failure to discover or recover economic grades of minerals, and the inability to raise the funds necessary, changes in external market factors including commodity prices, and other risks and uncertainties, including the novel coronavirus pandemic. Actual results could differ materially from the results referred to in the forward-looking statements. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking information. These and other factors made in public disclosures and filings by the Company should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by the Company or on its behalf, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. "Inferred Resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and economic and legal feasibility. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource reported in this news release will ever be upgraded to a higher category or to reserves. U.S. persons are advised that while mineral resources are recognized under Canadian regulations, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission does not recognize them. U.S. persons are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource is economically or legally mineable. SOURCE: Erin Ventures Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/608981/Erin-Ventures-Closes-First-Tranche-of-Its-Private-Placement Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 23:26:37|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The government in India's western state of Rajasthan has launched a month-long mass awareness campaign on COVID 19, officials said on Saturday. The awareness campaign will run until Oct. 31 as part of the statewide mass movement against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. "Ministers and legislators are organizing programs at different districts to create awareness about wearing masks and maintain social distancing," an official said. According to officials, the local government has decided to distribute 10 million face masks to protect the public from COVID-19 infection. "Wear a mask and make everyone else wear it," Raghu Sharma, the local health minister, said. "Every person needs to be aware of this disease." Rajasthan is the 14th most-affected state in India with 139,696 COVID-19 cases, including 1,516 deaths. India is in the grip of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The health ministry said on Saturday that the number of COVID-19 cases in the country has reached 6,473,544, including 100,842 deaths. Globally India is the second worst-hit country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem Draconian lockdowns invoked by governmental fiat with little basis in science are nonsensical and unconstitutional. I live in Washington state and I have a mustache. I went to my barbershop when they were first allowed to open on a limited basis and got a haircut and mustache trim. Last week, they were able to cut my hair but not my mustache. We the people, should not blindly follow these mandates and surrender our civil rights without question. State public health agencies during outbreaks of epidemics do have limited police powers to isolate or quarantine people who are sick or are coming from foreign areas that have highly infectious and deadly diseases. The federal government has the same power for people entering the US and traveling between states. These diseases were smallpox, typhoid, cholera, and the plague with high death rates. It was routine to quarantine sailing ships coming into port and to isolate those who were sick in the community. In some cases people who refused to comply were involuntary isolated, like Typhoid Mary. Our public health quarantine laws are antiquated and require updating. Notwithstanding their antiquity, one thing is obvious; there is a right of due process and equal protection. . . . under the Constitution, individuals have rights in quarantine and isolation conditions. Under the 5th and 14th Amendments rights of Due Process and Equal Protection, public health regulations used to impose such conditions cant be arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable. The initial lockdowns stated purpose was to keep hospital ICUs from being overwhelmed until the new virus's nature, and risks were better understood. These lockdowns were to be short-term. But some states have extended the lockdowns for months based on criteria that are arbitrary, oppressive, and unreasonable. A good case can be made these actions under the guise of public health are actually political in nature to affect the 2020 Presidential Election. We were told the lockdowns and the wearing of masks by everyone would protect those most at risk by COVID-19. But over time, the condition placed on lifting these measures morphed into somehow eradicating the virus. This lie was spread by the radical left and a complicit media by disinformation, hysteria, and evoking fear. On the advice of unelected "governmental experts," who waffled over time, governments implemented these measures with the force of law and regulatory action, i.e., yanking business and professional licenses of those who did not comply. These measures are arbitrary, capricious, oppressive, not equally applied, and have little basis in science -- church services were prohibited, and the police arrested some who attended. Yet, public protests, rioting, and arson of public and private property were tolerated. The so-called "flattening of the curve has nothing to do with actually eradicating the virus. No amount of testing, on and off again lockdowns, and/or mask-wearing will do that. These measures will only delay the spread of the virus until there are effective vaccines for COVID-19, antivirals, better treatment protocols, and or until herd immunity is reached in a given population. Until then, under the long tail of the flattened curve, the same number of people will be infected. Focusing on positive tests as a criterion for releasing these restrictions is purely subjective. The horses are already out of the barn. Actual deaths due to COVID-19 are a more realistic tracking measure. It is clear from the graph below that Washington state is about done with COVID-19, and yet many counties, including Spokane, where I live, are still locked in Stage 2. Gov. Jay Inslee is still refusing to allow counties to open up based on cases per 100,000 residents. See Spokesman-Review, COVID-19 activity plateauing statewide . . . Source This graph is one of many graphs created and updated by Dr. Douglas G. Frank. It clearly shows COVID-19 in Washington is on the wane. Dr. Frank has commented extensively on the fallacy of relying on the number of positive cases as the basis of setting public policy. Requiring masks as a matter of public policy is also fallacious. Except for N95 masks in negative pressure hospital rooms with other PPE that are immediately disposed of after each entry into the room, requiring the use of masks is spurious at best. See the extensive debate thread on the use of masks on Dr. Franks Facebook page [Note: Click label icon masks]. See Dr. Franks bio here. Dr. Ted Noel also says, . . . an anesthesiologist with 36 years [sic]experience wearing masks in operating rooms explains why masks dont work. Some disagree with Dr. Noels opinion, but only if the masks are worn in a proper manner, which is a lot to expect of the general public. What are the public policy ramifications of the governmental actions and responses to COVID-19? Many states' current actions are driven by fear of the unknown, not based on objective scientific research. Further, the COVID-19 emergency was weaponized for political agendas From a relative risk analysis, the cure has been worse than the virus itself. The risk of dying in any one year from COVID-19 is relatively small compared to the cures' impact on the US population. See this article in the NY Times, Putting the Risk of COVID-19 in Perspective: The CDCs data on COVID Survival Rate by age group: 0-19 years 99.997% 20-49 years 99.98% 50-69 years 99.5% 70+ years 94.6% The US economy tanked. The airline and tourist-related industries were severely affected, as was the manufacturing sector. Restaurants, bars, and small businesses were closed, and many have since gone under. Schools were closed. We have loosed the Karens on the population who do not conform, arrested people (here and here) for noncompliance with governmental fiats. We have induced undue stress on the population in general with little benefit. The Seattle Times: As we near 6 months in Washingtons stay-home order, mental health experts warn that things may get worse. A more prudent way forward is to acknowledge the real risks of COVID-19 in terms that people can understand, educate the people, let the people decide what level of risk is acceptable to them, and what mitigations they are willing to do. Life is not risk-free. Every day, we take prudent risks, i.e., leaving the house, walking down the street, going to work, driving a car, flying in a plane, seeing a doctor, having surgery, and many other everyday activities. Nanny state mandated intervention has many unintended consequences that result in the cure being worse than the viruss impact on society. Live free or die! Ron Wright is a retired detective from Riverside, CA PD. BA in political science CSUF, M. Adm. University of Cal, Riverside. Facebook at Ron T. Cop. When we moved to rural Donegal over eight years ago, there were seven post offices within 12km of our home. Given that we have the sea on one side, it was a case of seven in just three directions. After the most recent round of agreed closures with An Post, which saw 152 post offices shut their doors, there are still five within 12km. Not every rural area in the country is so well served by post offices. The fact that so many have stayed open reflects the size of towns, where a population of over 500 keeps a post office. It also suggests some smaller, more rural post offices are still supported by the local community. But many post offices are now losing money in an unsustainable way. The question of closing post offices that lose money is difficult, emotive and cuts to the heart of the debate about the future of rural communities. That is why there have been multiple reports and committees which have examined the potential of post offices and their role within the wider postal network. Yet a report by Grant Thornton, commissioned by the Irish Postmasters' Union, has effectively drawn a line under that debate. It spells out in stark terms how there isn't a need for any further reports. The system needs subvention, the report highlights. Post offices provide a valuable economic and social service and should be supported with direct State subvention it says. It puts the cost of a public service obligation, or PSO, at 17m a year. It projects the cost of running the post office network next year will be 70m but the network will only generate a 53m income. Post offices have been caught in the crossfire of changing consumer habits and changes to the social fabric of our communities and how we live our lives. Letters are the most profitable part of postal delivery for An Post. When a postman delivers three letters to a house, unlike parcel deliveries, An Post gets the revenue of three stamps on one delivery. But when that falls to one letter, An Post's revenue falls by two thirds, but its costs remain the same. The mail business has been contracting at a rapid rate. Mail, including business post, promotions and traditional cards, still accounts for three- quarters of An Post's delivery revenues. Parcels from the likes of online shopping, account for about one-quarter. However, traditional mail volumes are falling at a rate of 10pc per year. And that was before Covid-19 came along. Parcel delivery for An Post, largely driven by an explosion in online shopping, especially through the coronavirus lockdown, is growing at a colossal 30pc per year. An Post chief executive David McRedmond expects that three-quarters letters to one-quarter parcels revenue mix to reverse within the next three to four years. If An Post can position itself correctly for that growth, and it has done so successfully so far, it can have a solid future from a changed parcel/mail mix. But where does that leave the post offices? There are currently 899 postmaster- and 45 An Post- operated post offices around the country. That number is set to fall and quickly. Fewer people availed of their services during the lockdown. Letter volumes have been falling off a cliff anyway. Social welfare payments were switched from weekly to fortnightly during Covid, which further reduced footfall into post offices. The post office network can and does offer a range of other services from bill payment to banking. But increasingly, more of these services are moving online. There is, at least in theory, a great opportunity for An Post to operate as a rival to traditional banks. The reputation of banking is battered. There isn't sufficient competition. And An Post potentially has 899 branches around the country. But banking too is moving online. People don't need to go into a bank or a post office to do their banking business. Last year I went into my local bank branch to buy a sterling draft to pay a bill. The bank told me they aren't really doing them any more and they end up being very expensive. The bank clerk told me to go to the post office in the town. I bought the sterling draft in what was a buzzing, well-run, friendly post office branch. But how many times do I need a sterling draft? Hardly ever. A worst-case scenario for the postal network is where everybody abandons traditional mail, does everything online, remaining deliveries are handled by drones and all of this negates the need for post offices. That won't happen. There will continue to be post offices as people still use traditional mail, albeit in smaller volumes. We should also seriously step back and think before signing up to contaminate our environments with drones that, like noisy gimmicks, will only serve to kill off real jobs. Some post offices can continue into the future, especially in bigger towns. The question is how many? Post offices can still be run successfully when attached to another business. This is already happening. But it won't work everywhere. The bigger question we have to ask ourselves is whether it's necessary for every post office to make a profit. Does its benefit to a local community outweigh the cost of a subvention? Are the five post offices within 12km of my rural home too many? I don't need that many but I continue to support my local post office down the road as often as possible. I know of one small village which had one shop/filling station, one post office and two pubs. The shop went bust in the crash. The post office closed a few years ago. Both pubs have remained closed during lockdown. Is it still a village or just a collection of houses in the middle of the country? Its identity as a place has been severely challenged. There is a case for providing subvention to support post offices in some communities. But as long as people continue to post less and move more online, the rate of subvention would have to get bigger every year. How would a subvention be best applied in areas where the loss of a post office would impact people the most? These are all difficult questions to answer. In the meantime, if people really want their post offices, they should use them. The number of COVID-19 cases in the Houston area continues to rise, and now the president has it. President Donald Trump announced he tested positive for the virus this week. As of Friday, the Associated Press reported that he was receiving treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. COVID-19 cases continue to increase in the region as well, with more than 1,000 cases being added between Wednesday and Thursday in the Houston region, the Houston Chronicle reported. There has been a total of 146,234 cases in Harris County as of 4 p.m. Friday. On HoustonChronicle.com: Coronavirus live updates: Texas case count surpasses 780,000 The number of active COVID-19 cases rose slightly in the Cy-Fair area this week as well, a trend that has been continuing for about a month now. There is a total of 754 active cases in the area as of Friday afternoon, an increase of 18 cases since last Friday, data from Harris County Public Health shows. Deaths from COVID-19 increased slightly over the week as well in Cy-Fair, rising from 77 to 87 deaths. Data for the Cy-Fair area was compiled using the ZIP codes in the Cypress Creek Mirrors coverage area: 77040, 77041, 77065, 77070, 77086, 77095, 77429, and 77433. The most active cases presently are in the 77040 ZIP code with 213 active cases, with the only two other ZIP codes in the triple digits being 77086 with 121 active cases and 77070 with 109 active cases. Pridgeon Stadium is no longer providing testing, but a testing center has been set up at Klein Multipurpose Center, 7500 FM 2920. Testing is offered from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday but closed on Friday and Sunday. Appointments are preferred but walk-ins are also accepted. An appointment can be scheduled at covidcheck.hctx.net. paul.wedding@hcnonline.com No trade restrictions or embargo against Belarus are on the agenda. Ukraine plans to line up with sanctions imposed by the European Union on Belarus. This was announced by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in an interview for BBC News Ukrainian. Read alsoU.S. awaits EU move before slapping sanctions on Belarus "I would like to look at the final legal decision on who is on that list. But yes, we are determined to join these sanctions, because here we are speaking about issues of policy consistency," Kuleba said. In particular, Ukraine plans to line up with sanctions against certain representatives of the top Belarusian authorities. "As for economic interaction, we are not planning to attack. We are not planning to make Belarus worse we only wish it well. We do not plan to have any embargo or any restrictions on trade," Kuleba said. Sanctions against Lukashenko's regime Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, sent her prayers as well and told them, "Get well soon!" Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he and his wife regularly pray for the Trumps. "But 2day we hv additional prayer that they get well soon after testing positive for coronavirus," Grassley tweeted. Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said, "The President and First Lady are in Andrea's and my prayers. We wish them a full and speedy recovery." Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., said, "Mr. President, please know Americans from across the political spectrum have expressed deep concern for you and First Lady Melania during this difficult moment. I wish you all the best as you recover, and continue to carry the burden of leadership for our nation." Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., also offered his prayers. "We wish them a full and speedy recovery," Bacon wrote. That tweet prompted a retort by Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb. Life Chain events are planned Sunday in 20 Nebraska cities, including Grand Island, Hastings, St. Paul and Broken Bow. All of the events begin at 2 p.m. In Grand Island, the Life Chain will be along Webb Road, between 13th and State streets. Organizers are inviting people to join them in a peaceful, prayerful, public witness for unborn life. Last year, 109 people registered at the Grand Island Life Chain, said Andrea Mack, treasurer of Grand Island Right to Life. With family members and others who dropped by, the number was probably greater, Mack said. This year, supporters would like to see 200 people attend. Because people stand apart, they naturally participate in social distancing, she said. Life Chain, Mack said, is a great witness for how much love we have for the gift of life. All children deserve that chance to shine. I just hope people will come. Theres a lot of peace that comes with praying with others. Other Life Chain events in the area: Hastings Second Street and Burlington Avenue. Albany Deputy City Manager Jorge Salinas is packing his bags. The city announced that Salinas has accepted a chief of staff job in Florida that will see him leave his post in Albany in mid-December, ending a 14-year stint at his desk. "I'm originally from Puerto Rico, so the hurricanes aren't new," Salinas said of his new climate in Florida come the new year. But, he added, he will miss the city he's called home for 23 years. "We moved here because I was relocated to HP in Corvallis and my wife and I had thought about raising our children here," Salinas said. His children, now 29 and 26, have long left the nest, flying off to different states and leaving the couple to think about retirement. "We wanted to retire in Florida or go back to Puerto Rico," Salinas said. "In the last two years, we've been to Florida four times and we decided, why wait? I have 10 to 12 years left before retirement and it's a great opportunity I've been given, the chief of staff position." It's a position, Salinas said, that he's prepared for after his work with the city of Albany. "It's just a great organization," he said. "It's given me so many opportunities." And while Salinas isn't packing up his office yet, he's already missed. "I am very happy for Jorge, and for the fact that he has been afforded this professional and personal opportunity in Flagler County, Florida," said City Manager Peter Troedsson. "Nevertheless, we are losing a very valuable member of our team, and its no exaggeration to say that he cant be replaced. Jorge is the consummate professional, a highly effective leader with extraordinary talents and a wonderful sense of humor. Hes a friend to all." Troedsson said the city will be replacing Salinas' duties as IT director shortly, but his other duties are under review as the city determines how to best distribute them. Salinas still has a few weeks left before he packs up the car "we've downsized to almost nothing" and hits the road. "What I'm going to miss most is the community," he said. "I'm going to miss the mountains and open spaces in Oregon, but I'm going to miss the people." Love 2 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 4 Angry 0 Radiometry Specialist, Seibersdorf, Austria Organization: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Country: Austria Field location: Seibersdorf, Austria Office: IAEA in Seibersdorf Grade: P-3 Closing date: Monday, 12 October 2020 Radiometry Specialist(P3) ( 2020/0347 (005720) ) Organization: SGAS-Radiometry Team Primary Location: Austria-Lower Austria-Seibersdorf-IAEA Laboratories in Seibersdorf Job Posting: 2020-08-24, 3:57:07 PM Contract Type : Fixed Term Regular Probation Period : 1 Year Organizational Setting The Department of Safeguards (SG) is the organizational hub for the implementation of IAEA safeguards. The IAEA implements nuclear verification activities for over 180 States in accordance with their safeguards agreements. 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. Safeguards activities are undertaken within a dynamic and technically complex environment including advanced nuclear fuel cycle facilities and complemented by the political and cultural diversity of the countries. The Department of Safeguards consists of six Divisions: three Operations Divisions 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); and three Offices (the Office for Verification in Iran, the Office of Safeguards Analytical Services and the Office of Information and Communication Services). 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 Nuclear Material Laboratory is responsible for the treatment and measurement of nuclear material accountancy and complementary access samples. The section includes the OSL Team located at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, Japan. Main Purpose The Radiometry Specialist is an expert in laboratory based non-destructive analysis (NDA) instrumentation applied to the analysis of actinides and other radioactive nuclides. Role The Radiometry Specialist is: (1) a non-destructive assay analyst, performing measurements using a variety of NDA systems, analysing and interpreting measured data and preparing reports; and (2) a technical specialist in NDA that interfaces with technical staff, regulators, and Safeguards organizations to understand operational needs for the measurement of nuclear material and environmental samples. Functions / Key Results Expected Maintain an in-depth technical knowledge of radiometric systems and techniques including alpha and gamma spectrometry, and X-Ray fluorescence analysis. Advise the Radiometry Team Leader on enhancements or issues with current systems. Provide technical expertise in the analysis of several hundred nuclear material and environmental samples per year, and ensure that data are reported within established quality and timeliness goals for each type of analysis. Tags civil servants computer programming information management information technology logistics nuclear fuel cycle nuclear materials quality control radioactive materials risk management safety regulations Develop and write quality controlled technical documents, calibration procedures and working instructions related to use of laboratory NDA instruments. Maintain up-to-date knowledge in the radiometry field by attending scientific meetings and by communicating with instrument vendors and colleagues outside the IAEA working in related fields. 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 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. Partnership building Identifies and builds partnerships. Develops and maintains long lasting partnerships to strengthen relationships. Delivers programmatic outputs and acquires resources in support of Agency goals. Technical/scientific credibility Ensures that work is in compliance with internationally accepted professional standards and scientific methods. Provides scientifically/technically accepted information that is credible and reliable. Required Expertise FunctionNameExpertise Description Physics Nuclear Instrumentation Advanced knowledge of instrumentation modules used in gamma-, alpha-, and X-ray spectroscopy applications. Ability to set up, calibrate, maintain and troubleshoot various spectrometry instrumentations. Physics Radioanalytical Techniques In-depth knowledge of radiometric techniques, including high-resolution gamma spectrometry, alpha spectrometry, and X-ray fluorescence analysis. Knowledge of combustion analysis is an asset. Physics Radiometry Ability to perform quantitative and qualitative analysis of samples using a variety of radiation detection systems and techniques. Demonstrated experience in evaluation, interpretation and analysis of complex gamma spectra. Asset Expertise FunctionNameExpertise Description Information Technology Computer Programming Demonstrated skills and experience in using computer programming for development of customized NDA instruments control and data reduction applications. Nuclear Engineering Simulation and Modelling Demonstrated skills and experience in computerized simulations of the transport of radiation, such as Monte Carlo simulations, applied to the design and calibration of NDA instruments. Qualifications, Experience and Language skills Bachelors Degree University degree in nuclear engineering, radiation physics, analytical chemistry or a related field. Minimum of 5 years of experience in an analytical laboratory measuring actinides (U, Pu, Np, Am) or fission/activation products (Cs-137, Co-60, etc.) in nuclear materials and/or environmental samples using NDA equipment, of which two years of this experience should preferably be in an international environment. 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 $60962 (subject to mandatory deductions for pension contributions and health insurance), a variable post adjustment which currently amounts to US $ 27982*, 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 Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. When you need to warm up, what's your favorite winter comfort food? Marine One lifts off from the White House to carry President Donald Trump to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda in Washington. The White House says Trump will spend a few days" at the military hospital after contracting COVID-19. (Image: AP) Hathras gangrape case: Not our girl's body says the mother; Demands narco on DM India oi-Briti Roy Barman Lucknow, Oct 03: The mother of Hathras rape victim on Saturday said the police did not hand over her daughter's body after her death. She demanded an investigation monitored by a Supreme Court Judge and said the family doesn't trust SIT or CBI. The family expressed doubts that if it was their daughter's body which was forcibly cremated at 3am on Thursday and demanded to know what happened to "her actual body". "These people didn't let me see the body of my girl even after I kept begging for it. We don't want the CBI enquiry either. We want that the investigation of the case be conducted under a Supreme Court Judge. Why should we go for a NARCO test, we never changed our statement," she said. Ahead of Rahul Gandhi's scheduled visit to Hathras UP Congress chief put under house arrest After police removed barricades from near their home, the family said the NARCO test should instead be done on the DM and SP "who kept lying". The family also alleged that the SIT was "hand in glove" with the four accused who belong to the upper caste community. However, the team of senior officials- ACS Home Avnish Awasthi and DGP HC Awasthy meet the family of the alleged gangrape victim in Hathras. "We have spoken to family, they have told us their problems," Awanish Awasthi said. According to the officials, SIT has been constituted and action will be taken. The family has agreed for narco test, officials said. Meanwhile, a petition has been moved in the Allahabad High Court seeking a stay on the NARCO test of the bereaved family. However, the High Court moved against the NARCO test on family. Authorities in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh on Saturday reopened the borders and allowed media to enter the village. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Officials also said that Section 144 was clamped in the area. They had said the ongoing probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was the reason for the restrictions. Rahul, Priyanka doing drama in Hathras, quiet on Rajasthan: Prasad "Since SIT probe in the village is complete, the restriction on media has been lifted. More than five media persons are now allowed to gather as Section 144 of CrPC is in place," Prem Prakash Meena, Sadar senior divisional magistrate said. Speaking to media, the victim's sister-in-law said, "First of all, police should clarify whose body was cremated that night. It wasn't our girl's body, we didn't see it. Why should we undergo the Narco test? We are telling the truth, we are seeking justice. The DM and SP should undergo the Narco test. It is they who have been lying." Dominic Raab has vowed that Britain will no longer be 'held over a barrel by Brussels' as Downing Street insisted the two parties had agreed to 'work intensely' to resolve differences in Brexit talks. Boris Johnson had said prior to today's video call with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that he wanted to secure a trade deal similar to what Brussels has with Canada or Australia. Negotiations have stalled over key issues such as fishing and government subsidies, with both sides calling on the other to reach a compromise. Foreign Secretary Mr Raab echoed the Prime Minister's enthusiasm for a deal but insisted it needed to be in Britain's interest. Speaking at the virtual Conservative Party conference today, Mr Raab said: 'Yes we want a free trade deal with the EU, but any deal must be fair. 'The days of being held over a barrel by Brussels are long gone. 'Under the Conservatives, there is no question: our Government will control our fisheries, our Parliament will pass our laws and our courts will judge them.' Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, pictured, has vowed that the UK will no longer be 'held over a barrel by Brussels' Boris Johnson, pictured at a construction site in west London today, has said he wants a trade deal with Brussels similar to what the European Union has with Canada or Australia The Prime Minister held talks today with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen What is a Canada-style trade deal? The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta) is the name of the type of deal Boris Johnson is eyeing up between the EU and Canada. The two parties began negotiating more than a decade ago but only provisionally came into force in 2017, and still has not been formally signed off by all states within the block. Ceta does not remove all tariffs, with taxes on imports remaining on poultry, meat and eggs, but does get rid of most. It also increases the amount of goods that can be exported without extra charges, known as quotas, but some of them still remain as well. There are also concerns over how much it benefits services and financial services, which are crucial to the UK economy. Border checks also still remain, meaning goods, and paperwork, may have to be looked over at ports to ensure they meet regulatory requirements. It has an impact on standards, with Ceta protecting EU 'geographical indications', meaning products such as Parma ham and camembert cheese can only be made in Italy and France respectively. Canada then can't import products calling themselves as such from other countries. Government contracts are also opened up to each other as part of the deal, meaning Canadian companies could bid to carry out infrastructure projects in member states. A Canada-style off-the-shelf deal has previously been proposed by the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier but was turned down by Theresa May's team. Advertisement It comes as Downing Street said this afternoon that the UK and the EU have agreed to 'work intensively' to resolve the differences in the talks. Mr Johnson and Mrs Von der Leyen spoke via video conference to take stock of progress in the negotiations following the final scheduled round of talks between Brussels and the UK this week. The pair have tasked chief negotiators, Britain's Lord Frost and the EU's Michel Barnier, with intensifying the talks after acknowledging that 'significant gaps remained' between the UK and Brussels. The Prime Minister has set the deadline of the EU Council meeting on October 15 for securing a deal - only 12 days away. A Downing Street spokesman said: 'They agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future. 'They endorsed the assessment of both chief negotiators that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained, notably but not only in the areas of fisheries, the level playing field, and governance. 'They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps. 'They agreed to speak on a regular basis on this issue.' Earlier this morning, Mr Johnson told reporters that he was looking for a deal similar to what the bloc has with Canada or Australia. He said: 'I think there's a good deal to be done and everybody knows what we want to do. 'The EU has done a deal with Canada which is a long way away, big country but some way away. 'Here we are, we're the biggest trading partner of the EU, their biggest export market, plus we've been a member for 45 years - we want a deal like Canada's, we want that one!' He added: 'If that's not possible, and that wouldn't be our call that would be their call, then the alternative is to have a deal like Australia which is another big country, further away, but it would work well and we could make it work very well. 'We're resolved on either course, we're prepared for either course and we'll make it work but it's very much up to our friends and partners.' It comes as the Environment Secretary said last night that Britain is ready to fight and win a new 'Cod War' with the EU if the trade negotiations collapse. The Prime Minister held a video call with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, pictured together in January, this afternoon to try and come to an arrangement after weeks of deadlock In an interview with the Mail, George Eustice said ministers have quietly put in place a 'five-fold increase in our enforcement capacity' over the last year in preparation for a possible stand-off with European trawlermen. Fishing remains one of the key sticking points to a deal, with Boris Johnson unwilling to bow to demands that would allow EU trawlers to maintain permanent access to British waters. Officials fear this could lead to a repeat of the 1970s 'Cod Wars', when British trawlers backed by the Royal Navy clashed with Icelandic coastguard vessels in a doomed attempt to maintain historic fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Asked directly if Britain was ready to defend its waters in the event of No Deal, Mr Eustice said: 'Yes, we are. And in fact, the main lesson of the Cod War was it's much easier to protect your waters against access from overseas vessels than it is to try to defend a notion of an historic access that's no longer available to us.' Meanwhile, his predecessor, Michael Gove, said today he was 'optimistic' about the prospects of a deal. Speaking in conversation with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street at the virtual Conservative Party conference, Mr Gove said: 'I'm optimistic. It has been a tough process because the EU has never had to cope with any country leaving its orbit before, and it is a bit difficult. 'As we leave the nest and become good neighbours rather than uncomfortable lodgers, the EU has to adjust. 'And several aspects of the adjustment have proved difficult for the European Union - recognising that we share the same high environmental and workforce standards as they do but we want to do things in our own way is a bit difficult for them and also there is the very vexed issue to do with fisheries. 'The EU think that they should have exactly the same access to our waters outside the European Union as they have inside. 'But I think with goodwill we should be able to get a deal.' It comes after Britain's Brexit negotiator last night declared the 'outlines of a deal' were visible even as it emerged the process could last into next month. Following the latest round of talks, David Frost said the two sides had held constructive discussions in a 'good spirit'. United Kingdom's Brexit envoy David Frost arrives for a meeting with European Commission's Head of Task Force for Relations with the United Kingdom Michel Barnier at the European Commission in Brussels today Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, also spoke of progress on 'many, many' fronts. Boris Johnson has suggested he could walk away from the negotiating table if no agreement is struck before an EU summit on October 15. However the Mail understands that talks could last into next month if both sides feel an accord is in sight. Environment Secretary George Eustice told the Mail last night that talks could continue for another three weeks. 'We've really got to have some kind of heads of terms understanding about whether there's a landing zone by the middle of October,' he said. 'And we really can't let things stretch on much beyond the first week of November because businesses need to know where they stand.' A source told the Mail that Michel Barnier, the lead EU negotiator, believed an agreement might not be signed until early next month. In an interview last night, Mr Johnson appealed for European leaders to be 'commonsensical' and come to terms. 'I hope that we get a deal, it's up to our friends,' he told the BBC. 'They've done a deal with Canada of a kind that we want, why shouldn't they do it with us? We're so near, we've been members for 45 years. It's all there, it's just up to them.' Mrs von der Leyen called for trade talks to intensify as she prepared to take stock of progress with Mr Johnson. The two leaders are to speak later today to discuss the next steps following the conclusion of the final scheduled round of formal talks. News of the conference call prompted speculation of a final series of intensive talks dubbed 'the tunnel'. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, takes off her protective mask prior to making a statement regarding the Withdrawal Agreement at EU headquarters in Brussels yesterday Mrs von der Leyen said the most difficult issues including fisheries and state aid rules still had to be resolved to get an agreement in place before the Brexit transition period ends on December 31. 'It is good to have a deal, but not at any price,' she said. 'We have made progress on many, many different fields but of course the most difficult ones are still completely open. 'But overall, where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations. We are running out of time around 100 days to the end of the year so it is worth stepping up now.' Speaking after the end of the ninth round of negotiations, Lord Frost said: 'These were constructive discussions conducted in a good spirit. 'In many areas of our talks, although differences remain, the outlines of an agreement are visible. I am concerned that there is very little time now to resolve these issues ahead of the European Council on 15 October. 'For our part, we continue to be fully committed to working hard to find solutions.' German chancellor Angela Merkel said the bloc was in 'a constructive mood' to seal a deal but that there had been no breakthrough so far. 'As long as negotiations are ongoing, I remain optimistic,' she said. 'It will be a crucial phase over the next few days.' Mr Barnier said: 'We will continue to maintain a calm and respectful attitude, and we will remain united and determined until the end.' He held a private meeting with MEPs earlier this week and a source familiar with the discussions said he downplayed the possibility of a deal before the summit. A Downing Street spokesman said: 'The middle of October is where we believe we would need to see a resolution to this in order to make sure we have all the things we need to have in place for the end of the transition period.' If the EU want a Cod War, we'll give them a Cod War! Environment Secretary George Eustice threatens standoff with EU trawlers if Brexit trade talks collapse Britain is ready to fight and win a new 'Cod War' with the EU if Brexit trade negotiations collapse, the Environment Secretary said last night. In an interview with the Mail, George Eustice said ministers have quietly put in place a 'five-fold increase in our enforcement capacity' over the last year in preparation for a possible stand-off with European trawlermen. Fishing remains one of the key sticking points to a deal, with Boris Johnson unwilling to bow to demands that would allow EU trawlers to maintain permanent access to British waters. Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs George Eustice arrives in Downing Street in central London to attend a Cabinet meeting on 30 September, 2020 in London, England Officials fear this could lead to a repeat of the 1970s 'Cod Wars', when British trawlers backed by the Royal Navy clashed with Icelandic coastguard vessels in a doomed attempt to maintain historic fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Asked directly if Britain was ready to defend its waters in the event of No Deal, Mr Eustice said: 'Yes, we are. And in fact, the main lesson of the Cod War was it's much easier to protect your waters against access from overseas vessels than it is to try to defend a notion of an historic access that's no longer available to us.' By the start of next year the so-called 'cod squad' of Royal Navy patrol craft will have doubled from three to six. A mother on vacation with her family in North Wildwood, New Jersey, has drowned after trying to save her three children from rough waters. The familys Sept. 29 beach trip turned into a tragedy around 3 p.m., according to a City of Wildwood Fire Department press release. The 49-year-old woman, who was not identified, noticed that her three kids, 8, 10, and 19, were struggling in the breakers at the 18th Avenue beach. The mother was calling out to them to come back, Fire Chief Dominick J. McClain explained to NJ.com, and when she saw they were having trouble, she jumped into the water. The woman was able to retrieve her two younger sons and carried them back to the safety of the shore. It was not at all a beach day, McClain said. The water was very rough and the rip currents were very dangerous. Meanwhile, the 19-year-old daughter continued to struggle in the rough waters. Her mother went back in to help her but found herself equally helpless in turbulent rip currents. First responders arrived and successfully retrieved the teen about 50 yards from shore. But the mother was located three times that distance from the shoreline, face down and unconscious. Eyewitnesses Jonathan and Stacey Selepak shot cell phone footage as medics tried saving the woman. Five cop cars, two rescue cars, and a whole bunch of people running toward the beach, Jonathan told CBS Philadelphia. I just saw them all converge into one area. Unfortunately, efforts to revive the woman at the scene were unsuccessful. She was rushed to Cape Regional Medical Center, where medics pronounced her dead around 5 p.m. Cape Regional Medical Center, New Jersey (Screenshot/Google Maps) An additional tragedy, said McClain, was that the womans husband arrived on the beach at the moment his wife was being pulled from the water. He had been taking care of the couples other two children at Montego Bay Resort, where the family was staying during their vacation, while away from their home in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. The rescued children were also taken to the hospital for evaluation and sustained no lasting injuries. McClain says the mothers actions likely saved her sons. He told NJ.com that there were no lifeguards at the beach on Sept. 29, and there was only one other visitor at the same area by the shoreline. The North Wildwood community responded to the heartbreaking incident by offering their support to the family, while town officials have reminded locals and visitors to avoid swimming at beaches where no lifeguards are present. We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc KALAMAZOO Studio Grill, the downtown Kalamazoo breakfast and lunch diner, calls itself a downhome little restaurant" for good reason. Since coronavirus restrictions forced the restaurant to shrink its seating capacity, just 25 people are now permitted inside Studio Grills dining room at any time. Two tables now sit in front of the restaurants red brick walls and striped overhang for folks who would prefer to sit outside. STAMFORD A federal judge last week threw out a suit by a Stamford man claiming his free-speech rights were violated when he was arrested for holding up a sign saying Cops Ahead just down the street from where city police were conducting a distracted-driving detail in 2018. Judge Alfred Covellos decision to close the case Wednesday provided a win for the citys police department as well as the arresting sergeant, Richard Gasparino. Im obviously very happy with the outcome of the case and I publicly want to thank Assistant Corporation Counsel Barbara Coughlan and Attorney Elliot Spector for all their hard work, Gasparino said. The two of them believed in the case from the very start and never doubted my actions. I took a lot of criticism for this arrest publicly and professionally, but like the legal team I never second guessed my decision on that day. Spector said, The judge rightly found that if a police officer is performing an act to protect the public, people don't have a right to interfere with the performance of those duties. We all know and Judge Covello recognized that there is a serious safety issue with distracted drivers and many people are being killed or seriously injured and the government provides grants for distracted driving operations to deter people from committing those motor vehicle violations. And the way you deter people is to fine them. Spector said Gasparino used great discretion and restraint by giving Michael Friend the opportunity to stop holding up the sign and warned that he would be arrested if he returned. We were confident that our police acted appropriately and did not engage in unconstitutional conduct, said City Corporation Counsel Kathryn Emmett. We're gratified that the court agreed. ACLU Legal Director Dan Barrett, who brought the case on behalf of Friend, said the two were disappointed in the ruling. We remain of the opinion that everyone has the right to protest the police, Barrett said. And so as it happens, we are studying our options and considering what to do next. The incident happened on April 12, 2018, when Friend was spotted on Hope Street near Cushing Street holding up the Cops Ahead sign, two blocks from where police were ticketing distracted drivers. Gasparino took the sign and warned Friend he would be arrested if he did not move. Friend walked away, went to his car and found another piece of paper to make another Police Ahead sign and stood next to the Food Bag on Hope Street, this time three blocks from where the operation was running and held up the sign. About 30 minutes later, Gasparino took the second sign away, along with two cell phones and charged him with interfering with police. Later that year Friend and the Connecticut ACLU filed suit against Gasparino and the police department claiming Friends free speech rights had been violated. Almost a year later they expanded the suit by claiming the city engaged in unconstitutional bail-setting practices. While Friend and Barrett argued that he cannot legally be punished for his dissemination of public information on a matter of public concern, Covello found it was of little public concern. Friend also argued that the police departments interest was only of generating ticket writing opportunities, but Covello said the officers that day were doing more than just writing tickets. The police operation sought to stop and cite violators in order to deter not only current behavior, but also future distracted driving and, therefore, save lives, the judge said in his decision. The judge also found that the only way the operation could effectively continue was without Friends interference. Covello also found that Gasparino had found probable cause to arrest Friend and therefore could not be found to have maliciously prosecuted him. Specifically Friend was preventing the police from conducting effective enforcement of distracted driving violations by warning drivers of the presence of police officers in their vicinity, Covello wrote. The judge also found that Friends case did not bring with it sufficient evidence to prove any constitutional violations when it came to setting Friends bail of $25,000 in the case. There is simply insufficient evidence that in setting bail at $25,000 and holding Friend for several hours that the city of Stamford violated Friends constitutional rights, he said in the decision. jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 15:54:28|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Travellers queue up to have their tickets checked at Hangzhou East Railway Station in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 30, 2020. (Photo by Jiang Han/Xinhua) BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- On the first day of an eight-day holiday in China, railway passenger trips were at their highest level since the COVID-19 outbreak. Many people were taking their first long-distance tourist journeys this year. National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival this year overlapped, leading to a combined eight-day holiday starting from Thursday. It is the first national holiday since the country resumed trans-provincial group tours in July. Data from Airbnb showed that China's long-distance travel would see robust growth over this holiday compared with the five-day May Day holiday. As this holiday is particularly long, people have shown a strong interest in traveling, said Dai Bin, director of the China Tourism Academy. Booking data has shown a larger proportion of travels over 800 km, with a noted increase in journeys longer than 1,600 km, said Airbnb, citing a surging search volume for trips from Shanghai to Hainan's resort city of Sanya. According to a report issued on Sept. 22 by the Meituan Research Institute, about 30 percent of tourist site ticket orders in the first half of September was made by trans-provincial travelers. People visit the West Lake in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, Oct. 1, 2020. (Photo by Jiang Han/Xinhua) Tourists are showing a stronger willingness to make long-distance journeys, the report said. Online travel agency Tuniu said long-distance journeys to the northwest and southwest parts of the country became "hot sellers." The popularity of travel to northwest China has soared in particular, according to a survey conducted by online travel agency Trip.com Group. It showed car rentals had also increased notably, with over half of all orders during the holiday coming from new users. Due to COVID-19 concerns, many tourists have turned to recreational vehicles (RVs) for more private and secure tours. Increased numbers of people took to renting RVs during the epidemic, and orders have increased by 10 percent, according to the China Tourism Academy. Data from China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT) showed that 75.72 percent of the country's travel agencies had resumed operations by mid-September, with 91 percent of star-rated hotels reopened. As the tourism market gets back on track, authorities have warned of epidemic risks ahead of the national holiday, demanding regular COVID-19 prevention and control measures. The MCT called on tourists to research COVID-19 prevention measures required by tourist attractions in advance, maintain a safe distance when taking public transportation, and make appointments before visits. More specifically, while users can already download the new stable and beta builds of Google Maps on their devices, its up to each and every one of them to figure out whats new. But were here to help.First and foremost, lets see what the new versions actually are.Those who are part of the beta program can download the very first build of Google Maps 10.52, as the previous testing version available for these users was 10.51.On the other hand, consumers who expect a more reliable and polished experience with the app and stick with the stable channel can download Google Maps 10.51.2, a minor update from Google Maps 10.51.1 released in the second half of September.So whats new in these updates?While a changelog isnt available, there are two changes that Google could enable in the stable version of Google Maps, and I can confirm that one is now live on my Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra after the latest update.The dark mode that now covers the entire UI of Google Maps appears to expand to more devices after installing Google Maps 10.51.2 Google has actually enabled this for the first wave of smartphones only a few days ago, so presumably, the new update allows the company to continue the rollout to more Android smartphones.While its believed that the whole thing is powered by a server-side switch, which means that it could still take longer for the dark mode to be enabled on some devices, installing Google Maps 10.51.2 is what brought this new visual facelift to my phone.And then, its the new Live View AR capabilities that users can turn to in order to get more information in real-time on specific landmarks. This feature was announced this week and it is expected to be enabled in an upcoming Google Maps update for select locations across the world, including New York, Paris, and other large cities. So if anything, the new versions could include additional code to pave the way for these improvements in the app. Australia, the United States, Japan and India will agree to jointly counter disinformation campaigns by authoritarian states and look to secure supplies of critical minerals and technology, in a bid to reduce their reliance on Chinese technology. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has warned that the Indo-Pacific region is under "unprecedented pressure" as she prepares for a trip to Tokyo next week where she will meet with her counterparts from the US, Japan and India as part of the "Quad" alliance. Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne will travel to Tokyo next week. Credit:AP China has acted angrily to the meeting of the Quad - a growing security and diplomatic alliance between the four countries. Beijing has previously slammed the grouping as an attempt at "containment of China". Senator Payne will also meet Japan's new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga for the first time, after his predecessor Shinzo Abe stepped down last month for health reasons. A total of 255 people died in police custody between 2017 and 2019, but only three police personnel have been convicted in these cases, latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows. Data from 2019 shows that 49 cases of human rights violation were lodged against various police departments across the country, for crimes like encounter killings, custodial deaths, illegal detention, torture by police, extortion, among others. A total of 85 people died in police custody that year for which 23 arrests were made. However, chargesheets were filed against just eight police personnel and none of the cases resulted in a conviction. Similarly, in the previous year, 70 people were killed in police custody. A total of 89 cases were filed and 40 arrests were made and chargesheets were filed against 26 policemen. However, no police personnel was convicted in these cases. In 2017, when 100 people were reported dead in police custody, a total of 57 police personnel were arrested and chargesheets were filed in 29 cases against 48 policemen. Of these, one was acquitted and three were convicted. For the year 2019, most cases of custodial deaths were reported from Tamil Nadu (11), while in 2018, most were reported from Gujarat (14). In 2017, Andhra Pradesh topped the list with 27 cases. According to the data, the reasons given for the deaths of people who were in remand and those who were in police custody but not on remand was due to illnesses (35), followed by suicides (32). For the 85 custodial deaths that were reported in 2019, only 3 police personnel were arrested and chargesheets were filed in only 2 cases. In June this year, two cases of custodial deaths, of a man and his son, allegedly due to police torture were reported from Tamil Nadu. A month later, gangster Vikas Dubey, arrested for the killing eight policemen, was shot dead in a police encounter. This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1501 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why were doing this fundraiser, what weve accomplished in the last year, and our current goal, more original reporting. Yves here. Note the author takes pains to stress that the death rates in the three social-order-changing pandemics he analyzes were vastly higher than anyone expects to see from Covid-19. However, many of our systems are much more tightly coupled than before, so its possible to see more durable changes than, say, the Spanish flu wrought. By Andrew Latham, Professor of Political Science, Macalester College. Originally published at The Conversation Before March of this year, few probably thought disease could be a significant driver of human history. Not so anymore. People are beginning to understand that the little changes COVID-19 has already ushered in or accelerated telemedicine, remote work, social distancing, the death of the handshake, online shopping, the virtual disappearance of cash and so on have begun to change their way of life. They may not be sure whether these changes will outlive the pandemic. And they may be uncertain whether these changes are for good or ill. Three previous plagues could yield some clues about the way COVID-19 might bend the arc of history. As I teach in my course Plagues, Pandemics and Politics, pandemics tend to shape human affairs in three ways. First, they can profoundly alter a societys fundamental worldview. Second, they can upend core economic structures. And, finally, they can sway power struggles among nations. Sickness Spurs the Rise of the Christian West The Antonine plague, and its twin, the Cyprian plague both now widely thought to have been caused by a smallpox strain ravaged the Roman Empire from A.D. 165 to 262. Its been estimated that the combined pandemics mortality rate was anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the empires population. While staggering, the number of deaths tells only part of the story. This also triggered a profound transformation in the religious culture of the Roman Empire. On the eve of the Antonine plague, the empire was pagan. The vast majority of the population worshipped multiple gods and spirits and believed that rivers, trees, fields and buildings each had their own spirit. Christianity, a monotheistic religion that had little in common with paganism, had only 40,000 adherents, no more than 0.07% of the empires population. Yet within a generation of the end of the Cyprian plague, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the empire. How did these twin pandemics effect this profound religious transformation? Rodney Stark, in his seminal work The Rise of Christianity, argues that these two pandemics made Christianity a much more attractive belief system. While the disease was effectively incurable, rudimentary palliative care the provision of food and water, for example could spur recovery of those too weak to care for themselves. Motivated by Christian charity and an ethic of care for the sick and enabled by the thick social and charitable networks around which the early church was organized the empires Christian communities were willing and able to provide this sort of care. Pagan Romans, on the other hand, opted instead either to flee outbreaks of the plague or to self-isolate in the hope of being spared infection. This had two effects. First, Christians survived the ravages of these plagues at higher rates than their pagan neighbors and developed higher levels of immunity more quickly. Seeing that many more of their Christian compatriots were surviving the plague and attributing this either to divine favor or the benefits of the care being provided by Christians many pagans were drawn to the Christian community and the belief system that underpinned it. At the same time, tending to sick pagans afforded Christians unprecedented opportunities to evangelize. Second, Stark argues that, because these two plagues disproportionately affected young and pregnant women, the lower mortality rate among Christians translated into a higher birth rate. The net effect of all this was that, in roughly the span of a century, an essentially pagan empire found itself well on its way to becoming a majority Christian one. The Plague of Justinian and the Fall of Rome The plague of Justinian, named after the Roman emperor who reigned from A.S. 527 to 565, arrived in the Roman Empire in A.D. 542 and didnt disappear until A.D. 755. During its two centuries of recurrence, it killed an estimated 25% to 50% of the population anywhere from 25 million to 100 million people. This massive loss of lives crippled the economy, triggering a financial crisis that exhausted the states coffers and hobbled the empires once mighty military. In the east, Romes principal geopolitical rival, Sassanid Persia, was also devastated by the plague and was therefore in no position to exploit the Roman Empires weakness. But the forces of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate in Arabia which had long been contained by the Romans and Sasanians were largely unaffected by the plague. The reasons for this are not well understood, but they probably have to do with the caliphates relative isolation from major urban centers. Caliph Abu Bakr didnt let the opportunity go to waste. Seizing the moment, his forces swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire while stripping the weakened Roman Empire of its territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt and North Africa. Pre-pandemic, the Mediterranean world had been relatively unified by commerce, politics, religion and culture. What emerged was a fractured trio of civilizations jockeying for power and influence: an Islamic one in the eastern and southern Mediterranean basin; a Greek one in the northeastern Mediterranean; and a European one between the western Mediterranean and the North Sea. This last civilization what we now call medieval Europe was defined by a new, distinctive economic system. Before the plague, the European economy had been based on slavery. After the plague, the significantly diminished supply of slaves forced landowners to begin granting plots to nominally free laborers serfs who worked the lords fields and, in return, received military protection and certain legal rights from the lord. The seeds of feudalism were planted. The Black Death of the Middle Ages The Black Death broke out in Europe in 1347 and subsequently killed between one-third and one-half of the total European population of 80 million people. But it killed more than people. By the time the pandemic had burned out by the early 1350s, a distinctly modern world emerged one defined by free labor, technological innovation and a growing middle class. Before the Yersinia pestis bacterium arrived in 1347, Western Europe was a feudal society that was overpopulated. Labor was cheap, serfs had little bargaining power, social mobility was stymied and there was little incentive to increase productivity. But the loss of so much life shook up an ossified society. Labor shortages gave peasants more bargaining power. In the agrarian economy, they also encouraged the widespread adoption of new and existing technologies the iron plow, the three-field crop rotation system and fertilization with manure, all of which significantly increased productivity. Beyond the countryside, it resulted in the invention of time and labor-saving devices such as the printing press, water pumps for draining mines and gunpowder weapons. In turn, freedom from feudal obligations and a desire to move up the social ladder encouraged many peasants to move to towns and engage in crafts and trades. The more successful ones became wealthier and constituted a new middle class. They could now afford more of the luxury goods that could be obtained only from beyond Europes frontiers, and this stimulated both long-distance trade and the more efficient three-masted ships needed to engage in that trade. The new middle classs increasing wealth also stimulated patronage of the arts, science, literature and philosophy. The result was an explosion of cultural and intellectual creativity what we now call the Renaissance. Our Present Future None of this is to argue that the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will have similarly earth-shattering outcomes. The mortality rate of COVID-19 is nothing like that of the plagues discussed above, and therefore the consequences may not be as seismic. But there are some indications that they could be. Will the bumbling efforts of the open societies of the West to come to grips with the virus shattering already-wavering faith in liberal democracy, creating a space for other ideologies to evolve and metastasize? In a similar fashion, COVID-19 may be accelerating an already ongoing geopolitical shift in the balance of power between the U.S. and China. During the pandemic, China has taken the global lead in providing medical assistance to other countries as part of its Health Silk Road initiative. Some argue that the combination of Americas failure to lead and Chinas relative success at picking up the slack may well be turbocharging Chinas rise to a position of global leadership. Finally, COVID-19 seems to be accelerating the unraveling of long-established patterns and practices of work, with repercussions that could affet the future of office towers, big cities and mass transit, to name just a few. The implications of this and related economic developments may prove as profoundly transformative as those triggered by the Black Death in 1347. Ultimately, the longer-term consequences of this pandemic like all previous pandemics are simply unknowable to those who must endure them. But just as past plagues made the world we currently inhabit, so too will this plague likely remake the one populated by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact The Chanute Tribune office at 620-431-4100 if you have any questions I have just spent two weeks driving around Germany interviewing people (mostly climate scientists, since you ask), and I have come to the conclusion it is the best-run, and quite possibly just the best, major country in the world right now. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion I have just spent two weeks driving around Germany interviewing people (mostly climate scientists, since you ask), and I have come to the conclusion it is the best-run, and quite possibly just the best, major country in the world right now. Some small countries are absolute jewels, of course, but its easier if youre small. Big powers fight more wars, contain more divisions, suffer nastier and more ridiculous delusions of grandeur. But if you only consider countries with more than 50 million people, then Germany today is the fairest, the least conflicted, the most peaceful, actually the nicest major country on the planet. That wasnt true 30 years ago, and it may not be true 30 years hence, but its worth noting because Oct. 3 marks the 30th anniversary of the unification of Germany in 1990, just one year after the Berlin Wall came down. Compared to what happened after the first time it was unified, it has all worked out rather well. The first unification of Germany, in 1871, was achieved by war, and led to more and much bigger wars not entirely Germanys fault, of course, but certainly the consequence of the sudden appearance of a highly nationalistic new great power in the heart of Europe. After the Second World War, Germany was divided into three. The eastern third was emptied of Germans and given to Poland (in compensation for the eastern third of pre-war Poland, which was kept by the Soviet Union). The middle part, also under Soviet occupation, became Communist-ruled "East Germany," while the rest, with most of the population, became "West Germany." The "two Germanys" became the cockpit of the Cold War, with huge armies of tanks ready to roll and nuclear weapons not far behind them. Many people understood that this could not go on forever, that some day the country would have to be reunited but they were terrified by the prospect. They feared the process of reunification might trigger a war, and they also feared a reunited Germany. Lord Ismay, the British general who became the first secretary-general of the NATO alliance (which included West Germany), put it bluntly: "NATO exists to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." French journalist and poet Francois Mauriac said it more elegantly: "I love Germany so much that Im glad there are two of them." If the trigger to end the East German Communist regime had been in British, French and American hands, it might never have been pulled. But it was actually in the hands of the East Germans themselves, and in 1989 they brought down their oppressors without a shot being fired. All the other Communist states of eastern Europe followed suit. There was great joy in both parts of Germany the street party after the Berlin Wall came down was probably the best and certainly the longest I have ever attended but there was considerable trepidation elsewhere. However, Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist Soviet leader, reassured everybody by declaring that Moscow had no objection to German reunification, and the deed was done 30 years ago this week. It has worked out very well. There are sad people and even wicked people in Germany, like everywhere else, but as a society it radiates contentment. Unflustered competence lubricated by a general tone of good-will make minor daily transactions less of an ordeal, and the strident nationalism that now disfigures so many other countries is conspicuous by its absence. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. In the place of that, the Germans have a dedication to the European project: like "Amens" in a church, invocations of "Europe" punctuate political conversations. And if you say this is a defensive reaction against Germanys terrible history in the two generations before 1945, I would probably agree but whats wrong with that? Even the economic contrast between the formerly Communist-ruled east and the rest of the country, to the great disadvantage of the former, is gradually eroding: average incomes among "Ossis" (easterners) are now up to almost 90 per cent of "Wessi" earnings. All the "coolest" cities, the magnets that attract the young, are in the former east: Berlin, Dresden and now Leipzig. Its not paradise, but when you compare it with the incompetent, belligerent populism that prevails in formally democratic countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil and India, it looks pretty good. "Wir schaffen das""(We can manage this), said Chancellor Angela Merkel when over a million mostly Muslim refugees arrived in Germany in 2016, and four years later it looks like she was right. "Mutti" (Mommy), as Germans call her, has been chancellor for half of the past 30 years, so there will be a collective holding of breath when she retires next year. But the world would be a better and safer place if there were more countries like Germany. Plus, theres no speed limit at all on the autobahns. Where else can you drive at 160 kph and have cars whooshing past you all the time? Gwynne Dyers latest book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work). An artists impression of the refurbished and extended St Colmans Hospital in Rathdrum Plans for a major extension and refurbishment of St Colman's Hospital in Rathdrum have been given the go-ahead. Wicklow County Council has granted planning permission for a new build extension to the hospital of 6,623m2, refurbishment and upgrade of the existing hospital of 2,561m2 and demolition of 2,077m2 of internal floor areas on the site. The HSE submitted an application in August for the proposed development which would add three beds to the community hospital. The new build extension would include two- and three-storey resident accommodation blocks staggered either side of a new central three-storey circulation spine containing lifts, stairs and a new main entrance. The resident accommodation will provide 95 single bedrooms, each with ensuite, arranged within three 25-bed households and two ten-bed Dementia specific units. These units will include living, dining, kitchen, activities and ancillary facilities and access to courtyards and terraces. Permission was also sought to reconfigure the existing A+B blocks to accommodate physiotherapy, day centre, dementia specific day centre, family overnight suite, administration functions, staff welfare and mortuary. The existing catering, dining area and chapel will also be upgraded and refurbished. The existing C+D block would be demolished as part of the proposal and new surface car parking provided. The planning section felt the development would not 'increase resident or staffing numbers within the existing community nursing hospital' as the number of beds would increase by three from 92 to 95. Additionally, it considered that the extension 'can be absorbed within the mature setting' of the surrounding landscape. Wicklow County Council imposed a number of conditions to the grant of permission. These include requirements for a construction plan to be developed in consultation with the Arklow area engineer and limit the use of the car park as a storage space. There is also a condition that if any remains of historical or archaeological importance area are identified, these are reported immediately to the local authority for investigation due to the historical importance of the site. The conditions state construction work is to stop until written consent to continue is obtained from the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Camper fire claims the life of two people in Marshall County The so-called leaders who occupy governors' mansions in most states can't possibly believe their own edicts regarding the dying-out COVID-19 virus. The restrictions they delight in handing down are so arbitrary as to invite ridicule. The number of cases whatever that means, and nobody has defined it is a useless metric; it's an absurd benchmark for "allowing" people to live their own lives. Question for governors and "health" directors: what is the science behind your edicts? In Arkansas, the latest directive (Sept. 9), supposedly based on Arkansas law (which, unfortunately for the ruling class, does not trump the Constitution), grants to the peons who run restaurants that they can open to 66 percent of capacity. If 66 percent is okay, why not 68 percent? Would 64 percent be a waste of space? Why not 72 percent? What is the science that determines this? The now-gospel six feet of distance between persons must be observed. Six feet? Why not 15 feet, if the oh, so dangerous COVID virus might getcha? Or why not three feet, since it clearly is not dangerous to be in a restaurant with other people? Why is a mask necessary if you're standing up in a restaurant, but not if you're sitting down? Does a virus care if you're closer to the ceiling? Does a virus see an opportunity if you've moved two feet from your table to order a drink or catch someone's attention? Tyrannical governors wimps and charlatans that they are love to pass off their lunacy to "following the CDC." They claim to follow science but never give proof of doing so. If they had any integrity, they would own what they're doing. If they aren't strong enough to stand and declare their actions to be just by evidence they have, they're simply hucksters and oppressors and unworthy of their offices. Perhaps they should refer to sources that are scientific, though that would get in the way of them exchanging pats on the back with the ones they direct (health departments) to oppress people in their daily decrees. They all think they're YouTube stars. How pathetic. Instead of gazing lovingly into the mirror, or genuflecting at the mention of multiple failure Anthony Fauci, why won't the governors investigate the science of COVID? Why did they enthusiastically embrace the phony idea of 200 million dead Americans, but they ignore the CDC admission that only six percent of all deaths credited to COVID actually are exclusively from COVID? What is your governor's position on the fact that there is no way to link the rest of the deaths 94 percent definitively to the virus that has turned out to be no more deadly than a seasonal flu? Why the lockdowns without scientific evidence? Why the masks without scientific evidence? The onus is on the governors to provide scientific evidence that what they're doing is necessary. The questions raised in this article are not complicated. If COVID is so dangerous, certainly the governors can answer them. But they won't, because they can't, and they can't, because they aren't basing their actions on science. "Follow the money" is a familiar phrase in politics. There is a lot of money to be made in fear-mongering. Consider what we know. Hospitals receive extra tax money for COVID cases (because other health issues aren't as important), which led to falsified reporting of deaths and "cases" by medical personnel. A new mask industry has quickly emerged (an enterprising reporter could make a name investigating who is making money from it). Pharmaceutical companies stand to make a fortune from COVID treatments that cost a fortune (instead of people using hydroxychloroquine, an inexpensive alternative that has been proven to work). There are more reasons to be skeptical, but you get the idea. And don't forget the human nature factor: some people (governors) act just to get noticed; some people (governors) act just to show that they can right, Governor Newsom (Calif.)? Governor Whitmer (Mich.)? Governor Walz (Minn.)? Governor Hutchinson (Ark.)? Narcissism is not uncommon among those who seek fame, fortune, and high office. Over time, governors have become little more than groveling lapdogs of the federal government. They know that. Therefore, in their quest to be relevant, they act as tyrants to let you know whom you shall serve. You living in liberty would only reveal how little you need life advice from politicians and how unimportant they are. Science is the last thing they care about, but you must call them out on it. Write your governor a letter; send an email; call the office. Your liberty and that of your children and grandchildren depends on it. Joel Krogen is a Lutheran pastor compelled to call out the sinful oppression by authorities that has become common. Those in government are servants of God and us not masters. 1776preacher@gmail.com Image: Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia. Craig via Flickr, CC BY 2.0. Celebrity chef Clodagh McKenna has got engaged to Downton Abbey aristocrat Harry Herbert. The Englishman grew up in Broadspear House, in the grounds of Highclere Castle, the location of hit telly drama Downton Abbey. We got engaged! We are over the moon with happiness and thank everybody for the lovely warm wishes, McKenna wrote on Instagram, posting a snap of the happy couple enjoying a candlelit dinner. Her fiance replied: I am the luckiest man alive! Love you @clodagh_mckenna. The couple met in 2017 after Herbert split from his wife of 25 years, with whom he has three grown-up children. He was raised in Broadspear House in Highclere Park, Hampshire, which is the location for Downton Abbey. McKenna has previously told of how lucky she felt to have met Herbert. Everybody who meets Harry says hes the most incredible gentleman youll ever meet, she said. Im not really a lucky person, but we were both very lucky. Its like people say, when you meet somebody and you just think, This is it. BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: As COVID-19 cases surge in their homeland, there are at least some Argentines who feel secure: the scientists and military personnel at South American countrys bases in Antarctica, the only continent without reported cases. More than 765,000 people in Argentina are confirmed to have been infected with the new coronavirus and more than 20,000 people have died of COVID-19 there since the pandemic started. But Argentines who live in the countrys 13 bases in Antarctica six are permanent and the rest operate only in the summer continue to share a metal straw to sip the traditional mate tea and sit together to eat. They rarely wear masks. The times when the crew is all together are breakfast, lunch and dinner and they watch a movie in their free time, they have some mates. We spend a lot of time together and we share a lot, army Capt. Nicols Barrios told The Associated Press from the Belgrano II Base that he heads. Barrios said he felt fortunate to lead a normal life there and that, ahead of the next change of the 22-member staff at the base, each one is thinking about how to live when we leave the base and what the process of returning to daily life on the continent will be like. He said the use of masks is not common on the base, except for certain work tasks. If we have to make them, we have a sewing machine," Barrios said. The Argentines at the bases conduct scientific and other work, staying in touch with their families back home and following the news as best they can. Relatives of two members of the Belgrano II base had COVID-19 but recovered. The Belgrano II base is located south of Argentinas Marambio and Esperanza bases, near the South Pole. All the bases have an evacuation protocol in the event of positive coronavirus cases, using ships, helicopters and a plane. They also have doctors and ventilators available. For the austral summer season beginning in November, Argentina plans to have just 400 military and scientific personnel at its Antarctica bases instead of the usual 2,000. All will be tested for the new coronavirus before and after a quarantine period at the Campo de Mayo military base in Buenos Aires. The (Antarctic) continent is clean, healthy, and we have a responsibility, and we are adopting appropriate measures to continue with this situation, Argentinas Antarctic joint commander, Col. Edgard Calandn, said from his office in Buenos Aires. ___ Associated Press journalist Almudena Calatrava contributed from Buenos Aires. 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 After painting a rosy picture Saturday morning of Trumps condition, a doctor had to later clarify statements on the timeline of his positive diagnosis BETHESDA, Md. (AP) President Donald Trumps doctor on Saturday painted a rosy picture of the presidents health as he remains hospitalized for coronavirus treatment. But that assessment was immediately contradicted by a person familiar with Trumps condition, who said the president was administered supplemental oxygen on Friday at the White House. As well, Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said the president went through a very concerning period Friday and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. The briefing by Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley and other doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center raised more questions than it answered, as the presidents physician left murky the issue of whether the president needed supplemental oxygen and declined to discuss exactly when he fell ill. Conley, in his briefing, also revealed that Trump began exhibiting clinical indications of COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon, earlier than known. Dr. Sean Conley, physician to President Donald Trump, briefs reporters at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) According to the person familiar with Trumps condition, Trump was administered oxygen at the White House on Friday before he was transported to the military hospital. The person, who was not authorized to speak publicly, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Conley had said Trump has been fever-free for 24 hours as he updated the nation on the presidents condition from Walter Reed Saturday afternoon. Trump was admitted Friday after testing positive for the coronavirus and has been undergoing treatment. READ MORE: Trump going to military hospital after COVID-19 diagnosis While Conley said the president is not currently on oxygen, he refused to say whether the president had ever been on oxygen, despite repeated questioning. Thursday no oxygen. None at this moment. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen, he said. He said that Trumps symptoms, including a cough and nasal congestion are now resolving and improving. Story continues Hes in exceptionally good spirits, said another doctor, Sean Dooley. President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, on Marine One helicopter after he tested positive for COVID-19. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) The administration has consistently been less than transparent about the presidents health as the virus spread inside the White House. Aides had declined to share basic health information about the president, including a full accounting of his symptoms, what tests hes undertaken and the results. The first word that a close aide to Trump had been infected came from the media, not the White House. In a memo released shortly before midnight, Conley did report that Trump had been treated at the hospital with remdesivir, an antiviral medication, after taking another experimental drug at the White House. He added that Trump is doing very well and is not requiring any supplemental oxygen. Conley, the White House doctor, declined to say when Trump had last been tested before he was confirmed to have COVID-19 late Thursday. He initially suggested that Trump was 72 hours into the diagnosis, putting the confirmation of the infection to Wednesday. Conley later clarified that Trump was administered an accurate test for the virus on Thursday afternoon, after White House aide Hope Hicks was confirmed to be positive and Trump exhibited unspecified clinical indications of the virus. The White House said Trump was expected to stay at the hospital for a few days and he would continue to work from the hospitals presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties. In addition to accessibility to tests and equipment, the decision was made, at least in part, with the understanding that moving him later, if he took a turn for the worse, could send a worrying signal. READ MORE: Health and safety rules upgraded for upcoming VP debate On Saturday, Conley said Trumps blood oxygen level is 96%, which is in the normal range. Trump has been treated with two experimental drugs, given through an IV, that have shown some promise against COVID-19. On Friday, he was given a single dose of a drug Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. is testing to supply antibodies to help his immune system fight the virus. Marine One lifts off from the White House to carry President Donald Trump to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Oct. 2, 2020 in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Friday night, he began a five-day course of remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug currently used for moderately and severely ill patients. The drugs work in different ways the antibodies help the immune system rid the body of virus and remdesivir curbs the virus ability to multiply. Were maximizing all aspects of his care, attacking the virus in multiple ways, Conley said. I didnt want to hold anything back if there was any possibility it would add value to his care. Have you subscribed to theGrios podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now! The post Concerning signs in Trumps care despite word hes doing OK appeared first on TheGrio. A murder inquiry has been launched after a man was stabbed to death in a sleepy market town. The victim suffered a stab wound to his neck during a disturbance late on Friday night in North Walsham, Norfolk. It is believed police were initially called to the incident by paramedics just before 11.30pm. Officers arrived to find the injured man on nearby Bacton Road. He received treatment, but died at the scene. A man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of murder and a second in his 30s was arrested on suspicion of assault. Both were arrested at the scene. The victim suffered a stab wound to his neck during a disturbance late on Friday night in North Walsham, Norfolk It is believed police were initially called to the incident by paramedics just before 11.30pm Police have sealed off a bungalow in Antinghham Drive which is a quiet cul-de-sac off Bacton Road. The suspects have been taken to the Police Investigation Centres in Aylsham and Wymondham for questioning. A Norfolk Police statement said: 'Detectives have launched a murder investigation following the death of a man in North Walsham. 'Police were called to Antingham Drive shortly before 11.30pm on October 2 following reports from paramedics that a man had been stabbed in the neck following a disturbance. A man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of murder and a second in his 30s was arrested on suspicion of assault. Both were arrested at the scene 'Officers arrived on scene to find the injured man on nearby Bacton Road. The man received treatment but died at the scene. 'Both suspects have been taken to Police Investigation Centres in Aylsham and Wymondham where they will be questioned. 'Police have sealed off a property in Antingham Drive and Bacton Road has been closed while scene investigations are carried out.' The statement added: 'Detective will be carrying out a number of enquiries in the area today.' Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) In the post-digital age, people no longer think of going online or offline as 'digital' is simply a part of reality. The Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines presents this year's virtual DigiCon OMNI 2020 from October 5-9. DigiCon 2020 brings together acclaimed keynote speakers like Seth Godin (entrepreneur and founder of Squidoo and Yoyodyne and author of This is Marketing), Angela Duckworth (CEO and founder of Character Lab and author of GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance), Eric Ries (entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup), Rishad Tobaccowala (senior adviser at Publicis Groupe and author of Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data), and John Maeda (chief experience officer at Publicis Sapient). The engaging talks and interactive seminars in the virtual DigiCon OMNI 2020 will be spread out across five tracks: - Mindsets and Skillsets: focusing on fostering innovative thinking within organizations, as well as building resilience within teams as we adapt to future 'new normal' scenarios - Technology and Humanity: discussing the importance of bringing back the primacy of insight and understanding of human behavior beyond collecting data points - Platforms and Processes: where startup founders will share their approach on growth, leadership, custom acquisition, and operations - Design and Culture: concentrating on designing better solutions and delightful experiences as shared by problem solvers and culture shapers - Vision and Change: tackling business reinvention in the' new normal' through bold visions for the future and rediscovering purpose DigiCon 2020 delegates will get the chance to join breakout groups, visit virtual booths of exhibitors and partners, mingle with participants with shared interests, and watch keynote talks, which can be accessed for up to seven days after the event at the official DigiCon website. DigiCon 2020 will also include a Boomerang Showcase in between talks. The Boomerang Showcase will feature video submissions from different agencies exhibiting their examples of digital marketing excellence. DigiCon OMNI is brought by Eventscape Manila x Echo Channel, Smart, PMFTC, Spotify, Manulife, PayMaya, Facebook, WeTV, and iFlix, McDonald's, and Metrobank. Official event partners are Digimind, CDM, MullenLowe Philippines, OMG Philippines, Kickstart, Sterling Chatbot Tech Philippines Corporation, and FutureProof. Special thanks to Rappler, CNN Philippines, Manila Bulletin, The Philippine Star, and the Inquirer Group. For more information, visit the official DigiCon website, follow IMMAP on Instagram and Facebook, or email digicon@futureproof.ph. A court in Kigali on Friday denied a request for bail by Paul Rusesabagina, the polarising hero of the movie "Hotel Rwanda," ordering that he remain in custody to stand trial for serious charges including terrorism. Rusesabagina, whose actions during Rwanda's 1994 genocide inspired the 2004 Oscar-nominated film starring Don Cheadle, had been living in exile for years where he became a high-profile government critic. But in August he suddenly appeared in Kigali under arrest in murky circumstances, with his family alleging he was kidnapped abroad and taken to Rwanda. He must answer 13 charges including terrorism, financing and founding militant groups, murder, arson and conspiracy to involve children in armed groups. The 66-year-old had already been denied bail in a lower court but he appealed the decision, citing poor health. However Judge Adolphe Udahemuka said Rusesabagina was receiving fine medical care in Rwanda, and deemed he was a flight risk as he holds Belgian citizenship. "The court therefore finds the reasons provided by the suspect in seeking to be tried while not in custody not convincing. The court dismisses his appeal, and rules that the suspect remains in custody pending trial," Udahemuka said. Rusesabagina's lawyer, Emeline Nyembo, said they would begin preparing his legal defence. "Unfortunately we can't appeal against this ruling. We will continue pushing for his release but now we prepare for the substantive phase of the trial," she told reporters after the ruling. Rusesabagina is credited with sheltering hundreds of Rwandans inside a hotel he managed during the 1994 genocide, in which 800,000 mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus were slaughtered. But in the years after Hollywood made him an international celebrity, a more complex image emerged of the staunch government critic, whose tirades against the regime of long-serving Rwandan ruler Paul Kagame made him an enemy of the state. Rusesabagina's family say his lawyers were not of his choosing accuse his legal team of acting for the state. By Simon Wohlfahrt (AFP) He admitted in court to helping form the National Liberation Front (FLN), an armed movement he previously said sought to liberate Rwanda from Kagame. The president has been in power since 1994 and is accused by critics of crushing opponents and ruling through fear. Rusesabagina's family, who say he would never have returned to Rwanda by his own free will, claim his lawyers were not of his choosing, and have accused his legal team of acting for the state. "My dad is surrounded by people who want him to fall," his son Tresor Rusesabagina said Thursday. It remains unclear how Rusesabagina -- a moderate Hutu who left Rwanda in 1996, wary that space for political opposition was shrinking -- wound up in handcuffs in Kigali and paraded before cameras. In an interview with The New York Times, Rusesabagina, speaking with Rwandan officials in the room, said he boarded a private jet in Dubai which he thought was taking him to Burundi, but landed in Kigali instead. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe New Delhi: Raising questions over the behaviour of the Uttar Pradesh Police in the Hathras incident, senior BJP leader Uma Bharti on Friday (October 2, 2020) said that BJP's image has been dented. She further urged Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to allow mediapersons and politicians to meet the victim's family. Taking to microblogging site Twitter, Bharti tweeted in Hindi, saying: "UP police's suspicious action has dented the image of BJP, UP government and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath." Bharti is currently in AIIMS-Rishikesh under going treatment for COVID-19. The BJP leader said that had she been in a condition to travel she would have herself visited the family in Hathras district, and added she will definitely visit the family after getting discharged from the hospital. Describing CM Adityanath as an "administrator with a clean image", Bharti pointed out that she is 'forced to speak' after police laid siege to the village and the victim's family. "You are the ruler with a very clean image. I request you to allow media persons and political parties to meet the aggrieved family," she tweeted. Meanwhile, the Yogi government ordered to suspend SP Vikrant Veer on the basis of a preliminary investigation conducted by the state government. Other officials suspended are CO Ram Shabd, Inspector Dinesh Kumar Verma, SI Jagveer Singh and head constable Mahesh Pal. The incident of a 19-year-old gang-rape victim from UP's Hathras who died at Delhi`s Safdarjung hospital on September 29 has shaken the entire country. All four accused in the incident have been arrested. The post-mortem report reads that the victim suffered a fracture of "C6 cervical vertebra" and there was "extravasations of blood along the fracture line" and the underlying spinal cord was "contused with ascending oedema". The postmortem report, however, denies rape charges. Members of NJ Transits Board of Directors who serve on its customer service committee had an unusual request in the world of bureaucracy give us more rider complaints. That happened in August, after Operations and Customer Service Committee members criticized NJ Transit management for not telling board members about a woman who was stuck on an empty train for 90 minutes and a recent bus crash at the Port Authority bus terminal. Theres an old school of thought that if youre an elected official and both ends of the political spectrum are grumbling about you, you must be doing something right. The idea is that a leader who fails to fully satisfy any single faction is probably an independent thinker willing to incorporate worthy ideas regardless of where they come from. Greg Abbotts handling of the coronavirus pandemic is the exception that proves this rule. The Texas governor has both conservatives and progressives mad at him right now, but not because hes made bold moves that defy partisan orthodoxy. Its because hes a weak, vacillating leader who cant stick to a sensible course for very long without feeling compelled to pander to his right-wing base. Hes always looking over his shoulder at Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a social-issue firebrand whose legacy will forever be defined by his crusade to force transgender boys into girls restrooms and transgender girls into boys restrooms. Abbott wants to be the adult in the room, but he also desperately wants the kids to approve of him. The governor tries to camouflage his weakness with showy displays of executive authority. But theres no consistent principle at work other than political nervousness the fear of rejection from his own base. The latest exhibit in Abbotts gallery of cowardice came Thursday with his proclamation that he would shut down the use of satellite county elections offices for absentee voters wanting to personally deliver their ballots, rather than drop them in the mail. Voters will now have only one site in each county to drop off a mail ballot. Abbotts proclamation also stipulated that poll watchers be given the opportunity to observe the drop-off process. This move serves no positive purpose. It solves no existing problem. It simply, and callously, strikes a blow against the idea that we should make the voting process convenient, safe and accessible during this public-health crisis. In Harris County, which includes the city of Houston, 4.7 million people, spread out over nearly 1,800 square miles, will have exactly one location at which they can drop off a mail ballot. Eleven satellite offices that were previously available for drop offs can no longer be used. In Travis County, three drop-off sites will no longer be available to voters. Bexar County will see no direct impact from Abbotts mandate, because our county employs an elections-administrator system and has only one election office. In counties such as Harris and Travis, the county clerk runs elections and since county clerks, by nature, tend to have satellite offices across a county, those satellite offices have functioned as drop-off sites. Any voter wanting to drop off a ballot at a satellite office would have to present it to an elections administrator and provide proof of identification, just as they would at a main office. What is Abbott achieving by shutting down these valid options? The obvious answer is that hes suppressing the vote, by making people travel longer distances and wait in longer lines. Hes also adding some 11th-hour confusion for election officials who are already stressed by the demands of this unprecedented election year. The maddening thing about this is that Abbott, on July 27, took some positive if modest steps to open up voting and make it safer during this pandemic. He added a week to early voting and allowed voters to drop off mail ballots during the early voting period, rather than merely on Election Day. By extending early voting, however, Abbott angered some of his fellow Republicans, who somehow found it objectionable to give Texans six extra days to vote in the middle of a pandemic thats killed more than 200,000 Americans. A Republican coalition - including state party chairman Allen West and six GOP lawmakers - filed suit against Abbott less than two weeks ago over his expansion of early voting. So, in the face of attacks from his political allies, Abbott choked. He had to show his voter-suppression bona fides to convince the base that he hadnt wimped out. It was reminiscent of the way he prematurely abandoned his statewide COVID-19 lockdown in the spring after Patrick went on Fox News and pushed for the country to return to economic normalcy. We paid for Abbotts reversal on that issue with the lives of thousands of Texans. Well pay for his latest act of pandering in the disenfranchisement of Texas voters. Seven months ago, Abbott was the closest thing we had in Texas to a unifying political figure; someone who managed to win re-election by more than 13 percentage points in 2018, while several of his fellow Republican statewide incumbents (including Patrick) scraped by with narrow victories. The COVID-19 outbreak, however, has exposed all of Abbotts flaws for anyone who couldnt already see them. Things are sticking to the Teflon governor now and he cant handle it. 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 Election season is in full swing, with October surprises popping up like a jack-in-the-box at any moment. Within just over a week, we had the passing of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg followed promptly by Judge Amy Coney Barrett nominated to take her place. Then there was the debate between President Trump and both Joe Biden and Chris Wallace. An even bigger surprise started brewing Thursday when it was announced that presidential adviser Hope Hicks tested positive for COVID and that the president and first lady were being tested. Friday morning, America awoke to news of Mr. and Mrs. Trump both testing positive for the China virus. Most serious human beings expressed well wishes and prayers, but a number of the "tolerant and compassionate" leftist politicians, entertainers, and media were gloating and wishing a painful death for the president. Vice President Pence tested negative. As the day wore on, so did the surprises. President Trump was flown to Walter Reed Medical Center for "the next few days," not because he was sick, but as a "precautionary" measure. According to CNN, "[h]e walked on his own, without assistance, displayed no outward signs of illness." YouTube screen grab. Trump's medical team, earlier in the day, began treatment specifically, "an experimental monoclonal antibody cocktail" produced by pharmaceutical company Regeneron. He is also taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and aspirin. The latter medications are thought to mitigate the effects of the virus but are hardly considered cures. Famotidine is a fancy name for Pepcid, an over-the-counter medication for gastric reflux and heartburn. Of greater interest is Regeneron's antibody cocktail, considered experimental and still under investigation but allowed for the president based on compassionate use. Trump's actual symptoms are unknown but obviously not severe if he could walk unassisted from the White House to Marine One. There was no mention of hydroxychloroquine, a drug Trump had taken previously but that potentially would not mix well with the antibody cocktail. The Regeneron cocktail, rumored to be called the Covfefe Double Shot, is a "novel two-antibody cocktail, REGN-COV2, with potential to diminish risk of viral escape by effectively binding to the virus's critical spike protein in two separate, non-overlapping locations." Per Regeneron: For infectious diseases, Regeneron typically pursues a "cocktail" approach of two or more antibodies against a pathogen combined in a single medicine. The different antibodies working in slightly different ways have a higher chance of effectively blunting the virus should it mutate (change in form or nature) over time. Both antibodies bind to the spike protein of the Wuhan virus, rendering it inactive, much like two police officers working in tandem to apprehend a violent offender. Fortunately, "Virus Lives Matter" hasn't begun protesting the heavy-handed medical enforcement techniques of antibodies. So why is President Trump in the hospital? Several reasons. He is infected and potentially contagious. He is not living in a small house with just his wife, but instead is in the command center of the U.S. government, the White House, with hundreds of employees potentially exposed to the president and first lady. What better place to quarantine for a few days than in a hospital, already prepared for caring for a potentially infectious patient? The China virus is funny in that it can cause those infected to crash quickly, meaning going from breathing well and talking to gasping for breath and needing respiratory assistance in a matter of hours. Why leave Trump at the White House, risking him deteriorating rapidly, then having to move him to the hospital? Continuity of government is paramount regardless of who the president is, what party he belongs to, and whether he tweets too much. Last is the treatment itself. Monoclonal antibodies have potential side-effects including fever, chills, weakness, nausea, vomiting, and low or high blood pressure. While the White House has emergency medical capability, why take the chance of an adverse reaction in the White House rather than a hospital? How common is hospitalization for someone Trump's age with the Wuhan flu? Trump's age group has a rate of hospitalization of 12 per 100,000, compared to 16 per 100,000 for someone Joe Biden's age. For both, the odds are relatively low. Looking at it another way, compared to a college-aged kid, Trump has a fivefold higher rate of hospitalization and a 90-fold higher risk of death. For his campaign opponent, those rates are eight times and 220 times, respectively. Both presidential candidates are in the later years of their lives, and both are more susceptible to disease and death. Hopefully, that's not a rationale for AOC running for president in 2024. Neither Trump nor Biden is invincible and should take advantage of appropriate medical safeguards. Applying the same distinction between those dying from or with COVID, one could similarly argue that Trump is being hospitalized with, rather than due to, COVID. So the above numbers are not directly applicable to Trump since, as far as we know, he is being hospitalized out of precaution, not because he is sufficiently sick. Hopefully this antibody cocktail works as it has in the studies, where "those who got Regeneron's experimental therapy had lower virus levels in the bloodstream seven days later compared with patients who received a placebo." While there are no guarantees, the odds favor a full recovery for the president. Send thoughts and prayers to the president and don't listen to the hair-on-fire media hardly able to contain themselves with ideas of Trump dropping out of the race. Be discerning when listening to "breaking news," as it may be blown out of proportion, as is most news these days. President Trump has good reasons to spend the next few days in a hospital, getting top-notch medical care in his temporary but secure castle. Brian C Joondeph, M.D. is a Denver-based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, Rasmussen Reports, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Parler, and QuodVerum. Image: ABC News via YouTube. By PTI THOLANG: The decades-long dream of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's friend, Arjun Gopal, came true on Saturday with the inauguration of Atal Tunnel at Rohtang in Himachal Pradesh. Amar Singh and Ram Dev, sons of Arjun Gopal alias Tshidawa, said their father had suggested the construction of the tunnel to the former prime minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the strategically important all-weather Atal Tunnel, which reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by four to five hours. Atal Tunnel is the longest highway tunnel in the world, and the 9.02 km long tunnel connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley throughout the year. The valley was earlier cut off for about six months every year due to heavy snowfall. The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) from the Mean Sea Level (MSL). Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur had earlier said, "Vajpayee got the idea for constructing the tunnel on a suggestion from his friend Arjun Gopal of Tashi Dobhe village in Lahaul." Talking to PTI in their native village Tholang in Lahaul-Spiti district, Amar Singh (75) said his father met Vajpayee in 1998 in Delhi, seeking the construction of the strategically significant tunnel beneath Rohtang Pass for the benefit of the residents of Lahaul-Spiti district. "My father passed away in 2008. Today, his decades-long dream came true and my joy knows no bound," he said. Singh, who retired as state deputy director (education), said the former prime minister and his father came close during an officers' training camp (OTC) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1942 in Gujarat's Vadodara. "When Vajpayee became the prime minister in 1998, my father met him through a prominent RSS activist Chaman Lal", he said. ALSO READ | Atal Tunnel to become new lifeline for Ladakh towards path of progress: PM Modi Singh said "Lahaul-Spiti-Pangi Janjaati Sewa Samiti' was formed with Gopal as its founder president to pursue the construction of the tunnel. He said Vajpayee sent copies of the memorandum submitted to him for construction of the tunnel to defence, finance and surface transport ministries. Following initial objection by the defence ministry, the Union government gave its approval for constructing the tunnel in 2000, Singh claimed, adding that Vajpayee himself announced about the project during a public meeting at Keylong in June, 2000. Gopal's other son, Ram Dev (61), a retired officer of the state information department, said the economy of Lahaul-Spiti district would see a drastic change after the opening of the tunnel. He also travelled in a Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) bus which was flagged off by Modi from north portal in Lahaul to south portal in Manali of Kullu district. "The agriculture, horticulture and tourism sectors of the tribal district will witness a positive sea change in the coming days. The tribal district used to remain cut off for about five months due to snow-laden roads during winters," Dev added. Residents of the tribal district also hailed the construction of the tunnel. Pushpa Devi of Kirting village of the district said there was no longer the need for rushing to other districts for medical help. She said earlier pregnant women were shifted from the district to Kullu-Manali for safe delivery. Similarly, Sanjay Yarpa of Gahar valley said critical patients had to suffer a lot as they could not be airlifted to Kullu-Manali for better healthcare as helicopters failed to land here due to bad weather during winters. "This problem will now cease to exist as road connectivity through the tunnel will remain in operation almost throughout the year," he rejoiced. THE Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) yesterday threatened taking legal action against government over unfair labour practices, including ordering them to report for duty without protective clothing against COVID-19. Zimta was reacting to Primary and Secondary Education minister Cain Mathema's remarks that government would recruit 25 000 temporary teachers to replace striking teachers. "Zimta has observed with serious concern the statements attributed to Minister Cain Mathema about the welfare of teachers and the intention by government to recruit 25 000 temporary teachers to conduct school examinations," part of the statement released yesterday read. "The association is in the process of taking urgent legal action in order to protect its members and the generality of the teaching profession and community including the would be temporary teachers from acts designed to undermine the right of teachers against victimisation and the threat to the constitutionally protected right to collective bargaining and decent living standards." It added: "Minister Mathema's demand that teachers present themselves and teach examination classes in the absence of protective equipment and COVID-19 testing of teachers undermines the right to a fair and safe labour practice and standard and thereby endangers the teaching community at large including the learners and their families. "The demand by the minister is unconstitutional and in breach of section 65(1) of our Constitution. "It is the association's position that an employer cannot compel an employee to work under unsafe conditions with the threat that failure to do so will result in the teachers being replaced by temporary teachers." Most teachers failed to report for duty on Monday when schools reopened for the examination classes. Government teachers earn around $3 800 per month, which is US$43,20 at the current auction rate. Government this week gave teachers a 40% cost of living adjustment, but the educators have declined it, insisting on US$520 or its equivalent. Newsday 'Today we have reached a peace agreement. We are happy. We have finished the mission,' Tut Gatluak, head of the South Sudanese mediating team said Sudan's government and rebel groups on Saturday inked a landmark peace deal aimed at ending decades of war in which hundreds of thousands died. Ululations and cheers rang out as one by one, representatives from the transitional government and rebel groups signed the deal, a year after the peace talks began, at a ceremony in the South Sudanese capital Juba. "Today we have reached a peace agreement. We are happy. We have finished the mission," Tut Gatluak, head of the South Sudanese mediating team said shortly before the signing took place. Ending Sudan's internal conflicts has been a top priority of the transitional government, in power since last year's ouster of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in a popular pro-democracy uprising. Sudanese paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo -- best known by his nickname "Hemeti" -- signed the deal on behalf of Khartoum. A representative of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) and others from the groups making up the coalition, also signed. The SRF comprises rebel groups from the war-ravaged western Darfur region, as well as the southern states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. Guarantors of the deal from Chad, Qatar, Egypt, the African Union, European Union and United Nations also put their names to the agreement. The deal covers a number of tricky issues, from land ownership, reparations and compensation to wealth and power sharing and the return of refugees and internally displaced people. However two other powerful rebel groups did not sign, reflecting the challenges still facing the peace process. 'An historic day' Sudan has been torn by multiple conflicts between the Arab-dominated government that was led by Bashir for three decades and rebels drawn from non-Arab ethnic groups in its far-flung regions. In Sudan's vast rural areas, settled ethnic minority farmers have frequently competed for scarce resources with Arab herders, who have often been backed by Khartoum. Multiple civil wars have raged since independence in 1956, including the 1983-2005 war that led to the secession of the south. The devastating war in Darfur from 2003 left at least 300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced in its early years, according to the UN. "This signing means we left the war now behind us. This agreement means democracy, justice, it means freedom in Sudan so we are very happy... by this peace agreement the economy in Sudan will boom again," Ismail Jalab, a senior member of the SRF told AFP. The peace talks were mediated by South Sudan whose leaders themselves battled Khartoum as rebels for decades before achieving independence in 2011 and who are still struggling to bring peace to their own country. The final signing ceremony was held at the John Garang Mausoleum in Juba, the final resting place of the late leader of the independence war. Entertainers from South Sudan and Sudan performed for thousands of guests, many of them Sudanese refugees. "This is a very historic day to us Sudanese because this peace is going to end the protracted conflict ... it is well known since independence of Sudan there is no stability, there is no social economic development because of marginalisation," said 32-year-old Abdal Aziz who fled Darfur six years ago and has been living as a refugee in South Sudan. 'Challenges and pitfalls' Sudan's leaders, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, head of the transitional sovereign council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and General Hamdan Dagalo, deputy chief of Sudan's joint military-civilian sovereign council, attended the ceremony. Heads of state from Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Chad were also there. Upon his arrival, Hamdok said that "peace will open broad horizons for development, progress and prosperity. "The peace building process faces various challenges and pitfalls that we can overcome through concerted efforts and joint action," he said. Mini Arko Minawi, leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement which is a member of the SRF, said Sudan's troubled economy and "fragile political situation" were tests facing the agreement. The economy has suffered from the country's inclusion on Washington's terror blacklist, decades-long US sanctions and the 2011 secession of the country' oil-rich south which deprived the north of three-quarters of its oil reserves. Economic hardship triggered the anti-Bashir protests and remain a pressing concern -- food prices have tripled in the past year and the Sudanese pound has depreciated dramatically. One of the holdout groups, the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction led by Abdelwahid Nour, launched an attack on Monday, the army said. Another, the South Kordofan-based wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, has signed a separate ceasefire. Search Keywords: Short link: Jetstar flight at the Ballina-Byron Gateway Airport in Byron Bay, Australia on June 20, 2020. (Brook Mitchell/Getty Images) Search for Passengers on NSW Virus Flight NSW authorities are trying to track down almost 50 people who shared a flight to Sydney with a Victorian traveller infected with COVID-19. The passenger travelled on Jetstar Flight JQ510, which left Melbourne at 11am last Sunday, and tested positive on their second day in quarantine. They are believed to have been infectious while travelling. NSW Health says there is no ongoing risk to the public, and most of the flights passengers are already in mandatory hotel quarantine. Authorities are contacting 47 crew and passengers who travelled with special permits or quarantine exemptions. Those deemed close contacts of the case have been advised to immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days and stay isolated for the entire period, even if a negative test result is received, NSW Health said in a statement. NSW has now gone seven days without a locally transmitted case. Four new cases were diagnosed on Thursday all returned travellers in hotel quarantine, including one from Victoria. NSWs streak of zero community transmission comes as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced NSW residents would soon be able to travel to the Sunshine State without quarantining, with the border set to reopen on November 1. Palaszczuk said the hard border would lift the day after Queenslanders head to the polls, provided NSW has no mystery cases of COVID-19 in the preceding 28 days. The announcement follows months of tension between Palaszczuk and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian over the issue. Berejiklian told reporters she was frustrated to learn the announcement was just a reiteration of their existing policy. It is frustrating for me that WA and Queensland keep lumping us in with Victoria, she said. What happened in NSW is not what happened in Victoria. NSW was much closer to what was going on in WA and Queensland. Sydney People living in a London borough have been asked not to visit other households amid signs the capital may soon be hit with tightened coronavirus restrictions similar to those seen across the north, the Midlands and swathes of Wales and Northern Ireland. Residents in Tower Hamlets have been advised by the local council to avoid seeing friends and families in private homes. In an open letter, the boroughs mayor John Biggs asked people to avoid such visits unless absolutely necessary due to a rise in Covid-19 cases there. He called the situation a matter of life and death. The plea came as every part of London was officially made an area of concern on the governments coronavirus watchlist, and amid suggestions the city would soon have to be placed under further restrictions to stop the virus continuing to spike. Tower Hamlets itself has rates of 44 cases per 100,000 people still below the national average but still a concern because it is appears to be rising. Councillor Biggs wrote: Despite a fall over the summer, we are seeing cases of Covid-19 rise and we need to accept that the situation is once again worsening With this in mind, now is the time we must take further action. I am clear that the current national rules are a minimum and my advice to you all is to do everything in your power to protect each other. Our individual actions have consequences for us all. And he added: The next few months will be very challenging. Without a vaccine or more effective treatment, our primary weapon against the virus is responsible behaviour. He said that the borough was especially vulnerable because it was home to a diverse community of people most at risk from the illness. London mayor Sadiq Khan has previously have urged the government to implement additional measures in the capital. His spokesperson warned last week that the city was at a very worrying tipping point and immediate action was needed to regain control of the virus. Across the UK, some 17 million people are already living in areas under enhanced restrictions which range from different households mixing to limits on travel. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: India and South Africa have asked for a waiver of certain intellectual property (IP) norms for treatment, prevention, and containment of Covid-19. Both countries want easy access to diagnostics, monoclonal antibodies, and vaccines for local production without the need for prolonged intellectual property negotiations. This ambitious proposal, if accepted by World Trade Organisation members, would facilitate deep technology transfer for effective Covid-19-related vaccines, therapeutics or diagnostic tests as the joint submission covers patents, copyright, industrial designs, and undisclosed information including know-how and trade secrets. In their submission to the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the two countries have said that given this present context of global emergency, it is important for WTO members to work together to ensure that intellectual property rights such as patents, industrial designs, copyright and protection of undisclosed information do not create barriers to the timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and medicines or to scaling-up of research, development, manufacturing, and supply of medical products essential to combat Covid-19. The two countries also said that all WTO Members are struggling to contain the spread of the pandemic and provide health care services to those affected. Many developed, developing and least developed countries have declared a national emergency with the aim to curb the growing outbreak, and as advised by the WHO implemented social distancing measures with significant consequences for society and the economy, read the submission. Notably, developing countries and least developed countries are especially disproportionately impacted. The next session of the TRIPS Council is set to be organised later this month and it remains to be seen how other WTO members including Canada, the European Union, Japan, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA respond. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi were allowed to travel to Hathras to visit the 19-year-old gang-rape victims family after being stopped briefly at Delhi-Noida border. The leaders, accompanied by former member of Parliament Deepender Singh Hooda and other Congress workers, were permitted to cross the border by the Uttar Pradesh Police. Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at Delhi-Noida flyway. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra with other leaders are en route to #Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to meet the family of the alleged gangrape victim. pic.twitter.com/KxNvcIcGGp ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 This was their second attempt to meet the victims family. The siblings were detained by UP Police as they were walking to Hathras after their vehicles were stopped in view of Section 144 on Thursday. They were charged with violating Section 144 and the pandemic law. Noida Commissioner of Police Alok Singh said, citing Section 144, that a maximum of seven people, including the Gandhis, will be allowed to cross the border. He asked the rest of the Congress workers to return. Police resorted to lathicharge to disperse the crowd from DND toll plaza. The DND plaza is yet to open for general traffic. Noida additional deputy commissioner of Police Ranvijay Singh had earlier said that the leaders were violating Section 144, and urged the crowd to disperse in larger public interest. They are violating the Section 144 of CrPC. We are deployed here to control the unlawful assembling of people. We are appealing for peace amid Covid-19 outbreak, in larger public interest they should disperse, said before a part of the convoy was allowed to pass. Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. TCN News Bihar: Scores of students of Bihar have a written an open letter to Tejashwi Yadav, the President of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and urged the party to break its silence on the continued incarceration of Muslim students from Bihar, including Sharjeel Imam and Meeran Haider. Support TwoCircles TwoCircles.net produces the letter below: Open letter to RJD to break their silence on the incarceration of Muslim students of Bihar: Sharjeel Imam and Meeran Haider. To, Tejashwi Yadav, President of RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) We are writing to you on behalf of the student community of Bihar, studying at eminent universities of India, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT Delhi. Our friend, colleague, brother Sharjeel Imam has been incarcerated from the past 8 months on various charges as grave as sedition, UA(P)A & Hate Speech based on a cropped video run on various mainstream media ways to propel a narrative built around Muslims as a community posing a threat to the nations security which of course is a false claim that has cost injuries and lives of various Indian Muslims from a long time. We believe RJD too will disagree with this narrative built around a Minority community. Our friend, Sharjeel Imam is one of the first protestors against the Unconstitutional Citizenship Amendment Act from the state of Bihar. His words & call for a Road Blockade, Chakka Jaam have been misconstructed by the state and the media resulting in him being heavily charged with gruesome laws that he does not deserve to be charged with. What causes us even more pain and disappointment is your silence and the RJD in general on the false incarceration of Bihari Muslim Students, not limited to Sharjeel Imam but including Meeran Haider as well, a student of Jamia Millia Islamia University who has been vocal in the Anti-CAA Protests. The absence of any support and mobilisation for Meeran Haider is even more astounding given that he is a known peoples person as well as an office-bearer of the RJDs student wing. Thus, it strikes us curious as to why the RJD, a group given to upholding the democratic ethos of justice and liberty, has remained silent on this onslaught against academics and scholars and leaders, particularly those who belong to its constituencies. Sharjeel Imam and Meeran Haider have both brought various achievements bringing a good name to the State of Bihar. Sharjeel Imam is an excellent academician, student, historian & journalist whose credentials are not unknown to the world. Sharjeel has always been vocal through his academic writings on the issues of those sections of the society that have been historically suppressed be it the Pasmanda community, the Dalits, the suppression of free speech in a democratic country like India irrespective of the religion, caste, class or gender of the oppressed section. Meeran Haider has been a popular leader who has never been silent on speaking for the marginalised. He was involved in doing relief work as a community leader for people affected in the mis-administered COVID-19 lockdown before he was charged with such brutal and fabricated cases. RJD has always sought to champion the cause of Social Justice which we believe also includes dignified treatment of minorities in the state of Bihar, but your deafening silence on the false and inhumane incarceration of Muslim Students who belong to Bihar is a matter of concern for not just Students belonging to the Minority Community of Bihar but also to the families and residents of Bihar that have been looking at RJD as a potential opposition to the ruling government and as an answer to the divisive and undemocratic politics of the government. Today, RJD seems to have forgotten its strong past including Lalu Prasad Yadavs Anti-Communal stance in 1992. But the sons of Bihar, Sharjeel Imam and Meeran Haider have raised their voices against the suppression by the current government while not possessing any power other than the power of truthfulness and courage. The Muslim community in Bihar has supported RJD for a long time, its unsupportive silence has become a cause of worry for it. Lalu Prasad Yadav has been unrelenting in his criticism of RSS and continues to be so. At the time when the nation was struck silent with the destruction of the Babri, he stood tall with his resounding refusal to bow and valiantly took a stand that will be remembered for generations. Similarly, as India once again stands at the precipice of democracy, a test that majority of India is failing, it is Sharjeel Imam who stood with immense courage against the tide and spoke relentlessly against the systemic denial of justice to Muslims and was audacious enough to stand before the country and demand justice, and nothing less. We must not forget that Sharjeel and Meeran belong to the vibrant youth of Bihar who has a powerful history and continuing presence of shaking the very thrones of injustice in Bihar and the rest of the country when those in power deny the people their rights. Hence, we wish to call you out and urge you to raise your voice against the Media Trial and falsely constructed narrative of a Bihari Muslim Students Sharjeel Imams call for a Chakka Jaam as seditious and the blatant criminalisation of Jamia scholar and well-known activist, Meeran Haider. We urge you to break silence on this trial of falsely implicating Muslim Students from Bihar in cases of no substantial value and assure the Muslim Minority Community in Bihar that you will stand by them in their fight for dignity and equality. We urge you to break your silence on this attack against the lives, aspirations and dignity of minorities across the country. We urge you to look into this matter and remind us of the historical legacy of justice that RJD is emblematic of and demand the release of these incarcerated scholars. Students of Bihar It far exceeded my worst expectations. A circus. I had to pry my eyes open and force my face to the screen just to absorb anything. Those were just some of the reactions to the first presidential debate from voters on The Inquirers Election 2020 Roundtable. The debate Tuesday offered President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden an opportunity to articulate a vision for the countrys future. It was an opportunity badly missed, voters said one that left many of them disgusted and dismayed. The Roundtable brings together a representative group of 24 voters from across Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, for a series of open virtual conversations about politics, policy, and the presidential election.The latest Roundtable conversations were held Wednesday and Thursday, before the news Friday that Trump had contracted the coronavirus. Learn more about the Election 2020 Roundtable here. Republicans, Democrats, and independents all expressed deep disappointment. They said both candidates failed to debate in a cordial manner, resorting to finger-pointing and interrupting. But many, including some Republicans, found more fault with Trump, who repeatedly interrupted Biden. I dont put Donald Trump and Joe Biden on an equal playing field here, said Ezelle Sanford III, 30, a Philadelphia Democrat. This debate was entirely exhausting. I wish there was a commercial break. Adele Barone, a Libertarian in Wyoming County, said even her 13-year-old daughter, who is beginning to take an interest in politics, was upset by the debate. Her school has a better debate team than what happened on the stage," Barone said. Referring to when Trump brought up Hunter Bidens struggles with drug addiction, Barone added of her daughter: She thought it was downright trashy and upsetting. Many voters were troubled by Trumps refusal on stage to condemn white supremacist groups. I thought that was a very disturbing moment, said Kaitlin Ahern, 20, a Democrat from Scranton. Out of many disturbing moments that we saw throughout the night, to me that was the one that stuck out the most. Soneyet Muhammad, a Philadelphia Democrat, said of that moment: Im not surprised but still leave room for shock that people can support Trump. This debate was an illustration of the dire state of our democracy, said Muhammad, 39. As bad as it was, I hope that unmasking will inspire folks to opt not to support him. It was a full display of stupidity," Muhammad said. "I was embarrassed. Numerous voters in both parties said they wished moderator Chris Wallace had had a mute button at his disposal. READ MORE: The election in Pa. is rocked by the uncertainty of a president stricken by coronavirus Lauren Jessop, 62, a Republican from Easton, said that while she didnt like how often Trump spoke over Biden, she also took issue with the former vice president dodging a question about whether he would support adding more justices to the Supreme Court. [Biden] didnt answer the question about not packing the court or dealing with the filibuster, she said. And he would not denounce antifa," she said, referring to the loose network of far-left activists. "He totally skirted that question. Several times during the debate, Biden looked into the camera and spoke directly to voters. While some Democrats saw those as being among his strongest moments, they didnt sit well with David Graham, a Republican from Johnstown. Oh God, I hated that so much, said Graham, 66. It was a debate. It was not a political ad. It just really upset me. The president interrupted more than Biden did, but Biden gave as good as he got, Graham added. I was and will be voting for Trump. But he made a complete fool of himself at his debate. Biden didnt do much better. If were gonna run by WWE rules then maybe we should get The Rock to moderate these things. Jonathan Taylor, a 62-year-old Republican in Gettysburg, described the debate like this: Trump will fight for you. Biden will give you a hug. Lena Surzhko-Harned, a 37-year-old Democrat in Erie, disagreed. Trump fights for himself, thats what you saw," she said. "Hes not fighting for me. In spite of it all, about three-quarters of Roundtable members said they would still watch the next debate. Im definitely going to watch the next two, said Scott Young, 51, a Republican in Bucks County. I dont know how many cocktails itll take to get through them. Jeremy Jacobs, a 37-year-old Democrat from Bloomsburg in Columbia County, asked simply: Was this debate a logical end point to where weve progressed as a country and a society?" Lucknow, Oct 3 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday recommended a CBI probe into the Hathras gang-rape incident. The decision came after a high-level meeting of the concerned officials. "For intensive investigation of the unfortunate incident at Hathras and all connected issues, this case is being recommended by @UPGovt to be probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). We are determined to deliver the harshest punishment to all those responsible for this incident," Adityanath tweeted. The state government has suspended five policemen including the SP in the case but politics on the issue has heated up. On the instructions of the Chief Minister, Director General of Police Hitesh Awasthi and Additional Chief Secretary Home Avneesh Awasthi also met the family members of the victim earlier on Saturday. They submitted their report to the Chief Minister and subsequently a CBI investigation has been recommended. A 22-year-old woman in West Bengals Nadia district has created an image of the Taj Mahal using more than 3 lakh matchsticks. Saheli Pal of Ghurni locality in Krishnanagar seeks to break the Guinness World Record of Irans Meysam Rahmani, who had made a UNESCO logo with 1,36,951 matchsticks in 2013. Ms Pal, an MA English student at Calcutta University, created the image on 6 feet by 4 feet board. She had started her work in mid-August after receiving the guidelines from the Guinness World Records authorities and completed it on September 30. A video of her artwork has been made and it will be sent to the Guinness World Records authorities soon. I have used matchsticks of two colours to depict Taj Mahal at night," she said. Ms Pal had in 2018 created a world record by making the smallest clay sculpture of the face of Goddess Durga, measuring 2.54 cm by 1.93 cm by 0.76 cm and weighing 2.3 gm. Her father Subir Pal and grandfather Biren Pal had won the Presidents Awards for their sculptures in 1991 and 1982 respectively. I want to carry forward the legacy of my father and grandfather," she added. After months of hiatus, Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort reopened in September for tourists following almost six months of closure due to Covid-19 triggered lockdown. Strict coronavirus safety measures will be taken to contain the spread of the virus, district authorities said. As of now, only 5,000 visitors would be permitted at the Taj Mahal and only 2,500 would be allowed at Agra Fort. As per Covid-19 protocol- following social distancing and mask wearing will be followed at the monument, while tourists will be allowed to enter in shifts. Apart from the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, the iconic Bada Imambara and Chhota Imambara in Lucknow have also been opened for tourists from today onwards. Following the regulations, guides and tourists will have to follow social distancing norms, face masks, and sanitization, etc before entering the monument. A Montana judge has entered a $1.76 million judgement against two now-defunct corporations that were found to have made illegal contributions to more than a dozen Republican candidates seeking public office a decade ago. District Judge James Reynolds issued the default judgment recently against Western Tradition Partnership, which later became American Tradition Partnership, and Direct Mail and Communications Inc. Neither organization defended itself in court. Cases before the Commissioner of Political Practices and in state court determined that each of 15 candidates received nearly $20,000 in free or reduced-price campaign-related services. The candidates did not report the services as contributions to their campaigns, and the corporations were not legally allowed to make them. Candidates received services such as election advice, advertising, mailings, website development and attack ads against their opponents from a series of entities, but the effort was overseen by the Western Tradition Partnership and Direct Mail, Reynolds said. "These interactions were a coordinated effort to influence Montana's 2010 and 2012 election cycles," Reynolds wrote in his Sept. 17 ruling. Under Montana's campaign finance laws at the time, the civil penalty for unlawful corporate campaign spending is three times the unlawful contribution. The illegal contributions totaled nearly $294,000, and three times that amount is nearly $882,000. Reynolds levied an $882,000 penalty on the corporations for making the contributions and another $882,000 penalty for failing to report them. The organizations no longer exist. Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan and agency attorney Jaime MacNaughton did not return messages seeking comment Friday. American Tradition Partnership later successfully sued to overturn the Montana law that the organization violated one that prohibited corporations from spending money to support or oppose candidates or political parties. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Montana's law was inconsistent with its 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case. Citizens United allows corporations and unions to spend money on elections as long as they report the spending. The influence of dark money groups increased after the Citizens United decision because such nonprofit, social welfare groups aren't supposed to back or oppose candidates and aren't required to identify their donors. Gov. Steve Bullock issued an executive order in 2018 requiring companies to report contributions to dark money groups if they want to bid on large state contracts. Under Bullock's order, companies submitting bids for contracts valued at more than $25,000 for services or $50,000 for goods must disclose two years' worth of political spending if their spending exceeds $2,500. A federal judge upheld Bullock's executive order in August, arguing the Illinois Opportunity Project did not have standing to challenge the order because it did not prove any of its donors included a company that had or was seeking a state contract in Montana. Illinois Opportunity Project said it planned to send mailings to thousands of Montana voters urging candidates to overturn Bullock's executive order. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 TROPHIES Two Palmer Township firefighters who were in the vicinity of a car crash Wednesday evening probably saved the lives of two people trapped in a burning vehicle. Palmer Deputy Chief Jim Alercia said the vehicle struck an embankment along Route 248 near Newburg Road, hit a utility pole and rolled onto its side, after which the engine compartment caught on fire. The two firefighters, who were not identified, managed to pull the couple from the vehicle before the car was engulfed in flames. The occupants did not sustain life-threatening injuries. The male driver was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest; his wife was taken to a local hospital for what appeared to be minor injuries, Alercia said. The Easton Main Street Initiative is honoring a longtime downtown institution, the Carmelcorn Shop, as the model for this years holiday ornament. The ornament, the seventh in the groups collection, started with a replica of the Easton Peace Candle and over the years has featured the Easton-Phillipsburg free bridge, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument bugler, the State Theatre and Cottingham Stadium. The $20 ornament is available online or at the Easton Farmers' Market, Connexions Gallery, Mercantile Outpost in the Easton Public Market and the Carmelcorn Shop. Proceeds support the work of the Greater Easton Development Partnership, parent of the Main Street Initiative. Andy Novick of Easton will be firing up his 1969 Triumph Bonneville motorcycle and joining two friends Sunday as part of this years Distinguished Gentlemans Ride, a benefit that spreads awareness and raises money for mens health causes. The Gentlemans Ride was established in Sydney, Australia, in 2012 and has raised millions of dollars since then. Novick, a former New Yorker and seven-year Easton resident, is riding in honor of three friends who died recently: Easton architect and activist Tim Hare, Bridge Community Church pastor Mike Hollenbach and renowned kayaker Joe Glickman. Novick is setting a goal of $1,000. Donations can be made at his page on the Gentlemans Ride website. The ride starts at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Phillipsburg Alliance Church, with several stops, including Bridge Community Church and brunch at Porters Pub. TURKEYS A Hackettstown man who falsified test results on machine gun stands he sold to the U.S. military will serve four months in jail and pay a $2,000 fine, a federal judge decided. Mark Colello pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements about the hardness of steel in the equipment, which failed when used by soldiers, according to court documents. Colellos company, Applied Resources Corporation of Wharton, Morris County, manufactured the bipod assemblies for the Army under a contract signed in 2015 with the Department of the Defense. Linguistically and ethnically, Nepal is a diverse country with Nepali as its lingua franca. Although the new generation ironically seem to be trying hard to excel their English language skills, Nepali has remained an interesting language with so many interesting features. Here are a few of the interesting facts of Nepali language, unknown to many. 1. It was first known as Khas Kura A copper inscription, written in Devanagari (Khas language), dated to 1612 by the then King of Doti Raika Mandhata Shahi. Photo: Wikimedia Commons The Nepali language originally belonged to the Indo-European language family which is also described as Khas Kura, the language of Khas kingdom. It originated in the western hilly region of Nepal, some 500 years ago. It was spoken by the Khas people of Karnali region. It was also called Gorkhali before the term Nepali was adopted. Over the centuries, different forms of Nepali language emerged with distinctive influences from Sanskrit, Maithili, Hindi, and Bengali making Khas the common language for all. 2. Writing Nepali began in the 12th century A script used to write the Nepali language in first appeared in the 10th century, but it was only used in writing during the 12th century. Nepal Lipi or Nepal Script is the oldest (Takri) alphabet that was in use from the 10th to the early 20th century, but since then this script has been largely replaced by the modern script known as Devanagari. From the oldest script (Nepal Lipi), about 50,000 manuscripts have been archived. 3. 45% of the population have Nepali as mother tongue Graphic: Nepal Research As per the 2011 national census, 44.6% of Nepals population speaks Nepali as their first language, which is the highest in Nepal. Meanwhile, 32.8% of people speak Nepali as a second language. It is generally spoken in the hilly region of Nepal, particularly in the western part. However, this language is used by the government in its day-to-day administrative works. 4. Nepali is spoken outside Nepal too Photo: Nations Online This language is spoken by more than 17 million individuals in Nepal and other neighbouring countries including India, Bhutan, Brunei, and Myanmar. Nepali language is not only the official language of Nepal but is also one of the 23 official languages of India which is spoken in the states of Sikkim and West Bengal. It is estimated that around 500,000 people use the Nepali language in India. There are Nepali speakers in cities such as Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. It is also used in Myanmar and Bhutan, where it is known as Lhotshampa. And, the worldwide population of Nepali speakers is estimated at 15 million and 360,100. However, the Nepali language is not the official language in either of those countries. 5. It has several variants Graphic: Freepik The Nepali language consists of three major dialect groups such as the western, the central, and the eastern, based on the geographical area of the speaker. Dialects of Nepali language include Achhami, Baitadeli, Bajhangi, Bajurali, Bheri, Dadeldhuri, Dailekhi, Darchulali, Darchuli, Doteli, Gandakeli, Humli, Purbeli, and Soradi. Also, Jhapali and Syangjali are also considered variants of the Nepali language. Also, there is one different variant that is used by the members of the royal family and the upper classes as well. This version has a special vocabulary and a four-level honorific system that is increasingly being adopted by the educated middle class and the new wealthy individuals. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 12:38:20|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Aerial photo taken on Sept. 19, 2019 shows the newly-opened Dongdi Park on the shores of the Bohai Sea in north China's Tianjin Municipality. The park is a public leisure project of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (SSTEC), which features waterfront footpaths and viewing points, marine culture exhibition areas as well as children's amusement facilities. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei) BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday that China is willing to work with Singapore to deepen practical cooperation in various fields, with high-quality construction of the Belt and Road as a main focus. Xi made the remarks in an exchange of congratulatory messages with Singaporean President Halimah Yacob to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Over the past 30 years, in the face of changing international situation, China and Singapore have understood and supported each other and kept pace with the times to promote the development of bilateral relations, Xi stressed. The cooperation between the two countries goes beyond the bilateral scope and plays an exemplary role at the regional and international levels, he said. Noting that the world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging across the globe, Xi said countries are facing dual challenges of fighting the pandemic and reviving their economies. He added that he attaches great importance to the development of China-Singapore relations. A frame crane transits a container from a truck to a freight train of the China-Singapore rail-sea transit route at a station in southwest China's Chongqing, Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) China stands ready to join efforts with Singapore to uphold multilateralism and free trade, push for greater progress of bilateral relations and contribute to regional and world stability and prosperity, Xi said. In her message, Halimah said over the past 30 years, Singapore-China relations have been developing vigorously with pragmatic cooperation continuously advancing and people-to-people ties growing closer. In the face of the pandemic, the two countries have extended assistance to each other, jointly promoted economic recovery, maintained unimpeded trade and stable supply chains and opened up many new areas of cooperation, Halimah said, adding that she is confident that greater progress will be made in bilateral relations in the next 30 years. On the same day, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang exchanged congratulatory messages with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Li said China is ready to work with Singapore to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to keep pace with the times and break new ground, deepen alignment of their development strategies, and help the two countries and the region overcome challenges so as to embrace brighter prospects for development. For his part, Lee said Singapore and China have forged a strong and mutually beneficial relationship and maintained sound cooperation in regional and international arenas. Singapore stands ready to work with China to consolidate the multilateral framework that binds the world and bring bilateral relations to a higher level, Lee said. A downtown lot once slated as the site of the SkyCity condo tower has been put back on the market, with the skyscraping building never getting off the ground in the seven troubled years since the development was proposed. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/10/2020 (477 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A downtown lot once slated as the site of the SkyCity condo tower has been put back on the market, with the skyscraping building never getting off the ground in the seven troubled years since the development was proposed. The 1.1-acre Graham Street lot where the 45-storey condo was scheduled to be built by last year is currently a surface parking lot, and has been listed for sale by Cushman & Wakefield | Stevenson, offered to the market unpriced. Although the $200-million condo project was launched with optimism in 2013 with half of its units selling after coming to market in 2015 as time went on, it sputtered. In 2018, Fortress Real Developments Inc., the Toronto developer behind SkyCity, was raided by the RCMP in a syndicated mortgage fraud investigation. Later that year, disgruntled condo buyers filed a class-action lawsuit against the developer in the Manitoba Court of Queens Bench; Fortress paid refunds to buyers whod placed 10 per cent deposits, and the sky-high project was all but grounded. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The Graham lot remained a parking lot, and all that indicated the projects existence was a billboard promising, "Life, elevated." After the RCMP raid, FAAN Mortgage administrators Inc., was appointed as trustee over the property. In a memo sent to lenders in September, FAAN confirmed that the lot would be listed for sale. "The Trustee has been in discussions with the listing agent who has advised that the property will be marketed to over 1,000 private, public and institutional investors as well as the local real estate community in Winnipeg," the memo read. In its brochure marketing the property, Cushman & Wakefield touts the site as a rare development opportunity, with the opportunity to control 164 parking stalls, which can give the buyer the opportunity to collect revenues while "planning the next marquee high density development of up to 600,000 square-feet." The offering is being presented to the market on an unpriced basis, the listing says, and the deadline for offers is Thursday, Oct. 15 at 3 p.m. ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca The National Gallery of Victoria in 1984 staged a major exhibition entitled "Vienna 1913" that recreated five rooms of the Gallia family's apartment in Vienna. Considered the father of modernist architecture and design, Josef Hoffmann's furniture, rugs and decorative objects some which came from the Wiener Werkstatte that he co-founded were displayed as they would have appeared in the Gallia's hall, dining room, smoking room, salon and boudoir. An interior full of Hoffmann originals. Credit: The remarkable exhibition was the year that Geoffrey Hatty's fascination with Hoffmann and passion for modernist design from the early 20th century was established, as he opened his own gallery and showroom in Melbourne. Some of Hatty's first purchases came from the Viennese Jewish community who, like the Gallia family, came to Australia before the Second World War and managed to escape with their possessions. In the 1980s, many were downsizing to smaller properties. Azerbaijani troops have captured several villages in fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, President Ilham Aliyev said on October 3 after another day of clashes with ethnic Armenian forces over the breakaway region. Aliyev said seven villages in the Terter, Jabrail, and Fuzuli districts had been liberated, and declared he would restore the historical name of Madagiz, another village Aliyev said had been captured, RFE/RLs Azerbaijani Service reported. "From October 3, 2020, I am restoring the historical name #Madagiz. From now on it will be called #Sugovushan," Aliyev said on Twitter. Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisian did not confirm that villages had been captured but said there had been heavy fighting. The duration of the continuous battle was six to seven hours, Hovhannisian said, according to RFE/RLs Armenian Service. These were rather heavy and difficult battles, and it is clear that all this is not easy for our troops. He said positions change frequently during intense fighting, adding, Who specifically, at what moment and which side is in what position, I do not think that this is such an important fact. We have repeatedly noted that we will not talk about positions and lines of defense separately. Hovhannisian said the Armenian forces shot down drones and destroyed armored vehicles. He said the enemy lost hundreds of fighters on October 3, but there was no independent confirmation. Both sides of the conflict regularly exaggerate losses inflicted on their opponent as part of parallel information war. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said in an address on October 3 that the scale of the attack was unprecedented. "We are experiencing, perhaps, the most decisive moment in our millennial history," Pashinian said, adding: "Today, more than ever, we are determined to defend our identity, our homeland, our right." "As of now, we already have sustained significant human losses -- both military and civilian. Large numbers of military equipment are no longer usable, but the adversary still has not been able to resolve any of its strategic issues," he said. Pashinian said he spoke by phone on October 2 with commanders and other officers who are on the front line. He said about 150 high-ranking Turkish military personnel are at the command posts of various levels of the armed forces of Azerbaijan and are in charge of military operations. Pashinian was referring to allegations Turkey has provided material military support to Azerbaijani forces. The fighting sides have reported nearly 200 deaths, including many civilians in a week of fighting. This includes 19 Azerbaijani civilians, according Prosecutor-General Kamran Aliyev. The clashes have taken place along much of the so-called Line of Contact that separates the ethnic Armenian forces from Azerbaijan's troops. There are concerns that the violence could grow into a full-blown war between the archfoes and draw in regional powers Russia and NATO-member Turkey. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on October 3 rejected superficial demands for a cease-fire. Such demands will not be useful this time, Cavusoglu said, according to state-run Anadolu news agency. Turkey has vowed to provide Azerbaijan with continued support and has conditioned a cease-fire on Armenias withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh. The fighting on October 3 was a continuation of a flare-up of violence in the separatist region that began on September 27. Since then Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have shown little willingness to halt the violence, but each recently sent tentative signals about proposed peace talks. In an interview with Al Jazeera broadcast earlier on October 3, Aliyev urged Russia, the United States, and France -- the so-called Minsk Group that has spearheaded peace efforts over Nagorno-Karabakh since the early 1990s -- to continue efforts to resolve the conflict. I think these three countries should continue working together on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but on the condition that they remain neutral, Aliyev said in the interview. Hikmat Haciyev, foreign affairs aide to the Azerbaijani president, told journalists on October 3 that Azerbaijan has clearly and unequivocally expressed its constructiveness in negotiations process and called on the international community to impose more political and diplomatic pressure on Armenia to withdraw its troops. The comments came one day after the Armenian Foreign Ministry said it welcomed a joint call the previous day from the Minsk Group for an immediate cessation of hostilities between forces fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. Also on October 2, Armenia said it was willing to engage in peace talks through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as international leaders continued to call for an immediate end to fighting with Azerbaijani forces over the breakaway region Nagorno-Karabakh. The Minsk Group has called on the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to "commit without delay to resuming substantive negotiations, in good faith and without preconditions, under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group cochairs." Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, but it is controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists with close ties to Yerevan. Armenian forces hold control over seven regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict over the mountainous region since the waning years of the Soviet Union. They fought a war that ended in 1994 with an uneasy cease-fire and an estimated 30,000 killed. With reporting by AFP, AP, Interfax, and Reuters Hani Abdile has a poetic explanation for why she fled war-torn Somalia alone at the age of 17. "There's a Somalian poet who says 'I wouldn't leave home unless home was the mouth of a shark'," she says. "No one ever leaves the garden of their birth unless they have to." "No one ever leaves the garden of their birth unless they have to": Slam poet Hani Abdile, who features in the innovative Voxdocs series of short documentaries about the state of the performing arts. Credit:Kate Geraghty Abdile prefers not to go into detail about her escape, saying "sometimes in life, you have to talk about the good things", but was among 45 asylum seekers rescued by the Australian Navy from a sinking boat that was headed for New Zealand but became lost off Darwin in 2013. "It was a matter of die or survive," she says. "And I'm glad the second one happened." Vikas Singh, the lawyer representing Sushant Singh Rajputs father KK Singh in his case against Rhea Chakraborty, has responded to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) report ruling out the murder angle. The senior advocate said that the report was not conclusive and that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) can still treat Sushants death as a case of murder. A panel of AIIMS doctors termed Sushants death a case of hanging and death by suicide. In a report submitted to the CBI on September 29, the six-member team of forensic doctors said that there were no injuries on the body other than of hanging nor was presence of any seductive material detected, dismissing claims of strangulation and poisoning. Talking to The Times of India, Vikas Singh said that since the team did not actually examine Sushants body but relied on photographs, the report could not be treated as conclusive. AIIMS report is not conclusive and CBI in its chargesheet can still file a case of murder in Sushant Singh Rajput death case, he said. Also read: Shekhar Suman slams report that Sushant Singh Rajput met Rhea Chakraborty on June 13, asks where Gopichand jasoos was till now They dont have the X-ray of the leg which is said to have been fractured so it cannot be conclusive at the most it could be taken as a piece of evidence in the case, he added. Sushant was found dead in his Mumbai home on June 14. On July 25, his father filed an FIR in Patna against Rhea Chakraborty, accusing her of abetment to suicide. In August, Sushants father KK Singh released a video, calling Rhea a murderer and accusing her of giving poison to Sushant for a long time. Rhea Chakraborty was giving poison to my son, Sushant, for a long time. She is his murderer. The investigating agency must arrest her and her associates, he said in Hindi, in the clip. If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918 Follow @htshowbiz for more As Covid-19 continues to wreak unprecedented havoc in the world, Indias death toll surpassed the 100,000-mark on Friday. The grim milestone comes as the daily number of infections has started declining in the country after registering over 90 thousand cases for days. From the day the first batch of cases was reported in the country, India took seven months to cross 100,000. The death toll in the country is now at 100,842. On March 12, the first death due to Covid-19 was reported in Karnataka and 127 days later on July 16, there were 25,000 deaths in the country. On August 15, India crossed the 50,000-mark only 30 days later. The death toll crossed the 75,000-mark in another 25 days on September 9, with the latest 25,000 fatalities coming in just 23 days. On average, 1,065 people have died every day over the past week in the country and the majority of the deaths have been reported from three states-- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. These three states have reported 56% of the total deaths in the country. With 37, 480 deaths as of Friday, Maharashtra has accounted for 37% of all fatalities in the country. It is followed by Tamil Nadu with 9,653 deaths and Karnataka with 9,119 people killed. Meanwhile, Indias Covid-19 tally has mounted to 6,473,544. While the number of recoveries crossed 5.4 million-mark on Saturday as 75,628 patients have been cured in the last 24 hours. Its a heady time for animation production at Nickelodeon. Just a month after Ramsey Naito was made president of its animation studio, the company has hired a new vice president and upped three other executives. Here are the details: Conrad Montgomery has joined the company as vp of current series, animation. As well as overseeing the production of animated series from greenlight to delivery, he will help shape the creative vision for Nickelodeon and its studio, in collaboration with creators, producers, and executives. has joined the company as vp of current series, animation. As well as overseeing the production of animated series from greenlight to delivery, he will help shape the creative vision for Nickelodeon and its studio, in collaboration with creators, producers, and executives. Previously, Montgomery was senior director, current series at Cartoon Network, where he supervised award-winning series including Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Steven Universe. Before that, he was a development executive at Walt Disney Television Animation, where his credits include Fish Hooks and Motor City. In a round of promotions, Dana Cluverius has gone from vp to senior vp of current series, animation; Claudia Spinelli from vp to senior vp of animation development; and Kelley Gardner from director to vp of current series animation. Cluverius and Spinelli will report to Naito; Gardner and Montgomery will report to Cluverius. has gone from vp to senior vp of current series, animation; from vp to senior vp of animation development; and from director to vp of current series animation. Cluverius and Spinelli will report to Naito; Gardner and Montgomery will report to Cluverius. Cluverius will oversee the current series department, while still serving as executive in charge of series The Loud House and The Casagrandes. She will also work with network executives to create content for other Nick brands. Spinelli will manage the pipeline of new animated content, while identifying new creators and other talent to work with. Her current projects include Star Trek: Prodigy, Kamp Koral: Spongebobs Under Years, and a Rugrats reboot. Gardner will serve as executive in charge on Kamp Koral, Spongebob Squarepants, and Star Trek: Prodigy. Her past credits include The Fairly Oddparents, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, and The Penguins of Madagascar. I am incredibly excited to see Conrad, Dana, Claudia, and Kelley take on these roles as we grow our original and franchise animation slate, said Naito in a statement. Over time, they have demonstrated their undying passion for developing new content and delivering successful shows to Nicks lineup. These animation veterans are invaluable members of our creative team, and I look forward to their leadership in our animation group. Nickelodeons animation studio has hired more than 150 people during the pandemic, and continues to work almost entirely remotely. Its on track to nearly double its production slate by the years end. Image at top Nickelodeon. Left to right: Conrad Montgomery, Kelley Gardner, Dana Cluverius, Claudia Spinelli. Laura could feel herself starting to cry but held back the tears. This was way beyond her birth plan or anyone else's. Harper was born on day one of hospital lockdown at The Sanitarium on Sydneys north shore. Laura Aubusson was in her surgical gown, being wheeled into theatre, James at her side, talking about who would visit first. This was the very first grandchild on Lauras side of the family and the excitement level was sky-high. James parents were up to number eight but still very keen to greet the new baby. Then the midwife interrupted. The baby was breech, feet where the head should be. About-to-be parents Laura and James had planned for a caesarean birth, along with so many other families. They imagined the first few days and weeks, surrounded by family and friends, sharing happiness. Economists predict this will be the last big generation of babies for years to come the babies born during the plague, the boom before the bust. New modelling for the government reveals fertility will drop to a low of 1.59 this financial year. If ever there was a generation born into unexpected times, the 2020 babies are it. But plague babies might not be the best description for these darlings. They were born during the pandemic but for some families, the challenges of COVID-19 came with as many benefits. How we manage the unexpected is partly what Rhea Dempseys newest book is about. Dempsey, a childbirth educator, is the author of the 2013 baby bestseller, Birth With Confidence. Now shes explaining how we manage when our lives, our births, dont quite go to plan. And nothing has gone to plan this year. Kate Lyons with husband Patrick and their six-week old daughter Matilda. Credit:The Age Sometimes, it is the expectations that mothers have, sometimes birth plans go awry because there is a true medical need, says Dempsey. She believes that families need to be savvy about what is on offer because modern birth culture can be a bad match between expectations and standard care. But when she first imagined writing about what it means when births dont go to plan, she admits she wasnt thinking about COVID-19. She acknowledges the pandemic is having a major impact on how we all live but says two elements stand out for her: how important it is to stay connected and how much the terrible stress of this crisis can rekindle anxieties and fears. New Delhi: In the midst of nation wide outpouring of shock at the Hathras gang-rape incident, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asserted that he will visit the victim's in Hathras today and dared the government to stop him. The former Congress party chief accompanied by a group of Congress MPs and supporters will be visiting Hathras today even as the local administration has imposed Section 144 thus effectively banning all media and politicians from entering the region. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be part of the delegation that will meet the family to hear their grievances and demand justice for them. Taking to Twitter, Rahul posted in Hindi saying: "No force in the world can stop me from going to Hathras and meet the victim's family, share their grief." Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 3, 2020 This just days after both Rahul and Priyanka were stopped by the police while the brother-sister duo had attempted to go to Hathras. Rahul Gandhi had been shoved to the ground in a scuffle in the police in Noida. The Wayanad MP was detained and a case has been registered against him, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and over 200 others under sections 188, 269 and 270 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Epidemic Act by the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police. Live TV Meanwhile, the Yogi government ordered to suspend SP Vikrant Veer on the basis of a preliminary investigation conducted by the state government. Other officials suspended are CO Ram Shabd, Inspector Dinesh Kumar Verma, SI Jagveer Singh and head constable Mahesh Pal. The 19-year-old, who was allegedly gang-raped and tortured by four men in UP's Hathras, had succumbed to injuries in the Safdarjung Hospital where she was brought on Monday from Aligarh Muslim University Medical College. All four accused in the incident have been arrested. The post-mortem report reads that the victim suffered a fracture of "C6 cervical vertebra" and there was "extravasations of blood along the fracture line" and the underlying spinal cord was "contused with ascending oedema". The postmortem report, however, denies rape charges. Massive traffic jams were witnessed on the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway on Saturday afternoon as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cavalcade moved on the 9.2 km stretch to meet the kin of the 19-year-old Hathras girl who died four days ago following alleged gang-rape by 'upper-caste men'. The eight-lane flyway almost came to a standstill as the police closed all exit toll gates of the DND with barricadings all across to stop the movement of Rahul and Congress General Secretary Priyanka -- the second such attempt by the Gandhi siblings in a week. People got stuck on the flyway for more than one-and-a-half hours as each and every vehicle was checked by the police to ensure that Congress leaders could not enter Uttar Pradesh through the stretch that connects Delhi to neighbouring Noida. Before moving to Hathras, Priyanka on Saturday made it clear that she will meet the victim's family "even if the police does not allow her to go there". Speaking to IANS before leaving the Congress headquarters here along with Rahul in their Toyota Innova vehicle, Priyanka said, "I will visit Hathras at any cost even if the police does not allow us." Priyanka drove the vehicle with her brother Rahul sitting next to her. Along with the two leaders, dozens of Congress MPs including Shashi Tharoor are also travelling to Hathras. Speaking to IANS, Tharoor said, "It is a terrible incident and we have to show our respect for the girl. Whatever has happened, nothing worse can happen in this country." Following the travel plan of the Congress leaders to Hathras, the Uttar Pradesh Police has made adequate arrangements at the DND. On Friday, Priyanka Gandhi visited Delhi's Valmiki temple to attend a prayer meeting for the girl who died on Tuesday at a government hospital in Delhi. Priyanka has said that the family of the victim should not feel alone at this point of time. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi was pushed to the ground by Uttar Pradesh Police personnel when he was marching towards Hathras after their vehicles were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway in Gautam Budh Nagar. The Congress leaders were also detained by the Police and a case was registered a against them under the Epidemic Diseases Act. Congress leaders on Thursday alleged that the police resorted to lathi charge on them when they tried to march towards Hathras. The Uttar Pradesh government has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the the death of the 19-year old girl. The Uttar Pradesh government also suspended several officials on Friday evening. Uttar Pradesh Police personnel had sealed the village barring the entry of any mediapersons for the last two days. However, the media was allowed to enter the village earlier today. The 19-year-old girl, who died on Tuesday at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, suffered fractures, paralysis and a spinal injury after the savage assault. Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty Seventeen Republican lawmakers declined on Friday to support a measure in the House of Representatives that condemned the pro-Trump QAnon movement as a collection of unfounded conspiracy theories. The resolution, which passed nearly unanimously, urged the FBI and intelligence agencies to focus on the threats from fringe conspiracy groups, which have grown in mass as the election has neared. All told, 371 members voted in favor of the resolutionincluding 225 Democrats and 146 Republicansand 18 members voted against it. Of those 18, 17 were Republican and one was an independent: Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian from Michigan. The resolution, which doesnt carry any legal force, comes as Republican House nominee and Georgia QAnon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene is poised to win a seat in the chamber in November. The conspiracy theory, which the FBI considers a potential source of domestic terrorism, has allegedly inspired murders, a terrorist incident, and multiple child kidnappings. But President Donald Trump has praised its adherents, who believe hes engaged in a shadow war against a pedophile-cannibal cabal of Satanists that controls the world. In August, Trump called them people that love our country. The resolution threatens protected speech (absurd as that speech may be), and its prescriptions for addressing QAnon arent appropriate for what we know about them & may make things worse. These are conspiracy theorists who believe in a deep state thats fighting against them, https://t.co/POPukpQ5YM Justin Amash (@justinamash) October 2, 2020 The resolution condemning QAnon was cosponsored by two Democrats and three Republicans. One of the resolutions Republican cosponsors, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), was attacked by the Trump campaign after he criticized QAnon, while Democratic cosponsor Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) has faced death threats from QAnon supporters after a Republican ad falsely accused him of supporting pedophiles. Story continues The 17 Republicans who voted against the bill were Jodey Arrington (R-TX), Brian Babin (R-TX), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Drew Ferguson (R-AL), Bill Flores (R-TX), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Joseph Kelly (R-PA), Steve King (R-IA), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Scott Perry (R-PA), Tom Tiffany (R-WI), and Daniel Webster (R-FL) In a tweet after the vote, Amash defended his opposition to the resolution, saying that its sections urging law enforcement and intelligence agencies to monitor conspiracy theory extremists would only confirm QAnon believers fears about a deep state. The resolution threatens protected speech (absurd as that speech may be), and its prescriptions for addressing QAnon arent appropriate for what we know about them & may make things worse, Amash tweeted. The resolution threatens protected speech (absurd as that speech may be), and its prescriptions for addressing QAnon arent appropriate for what we know about them & may make things worse. These are conspiracy theorists who believe in a deep state thats fighting against them, https://t.co/POPukpQ5YM Justin Amash (@justinamash) October 2, 2020 Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 16:26:40|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SYDNEY, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Solomon Islands recorded its first ever COVID-19 case, who is a male student returning from the Philippines on the repatriation flight. According to reports by local media SIBC, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare announced it at a special nationwide address on Saturday afternoon. "This is disappointing setback to the extraordinary efforts of all officials, personnel, and stake holders that had been actively involved in working to prevent COVID-19 entering Solomon Islands," Sogavare said. "Despite the unfortunate situation, which our country is now experiencing, I would like to assure the public that the preparedness and responsible measure the government has diligently worked on implementing over the past eight months have been activated and now in full operation," he said. Solomon Islands planned to use repatriation flight to take back students studying in the Philippines and Indonesia in September and the first repatriation flight flied back to the country on Sept. 29. Those who wanted to board on the plane must undertake three rounds of testing. Sogavare said the student who was confirmed as the first COVID-19 case was tested negative in all three compulsory tests before boarding the plane. There were about 144 students on the Philippine repatriation flight. All the arrivals have to undertake post-arrival testing within 48 hours of arrival and the student was picked up during the first test round, said the prime minister. A further specimen has been collected for confirmation. Two students who were in contact with the infected student were also tested. The three students' results will be available later on Saturday. The three students are all now in the isolation ward of the National Referral Hospital and waiting for further assessment. The contacting tracing has been commenced including informing people in Manila who are in contact with the infected student and precaution measures have been taken, according to local media report. Risk assessment was also carried out for all the frontline staff that work on the repatriation flight back from the Philippines. Staff who are in contact with the infected student will also be in quarantine and tested, the prime minister said. "The government is confident of its capacity to respond, contain and manage the situation to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the public are maintained," he said. The prime minister said that there will be no general lockdown because the government is confident in the system and professionals. This is the first repatriation flight Solomon Islands conducted from the Philippines before which the Solomon Airlines already conducted 11 repatriation flights from Brisbane of Australia, Vila of Vanuatu, Nadi of Fiji, Auckland of New Zealand, Guangzhou of China and Apia of Samoa. There are another two repatriation flights planned previously for the Philippines. Sogavare said due to the current situation the government is suspending and reviewing the rest repatriation flights to ensure it is in full control of the situation. Enditem Hathras, Oct 3 : Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Hitesh Chandra Awasthi and Additional Chief Secretary Home Avnish Awasthi on Saturday met the family members of the victim of the alleged gang rape in Hathras. The family have been given full assurance of justice by both top officials. They spoke to nine people including the victim's father, mother, brothers and sisters. The Additional Chief Secretary along with DGP assured the victim's family of justice. When the deceased's father folded his hands in front of them, DGP Awasthi placed a hand on his shoulder and after this the two officials also held long talks with the father and brothers of the deceased. The Additional Chief Secretary and DGP, spoke to the victim's family for about half an hour and assured them of a fair investigation. Both top officials have also indicated major action. At the same time, the family says that they have given their complaints to the authorities. They have also complained to the DM. The media was allowed to visit the victim's village before the arrival of DGP Awasthi and Additional Chief Secretary Home Avnish Awasthi in Hathras. After getting permission from the district and police administration, the media persons went to the village and interacted with the victim's family. Earlier, media persons were not allowed in the village. The media was doing coverage from outside the village itself. The media's entry into the village was banned. Media persons had also protested on this. Following the instructions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Additional Chief Secretary Home Avnish Kumar Awasthi and DGP Hitesh Awasthi reached the village to meet the victim's family in Hathras. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested a convicted murderer who had entered the country illegally, authorities said. Agents apprehended several people on Thursday morning at a residence on Casa del Sol Boulevard. All were illegally present in the United States. Upon further inspection, agents identified one person as Rodrigo Mercado-Rodriguez, a 53-year-old Mexican citizen. Records show that he was arrested for murder in Prospect Heights, Illinois in 1999. He was then convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Border Patrol said that Mercado-Rodriguez also had a conviction of domestic battery in 1994 and a prior deportation. Mercado-Rodriguez was detained for his immigration violations, and he remains in custody pending federal prosecution. Despite the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, smugglers continue to show little or no regard for the safety of our nation by indiscriminately smuggling convicted felons into the country. Laredo Sector agents will continue to be vigilant in their efforts to keep dangerous criminals from entering the United States, Border Patrol said in a statement. To report suspicious activity such as human or drug smuggling, download the USBP Laredo Sector app or contact the Laredo Sector Border Patrol toll free at 1-800-343-1994. ZANU-PF leaders are reportedly toying with the idea of suspending district coordinating committee (DCC) elections following reports that the exercise had caused sharp divisions in the party. The ruling party is currently on a restructuring exercise that includes the election of DCC members, but sharp divisions have emerged as jostling for positions continue. It has emerged that Zanu-PF bigwigs have been divided, with some supporting candidates linked to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, while others are for candidates loyal to his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga. Chiwenga is allegedly accused of working with former party members under the banner of G40 to wrest power from his boss, a charge he has denied. The G40 element in the DCC polls has also made things worse in the party as Zanu-PF fears they were infiltrating party structures and sponsoring their preferred candidates to cut Mnangagwa's support base. Party insiders said so deep were the fights on the ground that the party may be forced to drop the elections across all provinces. A lot of chaotic scenes have been reported in Marondera, Tsholotsho and Mashonaland Central province, where businessman James Makamba wanted to snatch the provincial chairmanship from Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe, among others. In all the chaotic scenes, Zanu-PF members have claimed infiltration by G40 members linked to former political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere and former Foreign Affairs minister Walter Mzembi. Zanu-PF national commissar Victor Matemadanda yesterday said he was yet to receive a directive to abort the DCC elections, adding that the speculation on that could be caused by people with "sinister agendas". "If there are plans like that, I am yet to get that. I don't know where that is coming from. If there is such a directive, I am yet to get communication to that effect," he said. "It may be a strategy by others to make other competitors relax while they get on the ground, I don't know really. I don't have such an instruction," he said. Last week, Zanu-PF secretary for administration Obert Mpofu accused the G40 cabal of infiltrating structures and sponsoring chaos in the processes, an indication that the ruling party was admitting to chaos in the running of the DCC elections. The G40 cabal, a group of former Zanu-PF officials forced into exile following the November 2017 military coup, has insisted that it was still alive in the party structures as "G40 is an idea whose time has come". "They are fighting an idea whose time has come. G40 is not four of five individuals, it is a renewal thought within Zanu-PF and they are resisting being succeeded. You can chase four or five people out of the country with guns, but the structures will remain on the ground," Mzembi said this week. In 2012, the late former President Robert Mugabe was forced to disband the DCCs as they had caused divisions in the party at the height of factional fights between Mnangagwa and then Vice-President Joice Mujuru. This came as Mnangagwa was accused of using the DCCs to consolidate power while angling to take over from Mugabe, when the late veteran leader was rooting for Mujuru. Mugabe and Mujuru clashed two years later and she became the first Vice-President in independent Zimbabwe to be shown the exit door. Newsday Machine learning streamlines massive amounts of data to support provider decision-making at the point of care for motor vehicle crash victims and patients awaiting a liver transplant CHICAGO: New applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care settings have shown early success in improving survival and outcomes in traffic accident victims transported by ambulance and in predicting survival after liver transplantation, according to two research studies presented at the virtual American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020. Both studies evaluated how AI can crunch massive amounts of data to support decision-making by surgeons and other care providers at the point of care. In one study, researchers at the University of Minnesota applied a previously published AI approach known as natural language processing (NLP)1 to categorize treatment needs and medical interventions for 22,529 motor vehicle crash patients that emergency medical service (EMS) personnel transported to ACS-verified Level I trauma centers in Minnesota. According to a 2016 study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 20 percent of medical injury deaths are potentially preventable2 representing a quality gap the researchers sought to address. Reviewing the performance of EMS teams to profile potentially preventable deaths can enable quality improvement efforts to reduce these deaths. "Currently this process for performance review is manual, time-consuming, and expensive," said senior author Christopher James Tignanelli, MD, FACS. "AI allows possible automation of this process." NLP is an AI protocol that extracts key data from spoken or written text that providers--EMS personnel in this study--enter into the electronic record as a key component of their report. Dr. Tignanelli is an assistant professor of surgery, division of acute care surgery, at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and affiliate faculty at the Institute for Health Informatics at the University of Minnesota. In this study, two trauma surgeons independently and manually reviewed a random selection of 1 percent of patient records and determined treatment needs and medical interventions. To evaluate the accuracy of the AI system, the manual determinations were compared with the NLP determinations. "Overall the algorithm performed with very high accuracy," Dr. Tignanelli said. Typically after EMS personnel enter their notes into the electronic health record, oversight personnel cull through them and determine whether the patient received appropriate care, usually a week or so afterward. "That's quite a labor-intensive process," said presenting author Jacob Swann, MD, a burn and trauma fellow at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. "The goal of this project and what it validated was to automate a lot of those notes." The NLP approach ran those notes through an algorithm to separate the notes of consequential medical interventions from less consequential ones. "That can streamline the manual review process," Dr. Swann said. "It's not performed at the accuracy level that would allow you to take the physician out of it and say that AI can determine with complete accuracy if the standard of care was given or not, but it does perform well." The AI pipeline Dr. Swann and colleagues studied determined that only about one quarter (242 of 936) patients who needed an airway intervention actually got one before they arrived at the hospital, and that about two-thirds (110 of 170) of those who did not have adequate intravenous access and needed access into the bone, known as intraosseous (IO) access, during advance cardiac life support did receive IO access. "Being able to identify systemic errors allows you to improve the entire health system," Dr. Swann said. "Having the ability to look at large aggregate data and go through 330,000 charts over several minutes with an AI-reading algorithm, to identify specific areas for potential improvement--whether it's getting intravenous access in our patients or having problems with splinting long bone fractures--allows you separate the signal from the noise and then figure out where the problem lies." The "holy grail," noted Dr. Swann, is to have an AI system that can listen and observe EMS personnel during en route care and assist with complex decision making by recommending care options in real time. For the second AI study, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, tested four different machine-learning models for predicting survival after liver transplantation. The two models that showed high accuracy for predicting survival are known as the Random Forest and AdaBoost models. Lead author Rowland Pettit, MD-PhD candidate at Baylor, explained that Random Forest (RF) is an ensemble learning method that combines the outputs of multiple decision trees and predicts an outcome by a "majority wins" approach. The models took into account a total of 324 disease characteristics to determine survivability. The strongest factors were acuity of illness and the recipient's disease course, Mr. Pettit said. The study selected all 109,742 adult patients who had one liver transplant from the United Network of Organ Sharing database since its inception in 1984. The RF model showed an accuracy, reported as area under the curve, of 80 percent for predicting survival at one month, 79 percent at three months, 75 percent at one year, and 73 percent at three and five years. None of the other models showed predictability exceeding 70 percent. "The most readily accessible application of these models would be for regulation, providing immediate feedback to clinicians about their outcomes for the past year and how they and their centers performed compared to others," Mr. Pettit said. "Being able to accurately predict whether a patient should have survived or not is crucial to then accurately providing feedback." This type of AI model also has the potential to integrate with electronic medical record systems and physician workflows to provide benchmarks, he added. "It would be very easy with an integrated model to run predictions for every patient on a liver transplant waiting list in real time and determine the probability of each patient living at one, three or five years," he said. "This step is not to make the decision for the clinician, but to add a further clinician-assistance decision-making tool to give them quantitative data for use in organ allocation decisions." ### Senior author of the Baylor AI study is Abbas A. Rana, MD, FACS, assistant professor of surgery, division of abdominal transplantation, Baylor College of Medicine. Study coauthors are Stuart Corr, PhD; and Jim Havelka, MBA, of Baylor College of Medicine. Coauthors of the Minnesota AI study on traffic accident victims are Greg M. Silvermann; Elizabeth A. Lindemann; Lori Boland, MPH; Jon C. Gibson, MD; Charles J. Lick, MD; Benjamin C. Knoll; Serguei Pakhomov, PhD; and Genevieve B. Melton, MD, PhD, all of the University of Minnesota. Mr. Pettit and Drs. Rana and Swann have no disclosures related to this research. Dr. Tignanelli disclosed having a patent pending for an AI model. His coauthors have no disclosures related to this research. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Citation: Artificial Intelligence Facilitates Performance Review and Characterization of Prehospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Treatment; Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Post Transplant Survival Predictions. Scientific Forum, both presented at American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020; October 3-7, 2020. 1 Tignanelli CJ, Silverman GM, Lindemann EA, et al. Natural language processing of prehospital emergency medical services trauma records allows for automated characterization of treatment appropriateness. J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2020;88(5):607-614. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31977990/. Accessed August 28, 2020. 2 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. A National Trauma Care System: Integrating Military and Civilian Trauma Systems to Achieve Zero Preventable Deaths After Injury. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17226/23511. Accessed August 31, 2020. About the American College of Surgeons The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 82,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org. Washington: Tens of millions of Americans awoke on Friday, local time, to discover that their president had tested positive for coronavirus. Donald Trump had revealed the startling news on Twitter just before 1am, when most Americans on the east coast were asleep. What followed during the rest of the day was no more reassuring. The official line on Trump's condition became increasingly dire, culminating in the news he would be taken to hospital in a helicopter. US President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre, in Bethesda, Maryland on Marine One. Credit:AP The slow-drip of disturbing information much of it revealed by the media rather than the White House only increased the sense of distrust many Americans feel about the accuracy of what they hear from the Trump administration. At first, it seemed as if Trump was doing remarkably well. White House chief-of-staff Mark Meadows fronted reporters in the morning to say that Trump was experiencing "mild" COVID symptoms, but was in "good spirits" and feeling "very energetic". Sen. Doug Jones took his reelection campaign to Tuskegee Friday night, holding a drive-in rally that filled a parking lot with about 100 vehicles. Drivers blew horns and flashed headlights in applause for Jones and other speakers on a night when the main theme was the importance of voting in the Nov. 3 election. It was the third drive-in campaign stop for Jones, following events in Leeds and Tuscumbia. Jones faces Republican nominee Tommy Tuberville in the election four weeks from Tuesday. Jones, who spoke for about 20 minutes on a flat bed trailer, began with a request for horn toots and headlight flashes in support of a quick recovery for President Trump and Melania Trump from COVID-19. But Jones turned to criticism of Trump for his failure to condemn white supremacists during Tuesday nights debate. He linked Trumps answer with Tubervilles inability to give a clear answer to a question on a bill to restore to the Voting Rights Act a requirement that some states, including Alabama, obtain preclearance from the federal government before changing voting laws. Jones said those are examples of why its important to elect leaders with a better understanding of the challenges facing communities like Tuskegee. That tells you everything about what we are up against and how and why that we are fighting for the soul of America, Jones said. Related: Senate candidate Tommy Tuberville defends Trump statements on white supremacists at debate Speaking to reporters before the event started, Jones said, The fact of the matter is when the president refused to condemn white supremacy, everybody in this town ought to be concerned about that, Jones said. Everybody in this country ought to be concerned about that. And Im running against somebody who doesnt even know what the Voting Rights Act is. Tubervilles campaign has since released a statement saying he does not support restoring the preclearance requirement to the Voting Rights Act, saying that its an outdated law that would unfairly punish Alabama. Jones said Trumps diagnosis with COVID and his hospitalization are a stark reminder that the pandemic remains a serious challenge. The bottom line is we are still in this crisis, Jones said. I think that hit home to all Americans today with the president. And Louise (Jones' wife) and I send the president and Mrs. Trump our best of wishes for a speedy recovery. But the fact is it should be a reminder to everybody, weve still got to beat this. We are not out of this and we still need do all those things necessary with your masks and all your social distancing. Jones said he hopes the nation receives clear information about Trumps condition. I think they need to be as transparent as possible, Jones said. "I have always believed that. And thats a challenge with this administration. On this and so many other things, its a challenge for them to be transparent with the people of America. God forbid that he gets to a point that he cant govern. No one wants that. Everyone wants to see the president recover as quickly as possible. Hopefully he will be able to do that, get back on the campaign trail as we head to November the 3rd. Jones talked about his support for historically black colleges and universities, like Tuskegee University. He talked about the importance of protecting the Affordable Care Act and supporting access to health care and rural hospitals. Videos projected onto the brick wall of the former Giant Foods grocery store, where the rally took place, showed Joe Biden, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, legendary civil rights attorney Fred Gray and others. Jones said he would do about four more drive-in campaign rallies before the election. He said it was a safe way to bring the campaign directly to communities and engage the media during the pandemic. Its a different kind of atmosphere with horns blaring and lights flashing, Jones said. But it generates some enthusiasm. And thats the key to this. To let folks know this is a real campaign, even though it is different than what weve experienced in the past. Bodies of three men from Rajouri, killed in an alleged fake encounter by Army in district of in July this year, have been exhumed and handed over to their families, officials said on Saturday. The exhumation was done late Friday night at an unidentified location in north Kashmir -- hours after Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh said the legal process to exhume and handover the bodies was on and would be completed soon. The bodies of the three persons were exhumed and then handed over to their families, the officials said. They said the families of the three men were called from Rajouri district in Jammu region and taken to the spot where the trio was buried. The families will take the bodies to their native village to bury them, they added. The DGP had on Friday said that the legal process to exhume the bodies had been started and will be completed soon. On September 30, inspector general of police (IGP), Kashmir, Vijay Kumar said since the DNA samples matched with the family, the three bodies will be exhumed and handed over to families after due process of law. On July 18, the Army claimed three militants were killed in Amshipura village in the higher reaches of south Kashmir's district. However, the Army initiated an inquiry after social media reports indicated the three men were from Rajouri district in Jammu and had gone missing at Amshipura. The families of the trio from Rajouri who worked as labourers in had also filed a police complaint. The Army completed the probe in record four weeks and on September 18, the force said it has found "prima facie" evidence that its troops "exceeded" powers under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act during the encounter and initiated disciplinary proceedings. The police also launched its investigations and collected the DNA samples of the families to match with the slain persons. (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.) Travel writer Paul Clements is donating part of the proceeds from his latest book to a charity following a brush with death. The former BBC reporter decided to the hand the money to Brainwaves NI, which funds a researcher at Queen's University, after being diagnosed with a benign brain tumour. Mr Clements was travelling around the River Shannon in August 2018 for his new book, Shannon Country: A River Journey Through Time, when he developed headaches. "I'm not prone to getting headaches, but I didn't worry about them too much," he said. "I wasn't unduly worried when I came home, but my wife suggested I should go to the doctor and get it looked at." Mr Clements was referred to a consultant for the headaches but faced a six-month wait. Days later, however, he found himself overtaken by events. "Within a week or two, I developed a wobble in my walk," the writer explained. "I was in France in the Cevennes mountains on a press trip. I was in Nimes writing about my trip there when I noticed this minor wobble. "Had I known I had a tumour growing in my brain, I wouldn't have gone to France. "It wasn't a drunk man's wobble. It was just something that I thought, 'That's not right, that shouldn't happen'. "It triggered the alarm bells and when I came home I returned to the doctor." At the doctor's suggestion, Mr Clements, who lives in Belfast with his BBC producer wife Felicity and son Daniel (24), went private for an MRI scan, which cost 400. After the results showed he had a blockage at the base of his skill, he was admitted to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where further tests revealed he had a growth in his brain. "The terminology for the tumour is a hemangioblastoma, which is a rare tumour formed by a mass of blood vessels. It's normally benign and is usually removed by surgery," he said. "The reality is that if it wasn't removed, it would have proved fatal. "You do feel a loss of control in a situation like that, but I concentrated on what they were telling me. I felt perfectly normal." The next Friday, he underwent a seven-hour operation to remove the tumour, with the surgery proving a complete success. For the next six months, Mr Clements, who worked for the BBC for 27 years before becoming a travel writer, was unable to drive in case he suffered a seizure. He has since recovered and spent lockdown putting the final touches to his new book. Once through the surgery, he began to take an interest in the workings of the human brain and has also been reading up on the figures related to headaches. "About half the people who live with pain or headaches ignore it, and the number of people suffering is rising," he said. "I want to increase the awareness of the dangers of people disregarding any new symptoms and encourage them to visit their doctor." As well as writing books on the Burren, the Wild Atlantic Way and the mountains of Ireland, he works for Fodors Guide to Ireland and the Rough Guide to Ireland, focusing on the north, north-west and midlands. Paul Clements' Shannon Country: A River Journey Through Time is published by Lilliput Press at 13. A portion of the royalties will go to Brainwaves NI. It is available in local bookshops or at www.lilliputpress.ie The Brazilian Embassy, on Friday, donated two ventilators valued at $160,000 to the Ministry of Health to be used in managing patients who have contracted COVID-19 and are at critical stages. Madam Maria Elisa De Luna, the Brazilian Ambassador to Ghana, said the fact that Brazil was still battling COVID-19 did not mean it should not extend a helping hand to other countries who also needed support. She expressed contentment with how far the ventilators could go to save lives. She described Ghana as a historical friend to Brazil, hence the donation only showed how the two countries valued each other and the friendship that existed between them. The Ambassador applauded the leadership of Ghana for putting in place effective measures to manage the pandemic and commended the public for adhering to the safety protocols set by the World Health Organisation, Ghana Health Service, and the President to control the spread of the respiratory disease. In terms of fighting the virus, I can say that Ghana is a star and has won our admiration. I will encourage Ghanaians to keep adhering to the rules set by the leadership just as you have been disciplined and conscious in this fight because that is what has helped you, she said. Dr Bernard Oko-Boye, the Deputy Minister of Health, commended Brazil for its longstanding relationship and support to Ghana in the wake of the pandemic. He said the COVID-19 situation in Ghana had been encouraging due to the firm leadership by the government in giving effective directives and joining forces with private and development partners to provide logistics for the management of the situation. He wished Brazil well in the fight to free her citizens from the pandemic, saying he believed that it would soon record lower active cases than what Ghana had recorded and pledged Ghana's preparedness to help in that regard whenever it was required. We need to arm ourselves and stay ready until the virus is wiped off. We are in this fight together, so we must fight because when one nation gets into trouble, others would be affected, he added. Dr. Oko-Boye said though the nation prayed that no critical COVID-19 case was recorded again, the ventilators in extreme cases would help to save lives. We want to win quickly in fighting the virus and that demands that we have good strong partners like Brazil. We know that when the virus is gone, we will all gather again to celebrate, he said. Ghana has so far recorded 413 active COVID-19 cases, 301 deaths, and 45,942 recoveries and discharges out of the total number of 46,656 cases recorded. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video SCHENECTADY It remains to be seen what the husband and wife owners of a failed multi-million dollar proposal to retool and expand the McDonald's on Upper Union Street will do next. Last week, an email from Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority announcing the sale of 1671 Union St. next to the fast-food restaurant by the Lecce Group seemed to catch a lot of people off guard. Lecce, who has done other projects on Upper Union Street, already has two tenants, b.inspired home and Storied Coffee, set to open up shop at the location in November. The building formerly housed Mr. Wasabi, a Japanese restaurant, and Simon's Men's Wear, and would have been torn down had the McDonald's plan moved forward. Planning Commission Chairwoman Mary Moore Wallinger said Friday that she did a celebratory dance when she learned of the news. I feel like the neighbors really came out, the community was very vocal about this project, I feel like the commissioners put a lot of time and thought into reviewing it and really stood by the zoning code and design guidelines that we have in place and articulated why those things are important, she said. Im thrilled that theyre going to be developed and that theyre going to be on-street retail again. Some homeowners in this quiet neighborhood expressed fear that the proposed McDonald's expansion, which included adding a second drive-thru, would destroy the charm and character of the popular business district while making it less pedestrian-friendly. Plans called for knocking down the vacant store next door on Union Street and a residential structure behind it on Dean Street to make way for the 4,350 square-foot eatery at 1673 Union St. Besides site plan approval, the fast-food company was also seeking a special use permit because of the drive-thru and two variances for the project, one of them for exceeding the number of parking spaces for the lot as permitted by the city's zoning laws. McDonalds withdrew its application for the project on June 30, according to the city development office, about a month after city planning officials voted unanimously to shelve the multi-million dollar proposal. Nominate your favorite people and places now Its the 25th anniversary of our Best of the Capital Region readers survey. Nominate your favorite people, places and businesses between Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. Wallinger said she wasn't worried that planning officials might be inadvertently sending a message the wrong message to business owners eyeing a move to Upper Union. I think making that kind of statement says that we value our small businesses and were working very hard to create an environment that is most conducive to them thriving, said Wallinger. I think theres things they (McDonalds) could have done on site that would have fit into that fabric a lot better and maybe someday theyll consider that. In May, John Reeher, who co-owns the McDonald's with his wife, Kathie, told the Times Union that "the plan that we've presented is the best plan for the business, and the plan I can support and makes sense for me financially." He did not return a call to his cell phone Friday seeking comment. Tom Carey, president of the 12309/Upper Union Neighborhood Association, which came out against some parts of the proposed McDonald's project, said Friday they were happy about the outcome and looking forward to the new businesses opening up shop at 1671 Union St. "We're happy the building got saved and it just shows that it was a viable building," he said. We don't have anything against McDonald's, just that proposal." Mount Pleasant Post troopers arrested an intoxicated 36-year-old Harrison man after stopping the mans vehicle in Clare County. According to a press release from the Michigan State Police, a trooper from the Mount Pleasant Post stopped a vehicle near Margaret St. and Ruby St. in Hamilton Township on Sept. 30 at approximately 3:30 p.m. The driver was intoxicated, possessed open containers of alcohol in the vehicle and had a suspended Michigan Drivers License. While conducting a field investigation for operating while intoxicated, the driver attempted to flee the scene on foot. He was quickly apprehended after a short foot pursuit. The driver was lodged at the Clare County Jail pending arraignment. A retired British expat from Luxembourg was surprised to find out that a Harry Potter book that he had bought in the year 1999 could earn him Lakhs at an auction. The rare Harry Potter book is the first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone of which only 500 copies were printed. The British expat had this copy to himself for more than 20 years. Harry Potter book to be auctioned According to the reports by hansonsauctioneers.co.uk, the book will be a part of the auction and is estimated to be worth 20,000 to 30,000 pounds. The auction is going to be held at the Bishton Hall Auction Centre and people will be allowed to enter only on an appointment basis. Hansons' book expert Jim Spencer in a news release by the auction house said, True first issues are seriously scarce. Read: Harry Potter Will Be Seen Playing Quidditch In London This October; Here's How (Image Credits: Hansonauctioneer.co.uk) According to the news release, the retired expat said, A couple of months ago when JKR bounced into the main news I decided to re-read the Potter series. I knew there had been a few first editions sold recently and Hansons was featured on the BBC website so, just to be safe, I checked the criteria. He added, I did not think mine would be valuable as it was certainly not purchased when first published. I was very surprised and shocked to see that it did in fact tick all the boxes, but still could not quite believe it until I checked with Jim Spencer. The rare edition was published by Bloomsbury in the year 1997. Read: Potterheads Can Now Spend A Night In Harry Potter's Gryffindor Common Room, Here's How (Image Credits: Hansonauctioneers.co.uk) (Image Credits: Hansonauctioneers.co.uk) As per the news release, the original version of the book must read, '10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Talking about the scarcity of the book, Jim said, "True first issues are seriously scarce. Only 500 were printed, 300 of which were sent to schools and libraries. This is extra rare because it's one of the remaining 200. And yet this is my fourth one in just over a year! It's a cliched phrase, but they really are the holy grail for collectors. Id dreamed of finding one for years before my first magical discovery in Staffordshire". Read: 6 Harry Potter Plot Holes That Are Bizarre And Beyond Understanding Also Read: 'Harry Potter: Hogwarts Legacy' To 'BTS Universe': Recent Entertainment-gaming Crossovers (Image Credits: Twitter/HansonsUK) Adults look on as neighborhood children demonstrate their skill in the early 20th century. Robert Neff Collection. By Robert Neff During the holidays of the past, Korean girls often gathered together in their courtyards dressed in their finest and took turns on the seesaw. Not the Western-type of seesawing where children sit on opposite ends of the board and passively lift one another into the air but the dynamic Korean-style known as neoltttwigi. Instead of sitting down, Korean girls stood at the end of the board and alternately jumped up and down, propelling one another to fairly impressive heights. For many, the exhilaration was not so much from the height itself but what the height provided. Korean children at the French mining concession in northern Korea, circa 1920-30. Courtesy of Justine Tweed. Women, especially the young and unmarried, were generally secluded from the public particularly from men. The seesaw provided the best jumpers with the opportunity to gaze on the world outside the family compound and, probably equally thrilling, being seen by the denizens of the forbidden outside world unmarried teenagers and young men. Young girls engaged in seesawing. Note the safety cord. Circa 1920s. Robert Neff Collection. CHOCHO SAINA Whenever we teach something - whether formally in a school setting or workplace, or informally at home in the kitchen or garden - we learn wha Read more The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has completed its probe into the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman after an alleged gangrape, a Hathras administration official said on Saturday. The administration has also lifted restrictions on the media's entry into the village, a day after outsiders, including politicians, were barred from meeting the victim's family due to the ongoing SIT probe, the official said. Only the entry of media has been allowed into the village of the victim as the probe of the SIT has completed, Joint Magistrate Prem Prakash Meena told reporters. He also refuted allegations that the administration had confined the victim's family and confiscated their phones. Amid country-wide outrage over the incident, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister had on Wednesday formed a three-member SIT which was instructed to submit its report by October 14, according to officials. The Hathras administration had on Thursday clamped prohibitory orders under CrPC section 144, which bars assembly of more than four people, in the district where political parties had reached and staged protest to demand justice for the young woman, who died earlier this week, a fortnight after her alleged here. (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.) Data that was not supposed to be used in the calculated grade system for the Leaving Cert exams was sent to the contractor doing the work. A senior academic has queried the quality assurance checks carried out by the Irish Education Research Centre (ERC), which failed to pick up on errors in the calculated grades system. Read More On Wednesday, Education Minister Norma Foley announced two errors had come to light that placed the results of thousands of students in doubt. In the first instance, a coding error by the Canadian company Polymetrika, whose CEO is Dr Fernando Cartwright, led to up to 6,500 students being downgraded. A second mistake related to the inclusion of Junior Cycle results for the subject Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE) that were not supposed to have been used. A senior Irish academic, who spoke to the Irish Independent on condition of anonymity, said the CSPE data should never have been supplied to Dr Cartwright or he should have been informed it was not to be included. "This is something that most people have ignored - the CSPE junior cycle results were included by Dr Cartwright but why should he ever have had them?" the academic said. "How did he get them? That dataset was given to him even though they were not supposed to be part of the model. "When the decision was taken not to include CSPE results, was he informed? "There is blame to go around and human error happens but this should have been picked up. "All the data was signed off by the ERC and it is hard to see how this happened." Polymetrika's Fernando Cartwright developed and operated the statistical model to calculate the grades for the Department of Education. His company, which is based at a residential address in Ottawa, was paid 163,000 to calculate the 2020 Leaving Cert results. Dr Cartwright is regarded as a leading expert in the highly specialised field of educational statistics and psychometrics. His company, which has no other listed employees, was awarded the contract without a tender process. A source described his area of expertise as "very specialised" and added "it is difficult to see how a tender process would have gone beyond him". "There are very few people who can do what he does. He is getting all the blame and it's not entirely fair or appropriate. "It is an extremely specialised field. "There are people working in statistical modelling for 20 years and they don't understand what he does. "People seem to think it is just coding but it's not. I don't know what software he is using but it could have been a matter of putting a letter in the wrong place. "But any good statistical analysis has built-in checks to pick up any errors. "Sample checks should have picked up on this. Did they happen at all? "If 6,500 had a grade change, that means a far bigger number had a percentage change. "You need a sizeable shift in your percentage to get a grade change. "Dr Cartwright should have spotted it but so should the technical working group. "The department does not have the expertise in this area. It's so specialist they would have to have relied on the technical working group. "And if you look at the reports, they say very clearly that all data was interrogated and quality-assured. "The checks either weren't done or they weren't done very well." Read More A Department of Education spokesperson confirmed to the Irish Independent that Dr Cartwright was "supplied with data from all Leaving Certificate results for 2017, 2018 and 2019 examinations and the Junior Cycle data related to students who took their examinations in those years". However the department declined to answer whether Dr Cartwright was informed not to include the results of the junior cycle CSPE, a decision taken at a later stage in the process. The department also declined to answer if the CSPE result data was supplied in error. "Decisions in relation to the use to which the Junior Cycle data would be put were taken later in the process by the National Standardisation Group as the standardisation model was developed. "This includes the decision not to include CSPE," a spokesperson said. In the Dail on Thursday, Ms Foley confirmed the Education Research Centre ran the data used to calculate the grades in parallel with Polymetrika. When contacted by the Irish Independent the ERC refused to comment on reports the CEO of the ERC, Jude Cosgrove, has gone on sick leave since last week. A staff member said all media queries had to be directed to the Department of Education. Independent expert Dr Janet Brown, former chief executive officer of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, carried out an external review of the process prior to results being issued. She found that "data integrity has been monitored at both the input (student level data) and as the statistical model has been applied". "Reassurance on data integrity and quality assurance was reported to the NSG (National Standardisation Group) and to the Independent Steering Committee noting the role of the Educational Research Centre in data verification, validation and quality assurance throughout all stages of the project including progress by the primary provider Polymetrika International Inc." Masan MEATLife, a member company of Vietnams FMCG giant Masan, officially put a new meat processing plant into operation in the southern province of Long An on Saturday morning. The MEATDeli Saigon plant, situated at Tan Duc Industrial Park in Duc Hoa District, cost VND1.8 trillion (US$77.7 million) to build. Construction on the plant started in May 2019 and was completed last month. It can process 155,000 metric tons of chilled pork annually in the first phase. The second phase will expand the capacity to 25,000 metric tons of processed meat a year and enable production of 14,000 metric tons of pork by-products such as blood flour, plasma, collagen, and meat and bone powder. The plant has modern equipment sourced from Marel, a leading global supplier of advanced meat processing and slaughtering machines from the Netherlands. It has applied for the BRC (British Retail Consortium) Global Standard for Food Safety and obtained HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) certification for food safety. It is directly run, supervised, and tested by experienced European experts. At Saturdays inauguration ceremony, Masan MEATLife also announced its strategy to expand operations into the poultry meat market through the investment of VND613 billion ($26.4 million) to own 51 percent of 3F VIET Company one of the first companies of Vietnam to apply the 3F (Feed - Farm - Food) formula to realizing the idea of 'from farm to fork.' Masan MEATLife introduced the officially certified MEATDeli chilled meat brand in 2018 following the commissioning of its first chilled meat processing plant in the northern province of Ha Nam. The plant in Long An is the second of its kind. Pham Trung Lam, Masan MEATLifes general director, said that the opening of the meat processing plant in Long An and its penetration into the poultry meat market are strategic steps toward a vision of transforming Masan MEATLife into a true consumer goods company. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! WASHINGTON - A prominent D.C. Superior Court judge acclaimed as a criminal justice reformer during his 40 years on the bench retired earlier this year, days after receiving questions from The Washington Post about an allegation that he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl when he was in his early 30s. Judge Truman A. Morrison III admitted "sexual touching" of the teenager that was "totally inappropriate" and "wrongheaded" but said: "I certainly did not think that I ever forced myself on her." A seven-part Post investigative podcast launched Thursday chronicles how the allegation came to light. The catalyst was the publication of a Post story in January 2019 that focused on a young woman's quest for justice after she was sexually assaulted by a stranger while jogging in her Northwest Washington neighborhood. The man - a local chef - later admitted to attacking her and five other women. Morrison sentenced him to 10 days in jail, served in two-day weekend stints. Weeks after that story was published, a woman in Birmingham, Ala., wrote to a Post reporter that she had sensitive information pertinent to the previously published article. Eventually, the woman, Carole Griffin, put her account on the record. Morrison, 76, stepped down from his senior status role at D.C. Superior Court in March, three days after receiving The Post's inquiry about the allegations against him. At the time, he was the court's second-longest-serving judge. The court's chief judge, Robert E. Morin, declined to comment through a spokeswoman. Both the court and the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure declined to provide Morrison's retirement letter. The Post's new podcast - "Canary: The Washington Post Investigates" - documents Griffin's decision to come forward with her allegations and follows the reporting process to corroborate her account. Griffin, now 60, owns a popular bakery and adjoining French cafe in Birmingham, managing 50 employees. Her parents, longtime therapist, ex-husband, son and current partner, among other friends and confidants, gave interviews corroborating that she told them years ago that Morrison had sexually assaulted her. All of them said that Griffin gave specific details. All provided Morrison's name but one, who described him as a judge. Griffin said she met Morrison when she was 13 years old and he was an attorney at the D.C. Public Defender Service. Her parents were close friends with Morrison, and their families vacationed together. Griffin alleged that Morrison sexually assaulted her in 1976 when she was 16 years old and staying at a rural property near Marion, Va., owned by Morrison's family. She said she fell asleep on a deck with her mother and others sleeping nearby and later awoke to find Morrison - then 32 - penetrating her vagina with his fingers. Griffin said when she opened her eyes, Morrison was whispering in an urgent tone: "Carole, Carole." She said he took her hand and placed it on his underwear briefs, which were damp. She said she realized that he had ejaculated. "I just froze," she said. "I felt extremely grossed out. I remember a visceral disgust." She did not tell her parents - who were with her on the trip - until more than 15 years later. She also did not report it to police. She said she felt shame and fear, and it took her years before she was able to tell close friends and her therapists. Morrison provided four statements to The Post in response to Griffin's allegation that he had sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. In the first, he acknowledged "sexual touching" of Griffin and said he expressed "deep regret" to her family decades ago. In subsequent responses, after learning more details of the allegations, Morrison denied touching Griffin while she was asleep but declined to describe the nature of the sexual touching. "I will always deeply regret having initiated such conduct with her when she was sixteen and a half years old," he wrote. "Given her age and my relationship of trust with Carole and her family, it was totally inappropriate." In 1979, Morrison was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the D.C. Superior Court. Griffin said Morrison continued to touch her inappropriately until the mid-1980s - when he was in his 40s and she was in her 20s. She described an incident where he groped her buttocks and another where he grabbed her vagina. Morrison denied Griffin's allegations of unwelcome sexual contact in later encounters. "I certainly did not think that I ever forced myself on her, but the truth remains that it was wrongheaded of me to initiate any sexual contact given her age and our age difference," he wrote. "Whether or not I thought my contacts were welcome is completely irrelevant. I certainly appreciate that sexual touching of any kind without clear permission is not acceptable at any age." Janet Griffin said that, in the mid-1990s, soon after her daughter shared her account of the incident in Virginia, she flew to Washington and confronted Morrison in the airport. "I told him Carole had been in counseling for a long time. And I could see his face then and I said 'You molested her,' " she recalled. " I felt like I saw some remorse." In interviews with The Post, several of Morrison's friends and former colleagues described him as a judge with an impeccable professional reputation and said they had never heard any allegations of wrongdoing. Nikki Lotze, who served as Morrison's law clerk in the 1990s, described him as a "terrific mentor" and a "window into the way judging should be done." Eleanor Randolph, a former member of the New York Times editorial board and longtime friend of Morrison's, issued a statement to The Post saying that the publication of Griffin's allegations "risks making the Me Too movement look less about justice and more about revenge." "This respected judge spent his entire public life trying to improve a flawed and unfair judicial system for men and women alike," she wrote. "He worked hard to keep people from getting lost in the nation's prisons, and I watched him become a national leader in the fight against the cash bail bond industry which so easily punishes the poor and destroys lives." In the 2000s, Morrison garnered a national reputation as a leading judicial advocate for criminal justice reform. He has long championed an overhaul of cash bail systems that rely upon the payment of court fees to keep defendants out of jail. He has traveled across the United States and the world to advise prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and other officials considering changes to their pretrial detention policies. Within the Superior Court, Morrison was for years responsible for leading the education of all new and continuing judges. His 30-page essay "Being a Good Judge" has long been suggested reading for judges preparing to take the bench. In the essay, Morrison describes a judicial system that largely operates immune from any meaningful scrutiny, where judges are ultimately responsible for policing their own conduct. "Do not overlook the powerfully corrosive effect of doing a job where every day, in every way, you can always have the last word," he writes. Morrison has sentenced high-profile sexual offenders in D.C., including individuals accused of sexually abusing children and mentally disabled people. A Post review of his cases - limited by spotty records and lack of comprehensive data - turned up at least five in which he gave no jail time to defendants convicted of felony sex crimes against minors and, in one case, an intellectually disabled adult. In 1981, a 30-year-old teacher who engaged in sex acts with five of his male teenage students was convicted of 10 felony charges, including sodomy. The victims were ages 14 to 17. Morrison said in court, according to Post archives, that he was "mindful of the difficulty of a case of this type that did not involve physical force." And he said that the victims had what he called "character impediments." Morrison suspended a prison term and placed the teacher on probation. In 1984, a social worker at a school for behaviorally troubled youths was convicted of taking indecent liberties with minors after engaging in sex acts with two teenage boys and paying one of them up to $20 to pose for nude photographs. Morrison suspended a jail sentence and placed the social worker on probation. In the late 1980s, six residents of a D.C. home for intellectually challenged adults told a local TV station that the owner had sexually abused them. One resident told police that the owner had forced his fingers and penis into his rectum, and a doctor found evidence of a "sexual violation," according to news reports. The owner pleaded guilty to one charge of assault with intent to sodomize. Morrison sentenced him to probation. There were at least five cases where he gave prison sentences of more than five years for sexual crimes. In a 1990 rape case, in which the perpetrator blackened the victim's eyes and broke her nose, Morrison gave a sentence of 10 to 30 years. In the 1988 case of a serial rapist - linked to five sexual assaults and home invasions in D.C. - several victims wrote to Morrison to ask for the maximum sentence: life imprisonment. "Judge Morrison, a life sentence has been imposed on five women," one wrote. "I think it only fair that [he] also be given a life sentence." Morrison crafted a minimum sentence of 18 years served in prison, taking into account time earned for good behavior. In his essay, Morrison wrote about the 40-year honor of serving as a judge. "The decisions you make have real and immediate consequence to other people," he wrote. "Over time, as your decisions loom and pass, you begin, even if subconsciously, to look back over your robed shoulder, back down the decision-making road you have traversed. As you do, you begin to marvel at all that you have both survived and appear to have accomplished in the realm of deciding important and difficult cases." - - - The Washington Post's Reena Flores, Steven Rich, Madeleine Davison and Julie Tate contributed to this report. 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 MEXICO CITY: Authorities in northwest Mexico are searching for gunmen who ambushed a convoy carrying security forces, killing six police officers. At least two other people died. Jos Rosas Aispuro, governor of Durango state, said Saturday that prosecutors are investigating the attack, which happened Thursday in the municipality of El Mezquital. Seven police officers were also injured. Some vehicles abandoned by the attackers contained bloodstains, likely indicating casualties among the gunmen, said state prosecutor Ruth Medina. The Sinaloa drug cartel is active in the area where the attack occurred. 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 (@FahadShabbir) ISLAMABAD, Oct 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Oct, 2020 ) :Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr. Faisal Sultan Friday stressed that all stakeholders jointly have to play their part in more research, innovation and indigenous manufacturing of technology to cure the breast cancer disease that could be affordable to everyone. It is good development that we are discussing the issue of breast cancer on national media as in the past people were reluctant to discuss such issues openly, he said while speaking in a Radio Current Affair Program. He mentioned that almost 40,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, adding, it is the need of the time to timely diagnose it and provide proper medication. The government is also launching an awareness campaign in this regard, he added. There should be proper surgery; chemo and then medication must be ensured to save the women from breast cancer, he urged. To improve the survival and well-being of the roughly millions of women who have breast cancer worldwide, researchers, physicians, policymakers and patient organizations must focus on education, stigma, training and staffing to ensure that the right care is delivered to the right patient at the right time, he said. Replying a Question, he said KPK government has provided a great coverage in its Health card for the people to get treatment in the hospitals that are on the panel of the government. Other provinces must also follow the same. Through this the patient will be empowered to get treated in any hospital. The health-related policies of the present government are heading in right direction, he said. Nowhere is immune from Covid but sometimes you can be sitting in a cafe or restaurant and believe that all is well. For a few moments you will stop noticing the Perspex screens dividing the tables or keeping you from getting too close to the counter. The only reminder that all is not as it should be will be the masked servers approaching your table and to whom you must pay particularly close attention as it is far harder to make out what they're saying these days. Holywood is that place. There is always a sense of calm and normality in Holywood (Best Medium Sized Town 2006-2017). People go about their business, Holywood wives, retired bookies and bank managers drive their convertible Mercs slowly down the High Street to be seen, and cafes serve breakfasts, brunches and lunches keeping the place quietly buzzing. One place which captures the Holywood mood perfectly is Home Bird. A small frontage on the High Street conceals a spacious but cosy interior, plenty of space for safe social distancing. I've seen queues out the door in previous visits to Holywood but this is a Monday lunch time and it is quieter. Mind you, it's far from empty. Of the many good cafes in Holywood, this one stands out not least because chef Joery Castell is in the kitchen. Dutchman Joery has form in the area having set up the former and fabulous Boat House in Bangor with brother Jasper some years back. Now he's in Holywood and the Home Bird blackboard menu quickly reveals the hand of the master. Go past the croissants, scones, traybakes and buns and you will find all manner of excitement. Potato rosti is offered with confit of duck, cucumber, hoisin, pak choi, ginger, scallions and coriander. This clever little development on the theme of duck pancakes works well and makes for a light yet substantial lunch. There is plenty on the plate to take your mind off a brain-crushingly dull Monday and finally uncovering the rosti at the bottom brings a sense of completion and achievement, somehow. For 7 it represents great value. But there's more. Eggs Royale, poached and served on a toasted bagel with smoked salmon, hollandaise and chives; a lamb burger with feta, pea and mint pesto, garlic yoghurt, tomatoes and babygem; or Turkish eggs with garlic yoghurt, tasted sourdough, chilli oil and parsley (add chorizo for 1.50). Expand Close Home Bird, 69 High Street, Holywood / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Home Bird, 69 High Street, Holywood There is a soup of tomato and roast red pepper into which is thrown a handful of quinoa for added clout. It is heart warming and reassuringly wholesome. Accompanied by a thick wedge of toasted sourdough, it would easily fulfil the role of a stand-alone lunch. Surprisingly, the experience is slightly less impressive when it comes to the desserts. These should be a cafe's forte. They're on display and you cannot miss them when you come in the front door. An imposingly regal chocolate ganache cake commands the view around which lesser offerings are mounted on lower little shelves. A polenta cake with caramelised pistachios looks the part. But neither the cake nor the polenta have much flavour. A little dry, not so tasteless as to be unidentifiable but not assertive enough either, the polenta is particularly disappointing. Gone is the expected rich, moistly dense and yellow wedge and in its place something too crumbly and inconsistent. But the coffee and tea are quality. Proper leaf tea comes in a teapot and the Americano is just the right side of bitter. Service in Home Bird is gold standard. There is a surefootedness about the staff. They are friendly, they understand it's lunch time and people need to get back to what they were doing before they came in. And it feels very, very normal. The bill Soup 5 Rosti 7 Turkish eggs 6 Americano 2.95 Tea .2.60 Cake 3.75 Polenta 2.25 San Pellegrino 2.50 Total 32.05 Not at all. It just seems like a lot of back-and-forth talk. Yes. I'm growing very worried over what might happen. If it keeps up, I might be a little more concerned. I think there are much larger things to concern us as a country. It's hard to tell; I can't take the leader of either country seriously. Vote View Results I had the pleasure of recently speaking with Dr. Shelby Steele. Steele is a bestselling author (The Content of Our Character, White Guilt), speaker, and fellow at the prestigious Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He has won many awards, is respected by all who know him, and has a unique view of African American culture today. Dr. Steele has a new documentary coming out October 16th: What Killed Michael Brown? -- a film that speaks about the origins of fiery riots and protests concerning police violence. Before I get to his upcoming film, I ask about Joe Biden, who has committed to nominate the first African American woman to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Ginsburgs position. Steele answers: What he is doing is, he is using race as a means to power. The problem with that is, that is the same thing slave owners did. That's the same thing that supported Jim Crow segregation. Racism means, to power a racist, a justification for me, taking power over you. Biden is saying please vote for me, I am not a racist. It's very cynical and very counterproductive, because it keeps alive racism. We assign racism meaning when we want to use it to gain power and that's what we use race for, to seize power, and it's an old and tragic American story." Dr. Steele has previously mentioned that bad faith identity is embedded in the African American identity. I ask if Bidens announcement plays into this identity issue: Blacks feel that their history of victimization is their source of power today. They can claim that America is systemically racist, that they are still victims of racism and therefore they are entitled, and the tragedy is that blacks are farther behind today than they were in the sixties. It has completely failed. Dr. Steele lived through segregation and was raised by Civil Rights activists. I ask him about the differences in society for blacks now vs. the Civil Rights era. I grew up in segregation. I know all about it. I grew up in Chicago on the South side and I was, my family was very much involved with the Civil Rights movement. I could tell you stories, but we'd be here all day. I am so proud of this society back then I couldn't do any number of things. That is the first time really in human history that anybody, that a country has made the kind of moral evolutionary progress that America has made around race. Americans do not want to be racist. I remember when they did, when they took it for granted, that was a way of life. He goes on to speak about the burden of freedom, and how while it is a gift, it comes with responsibilities. The hardest thing in the world is to come into freedom when you have never experienced it. It's not a part, [that struggle with freedom] is not what we struggled with, we struggled with oppression, racism, bigotry. Now we have freedom. And, so it is confusing, we don't have a lot of experience with it. We are in a learning period and so rather than fight through this period and really master freedom, and find a way to live in it and thrive in it, we say, oh no, our problem is racism, racism is still here. He closes this thought by talking about how African Americans struggle to close the gap with whites because they refuse to see the real problem, and would rather be out protesting racism when in fact he says that Racism does not exist enough to be fought anymore. Concerning Dr. Steeles film The Death of Michael Brown: It is one of the triggers, I guess you could say, for a lot of the protests that have happened and continue to happen. I ask Dr. Steele about the line in the trailer, "When truth becomes a lie and when a lie becomes truth." "One of the interesting things about the Michael Brown situation, again, applies to George Floyd as one of the more recent ones. These now seem to be recurring cultural events in America that every several months or so we have another one. Almost always they blow up because they make what we call in the film, poetic truth, which is that blacks are suffering from systemic racism in every area of life. So, when you get a white cop who shoots and kills a black teenager, Oh, well, you say, of course, that's the norm, it's not the exception. That's the way America is for black people. And therefore, we are entitled. It's always that entitlement that turns the truth into a lie. So, we say that Michael Brown was a victim, he is now an archetypical icon of racism for many young black Americans. Steele loves to talk with black students and says, As a young black person coming of age in America today, the issue is not racism, it is freedom. Who are you? Your job is to show us how-to live-in freedom. I ask Dr. Steele about the quote from Karl Marx, "Revolutions are revisited once by tragedy and then by farce. If the revolution was freedom from slavery, then the Civil Rights movement was its tragedy, leaving the current protests as the farce. That's a good one because you look at these protests down there, they really are a farce as they're about nothing. They're just aimlessly disruptive. The Civil Rights movement that was a moral witness, in order to march one had to have a white shirt and a tie on. Women had to be dressed in their Sunday best, and you went limp when the police attacked you, you never ever fought back. Those were real protests, these people are trying to steal the ennoblement of those great protests by rioting, they are mimics. I feel almost sorry for them to be that lost, to think that kind of fruitless mindless anarchism is going to get you anywhere. I ask Dr. Steele if he believes that the desire for victimization has placed the African American identity in stasis? It's almost a hunger for victimization, that means that this is a people who was stuck and don't know how to move forward. And so, moved backward and we're afraid. We have difficulty making it, we were not prepared to thrive in that world and so we claimed the victimization as our sort of only power in American life. And that's sad. There's so much freedom, so much possibility, so much opportunity in American life today. There is much good will, people want minorities to do well. They want blacks to finally overcome all that history of deprivation. They're not against blacks, that is gone and in fact, if anything, there is a desire to whenever possible lend a helping hand. Dr. Steeles thoughts on race relations and its origin are refreshing to hear. He sees an issue and wants to fix it, and wishes very much to help others find success. It was a delight and privilege to speak with this man. The interview in its entirety is well worth listning to. I also recommend reading Dr. Steeles books, as they are filled with valuable and insightful commentary. Steeles film releases October 16th, for more information on Dr. Shelby Steele or to learn more about the film visit whatkilledmichaelbrown.com Image credit: Hoover Institution, via shareable YouTube, screen shot Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 19:36:35|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KABUL, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan National Army (ANA) defused 21 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in restive southern Kandahar province on Friday, the country's Ministry of Defense said Saturday. "The engineering teams of ANA discovered and defused 21 IEDs in Kandahar. The move by army has helped rescue tens of lives and prevent the destruction of hundreds of kilometers of roads in Kandahar province, 450 km south of Afghan capital, Kabul," the ministry in a statement. In the meantime, the Afghan National Police (ANP) confiscated a SUV-type vehicle in Police District 15 of Kabul, the capital police confirmed in a statement. "A vehicle packed with amount of explosives, 400 rounds of gun bullets, 107 different bomb and landmine fuses, as well as several hand-grenades, was stopped by police in the Emirate Township area of Kabul Police District 15 early Saturday morning," the statement added. No arrest was made when the vehicle was unloaded, the statement said. Earlier in the day, the ANP also defused a sticky IED attached to a taxi in Paghman district, on western outskirts of Kabul. Enditem VANCOUVER - The CEO of a dam operator says there were no alarms to warn a group of people fishing on the banks of the Capilano River in North Vancouver that a deadly torrent of water was heading their way on Thursday. Jerry Dobrovolny of Metro Vancouver said a gate controlling the flow of water came down too quickly and released a large volume of water while maintenance work was being done at the Cleveland Dam. The gate is normally lowered mechanically or automatically when the water level of a lake needs to be controlled, but its not known how it was being operated when the water gushed out, he said Friday. One person was killed among a group of about five anglers. The RCMP said Friday a search is continuing for a man who was unaccounted for. The RCMP said North Shore Rescue have completed a search up to the mouth of the river and did not find additional victims. Police vessels have been searching the waters beyond the mouth of Capilano River and an RCMP underwater recovery team was also sent to the area. The Mounties said in a statement Thursday that at least five people were swept into the water and four were rescued or able to reach the shore. The fifth person was pulled from the water in medical distress and he later died, police said. Dobrovolny said hes not aware of any discussions to install a warning alarm at the site where the catastrophic incident occurred. An investigation is underway to determine a timeline of what happened and whether human or system failures, or a combination of both, were responsible. When you see a major failure like this its generally that there was a breakdown on both sides of that equation, he said, adding staff will be interviewed through the weekend to establish what triggered the gate to open unexpectedly despite safeguards. I just want to stress clearly that there is no safety concern going forward. The gate is locked and the dam is intact, Dobrovolny said. Weve had staff on the ground supporting search and rescue efforts and well continue to work with them and all other agencies. Were co-operating fully and completely and we share the same goal, which is to understand exactly what happened and to prevent it from happening again. Its not known how long the gate was open or how much water poured down the river, he said, adding regular updates on the investigation will be provided as they become available before a final report is released. Metro Vancouver is working with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the provincial Environment Ministry to determine any impact on salmon, Dovrovolny said, adding minimal flows are being maintained for the fish. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2020. Read more about: Kathmandu, Oct 3 : Four key aides of Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday. Another 70 security personal deployed in the Prime Minister's residence have also tested positive. This was found during a routine testing conducted at the PM's residence on Friday. Now concerns have been raised over the health of Prime Minister Oli due to his chronic health condition, age factor and the recent kidney transplant, but his private secretariat has ruled out any immediate risk to Oli' health. Still he will undergo a test very soon after his key aides and associates tested positive fpr the virus. Oli's three key aides -- Chief Political Advisor Bishnu Rimal, Foreign Relations Advisor Rajan Bhattarai and Press Advisor Surya Thapa -- have tested positive along with his Chief Personal Assistant, Indra Bhandari. Rimal, Bhattarai and Thapa announced in Twitter that they have tested positive for coronavirus. Likewise, Rajan Kafle, the personal photographer of Oli, some security guards and drivers deployed at his residence have also tested positive. After Oli's associates and aides tested positive with Covid, Oli, who had underwent kidney transplant in March, has isolated himself at his residence. After conducting the second kidney transplant that also followed the outbreak of the Covid-19, Oli has been strictly following the health protocols, including maintaining social and physical distance and not participating in any gathering, Thapa told the IANS. Of late, after Nepal government lifted Covid restrictions, Kathmandu has seen a daily spike in the number of Covid cases. The Oli government has been criticised by the opposition parties for poor handling of the Covid situation. As of Saturday, Nepal has reported 84,570 Covid cases, including 528 deaths. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close CORK fire brigade battled an accidental blaze which erupted on a Naval Service patrol ship at Haulbowline Naval Base. The fire erupted in a storage compartment on LE Niamh shortly before lunchtime on Saturday. No injuries were caused by the blaze which was initially fought by Navy fire fighters before Cork city based fire brigade units arrived in support. Cork county based units were also in attendance to provide support with special foam equipped appliances. The fire was brought under control but a period of damping down is required before the extent of the damage to the ship can be determined. LE Niamh was moored in port and immediately evacuated when the fire was detected. It is understood that the scale of the damage inflicted on ship systems could be significant. A full investigation will be conducted into the precise cause of the fire. However the blaze is being treated as accidental. LE Niamh was commissioned into the Naval Service over 20 years ago and became the blueprint for the current patrol ship model favoured by navy chiefs. The on Saturday hit out at the government over the Hathras incident, saying that "jungle raj" prevails in Uttar Pradesh even as foundation stone for has been laid at Ayodhya in the state. The ruling party in Maharashtra alleged that the recent incidents of atrocities against women in UP have failed to move the government in that state as well as the Centre. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. But there is no 'Ram rajya' (ideal governance) in Uttar Pradesh. 'Jungle raj' is prevailing in UP in terms of the law and order situation," the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'. "Atrocities against women continue to happen and the incidents of rape and murder of young women are on the rise in that state," it said. "A 19-year-old woman in Hathras was raped and murdered, which triggered an outrage across the country. In her dying declaration, the victim said that she had been raped. But the UP government now says that she was not raped. Soon after, an incident of gang-rape also took place in UP's Balrampur," the Sena added. "But despite all this, neither the rulers in Delhi nor the government were moved. The government itself says that when there was no rape, why is the opposition crying hoarse. But if the woman was not raped, why did the police cremate her in the dead of the night?" it asked. "Earlier, when the UP government led by Akhilesh Yadav withdrew Yogi Adityanath's security cover, the latter had cried in the Parliament. Now he himself is the chief minister, but women in his state are not safe," the party said. The stopped Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from visiting the grieving family in Hathras, it said. "Gandhi was caught by collar and pushed to the ground. Humiliating a leader of a prominent political party in such a manner is a gang-rape of democracy," it said. "The body of Hathras victim was burnt by the police by pouring petrol on it. In which Hindu tradition does this inhuman act fit?" it asked. "When two sadhus were lynched in Palghar (in Maharashtra in April this year), we saw the statements of and the BJP blew the conch of Hindutva. But why is it silent now?" the Uddhav Thackeray-led party asked. It said that BJP spokespersons went to town over TV channel debates in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. "But the same people are now saying that the Hathras victim was not raped. The victim's dying declaration has no value!" it said. The Sena said that the country was never so "lifeless and helpless" in the past. (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.) First Virtual Forum United by Ukraine will be broadcast live on UA: and UA: channels on October 17, 2020, at 3 PM Kyiv time. "For more than 50 years, the Ukrainian World Congress brings together Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine around the world, inspiring joint action for the future of a sovereign, democratic and prosperous Ukraine. At this time of unprecedented challenges, our mission is more important than ever before. That is why, on October 17, the Ukrainian World Congress invites prominent leaders of the Ukrainian diaspora, Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine to join our virtual discussion on the role of culture, business, religion, education and international communities in building coalitions of support for Ukraine," UWC President Paul Grod stated. As noted, things that unite Ukrainians worldwide today and what will unite them in the future will be explored through stories of incredible diaspora leaders and extraordinary global projects in the USA, Canada, France, Poland, Australia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Japan and other parts of the world. What is the source of strength for Ukrainians abroad? What helps them remain Ukrainians no matter where they may live? What is important for Ukrainian communities across continents? What is the role of faith and church in their lives? Which diaspora Ukrainians work in Ukraine, and who strengthens Ukraines global voice as its ambassadors? The Forum will seek to answer these and many other questions, the statement reads. The Forum speaker panel will bring together Most Rev. Borys Gudziak, Metropolitan and Archbishop of Philadelphia for the Ukrainian Catholics in the United States of America, President of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Oksana Lyniv, world-famous conductor, the first invited female conductor of the Bayreuth Opera Festival (Germany), founder and art director of the LvivMozArt Festival, Lviv, founder of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine/YsOU, Chief Conductor of Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra of Graz (Austria) and Natalie Jaresko, Executive Director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, former Minister of Finance of Ukraine. Paul Grod, President of the Ukrainian World Congress, and Victoria Hrynchyshyn, co-founder of Centre Anne de Kyiv, Paris, France, will co-host the Forum. The Forum will start on October 17, 2020, at 3 PM Kyiv time (at 8 AM in Toronto and at 10 PM in Melbourne) live on public television channels UA: and UA:, and via online platforms. ol GRANDVILLE, MI -- Police have made an arrest in a Grandville street shooting that left one person dead. Grandville police said a person was taken into custody about 5:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 3 at a Kentwood location. The shooting happened about 6:55 p.m. Friday along Wilson Avenue SW near 42nd Street. Police said a shot or shots were fired into a vehicle on Wilson Avenue, killing the driver. Police have not released the persons name, age or gender. The car appeared to be heading north. Investigators with Grandville, Wyoming, Kentwood and the state police worked together overnight and were able to make the arrest, police said. Anyone with information about the incident can call Grandville police at 616-538-6110, option 2 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345. More from MLive Teen seriously injured in Zeeland Township crash, Aero Med helicopter called 5 big coronavirus orders from Gov. Whitmer thrown into question by recent court ruling Hyderabad, Oct 3 : Telangana's Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development, K.T. Rama Rao flagged three more COVID response ambulances on Saturday. These vehicles have been donated by three legislators of ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) from combined Warangal district under 'Gift a smile' programme launched on the Minister's birthday. On his birthday on July 24, the Minister had called up on his ministerial colleagues, MPs, MLAs and party leaders to donate ambulances and named the initiative 'Gift a smile'. Rama Rao, who is also the working president of TRS, had appealed to them to donate at least 100 ambulances and support the government hospitals across the state amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then about 30 ambulances have been flagged off. Last week, six ambulances were flagged. Three of them were donated by endowments Minister Indrakaran Reddy. MLAs Balka Suman and Diwakar Rao gifted two and one ambulances respectively. KTR also launched an ambulance gifted by the Marri Rajasekhar Reddy, party incharge of Malkajgiri Parliamentary constituency. The vehicles have all the modern medical equipment including a ventilator and oxygen supply. In August, the minister had flagged off 12 ambulances, six of them donated by him in his personal capacity. KTR, as the Minister is popularly known, appreciated the kind gesture of TRS leaders who came forward to donate the ambulances. He said the ambulances donated by MLAs will be deployed in their respective constituencies to help the people. Earlier, in July the Minister had handed over six ambulances donated by the party leaders to the health department. Several leaders have pledged funds and handed over cheques to KTR for procurement of ambulances. Vietnams GDP grew by 2.12 percent in the first nine months of the year compared with the same period last year, the lowest growth rate since 2011, according to the General Statistics Offic. The 2.12 percent growth rate came following the 3.68 percent rate in Q1, 0.39 percent in Q2, and 2.62 percent in Q3. This is the lowest 9-month growth rate in the 2011-2020 period. However, the low growth rate is still very encouraging in the context of Covid-19 which has seriously hit all economies globally. What is noteworthy is that Vietnam obtained a growth rate of 2.62 percent in Q3. This shows that Covid-19 has been controlled in the country and the economy has entered the new normal' period. Agricultural production, forestry and seafood grew by 1.84 percent, making up 13.62 percent of total growth, while industry and construction grew by 3.08 percent, contributing 58.35 percent to the total growth rate. The figures were 1.37 percent and 28.03 percent for the service sector. The low growth rate of the agricultural production, forestry and seafood sectors was attributed to drought and saline intrusion, Covid-19, and African swine fever (ASF). The number of newly set up and restored businesses in the first nine months of 2020 reached 133,600, an increase of 2.9 percent over the same period last year. A survey on the business trends of manufacturing and processing enterprises found that enterprises were optimistic about production and business in Q4, with 81 percent of enterprises believing that the situation will be better. Around 99,000 businesses were registered in the first nine months of the year, while 38,600 suspended operations, an increase of 81.8 percent over the same period last year. Around 27,600 businesses stopped operation, following procedures for dissolution, a decrease of 2.4 percent. Nearly 12,100 businesses completed procedures for dissolution, up by 0.1 percent. Meanwhile, 36,500 businesses were not found operating at their given addresses, up by 39.6 percent. This survey also found that 32.2 percent of enterprises thought the situation in Q3 would be better than in Q2, while 31.9 percent said they would still face difficulties and 35.9 percent said that business would be stable. More than 45 percent of businesses think the situation in Q4 will be better than Q3, 19 percent predict bigger difficulties, and 35.4 percent think the situation will be stable. Despite challenges, many Vietnam enterprises are still swimming against the current, and continuing to implement their investment projects. Hoa Phat Group is speeding up its project on a huge steel complex in Quang Ngai. Thanh Cong Group at the same time started construction of an automobile assembling factory No 2 in Ninh Binh and an automobile supporting industry complex in Quang Ninh. Tam An Vietnams GDP to grow 2-3 percent this year: former GSO director Vietnams GDP growth this year can reach 2 3 percent, according to former director of the General Statistics Office (GSO) Nguyen Bich Lam. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 20:07:30|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The China-developed Wing Loong-2 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has completed the country's first large UAV-supported emergency communication exercise, the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), its developer, announced Saturday. The Wing Loong-2 successfully completed the communication support exercise mission, which was directed by the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM), flying continuously for around 20 hours across three provinces, according to the AVIC. This exercise verified the high reliability and adaptability of the Wing Loong-2 in complex environments, especially its communication support capability as a large unmanned aerial communications platform in extreme conditions, the AVIC said. In the early morning of Sept. 29, the UAV took off from Anshun, in southwest China's Guizhou Province, and headed to Muli County, in Sichuan Province, in the southwest of the country. It successfully accomplished 20 hours of round-the-clock flight and communication support operations amid moderate rain and other adverse weather conditions. During the exercise, the Wing Loong-2 supported the communication provider China Mobile by tackling harsh communications challenges at simulated disaster sites featuring damaged roads, blackouts and network outages. Indigenously developed by the AVIC, Wing Loong-2 is a multi-purpose UAV platform with superb multi-sensor fusion capability, as well as stable performance and mature technologies. Enditem President Donald Trump has been treated with an experimental antibody cocktail for COVID-19 and is moving to a military hospital as a precautionary measure, White House officials said on Friday. The presidents physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said in a statement that Trump remains fatigued but in good spirits after receiving an intravenous dose of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Incs dual antibody. Trump was also taking immune system boosters zinc and vitamin D, aspirin, and other generic drugs. Trump, 74, walked to a helicopter on Friday before being moved to a special suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for the next few days. Regenerons drug, REGN-COV2, is part of a class of experimental COVID-19 drugs known as monoclonal antibodies: manufactured copies of human antibodies to the virus that are being studied for use in patients with early illness. Trumps doctors must be sufficiently concerned with what they are seeing that they decided to use an experimental medicine ... Experimental drugs are by definition risky, said Dr. Edward Jones-Lopez, infectious disease specialist at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Antibodies are proteins made by the bodys immune system that latch onto and neutralize an invading virus. Regenerons cocktail - which contains an antibody made by the company and a second isolated from humans who recovered from COVID-19 - is designed so that its two antibodies bind to the coronavirus spike protein, limiting the ability of viruses to escape. The trouble is we dont have good treatments for people with mild COVID-19 ... I imagine that they are doing this because they hope this is relatively low risk, said Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. U.S. President Donald Trump exits the Oval Office as he departs on campaign travel to Minnesota from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 30, 2020. Picture taken September 30, 2020. Photo: Reuters Data so far is limited for COVID-19 antibodies, but U.S. infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci is among those saying the technology has promise. Regeneron this week reported trial results showing that its drug improved symptoms in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients, with no serious side effects, and said it planned to talk with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about an emergency use authorization. Eli Lilly & Co has also announced encouraging early data from a trial of its coronavirus antibody, and said it is seeking emergency authorization from the FDA. Shares of Regeneron rose about 3% in after hours trade, following the announcement that Trump was given the drug. Trump is also taking the heartburn drug famotidine - often sold in the U.S. under the brand name Pepcid. Although the drug has not been shown to work against COVID-19, researchers are studying it as a possible treatment. Zinc and vitamin D are believed to boost the immune system. Melatonin is a hormone that helps to regulate daily body rhythms. Trump has said in the past that he takes a daily low-dose aspirin, which is recommended for some adults at increased risk of heart attack or stroke. In an 18-second video recorded inside the White House and released on Twitter, Trump broke his silence, saying he was being hospitalized but 'I think I'm doing very well' President Donald Trump was hospitalized Friday and given an experimental Covid-19 treatment, but said he was "well," following bombshell news he had contracted the virus, knocking him off the campaign trail a month from the US election. After having not been seen in public since the shock announcement, the president walked out of the White House Friday evening, wearing a mask, and flew by helicopter to the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington. In an 18-second video recorded inside the White House and released on Twitter, Trump broke his silence, saying he was being hospitalized but "I think I'm doing very well." "We're going to make sure that things work out," he said, adding that First Lady Melania Trump -- who also contracted the virus -- was "doing very well." Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was receiving the anti-viral drug remdesivir following consultation with specialists. The president was "not requiring any supplemental oxygen," she said in a statement late Friday. Earlier, she said that medical experts recommended Trump work from the presidential offices at Walter Reed "for the next few days." The hospitalization indicated an intense effort to make sure the president's reportedly "mild" symptoms do not deteriorate. The development also highlighted the uncharted waters for the US election on November 3, with Trump -- who is well behind his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in the polls -- having to freeze much of his campaign. At first, aides gave rosy assessments, with Trump's chief of staff saying the president, 74, had only mild symptoms, was in "good spirits" and feeling "very energetic." But later Friday White House physician Sean Conley said Trump received a single dose of Regeneron's antibody cocktail, a treatment not yet approved by regulators. "He's being evaluated by a team of experts, and together we'll be making recommendations to the President and First Lady in regards to next best steps," Conley wrote. The president's son Donald Trump Jr told Fox News his father was "obviously taking it very seriously, but he's a fighter." Biden out on his own Trump's illness upended the White House race, with Biden suddenly finding himself alone on the campaign trail -- and able to argue that his more cautious approach to Covid-19 had been vindicated. Biden has made Trump's frequent downplaying of the pandemic and mixed messaging on mask-wearing a central campaign theme, while Trump has tried to shift the narrative to areas where he feels stronger, like the economy. The former vice president, who stood in close proximity to Trump for 90 minutes during their ill-tempered first debate Tuesday, announced that he and his wife Jill tested negative Friday. Underlining his sudden advantage in the bitter race, Biden, 77, traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, going ahead with a previously scheduled campaign stop. Biden said he was praying for Trump and his family, and his campaign announced it would take down all negative ads. However, Biden also reminded voters that he has pushed consistently for taking seriously the coronavirus, which has killed more than 208,000 Americans, unlike his opponent who has mocked the Democrat for his rigorous use of masks. "Be patriotic," Biden told supporters in Michigan through a blue surgical mask. "It's not about being a tough guy. It's about doing your part." Campaign grounded Trump's shock diagnosis was a huge blow to his reelection effort, triggering a freeze on plans to barnstorm the country in an attempt to catch up in the polls. The Trump campaign said all planned events involving the president were either being postponed or going virtual -- starting with the cancellation of a Florida rally Friday, one Saturday in Wisconsin and others in western states like Arizona next week. Even the second Trump-Biden debate, scheduled for October 15, is now in some doubt. Rallies are such a key part of the Trump brand that his sudden inability to travel leaves the campaign scrambling to reinvent its strategy. In addition, Trump has made his argument that coronavirus dangers are overblown a central plank of his reelection platform. Contact tracing News of Trump's infection came after one of his closest advisors, Hope Hicks, tested positive -- sparking fears of a cluster of cases emanating from the heart of the White House. Trump met with dozens of people through the week and reportedly went to a fundraiser in New Jersey after it was known that Hicks had contracted the virus. The White House said it was carrying out contact tracing, while Melania Trump's spokeswoman said the couple's 14-year-old son Barron had tested negative. Vice President Mike Pence and other senior figures tested negative. The White House said Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was negative too. Former White House top aid Kellyanne Conway, however, announced late Friday she had tested positive with "mild" symptoms. Trump's campaign manager, 42-year-old Bill Stepien, said he had tested positive, US media reported, and was in quarantine with mild symptoms. In his 70s and technically obese, the president is in a higher-risk category. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist, told AFP Trump had an estimated 20 percent chance of developing severe disease requiring oxygenation. As the news rattled global stock markets, leaders including Germany's Angela Merkel, Britain's Boris Johnson, and Russia's Vladimir Putin wished the president and first lady a speedy recovery. Trump's predecessor Barack Obama noted the US is "in the midst of a big political fight" but set aside the bitter election battle to extend "best wishes" to the first family. Search Keywords: Short link: With the regular measures to prevent and control the COVID-19 epidemic still in place, peace and joy have once again become the keywords of the first National Day holiday since the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong. The long-awaited National Day holiday coincided with the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival. A peaceful and light-hearted moment with families became more precious for Hong Kong residents who suffered from the social unrest and COVID-19 epidemic over the past year. "Compared with last year, the social atmosphere this year is much better, and the epidemic situation has eased. The restaurant even provides discounts. Our family can eat happily again," said a local resident surnamed Ting, who booked a Cantonese restaurant days before the holiday. On the first day of October, many schools and universities in Hong Kong held flag-raising ceremonies to celebrate the 71st anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) also held a solemn flag-raising ceremony on campus. During last year's social unrest, rioters occupied the university and confronted the police with bricks, petrol bombs, bows and arrows, turning the campus into a "battlefield." Police seized nearly 4,000 petrol bombs among various other weapons. With the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong in late June, peace has returned to the campus, shops have resumed normal business hours, and residents no longer have to worry about being attacked by rioters when going out. Just on Thursday, a group of protesters threatened public safety in Causeway Bay by suspectedly participating in unauthorized assemblies and possessing assault weapons. But the Hong Kong police strictly enforced the law to ensure that the vast majority of the public could enjoy a peaceful holiday. The National Day also marked the first public holiday after the third wave of the COVID-19 epidemic was brought under control in Hong Kong. With the support of the central government, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government launched a universal community testing program from Sept. 1 to 14. Over 6,000 local medics volunteered to work alongside the supporting teams from the mainland. Thanks to their efforts, daily new infections have returned to single digits. The government has thus relaxed social distancing measures, giving a break to hard-hit industries such as retail, catering, tourism and freight transport. During the holiday, restaurants, wet markets, shopping malls and amusement parks were packed with people and joy again. Hong Kong's economy is getting back on track. In the meantime, Hong Kong's patriotic groups set up more than 1,000 street stands throughout Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories to distribute moon cakes, lanterns, epidemic prevention supplies to the public. A shopping festival, organized by the Hong Kong Commerce and Industry Associations, kicked off on Thursday. This year's shopping festival offers a wealth of discounts to the general public, which is expected to contribute to Hong Kong's economic recovery and add luster to the image of Hong Kong as a shopping paradise, said Alan Lee, initiator of the event. The NSW Nationals have lost a quarter of their members since coming to power with the Liberals in 2011 and command just a third of first-preference votes in regional seats, electoral commission data shows. The party's membership sank from 7779 in 2011 to 5802 in June 2019. The drop has likely continued as elderly members die faster than newcomers join, former members have told The Sun-Herald. NSW Nationals leader and Deputy Premier John Barilaro (centre), on stage in February 2019 at the launch of the party's 2019 state election campaign. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Those sources also predicted the junior Coalition party's stance on contentious issues such as rejecting curbs on koala habitat clearing and supporting the Santos coal seam gas project in Narrabri will repel more members than they attract, hurting the Nationals in marginal seats. The membership slide comes as NSW Electoral Commission data shows the Nationals' share of first-preference votes in regional NSW fell from 41 per cent at the 2011 election to 33 per cent eight years later. The party now holds 12 out of 26 regional seats, occupying just 28 per cent of NSW by geographic area. October 03 : Last month actress Payal Ghosh accused Director Anurag Kashyap of forcing himself on her six years back. Post this, she filed an FIR against the director. The Dev. D director was questioned by the Versova Police on Thursday for 8 hours, post which his lawyer Priyanka Khimani released an official statement on his behalf denying all the allegations of sexual harassment against him. The director has also given proof to the police that he was not in the country at the time of the alleged incident reported. Here is the Statement from Anurag Kashyap's Lawyer, Priyanka Khimani : In an FIR registered with the Versova Police Station, one Ms. Payal Ghosh has alleged that in August 2013, my client, Mr. Anurag Kashyap, called her to his house and sexually harassed her. My client presented himself for questioning before the investigating authority on 1st October 2020. Mr. Kashyap has denied all wrongdoing in the matter and has provided his statement to the police. The material provided by Mr. Kashyap, in support of his statement, demonstrates that the complaint of Ms. Ghosh is an outright lie. Mr. Kashyap has provided documentary proof of the fact that throughout August, 2013 he was away in Sri Lanka in connection with the shooting of one of his films. Mr. Kashyap has categorically denied that any such alleged incident ever took place and has also denied all allegations levelled against him. These sudden, belated allegations of an alleged incident of August, 2013 have been widely publicised by the Complainant for the purpose of vilifying Mr. Kashyap, irrespective of the outcome of the judicial process. Mr. Kashyap is confident that the falsity of the complaint has been exposed, not only by the evidence presented by Mr. Kashyap, but also the ever-shifting version of events put forth by Ms. Ghosh in the media. Mr. Kashyap is apprehensive that now that the falsity of her allegations in the FIR have been established, she will alter her version of events in the investigative process as well. Mr. Kashyap is distressed with the false and reckless allegations made against him that have caused pain to him, his family and his fans. Mr. Kashyap intends to vigorously pursue the legal remedies available to him. Mr. Kashyap vehemently denies any such incident, as has been alleged, and has sought for severe action against Ms. Ghosh for misusing the criminal justice system and for hijacking the Me Too Movement for her ulterior motives. Mr. Kashyap is confident that justice will prevail. Post this statement, actress Payal Ghosh claimed that Kashyap has lied in his statement to the police and she will now get a lie detector, polygraph test and narco analysis performed on him. Voters disapproved of the presidents conduct in the debate by a margin of 65 percent to 25 percent. More than half of voters said they strongly disapproved of his conduct. I think that Donald Trump acted like a big bully on the stage, said Cindy Von Waldner, 63, a lifelong Republican from Titusville, Fla. The president began to lose her support when the pandemic hit, and she said she did not believe he took it seriously enough or was transparent enough with the American people. She said she would most likely vote for Mr. Biden, her first time casting a Democratic ballot. The revulsion against Mr. Trumps performance extended well into his reliable base. One-third of the presidents supporters said they disapproved of his performance, including 11 percent who did so strongly. A modest but potentially significant 8 percent of people who backed him in the survey said the debate made them less likely to support Mr. Trumps candidacy. The debate didnt change the mind of Peralte Roseme, a 35-year-old independent in West Palm Beach, Fla, who voted for President Obama and now plans to vote for Mr. Trump. Mr. Roseme, who is Black, said it felt horrible that Mr. Trump refused to directly condemn white supremacists and told one far-right group to stand by, but he supported Mr. Trump in the survey. I dont think hes racist or anything like that, he said of Mr. Trump. Instead, he said he thought Mr. Trump was thinking: I just dont want to lose votes. These are people in my corner; why would I put them down? In a direct comparison with a Times/Siena survey of Pennsylvania conducted before the debate, the presidents personal ratings slumped across the board. The share of voters who thought Mr. Trump had the temperament and personality to be president dropped by more than a net 10 percentage points. The scientific case for the range of vaccines recommended by public health officials in the U.S. remains as solid as ever. But anti-vaccine propaganda has found its way into many reaches of American life. New Orleans police on Saturday blamed a Central Business District gunbattle among four men for the wounding of all four. The gunfire erupted in the 100 block of Camp Street (map) on Friday at about 9:20 p.m., police said. At least two victims scattered, their injuries reported to police from other nearby locations and initially leading officers to suspect three shootings in 12 minutes. Investigators soon concluded it was a single incident. The men were said to be 42, 28, 25 and 19 years old. "Victims produced firearms and started to fire at each other," an initial police report says. Officers found them at the intersection of Camp and Canal streets at 9:23 p.m., St. Charles and Gravier streets at 9:26 p.m. and the 300 block of Magazine Street at 9:35 p.m. Emergency Medical Services took them to a hospital. Their conditions were not publicly disclosed, and police did not release their names or motives for shootings. +2 Lake Charles man sought in Central Business District shooting over the weekend New Orleans police say they are searching for a Lake Charles man suspected of being involved in a shooting in the Central Business District ov 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 The violence broke out less than a week after a man was wounded by gunfire in the 100 block of Camp early on Sept. 26. Police have identified a 19-year-old Lake Charles man, Joshua Stewart, as a suspect in that case, alleging that he fled to his hometown after the shooting. Both the late Friday and the Sept. 26 shootings occurred about a block from where 37-year-old Lymon Brignac of Lake Charles was fatally shot, in the 100 block of St. Charles, on Sept. 8. Brignacs son, 18-year-old Devin Levier, fired a pistol at someone moments after the deadly shooting but didnt hit anyone. Levier was booked with illegally discharging a gun. Police detained a teenager accused of shooting Brignac but havent announced any charges. And on Aug. 22, 33-year-old Romero Butler was fatally shot outside his apartment building in the 200 block of Camp. Police haven't announced any arrests in Butler's killing. Overall, crime in New Orleans has dropped almost 12% in 2020 when compared to last year, but homicides have increased more than 57% and nonfatal shootings have jumped by some 42%, according to unofficial statistics maintained by City Council crime analyst Jeff Asher. Jose Mourinho returns to Old Trafford with Tottenham on Sunday and could be forgiven for raising a wry smile at a situation he knows only too well. Manchester United are once again in the throes of a transfer scramble at the end of a window with just three days to go until Monday's deadline. Mourinho's frustration at the board two years ago contributed to a toxic atmosphere before his sacking, and he will have taken satisfaction in Spurs beating his old club to the signings of Gareth Bale and Sergio Reguilon from Real Madrid. Jose Mourinho returns to Old Trafford on Sunday with Tottenham in the Premier League Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is a very different animal but even he is doing well to hide his concern after seeing United's transfer business limited so far to 40million for Donny van de Beek from Ajax. They remain in talks over Borussia Dortmund's Jadon Sancho and a number of other alternatives on the right wing, as well as Porto left back Alex Telles. It is not a situation Solskjaer could have envisaged when he stated in April that United could use their wealth to 'exploit' the transfer market while other clubs struggled through the pandemic. The United manager admitted on Friday it was the wrong choice of word and that United have been hit just as hard as everyone else by the Covid crisis. 'I think my wording in lockdown, "exploit", was a bad one,' he said. 'I didn't mean it in that respect, I meant there might be players who have to move because of the situation. Tottenham beat Manchester United to the signings of Sergio Reguilon (left) and Gareth Bale 'At the moment there haven't been those situations. We've lost loads of money, as the other clubs have as well.' Tottenham, meanwhile, rejected a 3m loan offer from Paris Saint-Germain for unsettled Dele Alli and have told them they will not consider letting him leave. Mourinho on Friday night signed Brazilian striker Carlos Vinicius on loan from Benfica and still wants a central defender. Vinicius increases Tottenham's squad to 27 outfield players and Mourinho believes the club must clear out some of those on the fringes. They are desperate to shift Danny Rose and Cameron Carter-Vickers. Tanguy Ndombele, Ryan Sessegnon, Jack Clarke, Juan Foyth and Serge Aurier are also available. Tottenham have signed striker Carlos Vinicius on a season's loan from Portuguese club Benfica 'The transfer window is in two directions,' said Mourinho. 'For sure, we are not going to keep every player in the squad over normal numbers. 'I like to work normally with a squad of 22 players plus the keepers, and we are not going to be far from that number. 'It's impossible to keep everybody happy when you have so many players.' Hyderabad, Oct 3 : A sales executive and a cab driver, facing financial problems triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, were arrested for chain snatching in two separate incidents in Greater Hyderabad, police said on Saturday. Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwath confirmed the arrest of the accused by the police under the limits of Malkajgiri and Neredmet police stations. G. Ravi Kumar, who lost his marketing job recently due to Covid-19, was caught by a passersby when he was fleeing after snatching a gold chain from a woman in Defence Colony, Neredmet on Friday. According to police, the 28-year-old was indulging in betting on ongoing IPL matches by borrowing money from his friends. He had borrowed Rs. 10 lakhs from his friends and lost in betting. As his friends were pressuring him to repay the loans, he decided to try his hand at chain snatching. He followed a woman who was walking alone and snatched a gold chain from her neck. While fleeing he was caught by three passersby and handed him over to police. In the second incident, S. Ravi Kumar, a cab driver was arrested by Malkajgiri police for chain snatching. The 30-year-old snatched a gold chain from a woman at a building in Chanikyapuri colony on September 30. After committing the crime, he fled on his scooty. Police with the help of CCTV footage identified the accused and arrested him on Saturday. During interrogation the accused confessed to have committed the offence in order to overcome financial problems due to the pandemic. A Pakistani court has ordered the countrys media regulatory body to stop covering the alleged gang-rape of a woman on a highway last month following a request by the police that accused the media of creating a hindrance" in the arrest of the prime suspect due to its reckless coverage." The Pakistani-French woman was allegedly gang-raped by two men in front of her children at the Lahore-Sialkot motorway last month, triggering countrywide outrage. Police have arrested one suspect in the case, while prime accused Abid Malhi is still at large. The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Friday ordered the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to refrain from airing any content about the highway gang-rape incident on the request of Lahore police in which it took plea that they failed to arrest the prime suspect because of reckless media coverage. Pemra is hereby directed to stop the coverage of case FIR No.1369/2020 of Sept 9, 2020, offence under section 392, 376 (II), 427, 34 of PPC and 7 Anti-terrorism Act 1997, police station Gujjarpura, Lahore immediately on electronic media, print and social media, wrote ATC Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta in his verdict. Following the court orders on Friday, the Pemra issued a directive to the TV channels to stop airing content related to the case. Zulfiqar Cheema, who is investigating the case, had filed a petition before the ATC seeking a ban on media coverage of the incident. It is a heinous offence and the media is indulged in its reckless coverage. The TV channels reporting may damage and diminish the evidence so far collected by police. The media coverage of the incident has been creating hindrance in the arrest of the prime suspect, he said. Judge Bhutta admitted the contention of the investigation officer and observed that it was an offence relating to sex and certainly due to media coverage the victim and his family will also be disgraced. The judge also noted that one of the suspects had been shifted to jail for identification and if media coverage of the case was not stopped, it would certainly diminish the evidentiary worth of the material collected by the prosecution. Lahore police has made countless failed" attempts to arrest prime suspect Abid Malhi and the delay has resulted in public anguish on social media against police. MBABANE Dan Dumas 50 years of life may have been good, but the last three days were his worst. His eldest son shared these sentiments during his memorial service held at the Mbabane Alliance Church yesterday. Duma junior said his father suffered the most on Saturday when he was burnt, on Sunday and on Monday before he died on Tuesday at dawn. He likened his fathers three days of agony to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who died and rose on the third day. The young Duma said even though his father had died, he strongly believed there was a resurrection somewhere. He was a good man and he took good care of us during his lifetime. We fully understand that he died for a good reason, he said. The young Duma said they were determined to follow in his fathers footsteps and leave a legacy like he did. He served the whole nation and he touched many lives. His voice still resonates in many peoples ears, he said. Talent Knowledge Ngwenya, who spoke on behalf of Mbabane Swallows supporters, pleaded with the company that Dan Duma worked for to recognise the talent that the deceaseds son had. Mr Mamba, I would like you to nurture this young talent and mentor this young boy to take after his father. As he was speaking, I was captivated by his voice. You can tell he is talented and he can carry his fathers legacy on, Ngwenya said. Ngwenya then named the deceaseds son as Siphampanananyana, which describes him as a younger version of Siphampanana, his fathers nickname. This boy can speak. Everyone here can tell that we have another Sphampanana in the house. His voice just needs nurturing, Ngwenya said. The memorial service was attended by about 200 mourners who had observed the COVID-19 precautionary regulations in terms of social distancing, sanitising of hands and wearing of masks. The service that was led by Reverend Johannes Mazibuko lasted for approximately two hours. Other speakers included Makhosi Vilakati and Killer Zulu. ROCHESTER, N.Y. Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren has been indicted on two felony campaign finance charges, Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley announced Friday. The first charge is for first-degree scheme to defraud; the second is an election law offense for illegally coordinating activities and expenditures. The grand jury indictment is connected to Warren's 2017 mayoral re-election campaign. Warren has adamantly refused any wrongdoing in the matter. Warren will be arraigned at 4 p.m. Oct. 5 in front of Cayuga County Judge Thomas Leone. She did not provide immediate comment Friday. If convicted of the felony charges, Warren would be removed from office under state law. The maximum sentence would be 16 months to four years in prison. While Warren would be unlikely to be incarcerated, her pension could be forfeited if the matter is determined to be a crime related to public office, and she also could lose her law license. The announcement of criminal charges is not a conviction but adds another major crisis for the already embattled mayor. Her term ends next year. Lovely Warren is mayor of Rochester, N.Y. Warren has faced increasing questions in the last month about her honesty with her claims that she was not informed by her staff until August of all of the facts surrounding the death of Daniel Prude, who was asphyxiated by police as he was restrained. Campaign finance regulations are, however, a very different matter than the alleged homicide of an unarmed citizen, and County Legislator Rachel Barnhart has said she worries that the public will be slow to digest the occasionally arcane and dry topic and criminal allegations. Barnhart raised the possible violations in her unsuccessful 2017 mayoral race against Warren. She and another Democratic primary challenger, former Police Chief James Sheppard, filed complaints with the state Board of Elections. This is very sad and will plunge our city into further crisis, Barnhart said. We have to understand, however, why this is happening. Story continues Campaign finance laws exist to protect our elections and make sure there is transparency. The magnitude of these violations is nothing short of cheating. Also indicted Friday were Warrens campaign treasurer, Albert Jones Jr., and Rosalind Brooks-Harris, the treasurer of the political action committee Warren for a Strong Rochester. Brooks-Harris is also the citys finance director. At a recent news conference Warren called the campaign finance allegations a political witch hunt. Her attorney, Joseph Damelio, has said the length between the time of the Barnhart-Sheppard allegations and the recent investigation that led to the indictments shows the flimsiness of the criminal case. Warren and her campaign aides are accused of illegally using the political action committee, or PAC, to bolster campaign finances. If a PAC gives money to a candidate for office, it faces the same state-imposed restrictions as any other donor a limit of $8,557 in 2017. But Warrens PAC exceeded the limits and illegally bolstered her campaign, prosecutors allege. Doorley would not say how much money was involved in the alleged fraud but said the sum is "substantial," in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Warren has maintained that transfers were an unintentional error, a claim that would likely be the foundation of her criminal defense. Doorley responded on Friday: "The indictment alleges otherwise, and that's what we will be handling in the courtroom." Prosecutors will need to show, instead, that the PAC was knowingly used illegally, and that Warren, Jones, and Brooks-Harris purposefully committed fraud with their handling of campaign funds. The length of the investigation could be explained in part because it has, at times, been a collaborative effort with the District Attorneys Office and the state Board of Elections. The joint investigation was delayed not only by the coronavirus pandemic but also by a decision in 2018 about the Board of Elections' investigative powers. This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester, NY Mayor Lovely Warren indicted on campaign finance charges The Taos News delivered to your Taos County address every week for a full year! We offer our lowest mail rates to zip codes in the county. Click Here to See if you Qualify. Plan includes unlimited website access and e-edition print replica online. Your auto pay plan will be conveniently renewed at the end of the subscription period. You may cancel at anytime. Development trajectory: PM to interact with DMs of various districts today 25 States/UTs reported fall in active COVID-19 cases last week: MoHFW India oi-Briti Roy Barman New Delhi, Oct 03: As many as 25 states and union territories (UTs) have reported a fall in the number of active cases during the last week, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Saturday. "25 States/UTs have reported a fall in the number of Active Cases during the last week. Higher number of daily recoveries and persistently regressing fatality rate are leading to the lower number of active cases on a daily basis," the Ministry tweeted. India's touches 1 lakh Covid-19 deaths | What this means | Oneindia News Serum Institute to produce additional 100 mn COVID-19 vaccine doses for India, other countries At least 76.62 per cent of the active coronavirus cases have been reported from 10 states and UTs, MoHFW said on Friday. Maharashtra is the worst-hit state with more than 2.5 lakh cases, the government informed, adding that active cases contribute only 14.74 per cent to the positive caseload of the country. India's COVID-19 related deaths cross 1 lakh mark with 1,069 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. With 79,476 new cases, the tally reaches 64,73,545 including 9,44,996 active cases, 54,27,707 cured/discharged/migrated cases and 1,00,842 deaths, according to the MoHFW. The country crossed the grim milestone on Friday, when nearly 1,076 fresh fatalities took the nationwide toll to over 1,00,800. Health ministry launches web portal for updates on coronavirus vaccine development India reported 33,255 Covid-19 deaths in September, at a daily average of more than 1,100 fatalities. While, the number of people who recuperated from the disease crossed 53 lakh pushing the recovery rate to 83.70 per cent. While the death toll has been mounting, India is still far below the world's worst-hit countries in terms of deaths per lakh population and case fatality rates (CFRs). GARDAI have arrested a 71-year-old bed and breakfast owner suspected of ferrying a gang of younger criminals across the country to carry out an aggravated burglary. The female pensioner was arrested this week along with her younger associates as part of an investigation into a daylight break-in at a home in Mullingar, Co Westmeath. Last month's burglary happened about 2pm on Saturday, September 19, when a number of people broke into the private home in the Ballinea area. The raiders then searched through the property and stole a number of personal items before taking the keys to the homeowner's car and driving off. On Thursday, detectives carried out several searches in a Midlands town after identifying a number of suspects. It's understood gardai also seized items linked to the investigation that will now be examined. The Irish Independent has learned that one of those who was in Garda custody was a 71-year-old woman who owns a bed and breakfast in a midlands town. Detectives suspect the pensioner was involved in driving two younger associates to and from the scene of last month's aggravated burglary. They are now also investigating whether she played a similar role in any previous crimes carried out by the pair. The two men, aged 28 and 45, are also from the same midlands town as their alleged pensioner accomplice and are well-known to local gardai. A source said: "These two lads are more known for drugs offences, but it's suspected that from time to time they carry out burglaries and robberies. "It is a strange dynamic in that you have essentially three different (unrelated) generations suspected of involvement in this crime." "They are all linked to the business that the woman runs and it is being looked at if she was essentially a getaway driver for this and any other burglaries," the source added. The three suspects were being held at Mullingar and Tullamore garda stations under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. A Garda spokeswoman said: "Gardai attached to the Detective Branch in Mullingar carried out a number of searches in the Midlands, on Thursday, October 1, 2020. "A woman, aged in her 70s, and two men, aged in their 40s and 20s, were arrested during the course of these searches." On Saturday, all three people were released without charge. A file will now be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions in Relation. Gardai are continuing their appeal to the public for any information in relation to this matter. "Anyone who was in the Ballinea area of Mullingar, or any person that availed of the car park facilities at the Royal Canal, Grange South Mullingar between 12pm and 2pm on Saturday, September 19, 2020, is asked to contact Mullingar garda station on 044 938 4000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda station," the spokeswoman added. The fish chair, found in a secondhand store in Baltimore, went viral when thousands of people wanted it united with a New York woman with a tattoo of the same chair. Jacqueline Sergent, left, and Maryann Wetzig met in Pennsylvania and each drove the chair a leg on its journey to New York. (Using a banana to show scale is common in the "Secondhand Finds" Facebook group.) Read more Thea Lenna went to her local secondhand store in Baltimore last month and happened upon a pastel-painted fish chair with a price tag of $740. I had never seen anything like it, said Lenna, 34. She snapped a photo of the curious chair and posted it on a popular Facebook group, called Weird Secondhand Finds That Just Need To Be Shared. Apart from showcasing the strange seat to a group of thrift-store enthusiasts, I really didnt think much of it, Lenna said. But when Emily DelFavero, 29, one of the groups 2 million members, saw the post, she paused in shock. READ MORE: Holocaust survivor finally gets her high-school diploma - at age 88 I had that exact chair tattooed on my leg two years ago, she said. DelFavero posted a photo of her tattoo in the group, adding that it is emblematic of her mother, who once collected pieces by MacKenzie-Childs the studio that designed the chair. The group went wild. Her post was quickly flooded with comments asserting the chair was destined to belong to DelFavero, who lives in Syracuse, N.Y. People were begging me to make a GoFundMe and said they wanted to donate, said DelFavero, who works as an auto mechanic. I was thinking I would call the place and buy the chair myself; I wasnt even looking for donations, but I realized within minutes that people really just wanted to be a part of this. Among those who pushed for a GoFundMe was Rosita Smith, 30. I started seeing people replying instantly saying Emily needs this chair, Smith said. No one deserves this chair as much as she does. The thrift store, Second Chance, agreed to lower the price from $740 to $600 when it heard the story. READ MORE: An anonymous businessman donated $5,000 to a N.J. barbershop to fund free haircuts for essential workers In less than 24 hours, the fund, set up by DelFavero on Sept. 7, collected enough money to buy the chair. Then came the complicated part: transporting it from Baltimore to Syracuse about 330 miles. I thought, Why not make another Facebook group so that people can actually follow this story and see if we can get her the chair? Smith said. She created a group called From Baltimore to Emily D., which has amassed nearly 2,500 members from as far as Hawaii, Europe, and Australia all focused on a common goal. Members began volunteering to drive the chair from Baltimore to Syracuse, and a small group of us got together separately to figure out the mapping and logistics, Smith said. They decided the trip would have seven legs, each about an hour long, though some drove farther from home to the designated meeting spots. Drivers arranged pickup locations to pass along the chair, which measures about 22 inches wide and 41 inches high. Meantime, one member contacted the original designer of the chair, Victoria MacKenzie-Childs, who, alongside her husband, Richard, founded the company in 1983, though they are no longer involved in the business. I was touched to tears, MacKenzie-Childs said. I felt deeply grateful that the chair was a symbol of the story. DelFavero recalls regularly visiting the MacKenzie-Childs studio in Aurora, N.Y., as a child with her mom and as a young adult. About four years ago, while visiting the studio, she spotted a dollhouse version of the fish chair, fell in love with it, and eventually had it tattooed on her leg. Its an embodiment of love and happy memories, she said. The chair has come to mean something to members of the Facebook group, too. When one member posted What does this chair journey symbolize for you? in the group, the responses poured in. A minute of hope for humans a thread of untapped love for others a sense of fun and adventure, wrote one. Others contributed similar sentiments, including Jacqueline Sergent, 37, of Pottstown, who drove the fourth leg of the journey. Its such a weird, wholesome story at a time when everything is so bleak, she said. Were just a bunch of strangers on a mission to bring somebody joy. The chair arrived at its destination on Monday, delivered by Sarah Edwards, 36, who handled the final leg of the trip. She drove from her home in Binghamton, N.Y., to DelFavero in Syracuse, and along the way picked up custom-made fish doughnuts that a local bakery made for them, free of charge. Delivering the chair, she said, was one of the most exciting things she had ever done. There is nothing but happiness in this story, Edwards said. It doesnt matter who you are you just cant help but smile that this many people just wanted to make one person happy. And we did. On to the next mission. The 13-member logistics team self-designated as the Fellowship of the Fish Chair has scheduled monthly Zoom calls and is planning a get-together when pandemic conditions allow. When I look at the chair, I will think of every single one of these people, DelFavero said. Beyond finally having her very own freckled fish chair, DelFavero said shes most touched by how the experience has brought together thousands of strangers. The chair has always represented love, she said. But now its not just for me. Its for all of us. Inside Hook The wine and booze collection of the late director and film producer Cecil B. DeMille (The Ten Commandments, King of Kings) was just sold for five figures, a major score for a growing legion of booze dusty hunters. The New York Times describes dusty hunters as people searching for still-sealed bottles of vintage alcohol, usually American whiskey. DeMilles stash was hunted down by filmmaker Kevin Langdon Ackerman, who took up his collectible whiskey hobby back in 2012, searching nearby liquor stores for overlooked bottles of Ancient Age, Old Charter, Wild Turkey and Old Grand-Dad. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were headed to Hathras on Saturday to meet the family of the Dalit sexual assault victim following a massive show of party strength and some scuffles too at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border. While high drama unfolded in the national capital and the case continued to find wide resonance, a Hathras administration official said the Special Investigation Team had completed its probe into the death and alleged gangrape of the 19-year-old woman. Also read: Hathras gang-rape case: SIT will address all issues raised by victims family, says ACS Ending a two-day standoff, the administration removed barricades outside her village to allow the media to meet her family. But scores of police personnel in riot gear lined up at the Delhi-Noida Direct flyway to prevent the Congress convoy from moving to Hathras, about 180 km away. Eventually, as swarms of Congress workers and others jostled with each other amid loud honking, slogans and Congress flags fluttering in the air, the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police finally allowed five people, including Rahul Gandhi, to go to Hathras. Congress workers some who described what happened as brutal repression -- claimed police used batons to disperse the crowd. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were detained on Thursday when they tried to go to Hathras. CrPC Section 144 has been imposed in Noida, Greater Noida as well as in Hathras and some other districts in Uttar Pradesh due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Considering social distancing and other related norms, permission has been granted for five people, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Noida Police Commissioner Alok Singh told PTI. All roads it seemed led to Hathras with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath sending senior officials, including Additional Chief Secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police H C Awasthy, to the village to meet the womans family. Several journalists, including those from TV channels, also made their way to the village where various family members spoke of their grief and trauma since September 14 when she was brutally assaulted and allegedly gangraped by four upper caste men Awanish Awasthi told reporters that any group with no more than five people is allowed to meet the victims family, marking a departure from the last few days when media and politicians, including from the Congress and Trinamool Congress, were turned away from the village. After returning (from Hathras) we will be submitting a report on the entire incident to the chief minister, Awanish Awasthi said. Also read: Will stand with Dalit brothers and sisters: Mamata at protest against Hathras gang-rape The Dalit teen died of her grievous injuries in the early hours of Tuesday in a Delhi hospital, a fortnight after she was attacked, and cremated in the dead of night near her home on Wednesday. Her family alleged they were forced by local police to hurriedly conduct her last rites, triggering outrage nationwide and protests in several places. On Thursday, the Hathras administration had clamped prohibitory orders and scuffles broke out as politicians, including from the Congress and the TMC, as well as the media tried to access the village. About 300 police personnel stood on guard to prevent anybody from entering. The death of the young woman, whose brutal assault recalled for many the horrors of the Nirbhaya case, continued to snowball into a major political issue As the Congress delegation from Delhi prepared to make its way to Hathras, its Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu and more than 500 workers were put under house arrest, the party alleged. In Varanasi, a group of Congress workers blocked the Union minister Smriti Iranis cavalcade. Congress spokesperson Lalan Kumar said protesting party workers, who raised anti-government slogans and demanded justice for the womans family, were later arrested. Addressing a press conference, the Women and Child Development minister accused the opposition of playing politics on the Hathras issue. The victim will get justice. I have spoken to the chief minister. Once the SIT submits its report, the chief minister will take action against the accused, Irani told reporters. Adityanath had set up three-member Special Investigation Team on Wednesday and instructed that it submit its report by October 14. In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag Hathrashorror, Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family is unacceptable. Hitting out at the Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi described the UP government as morally corrupt and said, The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test. The party also alleged that the woman and her family had been denied justice and severely traumatised by the BJP government. BSP president Mayawati demanded a CBI or a Supreme Court monitored probe into the incident and said people were not satisfied with the initial investigations in the matter. There is tremendous resentment in the entire country over the Hathras heinous gangrape case. The public does not seem satisfied with the initial probe report. Therefore, this matter should be investigated by the CBI or under the supervision of the honourable Supreme Court. This is the demand of the BSP, Mayawati tweeted in Hindi. Also, the honourable president of the country, who also comes from UP and is a Dalit, it is a strong appeal to him to intervene in this case, keeping in mind the inhuman attitude of the government, to bring justice to the victim family, she added. Rosscarbery | Co. Cork Lets be fair, we could have written about the food scene in every town in Cork and not because were biased but Rosscarbery has seen a surge in excellent cooking in recent years that we are happy to indulge. Pilgrims focus on foraged and seasonal produce results in beautifully prepared and regularly changing dishes. Grab lunch with a view at The Fish Basket choosing with favourites such as fish tacos and scampi and chips, amongst others, on the menu. Stay: Celtic Ross Hotels dining options include newly-opened CRAFT street food truck making it an ideal location to park for the night. (MM) Dingle | Co. Kerry As reliable as a Fungie sighting, dining in Dingle never disappoints. Restaurants have come and gone over the years but Global Village and The Chart House remain strong, using local produce to create exquisite dishes. Youll find the best breakfast in town at My Boy Blue, never get a bad coffee from Justin and the team at Bean In Dingle, and you cant leave without a trip to the home of Murphys ice-cream the brown bread ice-cream is a firm favourite of mine. Stay: Located on Main Street, Benners is within walking distance of every restaurant. (MM) Carrick-on-Shannon | Co. Leitrim The Cottage, Carrick-on-Shannon Youll be certain to find a dynamic of range of culinary offerings in this riverside town, starting with confident cooking at The Cottage where chef Sham Hanifa uses local produce to create an Asian-inspired menu. The Oarsman has been serving top quality food for many years, always adapting and striving to improve on their already brilliant menu. Make sure to visit Lenas tea room for their homemade baked cooks and award-winning marmalades and jams. Stay: Set in the heart of Carrick-on-Shannon, youre never far from a great meal when staying at The Bush Hotel. (MM) Kildare | Co. Kildare Hartes, Kildare What Barry Liscombe has created at Hartes gastropub is making Kildare a must-visit destination. Hearty, simple food that is cooked well and paired alongside top class service in stylish surroundings. They also have their own range of beer here made with the team at Dew Drop Brewery. For lighter bites, visit Mary-Kathryns deli for fresh sandwiches that are wholesome and tasty, while youll find excellent coffee that is locally roasted Square Coffee. Stay: Silken Thomas for its warm welcome and cosy interiors. (MM) Westport | Co. Mayo This Must Be The Place, Westport Mayo is known for its beautiful scenery, but its growing culinary scene is starting to cause a stir too. The homely atmosphere at An Port Mor has made it a much-loved restaurant in the town for many years, not to mention the creative cooking from owner Frankie Mallon. Youll struggle to pick only one dish off the menu at This Must Be The Place think bacon and cabbage sandwiches, wild mushroom and pearly ragout or sweet and savoury pancakes not to forget innovative Irish cooking at Pantry and Corkscrew. Stay: Knockranny House Hotel for idyllic views and fine dining at La Fougere restaurant. (MM) Howth | Co. Dublin Mamo, Howth Dublins seaside town has been quietly floating along for years with a handful of long-standing good restaurants, but Mamo has injected a new lease of life into the village using high-quality ingredients to produce outstanding dishes such as glazed beetroot with mushroom spelt and cavolo nero. King Sitric has been serving good grub for many years, avoiding fashion trends and sticking to what they know best, fish. Howth Market is now part of the furniture where youll find a range of freshly baked goods, homemade fudge and organic produce every weekend. Stay: Stay at King Sitric so youll only have the stairs to contend with after dinner. Tramore | Co. Waterford Seagull Bakery, Tramore While its sister town Dungarvan tends to hog the spotlight, Tramores growing food scene is starting to get noticed. Returning home has inspired many including Peter Hogan and Jumoke Akintola who recently returned to Tramore bringing their exceptional cooking and service to Beach House. Meanwhile, Mezze deli creates an authentic mix of Tel Avivan flavours using local produce. Youll be hard pushed to find a better way to start your day than with Seagull Bakerys sourdough bread and seasonal baked goods. Stay: Check-in to The Address on the Beach for stunning sea views. (MM) Greystones | Co. Wicklow The Fat Fox, Greystones Having gained plenty of recognition over the years thanks to a notoriously enthusiastic duo, Greystones town is thriving now more than ever. The Happy Pear has been serving up delicious vegetarian grub for years, while award-winning chef Sunil Ghai and his wife, Leena, have spiced things up at Tiffin by Sunil, with authentic Indian food to go and a retail shop with freshly-ground spices. The latest addition, The Fat Fox, packs a punch with its stylish, colourful design and mouth-watering baked goods. Stay: For coastal walks and proximity to the town opt for the historic Slieve More B&B (MM) Moira | Co. Down Moira, County Down For those that know Moira, its no surprise as to why its on this list, the villages great food offerings have been consistent for many years, and continue to grow. At Wine & Brine, chef Chris McGowan and his wife, Davina, have created a neighbourhood restaurant that is loved by the locals, but that everyone wants to visit for its flavoursome food. Almost every menu in Ireland has Pete Hannons incredible beef on their menu, and understandably so, but you can pick up your own supply at Hannan Meats in Moira. Stay: Nearby Clenaghans offers exceptional food alongside self-catering apartments. Dungarvan | Co. Waterford Few towns in Ireland have transformed their culinary offerings in recent years like Dungarvan. While the iconic Tannery Restaurant may have pioneered the gourmet movement, today the West Waterford hub is stacked with top-notch dining options many of them dotted around its buzzing marina. The Moorings is the main draw for sea-food lovers, while dog-friendly 360 Cookhouse is a popular locale for its wings, patatas bravas and cocktails inspired by Blackwater gin. Merrys gastro-pub is one of my own favourites while Eunice Powers AndChips continues to keep the local scene fresh. Stay: Consider The Tannery Townhouse the absolute inn-spot for gourmands on getaway. (TB) Lisdoonvarna | Co. Clare Roadside Tavern, Lisdoonvarna To use a little matchmaking parlance, Lisdoonvarna and food-lovers make the perfect pairing. The small spa town and gateway to the Burren woos visitors with everything from Birgitta Hedin-Curtins iconic Burren Smokehouse visitors centre to the gorgeous Wild Honey Inn: Irelands only Michelin Star pub. Elsewhere, The Roadside Tavern ranks as one of my favourite pub-grub spots in Ireland; while next-door, the Burren Storehouses pizza oven whips up traditional Neapolitan pies with Irish toppings like St Tola goats cheese, Gubbeen salami & of course organic salmon. Wash that down with their Euphoria Classic home-brew. Stay: Sheedys is a highly-rated country house hotel has been welcoming food-lovers to the Burren for generations. (TB) Kinsale | Co. Cork Mention Kinsale and the first thought is always food, reputation, location, seafood, festivals and innovation! That keeps Kinsale to the fore and naturally, its customers keep coming back for more. So says Martin Shanahan of Fishy Fishy, one of the town mosts successful food stories (ordering a bunch of starters here is one my go-to Kinsale food tips). Milk Market, Kinsale Kinsale may be billed as Irelands food capital since the 80s but, 40 years on, the vibe's as fresh as ever. The Black Pig Winebar is an ambient spot for local tapas and vino while The Bulman is worth the wander across the bay to Sommercove for its teriyaki oysters alone. Stay: Standards are high in Kinsale but a sea-view room at The Trident is tough to top. (TB) Gorey | Co. Wexford Wexford Town might be an obvious choice for Loch Garman (and with good reason for La Cote alone) but Gorey in North Wexford is shoring up as much buzz these days. The towns newest offering, Table Forty One, is leading the charge. Run by owner-chef Andrew Byrne, house speciality here is fillet steak served with mushroom and smoked bacon jam. Elsewhere, Marlfield House is a stunning Irelands Blue Book property and home to the acclaimed The Duck restaurant while The Kitchen and the Book Cafe make great locally-minded coffee stops. Stay: The Ashdown Park Hotel for its great Taste Wexford dining packages. (TB) Adare | Co. Limerick Adare is the classic example of a small village with a super-sized food reputation. The chocolate box town in the heart of Limerick is oozing with dining delights, not least 1826, run by Wade & Elaine Murphy. The gorgeous thatched property boasts a menu offering the likes of black sole on the bone with Dooncastle oysters and roast cod with Gubbeen chorizo. Elsewhere, youll find incredible cafes like The Good Room to the phenomenal fine dining options like the Mustard Seed and Adare Manors Oak Room. Stay: Apart from the obvious if youre feeling flush, Sean Collins & Sons is a fantastic family-run option to both stay and dine. (TB) Monaghan | Co. Monaghan Could Monaghan offer Irelands most secret food trove? Lets start with its two award-winning food trucks; Tex-Mex Blasta Street Kitchen with specials including local free-range goat burgers and Silver Hill duck tacos and Blasta who are regulars at Monaghan Farmers Market. Streat-Yard is a new socially distant outdoor dining venue two minutes from town by taxi, with live music and Old Carrick Mill gin cocktails while Monaghan Spice (Bangladeshi) and Eastern Balti (Indian) are two top curry houses. Elsewhere Monaghan garlic mushrooms are a must at Andys Restaurant while The Local is a great zero waste community store specialising in local produce, with sambos and soups on the side. Stay: The Westenra Arms, right in the centre of town. Portstewart | Co. Derry Looking for a coastal gastro-getaway with a difference? Then Portstewart in County Derry should be on your road-trip radar. The seaside town about 45 mins east of Derry city offers a range of surf and turf options tempting you to pitstop during your Causeway Coastal. Harrys Shack, set right on the entrance to Portstewart Beach, brings a taste of Northern Cali to Northern Ireland with its kicked-back seafood menu and sundowners while The Anchor Bar complex is another excellent spot to savour the catch-of-the-day. For your prom walks, pick up your caffeine hit and local produce at Warkes Deli. Stay: At The Beach is a villa-style getaway with direct beach access. (TB) Clifden | Co. Galway Clifdens vibrancy and charm is matched with its stellar choice of dining options. Steam cafes commitment to great food and great service never disappoints, serving open crab sandwiches, Connemara smoked salmon and an array of homemade cakes and sweet treats and Darcy Twelves use of local ingredients on its menu showcases the best of Connemara. Guys Bar has been a town and tourist favourite for many years, serving good quality comfort food, while recently opened Lamplight wine bar has an extensive and impressive wine list thanks to their knowledgeable sommelier, Anke. Stay: Foyles hotel for its exquisite cooking in Marconi restaurant. (MM) Donegal Town | Co. Donegal Donegal Towns hard work to grow and promote local food businesses over the past number of years earned them the title of Foodie Town in 2019. Enjoy riverside views alongside delicious food at Quay West where owners Debbie and Jo focus on local, sustainable and nutritious cooking. No trip here is complete without a trip to The Counter Deli where the team is pushing boundaries with their food, Macncheese sandwich anyone? The Olde Castle bar is a landmark here, cooking wholesome Irish food like seafood pie and bangers and mash. Stay: The Gateway Lodge for its modern rooms and delightful breakfast at Blas Restaurant. (MM) Sligo | Co. Sligo Aerial photo of Garavogue River and Sligo Town The west of Ireland has plenty of culinary delights to offer, and Sligo town is no different. Jane and Myles Lamberth team good cooking in a relaxed and welcoming space at Baker Boys, making it a must-visit on any trip here; while Pudding Rows range of artisanal and homemade products will leave your mouth watering long after youve left. Im not sure youll find better gelato out west than at Fabios with innovative, and delicious, flavours such as raw acacia honey and organic lavender. Stay: Overnight at The Glasshouse Hotel for riverside views and chic interiors. (MM) Midleton | Co. Cork Farmgate, Midleton Can we include three Cork towns in our list? Oh yes, we can! As East Corks food capital, Midleton is where the regions finest produce comes to showboat, visible everywhere from the town farmers market to the local SuperValu. Old-school favourites like the Farmgate, Finins & ODonovans remain dining strongholds while Kevin Ahernes Sage has firmly stamped Midletons reputation as a location for locavores. There are plenty of local favourites; Montys Cafe honours local produce in every artisan sambo, The Bay Leaf is Middle-Eastern family resto with great vegan options while in Midletons hotly contested pack, Ferrit & Lee seals the peoples vote on TripAdvisor. Stay: In a town with surprisingly few accommodation options for its stature, Midleton Park Hotel makes a sound, central base with a menu that hat-tips local produce. (TB) WASHINGTON President Trump announced on Twitter early Friday morning that he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19. Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! Trump wrote. Trump made the announcement about two hours after he said that he and the first lady were waiting for our test results, following the news that Hope Hicks, a top White House aide with whom they had recently traveled on Air Force One, had tested positive. Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19, Trump wrote. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process! The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the total number of people in the presidents inner circle and staff who may also have been infected with the disease, which, as of Friday morning, had killed nearly 208,000 Americans. A spokesperson for Vice President Mike Pence did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether he had been tested for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. At 74 years of age, Trump is at increased risk for serious complications from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. His testing positive could also have major implications for the presidential election, which is just 32 days away. Trumps doctor, Sean Conley, said in a statement that the President and the First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence. Trump, who trails former Vice President Joe Biden in most national and key swing state polls, had planned numerous campaign events in the coming days. Sickness or a lengthy quarantine could prevent him from attending the next scheduled debate with Biden on Oct. 15, or from campaigning in the final stretch. Story continues President Trump and first lady Melania Trump at the end of the first presidential debate. (Patrick Semansky/AP) Shortly after Trumps announcement, the first lady sent out her own tweet. As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19, she wrote. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together. The first lady did not respond to a request for comment. Only three world leaders are known to have tested positive for COVID-19: Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, all of whom initially underestimated the threat of the virus. In recorded interviews with journalist Bob Woodward, Trump admitted that he did not want to overplay the threat of COVID-19 to the American people. I wanted to always play it down, Trump told Woodward in March. I still like playing it down, because I dont want to create a panic. During the pandemic, the president has continued to travel and hold some large events around the country, many in violation of local social distancing regulations. At these events, the president and his staff regularly appear without masks, although supporters are regularly offered face coverings. Trump has also held events at the White House where few masks have been seen. Lax social distancing protocols are the norm, for example at the crowded Sept. 26 ceremony in the Rose Garden when the president unveiled his nominee to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, before a large crowd. Hicks, who did not respond to requests for comment, is one of the presidents closest aides and often travels with him. She served as his spokesperson throughout the 2016 campaign before going on to work in the White House. According to Bloomberg, which was first to report Hickss positive COVID-19 test, she experienced symptoms on Wednesday night on the plane returning from Trumps rally in Duluth, Minn., and subsequently tested positive on Thursday. Hicks also traveled with Trump to the presidential debate in Cleveland on Tuesday. White House social media director Dan Scavino wears a face mask as he accompanies President Trump, right, aboard Marine One on Thursday. (Alex Brandon/AP) Although Hicks displayed symptoms on Wednesday evening, Trump flew to his golf club in New Jersey on Thursday and held multiple events. Following Hickss diagnosis, the president had been scheduled to hold a roundtable at his hotel in Washington, D.C., and a rally in Florida on Friday. Shortly after Trump announced his test results, the White House released updated guidance indicating that those events would be canceled. Trump and his staff reportedly did not wear masks at the debate venue. Biden and his aides did wear masks at the event, though the former vice president appeared without a mask onstage with Trump. The pair did not shake hands and stayed some distance apart, as dictated by protocols put in place by the Cleveland Clinic, which co-hosted the event. In the wake of the news about Hicks, Bidens campaign reportedly asked a member of the media who was scheduled to travel with him on Friday not to join the press pool, because the reporter in question had traveled to Minnesota on board Air Force One with Trump and Hicks. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trumps diagnosis. On the debate stage Tuesday, Trump mocked Biden for wearing a mask. Every time you see him, hes got a mask, Trump said, as Biden laughed. He could be speaking 200 feet away from it. And he shows up with the biggest mask Ive ever seen. Cover thumbnail photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Rome (AsiaNews) The Sino-Vatican Agreement, signed two years ago, is currently at the centre of discussions. It expired last month and its renewal is expected (at least that is what the Holy See is hoping for). Statements by cardinals, anonymous monsignors, sinologists, left and right politicians . . . fill the media. but none of them are Chinese. Even at a diplomatic level, China through its foreign ministry is rather discreet and vague. Above all, Chinese Catholics are absent from the debate, often relegated to some statement or commentary in Chinese and therefore difficult to circulate. To give a voice to the Chinese, AsiaNews has recently asked bishops, priests and lay faithful in China to speak their minds, urging them to say how the life of their communities has changed and how their faith has been lived since the famous Agreement was first inked. The result has been a dossier, The China-Vatican Agreement two years later, available in the August-September paper issue of the AsiaNews magazine and in the dossier section of the AsiaNews homepage (in four languages). Let's say right away that the collection of stories shows that, unlike several local sinologists, Chinese Catholics are not enthusiastic about the Agreement, even if they see some benefits, especially in curbing the flight of illegal bishops. As Pope Francis has always said, to build it is necessary to start from the edges. These stories from the edges of freedom are a fundamental tool for not standing on ideology, but planting instead ones feet firmly in reality. (B.C.) Kim Jong Un has sent a message of sympathy to President Donald Trump, wishing him well and hoping he quickly recovers from the coronavirus, North Korean state media said on Saturday. The North Korean offered his sympathy and 'warm greetings' to Trump and his wife, KCNA reported. 'He sincerely hoped that they would be recovered as soon as possible,' KCNA said. 'He hoped they will surely overcome it.' Trump and Kim developed an unprecedented relationship, staging the first meetings between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, and Trump once declared that they 'fell in love' after exchanging letters. Trump and Kim Jong-un, pictured in June 2019, developed an unprecedented relationship North Korea's leader, in a photo provided on October 2, wished the president well Donald Trump was taken by helicopter to the Walter Reed hospital on Friday night Efforts to press North Korea to give up its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions stalled after those meeting failed to lead to a denuclearization deal, but the two leaders have continued to trade messages. North Korea has taken some of the most drastic actions of any country against the virus, and did so sooner than most other nations. It sealed its borders in late January, shutting off business with neighboring China, which accounts for nine-tenths of its external trade, the New York Times reported. It clamped down on smugglers and quarantined all diplomats in Pyongyang for a month. In July the country announced what was suspected to be the first case, stemming from a 24-year-old runaway who reportedly returned home with the possible virus infection from South Korea. Kim, pictured with Trump in June 2019, sent his 'warm greetings' to the U.S. leader Saturday Trump is pictured leaving the helicopter on arrival at the hospital on Friday evening North Korea's caseload is unknown, but believed to be low, given the isolationism. In September the top U.S. commander in South Korea, General Robert Abrams, said that the hermetic country has since issued 'shoot-to-kill' orders to prevent the coronavirus from entering the country from China. The coronavirus-related security zones were first reported by the Daily NK, a Seoul-based news website with sources in North Korea. The outlet said the new rules stipulated that anyone 'breaking rules or disrupting public order near the border will be shot without warning.' The rules apply to all areas of the country, it said. El premier @WalterMartosR recibe una importante donacion de 250 ventiladores mecanicos de parte del Gobierno de Estados Unidos, a traves de @USAIDPeru. La entrega es realizada por el encargado de Negocios de la @USEMBASSYPERU. pic.twitter.com/Us3Vgpla0O 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. Chiefs who represent southern First Nations have joined the battle over a moose hunt in western Manitoba this fall, in which the Metis and provincial government are already feuding. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 1/10/2020 (478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File) The Southern Chiefs Organization disagrees with the provincial governments method to reopening moose hunting, saying it infringes on their constitutional rights and was done without proper consultation. Chiefs who represent southern First Nations have joined the battle over a moose hunt in western Manitoba this fall, in which the Metis and provincial government are already feuding. The Southern Chiefs Organization is calling "bull" on the provincial governments approach to reopen moose hunting, which they say infringes on their constitutional rights and was done without proper consultation. The province announced Wednesday it is in the process of contacting "eligible" communities and organizations to participate in a limited hunt. It made that move after the Manitoba Metis Federation announced Tuesday that it believed the moose population had bounced back in the Porcupine Mountain, Nopiming and Duck Mountain areas, and that Metis hunters could shoot moose to provide for their families as of Oct. 1. The province denounced the Metis federations "unilateral" decision to restart the traditional practice. The province said the federation lacks legislative authority, enforcement mechanisms, or proper consultation with Indigenous and non-Indigenous hunters. That upset the southern chiefs. On Thursday, Grand Chief Jerry Daniels took the provincial government to task, saying its actions set a "dangerous precedent" in terms of treaty rights. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "Indigenous rights are enshrined in the foundation of this country via Section 35 of the Constitution Act," Daniels said in a release. "The province of Manitoba cannot create their own processes for determining the harvesting eligibility of communities whose rights are federally protected." The SCO said the province cannot "unilaterally decide when they can reopen at-risk moose-hunting areas or who they will consult with beforehand," the southern chiefs said. The chiefs want a reopening plan that is co-developed between First Nations, the Metis, and the province, Daniels said. They also want the establishment of an Indigenous hunting, fishing and conservation authority. The chiefs organization, which represents 34 First Nations, said it will seek a meeting with the Metis federation over its plan. In 2011, all parties agreed hunting in those areas should end to allow the moose population to increase. President Donald Trump, along with the first lady, being tested positive for COVID-19 is a "bracing reminder" to take the virus seriously, his Democratic challenger said, urging people to wear masks, wash hands, and maintain social distancing. Sending my prayers (for) health and safety of the first lady and the president of the United States after they tested positive for COVID-19. My wife Jill and I pray that they will make a quick and full recovery, Biden said at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a battle ground State. This is not a matter of politics. It's a bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously. It's not going away automatically. We have to do our part to be responsible, he said. Biden urged people to listen to experts, wear masks, wash hands, and maintain social distancing. "It means following the science, listening to the experts, washing hands, social distancing. It means wearing a mask in public and it means encouraging others to do so well. It means having masking mandates nationwide," Biden said. The Democratic presidential candidate emphasised on the importance of wearing masks, saying they are the most important, powerful public health tool. We can save 100,000 lives in the next 100 days, according to the head of the CDC, if everyone wears a mask in public. So, be patriotic. It's not about being a tough guy. It's about doing your part, he asserted. Wearing a mask is not only going to protect you, but it also protects those around you, your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, husband, wife, neighbour, coworker. Don't just do it for yourself. Do it for the people you love, people you work with, Biden said. The Democratic presidential candidate said the seriousness of this virus also underscores that people need regular testing with results turned around rapidly and that's available to everyone. It's not just the folks in the White House or who travel with me that deserve regular testing. It's folks in the meatpacking and food processing plants, grocery store workers. Every single American deserves safety and peace of mind, he said. Biden said those who test positive for the virus need to particiapte in contact tracing to check the spread of the virus. And it means we need transparency. Those who test positive need to participate in contact tracing so that everyone who they may have exposed can get tested themselves. That's how you stop transmission for any epidemic. It's basic, he said. We need to take the science of fighting this disease seriously if we're going to save lives. And above all, the news is a reminder that we as a nation need to do better in dealing with this pandemic. Taking these steps is how we'll protect our self. And just as important is how we will protect one another, the former vice president said. More than 2,07,000 Americans have died from this virus and there are more than seven million Americans who have been infected. (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.) She was photographed by her daughter Belle, nine, last month for the clothing giant. And Holly Willoughby took to Instagram on Friday to reveal her latest M&S campaign has been shot by son Harry, 11. The This Morning presenter, 39, who shares three children Harry, Belle, nine, and Chester, five, with husband Dan Baldwin sweetly gushed she was a 'proud mum'. Amazing! Holly Willoughby took to Instagram on Friday to reveal her latest M&S campaign has been shot by son Harry, 11, and she sweetly gushed she was a 'proud mum' Holly looked sensational in the autumnal clothes which included a chequered double breasted coat with gold buttons. The TV star teamed the item of clothing with skinny denim jeans and a white knitted jumper with a blue striped V-neck detail. Holly, who styled her signature blonde locks into a blow-dried hairdo and added a slick of radiant make-up, knew how to work her best angles for the shots. The presenter shared one photo of herself and another of Harry taking her photo on a mobile device. Autumnal chic! Holly looked sensational in the autumnal clothes which included a chequered double breasted coat with gold buttons Motherhood: The This Morning presenter, 39, who shares three children Harry, Belle, nine, and Chester, five, with husband Dan Baldwin sweetly gushed she was a 'proud mum' Gushing over her eldest child, Holly penned: 'I bet this weather has got you thinking about a winter jacket... love this @marksandspencer checked pea coat that goes with everything! 'Photography curtesy of my boy Harry... #quarantinelife #proudmum #ad.' It is not known when the photographs were taken but the family had to go into quarantine in August after a holiday to the Algarve in Portugal. Last month, Holly shared a collection of photos for a different M&S campaign shot by her daughter Belle. Sweet: Last month, Holly shared a collection of photos for a different M&S campaign shot by her daughter Belle The TV star looked incredible in an autumnal ensemble comprising a camel coloured coat and a belted shirt dress as she posed for her beloved daughter. She was flawlessly made-up with her blonde locks teased into delicate curls falling from a side parting while her make-up was muted and chic. The stunner added a caption reading: 'So here it is...After giving you a sneak peek, I'm delighted to reveal the first of my favourite looks from @marksandspencer 's Autumn collection, expertly shot by my Belle whilst in quarantine ... 'Such classic coat and perfect with this beautiful dress... hope you like it!' Chic! The TV star looked incredible in an autumnal ensemble comprising a camel coloured coat and a belted shirt dress as she posed for her beloved daughter Happy days: The stunner added a caption reading: 'So here it is...After giving you a sneak peek, I'm delighted to reveal the first of my favourite looks from @marksandspencer 's Autumn collection, expertly shot by my Belle whilst in quarantine' Holly and her family cut short their summer holiday when new quarantine rules were introduced to ensure she would be back on This Morning on September 1. The shoot came after Holly lamented the new 'six person rule' after England was given updated coronavirus restrictions following a spike in infections last month. Talking on This Morning, she asked whether she was going to have to choose between her mother Lynne, 71, or father Terry, over the yuletide season, due to having a family of five. As it stands, currently, no more than six people are permitted to gather in England - with a few exceptions, which include going to school, work or 'exceptional life events'. New rules: The shoot came after Holly lamented the new 'six person rule' after England was given updated coronavirus restrictions following a spike in infections last month Breaking these new restrictions will mean fines of 100, doubling for each incident up to 3,200. Holly has three children with husband Dan, meaning just one of her parents would make up the 'six person rule'. Discussing the new restrictions with Matthew Wright on This Morning, the ITV star said: 'A lot of people are thinking, "What will this mean for Christmas? What will Christmas look like?" 'It's going to be very awkward in my house as I'm a family-of-five, so I'll have to choose between my mum and dad on Christmas day!' Family: Talking on This Morning last month she asked if she was going to have to choose between her mother Lynne, 71, (pictured) or father Terry, due to having a family of five To which Matthew, 55, replied: 'I'm feeling very confused and conflicted. The rules are different everywhere else in the United Kingdom. 'You can't have your parents over on Christmas Day but you can go on public transport? For the life of me, I can't make any sense of it.' With Holly adding: 'I guess the other thought is how is anyone going to police these rules. The government are going to have marshals to monitor people.' Brussels: The European Union imposed sanctions on Friday on 40 officials suspected of election misconduct and a brutal security crackdown on protesters in Belarus, which quickly retaliated by announcing its own sanctions against the EU and recalling its ambassadors from Poland and Lithuania. Russia, in turn, said it would follow Belarus' lead on sanctioning officials in the 27-nation European bloc, while the US Treasury Department said it had followed the EU and imposed sanctions on eight Belarusian officials. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the exiled opposition leader of Belarus, attends a protest against political repression in Belarus in Vilnius, Lithuania. Credit:Getty The individuals subject to the sanctions that EU leaders endorsed overnight do not include Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, whose disputed re-election to a sixth term has triggered nearly eight weeks of protests and a government crackdown on peaceful protesters, opposition activists and journalists. The EU leaders suggested that Lukashenko, once dubbed Europes last dictator, could be subject to sanctions later if he did not enter into talks with his country's political opposition. In the meantime, those targeted include Interior Ministry, police and security officials, as well as members of the Belarus Central Electoral Commission. The navies of India and Bangladesh held a mega military exercise in the Bay of Bengal on Saturday in sync with their growing operational coordination, officials said. A variety of maritime drills and operations were conducted as part of the annual 'Bongosagar' exercise, they said. The first edition of the exercise was held in October last year. On Sunday, the two navies will begin a two-day coordinated patrol in Northern Bay of Bengal. In the 'Bongosagar' exercise, the Indian Navy deployed anti-submarine warfare corvette Kiltan and guided-missile corvette Khukri. The Bangladeshi navy was represented by guided-missile frigate Abu Bakr and guided-missile corvette Prottoy, the officials said. "India and Bangladesh have a close, long-standing relationship, covering a wide spectrum of activities and interactions, which has strengthened over the years," an Indian Navy spokesperson said on Friday. The Indian Navy has participated in a number of joint maritime exercises in the last few weeks including a three-day drill with Japanese navy from September 26-28. Last month, Indian Navy also carried out a two-day mega exercise in the Indian Ocean Region with the Australian Navy that featured a range of complex naval manoeuvres, anti-aircraft drills and helicopter operations. In July, the Indian Navy carried out a military exercise with a US Navy carrier strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship. India has significantly expanded its deployment in the Indian Ocean Region with a plethora of warships and submarines following its border row with China in eastern Ladakh, ostensibly to send across a message to Beijing. Image Credits: PTI (This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed) At the seminar (Photo: VNA) In his remarks, Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue said to implement its commitments to UNESCO, Hanoi will put forth long-term programmes and plans of action, and facilitate the creative design sector. Michael Croft, UNESCO Chief Representative in Vietnam, suggested Hanoi expand its cooperation with other cities like Seoul (the Republic of Korea), Singapore, Kobe (Japan), Shanghai (China), Bandung (Indonesia), Helsinki (Finland), Montreal (Canada), Berlin (Germany) and Turino (Italy). However, local strength plays the most important role, he said, highlighting the significance of cooperation between the community, the government, universities, the private sector, friends and international partners in materialising Hanois development strategy. Delegates at the seminar focused their discussion on solutions regarding urban recreation and development with culture as the core, creative education with priority given to arts and science, and the promotion of Hanois image. Hanoi was designated as part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network on October 30, 2019, according to the municipal Department of Culture and Sports. The Vietnamese capital became a new member of the network in the field of design, the department said, noting that although Hanoi is strong at many fields of creativity, it decided to apply for the status in terms of design since this area has wide coverage, is closely linked with other fields, and can reflect the citys potential and strength in bringing into play its creativity. Besides, it has also met the standards for a creative city of design, including a developed design industry, multiple opportunities for creating designs from natural materials and conditions, and the presence of design groups with frequent activities. The municipal department said joining the UNESCO network is the first but significant step for Hanoi to raise its standing and create a new and more attractive image of the city./. The Klein ISD board of trustees has two seats on the ballot this election year, with candidates wanting to help steer the district through the school year as they adjust to the pandemic. Positions 1 and 2 are on the ballot this year. Position 1 candidates include incumbent board member Georgan Reitmeier and Lannie McKelvin Milon Jr.; and Position 2 candidates are incumbent board member Doug James and Alvin Vaughn. On HoustonChronicle.com: Spring-Klein Elections: Harris County Precinct 4 Constable, Klein ISD trustees among local contests Reitmeier has served on the board for the last 15 years and had previous educational experience as a second-grade teacher, a traveling reading specialist and a director of early childhood intervention. She has also been a member of the Texas Association of School Boards the last six years and was previously president of the Gulf Coast Association of School Boards. Pathway choices in public education is one goal Reitmeier said she wanted to look at should she be reelected. We want them career ready, whether military, career or college, we want them to have all the skills and to be ready to be really functional, self-sustaining, responsible citizens, Reitmeier said. Because I believe education is the foundation for great citizenry. Reitmeier said she wanted to look for pathways like one they recently began with Lone Star College, where students can begin a pathway to a nursing career starting in eighth grade and graduate with an associate degree. On HoustonChronicle.com: Klein ISD students, teachers adjust to return during pandemic Those kind of learning opportunities are my greatest interest and we have a great superintendent that is innovative, she said. We want to have a skilled workforce and we want to have students that are self-reliant, self-sustaining, have skills in which they can actually perform well and gain satisfaction from, she said. Milon is a professor at the University of St. Thomas in the Doctor of Education program, a field supervisor for Lamar University, and is also a faculty member at the teachers college at Columbia University where he is an education law professor. I wanted to assist with new changes moving forward, Milon said. COVID has really shifted K-12 education as we know it and a lot of policies that will have to be changed moving forward. I wanted to be a thought partner in that movement. Milon said the board would have to undergo many amendments to existing policies due to the pandemic which would require informed parties sitting at the table to ensure they are fitting. When you talk about health and wellness, we cannot forego the COVID conversation, but what does that mean for parents, students, teachers once a kid has been diagnosed or tested positive for COVID? Milon said. Milon said Klein ISD did a good job with emergency planning in the Spring, but now that emergency planning would have to transition into being more of the standard. Policies related to attendance would have to be looked at again, as students now dont have to physically be at school to be considered present in class, he said. Before his work as a professor, Milon said he had previously worked as a principal for middle school and high school and has also served as an executive officer for the Association of Texas Professional Educators and sits on the NAACP Houston Education Board. Doug James is finishing up his first term as Klein ISDs position 2 board member and is running again because he said the board has unfinished business. This has been a year of tremendous interruptions, James said. Weve got a new superintendent who came on last year, so shes got one year under her belt, and weve got a great group of trustees that are trying to set the course for Klein and move it forward in the direction that we need to go in. James said areas he wanted to focus on, should he be reelected, included equity and balancing the districts funding. He also said he wants to work with the board to set an agenda in November after the elections to move things forward. Its been an unprecedented year, so there are a lot of balls in the air and one kind of depends on the other, James said. Its always about educating our kids. Candidate Alvin Vaughn did not respond to requests for comment as of the time of printing. Early voting begins Oct. 13 and election day is Nov. 3. paul.wedding@hcnonline.com Congress leaders detained for staging midnight protest at Goa hotel to meet Javadekar India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P Panaji, Oct 03: Several Goa Congress leaders, including the pradesh committee vice president, were detained Friday night after they protested in the lobby of a hotel demanding they be allowed to meet Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar. Javadekar is in Goa to attend a series of meetings on the new farm bills Saturday. The Congress leaders reached the hotel around midnight and demanded to meet the Union minister over the Mahadayi river water dispute with Karnataka. UP govt 'conspiring' to prove Hathras woman a 'liar': Congress When the hotel management refused them permission, they sat on a protest in the lobby. Later, the leaders were detained and taken to a police station in Panaji. The leaders including Goa Pradesh Youth Congress Committee President Varad Mardolkar, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee Vice President Sankalp Amonkar, office-bearer Janardhan Bhandari. Congress prepares draft model law to annul central farm laws Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Goa Congress President Girish Chodankar tweeted, "JUNGLE RAJ in Goa -- @INCGoa delegation led by Vice President @SankalpAmonkar, @JanaBhandariGoa @Varadmardolkar @AdvArchitNaik @RautMeghashyam @SudinNaikGoa & 10 others arrested by @DGP_Goa for seeking appointment with @PrakashJavdekar & waiting to meet him in hotel lobby in Panjim." Mardolkar said the Congress delegation wanted to meet Javadekar to question him on the Central government's "silence" over Mahadayi river water diversion by Karnataka. "Javadekar has failed the State of Goa as far as interest of Mahadayi is concerned," he said, claiming that the Union minister was also responsible for granting permissions for several environmentally hazardous projects, which were being opposed by people. Ms. Kortekaas has increased her marijuana intake since the pandemic started (it is legal in Canada). I smoke some weed and am able to calm down and clean my kitchen and do my laundry and do some regular person things, she said. Though there arent reliable statistics that break down parents use of alcohol, marijuana and anti-anxiety medications specifically, overall adult use of these substances has gone up since the pandemic began, said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. A nationally representative study of more than 1,500 Americans over 30 published in JAMA Network Open, showed that alcohol use is up among all adults in that age range, but in particular, among non-Hispanic white people, women and those between 30 and 59. Many states where marijuana is legal have seen a big increase in sales since the virus began; for example, in Washington State, cannabis revenue spiked at the height of the pandemic, according to budget analysis from a local news radio station, KXLY. And some data from earlier in the pandemic showed that prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications were on the rise. Prescriptions for Klonopin and other similar drugs rose 10.2 percent in March 2020 from March 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing statistics from IQVIA, a health research firm . Parents arent just using substances as a means of relief. For some, its also a ritual that helps them separate work from play when no one ever leaves the house. At 5 p.m. Bree Sanchez, 45, and her husband have a drink in their backyard. We need to shape this day a little, a transition to our next thing, which is laundry, dinner, cleaning stuff up, said Ms. Sanchez, an art director and mother of two children, ages 9 and 11, in the Bay Area. Their daily cocktail is a way to pause and talk to each other, and the kids will leave us alone. In this article GOOGL New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at a news conference on September 08, 2020 in New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images Six months after it was announced, the tech that Apple and Google built for sending Covid-19 exposure alerts to smartphones is finally gaining momentum in the United States. New York and New Jersey both released Covid-19 alert apps this week, bringing the total to 10 states plus Guam that have published apps using technology from the Apple-Google partnership. Seventy million people, or 21% of the U.S. population, now have access to a Covid-19 app, according to a CNBC analysis using U.S. Census data. More are coming soon, too. Five other states plus Washington, D.C., have announced plans to use the Apple-Google exposure notification system, and California and Arizona are currently testing apps in pilot programs. If the system works properly, the apps will provide push alerts to any user who came in close contact with another app user who tested positive for the coronavirus. Users can also use the apps to alert everyone they were near that they tested positive without revealing their name or phone number. For health bodies and governments, the apps could help slow the spread of the coronavirus by identifying people who might test positive that could be missed by other methods, such as contact tracing. "It will not only help us do contact tracing but can also get people a sense of security and confidence," New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday in a press conference announcing the app. "You know anxiety is very high, everybody is wondering, I was next to this person, I was next to this person, but this can actually give you some data and facts can help reduce anxiety and that is a good thing." Cheaper and faster While Apple and Google created programming tools called APIs that enabled these apps to run on most recent iPhones and Android phones, the tech giants are not publishing nor developing the apps themselves. That falls to governments and public health bodies, which have historically had limited funding to invest in new technology. But the costs for developing these apps have finally come down, which is one reason why momentum is picking up. Development on New York's app, Covid Alert NY, started in August, and it cost $700,000, a relatively low price that was able to be covered by federal funds and nonprofit groups including Bloomberg Philanthropy. When Germany's Covid-19 app was released in June, the government said it cost 20 million euros to develop. Officials from England's NHS said in September that the total cost of its app was expected to top 35 million. But American governments can take advantage of apps built in countries such as Ireland and Canada because the code for those apps is available online and free to use and has already been deployed to millions of people. Instead of building the apps from scratch, they merely have to customize an open-source app with specific local health information, graphics and languages, and don't have to reinvent complicated code for measuring Bluetooth signals or write privacy policies and other legal notices from scratch. New York and New Jersey's apps are based on Covid Green, Ireland's app, which the government open-sourced in July. The apps for the two states and Pennsylvania were built by NearForm, the original developer of Ireland's app. "What that does is gives people like in New York the confidence to go, 'Hey, this solution has been out there one of the longest, it's tried and tested, it's getting adoption levels, citizens seem to like it," said Larry Breen, chief commercial officer at NearForm. "You're not trying things for the first time. So people have typically gone before you on the fundamentals." Working across state lines Covid Alert NY app Source: Covid Alert NY ap Another factor aiding momentum is the fact that U.S. apps are now finally able to talk to each other. The U.S. does not have a national app strategy, unlike other countries, so the development of the apps falls to the state level. One concern with early apps was that they would not be able to communicate with other exposure notification apps so, for instance, if someone with a Virginia app tested positive for Covid-19 and was close to someone with the North Carolina app, the system wouldn't be able to ascertain the connection, and the person with the North Carolina app wouldn't get a notification. But the apps from New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania will all be able to exchange notifications, Cuomo said this week. Connecticut will also be supported when it's released. This is possible because the Association for Public Health Laboratories set up a national key server in July, which gives the states the ability to all participate in a single system with different apps, instead of each state maintaining its own back end. "This is really the key to interoperability in the United States at this point, because what that means is that anybody who reports themselves as positive, rather than uploading that set of keys to their own state, they're uploading it to the national key server," said Jenny Wanger, head of the Implementer's Forum at the Linux Foundation Public Health, a nonprofit that hosts the Covid Green code and provides assistance to agencies working on exposure notifications. Will people install them? Now the apps face the biggest challenge yet: getting people to download and install them. Ireland's app, which New York and New Jersey are based on, has an active user base of 1.3 million, or about 35% of the adult population. Virginia's app was the first to be released in the United States, and it was downloaded 460,000 times in its first month, amounting to 11% of the state's population with a smartphone, Gov. Ralph Northam said in September. By way of comparison, New York's app had been downloaded approximately 250,000 times by Friday afternoon, a Cuomo spokesperson said. New Jersey's app had been downloaded more than 63,000 times on Friday, according to a tracker inside the app. Some users may be repelled by privacy considerations, even though Apple and Google designed the system with privacy in mind. Apps created with the technology don't collect or store any personal information such as the user's phone number or location. Instead, every phone with a Covid alert app sends out Bluetooth Low Energy signals to detect if two people were close together for an extended period of time. Every day, each phone in the system downloads a list of anonymous tokens corresponding to positive tests, and compares them with tokens on the phone collected when the user was near another person for a certain period of time. For instance, New York's app marks an exposure when two people were within six feet for 10 minutes. But those privacy provisions won't matter if people don't know about or believe in them. The system is technical and difficult to explain briefly. Some people have advanced conspiracy theories about the software on social media based on the system's settings inside iPhone or Android software. Users who test positive also must enter a six-digit code to alert others, and governments can't force them to do so. "If you don't have a really strong user awareness and public trust rollout strategy to go with it, your app is not going to see great success," Wanger said. States such as Virginia have dealt with these problems by emphasizing the system's privacy in marketing and in-app explanations. New York's app in some areas replaces the accepted jargon for the system, "exposure notification," in favor of the more understandable "closeness sensing." There's also considerable debate about the number of people in any given region who need to download the apps for the system to work. A study earlier this year suggested that the number is 60%, but Apple and Google representatives as well as people working on the apps say the study was misinterpreted. The authors of the original study presented research in September that an installation rate as low as 15% could help suppress Covid-19 if governments are also using traditional contact tracing. Under traditional systems, government health agencies phone everyone who tests positive and asks them to list people they were recently in contact with, then communicate directly with those contacts to tell them they might have been exposed. Efficacy data on the apps are still being studied, and many regions have yet to publish stats about detected exposures, Wanger said. Still, places where the apps have been available are seeing them pick up potential cases. In Ireland, 1,382 users of the Covid Green app who have tested positive have input the code to alert close contacts, and 2,924 users have received alerts who might not otherwise have been identified, NearForm said. Where the apps are being used Licensed childcare representing most programs caring for more than seven children in Alberta is getting a boost through funding from the federal and provincial governments. On Sept. 22, the federal government announced that it was providing $72 million to Albertas childcare sector through the Safe Restart Agreement. Licensed programs will receive payments ($200 per approved space in addition to $2,500 per program) distributed on Oct. 15 and Nov. 15. This funding supplements $15 million in funding ($109 per licensed space) from the province provided in September. With many local childcare operators shutting down in mid-March, parents who had already paid for the month were given a half-month credit for September, when many programs restarted, explained Paula Beekman, owner and operator of NEXT Kids Inc., which provides care to 165 children at two facilities located in Strathmore and Calgary. For the month of September, weve run on half price, because the people who have returned had credits, she said. I think (the funding) is playing catch up; the government is trying to fill the void where we have lost income, because they need daycares that are licensed to stay open. New cleaning requirements are extensive and put pressure on staff. If the child touches something, were watching it; we are constantly cleaning, said Beekman. If you are supervising children engaged in activity it is very hard to focus on cleaning as well. The Busy Bee Preschool Association, which operates the Busy Bee Preschool and Carseland Before and After School Program within Carseland School, is looking at hiring additional cleaning staff to meet these cleaning requirements, said Brittney Rattray, board president. The funding is going to go 100 per cent towards the cleaning and custodial staff, said Rattray. Any extra thats left over well probably use for still more cleaning, but maybe in a different form; we might purchase a dishwasher to wash all the kids water bottles and sanitize the toys. The added cleaning resulted in extra costs, at least initially, said Kara Small, who operates the Toddle Inn Day Care Society in Strathmore. There were some extra costs involved with getting the proper personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer, gloves everything like that, she said. There were a few things that over that period were a little more costly. Both Small and Beekman said enrollment remains down, to a quarter and half of their capacity, respectively, resulting in lowered revenue. Rattray said enrollment at her facility is slightly lower than typical but should increase as more parents decide to return their kids to school. The funding will allow Erin Jensen, owner of County Kids Childcare in Standard, to continue to better compensate her staff, she said. I think that having this funding will really help to boost morale, said Jensen. Ive been taking full advantage of the wage subsidies and everything that I possibly can, and I gave my staff a raise already this year, because they brought back the provincial wage subsidy for childcare operators. Funding childcare is a long-term investment in children, added Jensen. Its early intervention, like when you invest in primary health care so that you dont end up with a bunch of sick people on the back end, she said. Thats exactly what we do in early childhood. Its so much more than ABCs; its a lot of socio-emotional development that kids need to survive in life. The funding is going to help us do that much better. Read more about: Armenia and Azerbaijan have traded accusations of using foreign fighters, mostly from Syria, in the battle for Nagorno-Karabakh. Here is an overview: Syrians in Azeri ranks? From the onset of the clashes last Sunday, Armenia has accused Turkey of sending mercenaries from northern Syria to fight alongside the Azeris. On Friday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told French newspaper Le Figaro that Turkey had transported thousands of mercenaries and terrorists to Azerbaijan from northern Syria. Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a phone call, expressed serious concern over the reported involvement in military action of militants of illegal armed groups from the Middle East, the Kremlin said. French President Emmanuel Macron also weighed in, demanding that Turkey explain what he said was the arrival of jihadist fighters in Azerbaijan. A red line has been crossed, which is unacceptable, said Macron. There has been no official comment from Turkey which backs Baku in the conflict, but Azerbaijan has denied the reports. There is yet another disinformation piece against Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev, a presidential foreign affairs aide, said in a news conference. We completely reject it, Azerbaijan doesnt need any foreign fighters because we have professional armed forces and we also have enough reserve forces. But the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 850 pro-Turkey Syrian fighters have been sent to Azerbaijan since last week, and at least 28 of them killed in combat. Relatives of three fighters confirmed to AFP they had been killed, while social media users shared pictures of four fighters who died in clashes. What affiliations? According to Macron, intelligence reports indicate 300 fighters drawn from jihadist groups from the Syrian city of Aleppo have passed through Gaziantep in Turkey en route for Azerbaijan. These fighters are known, tracked and identified, he said. The Observatory says the Syrian fighters are members of pro-Turkish armed groups mostly active in the northern Afrin region which Ankara seized from Kurds in 2018. They are mostly from the ethnic Turkmen minority living in Syria, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. They fight under the banners of three groups in the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army Sultan Murad Brigades, Suleiman Shah and Liwa Al-Muntasser bi Allah. But SNA spokesman Youssef Hammoud, in a statement sent to AFP, denied the involvement of his forces in Azerbaijan. Last month, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said armed groups in the area of northern Syria controlled by Turkey may have committed war crimes and other violations of international law. Aymenn Jawad Tamimi, an academic and expert on armed groups in Syria, said the fighters deployed were a mixed bag. Those going to fight are the same types of people who have been recruited to fight in Turkeys intervention in Libya, he said. They are a mixture of rebel veterans and newer recruits and some of these rebels previously received Western backing. Foreigners on Armenian side? Baku says Armenians from the diaspora have been deployed. Armenians from Syria and Lebanon are being deployed to Armenia and they are in the ranks of the Armenian armed forces fighting against Azerbaijan, Hajiyev said. The Observatory said hundreds of Armenians from Syria have joined the battle, but an Armenian official in northern Syria denied the report. Lebanese Armenian MP Hagop Pakradounian, for his part, said: Armenian political parties have no intention of sending young people (to Karabakh), there is no such organised action. burs-lar/hkb/hc The political fight between the Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, and his deputy, Agboola Ajayi, ahead of the states October 10 governorship election has deepened with each accusing the other of illegal financial dealings in the running of their offices. Mr Akeredolu said his deputy receives N13 million monthly as running grant which makes him the highest paid deputy governor in Nigeria. He also described him as greedy and lacking in contentment. Mr Ajayi, however, while admitting that he collected the amount, said the cash was inconsequential when compared to what accrues to the governors family monthly from the state purse. Deep war The deputy governor is running against his principal on the platform of the Zenith Labour Party. He had a stop-over at the Peoples Democratic Party after dumping the All Progressives Congress in search of the ticket to run for the office. Mr Akeredolu is seeking a reelection on the platform of the APC as his statutory four-year tenure rolls to a close. Fireworks The governor, who spoke while responding to questions on the state-owned radio station, explained that Mr Ajayi had a free hand to operate with unfettered access to all state properties and to his office. He said two ministries were given to Mr Ajayi to manage but he was never satisfied. Agboola Ajayi is the highest paid deputy governor in Nigeria, as I speak. He earns more than the deputy governor of Lagos State. He earns over N13 million monthly as running grants for his office, Mr Akeredolu said. Ajayi is just a greedy man that lacks contentment. I gave him a free hand to perform as a deputy governor. I gave him two ministries to run. He constructed roads. He built a number of schools. His wife also built a number of schools. The list is endless. Ajayi enjoyed more benefits than his predecessors as a deputy governor, but was only greedy. He had a free access to all state properties. He had a free access to me and all documents. He was even nick-named Arakunrin Kekere (small gentlemen). So, a man that would betray you would betray you no matter how you treat him. I have left Ajayi to God and posterity to judge him. Counter accusation In reaction, Mr Ajayi said the governors claims erroneously gives the indication that he was collecting the sums illegally. The Deputy Governor is surprised that the Governor could go to the press, announcing the sum of N13 million as what the deputy governor gets, as if it was a gift for personal use, and not for the use of his office, Allen Sowore, media aide to Mr Ajayi, said. His statement is reproduced in part below. The Deputy Governor states that what came to his office, until Akeredolu refused to release same, was N12 million per month. This includes the imprest of his office, allowances of staff, fuelling of vehicles, care of his residence and welfare of his aides. Huge as the amount may appear, it amounts to not so much when the heads and number of individuals it caters for are considered. This also pales to nearly nothing when compared to what Akeredolu and members of his family skim off the purse of our state with reckless abandon. For instance, the Governor gets a security vote of N750 million every month. He, Akeredolu, also gets an imprest of about N150 million, his wife, though occupies no constitutionally recognised position, and takes an imprest of N15 million naira per month. Apart from this, she collects an additional sum of N11 million from the Ministry of Women Affairs, which she runs like a potentate. Babajide, Akeredolus son, is also not left out in the pillage that Akeredolu and his family is visiting on Ondo State. He too takes a whopping N5 million monthly, and rips off the state by taking unbelievable commissions as a consultant to the State on almost every imaginable areas. All these are apart from millions and millions they get from inflated contracts awarded to family members and lackeys. Angry governor But the governor, through his Press Secretary, Segun Ajigoye, also responded to the allegations. He said his boss earlier N13 million revelation had only exposed the entrenched character of the deputy governor. Advertisements True to type, Ajayi has resorted to lies and fabrications that Mr Governor gets a monthly payment of N750m as security vote, Mr Ajiboye said. This brazen misinformation is not a surprise but a true reflection of the unstable and treacherous content in Ajayi. The general public is urged to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act to interrogate both statements by Mr Governor and Ajayi. For the avoidance of doubt, the State Bureaucracy which process such payments is very available to confirm the veracity or frivolity of either of the statements. The October 10 governorship election is between integrity and the absence of it. The patent greed which has provided motivation for the treachery and perfidy of Ajayi appears to have created further paths of dishonesty to oil his political misadventure. Succinctly, he is misled my his mind of greed. By his antecedents, Agboola Ajayi would have wittingly provided evidence of the payment of such huge amount even before now if it was true. A former University of Connecticut student charged with killing two people in Connecticut before leading police on a multistate manhunt made a brief appearance in state Superior Court in Vernon on Friday. Peter Manfredonia, 23, has remained incarcerated since authorities took arrested him in Maryland on May 27. Authorities allege he slashed one man to death with a Samurai sword in Willington, held another man in his home at gunpoint, and then shot and killed a former Newtown classmate in Derby before kidnapping that mans girlfriend fleeing through several states. During Fridays hearing, Manfredonias attorney agreed to the release of an ATV held by investigators has evidence in the assault in Willington. Theyve processed it photographed it and swabbed it for DNA, said attorney Michael Dolan, who is representing Manfredonia in all three cases pending against him stemming from the two alleged murders and home invasion. He declined to comment when asked how his client is doing. The spree of violence began around 9 a.m. on May 22 in Willington. State Police allege Manfredonia fatally attacked 62-year-old Ted Demers with his sword after DeMers offered Manfredonia a ride on his four-wheeler. Another man John Franco, 80, was also injured in the attack. Witnesses said the assailant took off on a red Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle. Police later found the bike belonging to Manfredonia in Willington. State police learned a female acquaintance of Manfredonias lived near the crime scene, according to the warrant for his arrest. The woman told investigators Manfredonia had an obsession with Samurai swords and she had considered getting a restraining order against him after she said he hacked into her social media accounts. Two days later, state troopers were alerted to a Ford F-150 truck found abandoned near Osbornedale State Park by Derby police. The registration showed the trucks owner lived not far from where Manfredonias motorcycle was recovered. When police went to check on the trucks owner at his home, they found the 73-year-old tied to a chair in the basement. According to the warrant, the man told investigators he woke up abruptly to a male with a gun to the back of my neck and shouting at me not to turn around or he would blow my (expletive) brains out. He told police Manfredonia held him hostage in his home at gunpoint for more than 24 hours, during which time they watched TV and the man said he tried to reason with his captor to turn himself in. I suggested that we call the authorities and work something out for him, the homeowner told troopers, according to the warrant. He was calm and apologetic, but couldnt explain why he did that. I asked how old was the guy that he got into the confrontation with and he said he wasnt that old. He said he couldnt believe that he could do that but then his demeanor switched immediately. Manfredonia told the man he expected he would have two good weeks before the crime spree ended in either a shootout, the death penalty, or life in prison. When Manfredonia left the home on May 24 he took the mans guns, ammo, credit cards, cash and food in his truck after leaving him in the basement. Soon after, Derby police found Nicholas Eisele, a former Newtown High School classmate of Manfredonia, shot dead in his Roosevelt Drive home near where the truck was abandoned. According to the second arrest warrant against Manfredonia, Eiseles girlfriend awoke to find the two in a tense standoff. When the woman tried to call 911, Manfredonia ripped the phone out of her hand and began tussling with Eisele, (I)t was like Manfredonia was trying to come after her and Nick tried to stop him, the womans account in the arrest warrant said. She heard gunshots and saw Eisele lying on the floor. The woman told police Manfredonia forced her to drive him to New Jersey in her Volkswagen Jetta, eventually letting her go after he took an Uber from a truck stop near the Pennsylvania border. Days later, police caught up with Manfredonia at another truck stop in Hagerstown, Md., and arrested him without incident. Manfredonia has been charged with murder, criminal attempt to commit murder, first-degree assault, home invasion, first-degree kidnapping with a firearm, first-degree robbery, first-degree larceny, two counts of first-degree stealing a firearm, and third-degree assault of an elderly person in the Willington assault and home invasion. He also faces charges of murder, felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, home invasion, first-degree robbery and carrying a pistol without a permit in the Derby incident. Manfredonia has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He is due back in court on the Willington charges Nov. 20, his attorney said, and court records show he is due to appear in Superior Court in Milford on Oct. 29 for the Derby charges. Wegmans, the supermarket chain with a huge presence in Upstate New York, will open its 104th store next month as it continues its expansion down the East Coast. Wegmans is scheduled to open its newest store Nov. 4 in Tysons, Virginia. But its not finished building new ones by a long shot. The Rochester-based chain has identified these locations where it plans to open stores over the next few years: Delaware Greenville just outside the City of Wilmington at the intersection of Lancaster Pike and Barley Mill Road in New Castle County Maryland Rockville Rockville Pike and Halpine Road in Montgomery County North Carolina Cary Cary Towne Boulevard and Interstate 40 in Wake County Chapel Hill US Interstate 40 and Highway 15-501 in Orange County Holly Springs North Carolina Highway 55 and Ralph Stephens Road in Wake County Wake Forest Route 98 bypass, just east of Capital Blvd. in Wake County Virginia Alexandria (Carlyle) Eisenhower Ave. exit off Interstate 495 in Fairfax County Reston Dulles Toll Road (VA Route 267) and Reston Parkway in Fairfax County Washington D.C. Wisconsin Avenue Wisconsin Avenue and Rodman Street Youll see from our list of future projects that our new store growth is concentrated in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions, though we will continue to upgrade or replace older stores in our more mature markets, like New York, the company says on its website. But the locations listed above are not the only places where Wegmans plans to open new stores. There are other sites we are working on but are not at liberty to disclose as yet, the company says. Wegmans has not set dates for the future store openings, except for the Tysons store. It typically opens two or three a year. Evelyn Ingram, a spokesperson for Wegmans, said the companys real estate team looks for great regional locations that are easy to find and easy to access when deciding where to build new stores. Wegmans also takes the size of a potential site into consideration, as its stores, typically between 80,000 and 120,000 square feet, are large, she said. Potential sites must be big enough to accommodate the size of the store and adequate parking, around 15 to 20 acres," Ingram said. "We usually look for markets with a growing population and demographics that would support our larger store format. In 2019, more than 7,500 people contacted Wegmans asking for a store in their community, according to the company. Each year, thousands of people who have visited our store for the first time, or moved to a place without Wegmans, write asking that we build a store in their town, the company said. Since we open just two or three new stores each year, it would be impossible to oblige every request. Wegmans store openings often draw large crowds. Thousands showed up in the rain, some as early as midnight, for the 7 a.m. opening of a Wegmans store in Brooklyn in October last year. The line to get into Brooklyn @Wegmans on opening day stretched around the block. Some people had been there since midnight. pic.twitter.com/ExbahSJrvL Shoshy Ciment (@ShoshanaCiment) October 27, 2019 Its newest stores are designed to look like European open-air markets and feature large displays of fresh produce, artisan breads, meats, seafood, imported cheeses, prepared foods and international foods. The 80,000 square-foot store in Tysons, for example, will include a cafe with indoor and outdoor seating and The Burger Bar, a casual restaurant counter that serves burgers, fresh salads, sandwiches, specialty milkshakes, soups and sides. The store is part of Capital One Center, the public-facing portion of Capital Ones global headquarters. It will employ 150 people. Wegmans facts: Wegmans stores, the largest of which is more than 150,000 square feet , are larger than most supermarkets and carry 50,000 to 70,000 products. The average size of grocery stores in the U.S. is 41,651 square feet, according to The Food Industry Association John Wegman opened the Rochester Fruit & Vegetable Co. in Rochester in 1916, marking the beginning of Wegmans Food Markets. He was joined by his brother Walter a year later. Wegmans has grown into one of the largest private companies in the U.S. It employs 50,000 people across seven states and had $9.7 billion in revenues in 2019. The chain has made Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work For every year since the magazine began the list in 1998 and was ranked No. 1 in 2005. New York has the most Wegmans, with 48, including eight in the Syracuse area. Wegmans opened its latest New York store in Harrison in Westchester County on Aug. 5. The Tysons store will be the 13th Wegmans in Virginia. The company opened a store in July in West Cary, North Carolina, its second in that state. There are 18 Wegmans in Pennsylvania, 9 in New Jersey, 8 in Maryland and 6 in Massachusetts. The biggest Wegmans? The most massive store in 4 Upstate NY regions, 5 other states Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148 WASHINGTONHealth and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, responding to Democrats concerns that President Donald Trump might try to rush out a COVID-19 vaccine before it is ready, told a House panel Friday that science would govern whether his department approves a vaccine. In Azars first testimony on Capitol Hill since February, he told the Houses Coronavirus Crisis Subcommittee that career officials at the Food and Drug Administration, led by Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks, would decide if a vaccine was safe and effective. Still, Azar said that other officials, such as himself, bring years of experience to the table that can be useful in the debate over approving a vaccine. The hearing came hours after President Donald Trump announced early Friday he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, following the diagnosis of close aide Hope Hicks. Azar said his own test had come back negative. Azar declined to answer questions about whether he had advised Trump not to hold political rallies during the pandemic or whether Trump had directed him to slow down testing for the virus, saying he would not discuss private conversations. Before the hearing, Democrats and Republicans on the subcommittee released dueling reports evaluating the Trump administrations response to the pandemic. The Democrats report outlines 47 cases of political interference with government scientists. These incidents have degraded every major facet of the Administrations public health response, including efforts to provide Americans access to testing and personal protective equipment, develop treatments and vaccines, and provide scientifically sound advice to the public on masks, social distancing, and other steps to stay safe, the report says. In his opening remarks, Subcommittee Chairman James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, called Trumps response to the virus a failure of historic proportion. The Republican report argues that Trump offered an effective, national response, rebutting Democrats concerns that Trump left too much to the states to handle on their own. Just because you dont want to read a plan doesnt mean there isnt a plan, said Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the top Republican on the subcommittee. Republicans on the panel reiterated their view that Congress should investigate Chinas role in the spread of the virus. Azar also told the panel that he did not support emailed statements by former aide Paul Alexander seeking changes in the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, which are relied upon for their non-partisan scientific information. Azar noted that Alexander no longer works for HHS. Alexander was a former senior adviser to Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs who recently took medical leave. There is a way to have discussion and debate that is proper, respectful, appropriate, Azar said. I do not know of any circumstance where anybody other than Dr. Redfield or Dr. Birx would have authority over determining the final publication of those reports, Azar said, referencing CDC Director Robert Redfield and Deborah Birx, the White Houses coronavirus response co-ordinator. Azar also disagreed with a call by some administration officials to allow the virus to spread in the hope of attaining immunity among the population. Federal officials have estimated that about 70% of the public would have to be immune either through infection or vaccination to achieve so-called herd immunity. CDC estimates that roughly 10% of the U.S. population has had COVID-19. Herd immunity is not the strategy of the U.S. government with regard to coronavirus, Azar said, adding that the United States may see slowing of transmission in hard-hit areas. Our mission is to reduce fatalities, protect the vulnerable, keep coronavirus cases down to the lowest level possibility. Azar told the committee that he had ordered a strategic review of an approximately $300 million public relations campaign directed by Caputo meant to promote the administrations response. The funding was shifted from the CDC. I also have taken steps to ensure that any products coming out of this campaign will be reviewed and approved by career public health officials, including from the CDC. he said. The Surgeon General has cut ads to urge people to take appropriate health steps to limit their possible exposure to the virus. The next phase of the program would encourage people to get a flu vaccination and a third part would focus on urging people to get a vaccine for the virus that causes COVID-19 if one becomes available. Read more about: TRENTON, N.J. New Jersey spent more than three decades and over $100 billion targeting money to its most struggling school districts in an attempt to rectify generations of inequity in its education system. In the end, it just solved one problem and created another. The funding helped level the playing field for Black students, ensuring children in the states poorest cities got the same amount of funding as those in some of the wealthiest towns. But new research suggests New Jerseys failure to fully fund its approach to education spending after achieving those goals has left a significant gap between white and Latinx students. New Jerseys 30-year experiment shows how hard it is to truly fulfill promises to make public schools equitable, something that has been a cornerstone of protests this year after George Floyds killing in Minnesota that brought attention to racial and socioeconomic inequities across the U.S. The progressive policy became the subject of never-ending court battles, rancorous debates from Democrats and Republicans alike over who deserves state resources and a cost driver for the state budget, a third of which now goes to education aid. Instead of making continual progress on funding, New Jersey is "backsliding," says researcher Bruce Baker. For the last decade, its really kind of fallen apart, Baker, professor at Rutgers Universitys Graduate School of Education, said of school funding in New Jersey. New Jersey schools now are about as equitable as they were in the early 1990s. New Jersey employs one of the most ambitious school funding approaches in the nation, using a complicated and controversial formula to redistribute state tax revenue to ensure all of its roughly 600 districts spend enough to meet the needs of every pupil. But it hasnt been enough. The states failure ever to fully fund the formula left many middle-of-the-road communities with fewer resources than either the poorest or richest districts. Story continues Lawmakers have weakened the state aid system with caveats and extraneous funding pools concocted to mollify suburban politicians who feared more money for nonwhite kids would mean less money for white ones. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy made a campaign promise to fix that situation by fully funding the formula and even cut a deal with the states legislative leaders to do that. But the pandemic-induced economic downturn has put that effort on pause, leading Murphy on Tuesday to sign a state budget that keeps school funding flat. The move sets back the states seven-year commitment to achieve equity in spending for all children. That means, for another year, Latinx students will have to make do with less funding than the state says they need, all while facing other difficulties wrought by the pandemic including a lack of access to remote-learning technology and the disproportionate toll the coronavirus has been taking on their families and communities. It will also send the state scrambling for more money next year when New Jersey which already has one of the worst credit ratings among the states and plans to borrow $4.5 billion more will be facing an increasingly uncertain fiscal picture. Yet, Murphy and state lawmakers are celebrating the flat funding as a success. After all, they say, the state didnt have to cut school aid during a pandemic that devastated revenues. At the same time, theyre hoping the federal government will come through with rescue aid next year. Still, the research done by Baker found that, without an increase in funding, some districts should be receiving over $5,000 more per pupil to provide their Latinx students with a thorough and efficient education guaranteed by the state constitution. That means students entering grade school this year may not receive the funding the state says they are entitled to until high school if they see it at all. One easy way to close the gap in a normal year would be for the state to fully fund the formula add an additional $2 billion a year to overall school aid and the formula itself would take care of the rest. But during a pandemic, when every school is pursuing a different style of teaching from remote, to in-person to a hybrid of the two and when districts are competing for resources, grant money and even teachers and school nurses the opportunity gap between white and nonwhite students is growing and becoming more complicated. New Jersey as a national model New Jerseys School Funding Reform Act was established in 2008 after a landmark series of court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s the result of a case known as Abbott v. Burke held that the states school funding system discriminated against poorer urban districts and favored wealthier suburban ones. The law and the formula it created was intended to be a shining example of what school funding equity could be. The formula is meticulous: It assigns a weight or value to every student in a district based on their various needs. Students enrolled in a free- or reduced-cost lunch program, for example, are considered at risk and given an additional weight, as are students considered to have Limited English Proficiency. All of those values are then calculated by the state and used to determine the amount of money each district needs to provide all its students with a thorough and efficient education. Despite some flaws in the system, and the failure of the state to ever really fully fund the formula, it and other remedies that came from the state courts case worked. To an extent. Graduating students socially distance during a graduation ceremony at Millburn High School in Millburn, N.J., Wednesday, July 8, 2020. This week New Jersey saw the resumption of youth day camps, in-person summer school and school graduation ceremonies, capped at 500 people and required to be outside. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) New Jersey school districts that have majority Black populations are, on average, relatively on par fundingwise with predominantly white districts. Abbott worked. I think you can clearly demonstrate that the Abbott litigation did succeed in increasing revenues and expenditures for low-income, but also Black and Hispanic students across the state. I dont think theres any denying that, Danielle Farrie, research director at the Newark-based Education Law Center, which successfully argued the Abbott cases, said in an interview. That doesnt mean conditions within school buildings are necessarily equal or that Black students on average receive the same quality education as white students. But in terms of per-pupil spending at the state level, theyre nearly the same. According to state data for the 2018-19 school year, the most recent available, the typical New Jersey public school district spends, on average, $21,866 per pupil. Majority-Black Newark Public Schools spent $23,938 per pupil, while majority-white Toms River Regional spent $17,606. On paper, the SFRA could be a solid model for equitable school funding nationally, but it only works if theres enough money being put in. Thats something New Jersey has never done and may never do. A widening equity gap Without this funding, those who will suffer the most are the growing communities of Latinx students who were not party to the original Abbott rulings and missed out on all of the remedies offered to majority-Black cities. Baker said the equity gap for Latinx students is widening because, without that money, local voters and school boards are the final deciding factor for whether to raise local taxes to pay to educate their students. Those voters and school boards dont necessarily reflect the community they represent. Because of a state-imposed cap on property tax increases that was enacted under former Republican Gov. Chris Christie, only districts that can persuade voters to exceed the limits will be able to keep spending more. If you have a white power structure and a brown student population you dont get the increases of funding if you have a white power structure and white student population, Baker said. Districts that have greater capacity to pass [tax cap] overrides in the coming years will continue to do so and widen that gap. Domingo Morel, an assistant professor at Rutgers University whos studied racism and politics in urban education, cautioned that with these gains in resources after the Abbott cases also came state takeovers of urban districts and a growing feeling of resentment among wealthy white taxpayers upset at the thought of paying to educate someone elses children. New Jersey has been a little bit better than other states in fighting for more resources, Morel said, but we have been just as bad as everyone else in the racist, patronizing way we treat communities of color, saying 'OK, you'll get these resources, but it has to be our way. The states come a long way There is a chance for the state to redeem itself and counteract some of the inequities past administrations and Legislatures tacked on to the formula to get the suburban votes it sorely needed to pass. Senate President Steve Sweeney State Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat from South Jersey, spearheaded a law signed by Murphy in 2018 that was meant to iron out some of the glaring issues with the funding formula and put the state on a seven-year timeline to full funding. The state currently spends more than $8 billion annually on aid but should be spending closer to $11 billion. The law put into place a gradual reallocation of aid, which moves money from so-called overfunded districts receiving more aid than the state has calculated it needs to underfunded districts, many of which include communities with majority Latinx populations. Urban districts like Elizabeth, Paterson, Passaic and Perth Amboy, as well as suburban communities like Dover and Freehold Boro, with Latinx populations of more than 65 percent have been beneficiaries of the laws changes and have seen their state aid grow significantly since 2018. Bakers study accounts for those changes but also includes data from years before the recent changes were enacted. Sweeney, who agreed to the budget Murphy just signed that keeps funding flat, still thinks more funding will come in future years. We're absolutely going to try to get back [to full funding] next year. A lot depends on the federal government, Sweeney said, adding that he hopes to be able to do more next year than what the governor proposed get back on track, like a doubling-up almost. But Farrie, of the Education Law Center, said federal aid might not come. And if New Jersey experiences a second wave of Covid-19 or more serious economic consequences, school funding cuts are not out of the question, and students will have to shoulder that burden for generations. The finish line just keeps getting further away and harder to reach, she said. With most governors having declared construction to be essential during the pandemic, many states took advantage of unusually light traffic during stay-at-home orders to step up paving and other work. But much of the work that continued in the spring and early summer fell under contracts signed in the one or two years before the pandemic. Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has told victims of Thursdays floods in some communities within the West Mamprusi Municipality that he shares in their loss. He has also indicated that government through the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) will do everything possible to ameliorate their plight while working towards returning life to normal for them. The Vice President had to cut short his four-day campaign tour of the Greater Accra Region to assess the extent of devastation following the floods. I share in your loss and I wish to assure you that the government through the NADMO is working round the clock to bring life back to normalcy. It is not only you who are affected by this flood; it is all of us that is why I rushed here to see you and determine the best help we can provide, he disclosed. He presented food items including several bags of maize, toiletries, rubber buckets, mattresses, mosquito coils, bales of used clothing plastic plates and drinking cups as well as cash, to the over 1,000 displaced persons. Residents of four villages, Gaagbini, Dimia, Tinkaya and Banawa woke up on Thursday to see their communities totally submerged in flood waters following massive torrential rains that forced the banks of three dams to break, allowing the water from the dams to rush into the villages. Thousands of acres of farmlands have not been spared, while livestock has been carried away by the flood waters. Displaced persons in the affected communities are currently putting up in temporary structures including school blocks and offices of the Municipal Assembly. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Its easier to keep this denial going when death is not a part of your life. The more that death and dying become part of your daily experience getting rear-ended on the freeway, the death of a loved one, a scary test at the doctors office, perhaps a global pandemic the harder it is to maintain that denial. Greenberg, a co-creator of the Terror Management Theory, said that, in their research, they have found a few predictable but different responses to death reminders: an urge to make yourself feel safe (in the world of the coronavirus, that would look like wearing a mask or washing your hands), complete denial (deciding the virus is part of a conspiracy theory, or reminding yourself that nobody you know is sick or that you are young and healthy) or distraction. Senator Nancy Binay asks DOTR why it used MRT budget for EDSA concrete barriers Senator Nancy Binay asked the Department of Transportation (DOTr) why it used the MRT's budget to build concrete barriers in EDSA. This after the DOTr admitted that it used funds from the MRT 3 bus augmentation program to "invest" in concrete barriers in EDSA. "Di ba yung MRT Bus augmentation, ito naman yung magfifield lang kayo ng bus kapag nagbreakdown ang MRT? Wala naman sa usapan na gagawa kayo ng special lane for the buses," BInay said during the senate hearing on the proposed 2021 budget of the DOTr. According to DOTR, it spent Php 154 million on barriers and 32 million on median bus stops. Binay also asked why the DOTR sees this EDSA busway project as a permanent project when the National Economic and Development Authority, in a separate hearing, said otherwise. "Tinanong ko ang NEDA ang sagot sa akin this is not a permanent program," Binay said. DOTr Assistant Secretary Mark Steven C. Pastor said they believe that the project is effective because it cut travel time of buses from Monumento to PITX from 3 hours to 1 hour and 5 minutes. However, Senator Binay noted that this is only because the economy is still not in full swing. "Hindi pa 100% bukas ang ekonomiya natin. Napaghandaan ba ng pag-aaral niyo na 100% bukas ang ekonomiya natin and will it still be efficient by that time?" Binay asked. Binay also criticized the transport department for failing to start the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit project after borrowing millions of dollars supposedly to create special lanes meant to decongest traffic. However, 5 years since the loan was approved, the DOTr has yet to start construction of the project. "Babayarin natin 'yung utang nang ni-isang hukay ay walang nagaganap," Binay said. Apart from the interest payments for the loan, Binay said the Philippines would also have to pay for the default loss if it fails to comply with the agreement. "Meron pa 'yang binabayaran na default loss na pag hindi tayo nakaka-comply, binabayaran din natin," Binay said. The BRT loan took effect on Dec. 3, 2014, and will close by June 30, 2021. BRIDGEPORT Distraught family members of Nyair Charles Nixon and several community activists are pleading for the FBI to take over the investigation of his death outside the Keystone Club last weekend. This city is a failure, said Charles Nixon, Nyairs father. If you got kids here, I tell you to get them out of here. A crowd of nearly 60 people gathered outside the Keystone on Barnum Avenue early Thursday evening to support the family of Nixon. The 21-year-old died Sunday after being apparently shot inside the Keystone and then stumbling out only to be struck by a car that fled. No arrest has been made. The Rev. Stanley Lord, who heads the Greater Bridgeport NAACP, told the crowd he will confer with his state president about demanding the FBI take over the investigation. The Keystone, a topless bar before being converted into a social club during the pandemic, is managed by Eneida Martinez, a Bridgeport City Council Member. On Tuesday Martinez said the Keystone is closed and officially done. Maria Pereira, the only Council member to attend the rally, and community activists including Wanda Simmons, Tony Barr and Joseph Grits, questioned how a man with a gun was allowed into the Keystone and demanded Martinez resign her post while the investigation is ongoing. Were calling on the FBI to take over the investigation because a City Council member is involved, Simmons said. We want an independent, fair and transparent investigation. Pereira asked, Where is Eneida Martinez? Where is (Council President) Aidee Nieves? Where is Joe Ganim? Why are they so silent? She claimed Nieves and Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim need to come out of hiding and tell Eneida Martinez to resign. Charles Nixon, the victims father, also said he was unhappy. No one, I mean no one, that represents Bridgeport came and talked to me, he said. Joe Ganim knows me. I didnt get a phone call. Nothing. Calls and an email seeking comment from Martinez were not immediately returned Thursday night. Nor was an email to Rowena White, Ganims communications director. Many in the group expressed frustration with the police investigation so far, claiming social media is filled with what they described as evidence in the case. Acting Police Chief Rebeca Garcia during a radio broadcast Wednesday said detectives are making progress and asked that people with information contact the police. Saida Duberry, who is friends with Nicole Tate, Nixons mother, set up a memorial lit by several bottled candles at the site. Buck Gonzalez, who cut Nixons hair, was also at the gathering Thursday. I cant believe this, Gonzalez said. Never in my life would I have thought something like this would happen. He was a wonderful kid. Im heartbroken. This is where Wednesday's sensational testimony came into play the anonymous Spanish witnesses claim their employer, David Morales, agreed to bug Assange on behalf of the CIA. Jennifer Robinson, the Australian human rights lawyer who has represented Assange since WikiLeaks rocked the US government by publishing its cache of military and diplomatic cables, herself gave evidence claiming a Trump associate offered a pardon to Assange. In return, Assange was to reveal the source of the Democratic National Convention emails that WikiLeaks published in 2016, to the benefit of Trump's campaign. He refused. At the heart of the case made at the Old Bailey courtroom in London is the long-debated question: is Assange a journalist? Setting the record straight As Robinson sees it, much of the testimony has been about "setting the historical record straight". It is little known but it was not, in fact, WikiLeaks that first dumped the unredacted cables online but a leaker website that inspired WikiLeaks Cryptome. Cryptome had detected the password for the files in the book published by The Guardian journalists Luke Harding and David Leigh and, on September 1, 2011, dumped the documents online without any redactions. "Since my publication on Cryptome.org of the unredacted diplomatic cables, no US law enforcement authority has notified me that this publication of the cables is illegal, consists or contributes to a crime in any way, nor have they asked for them to be removed," Cryptome's founder, John Young, told the court in a written statement. In contrast, the US Department of Justice has charged Assange with 17 offences under the Espionage Act and one of computer intrusion. "The only reason that material then became available online is because of the breach of security by The Guardian in publishing an encrypted password in a publicly available book The Guardian does bear responsibility for that security breach," Robinson says. Loading The Guardian editor at the time, Alan Rusbridger, says, "There was no impulsion on him [Assange] to publish all those files. "He could have rung up and said 'there's been a terrible mistake, this thing that you thought was live for only a few hours, it's still there and we've got to contain this.' "He didn't. His response was, 'Well, let's double down and throw it all out there.' So my view hasn't changed on that," Rusbridger said, pointing to the statement that The Guardian, and the other media partners, The New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Le Monde issued at the time condemning the dump of the documents. This perhaps explains why Rusbridger has not been summoned by Assange's legal team to the Old Bailey. But it is a defence Rusbridger would give he is adamant Assange should not be extradited and that he was behaving as a journalist when he urged former US soldier Chelsea Manning to continue supplying him with more classified documents, also helping her cover her electronic tracks. "That could look like source protection," Rusbridger says. But Rusbridger says hacking which is central to the US's charges against Assange and its case that he crossed a line a journalist wouldn't was not a legitimate method of obtaining information. "In general, no, you absolutely shouldn't hack and you shouldn't break the law." Rusbridger did ask how Assange had obtained the classified documents. "He never went into much detail for reasons that I completely understood, he presented it of course, as a whistleblower case rather than a hacking case. It's a situation many editors have to face, that sometimes you are in possession of material of which you have to put aside the source's motives." Hacking and the lack of redactions are clearly Assange's biggest vulnerabilities, evidenced by the prosecution's relentless focus on the two elements. Under cross-examination, even media experts called by Assange's team have conceded that the documents should not have been dumped on the internet unredacted, given the risk they posed to the human intelligence sources, many of whom were identified in the cables as informing on their repressive governments. But it's a risk that Robinson says has not been borne out: "What's been clear is that the United States government has no evidence of any harm, that Julian had not recklessly put lives at risk." Where is the media? When they're not berating the media and attacking journalists for failing to report on Assange with the full-throated devotion a cult member might display, Assange's disciples are bemoaning the fact there is so little coverage for them to critique at all. They have a point if the implications for media freedom are as extensive as touted. Only a few outlets, including this masthead, have maintained daily monitoring of the four-week extradition hearing. Some of the most detailed recaps have been provided by supportive bloggers, including Sydney-based former SBS presenter Mary Kostakidis. Kostakidis, who visited Assange in Belmarsh Prison last year, has stayed up every night to live-tweet the hearing she watches via videolink. "You have to wonder the extent to which we have forfeited our humanity and vigilance of our freedoms when there is so little media coverage of this historic trial," Kostakidis says. Assange, a one-time chat-show host on Russian state-owned television network Russia Today and publisher of the DNC emails that US intelligence agencies have said were stolen by Russian hackers, has lost many friends since the near-universal praise he received for exposing the "Collateral Murder" video. It showed Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, being killed by laughing US aircrew during an air strike in 2007. It is as much a rejection of his methods as it is of the man himself. A frame from the "Collateral Murder" video published by WikiLeaks. Credit:Screengrab Rusbridger says, "They [the mainstream media] generally don't think of him as a journalist so they don't think that the way he is being treated has any implications for them. "They don't like him for good or bad reasons so they don't feel much sympathy for him." John Shipton, Assange's 79-year-old father, says journalists should be alarmed by what the potential extradition of his son from Britain to the US could mean for any reporter. "They can be plucked and torn from their homes and taken to a dungeon," Shipton says. Rusbridger agrees. "Assange is an Australian citizen being arraigned in a second country the UK by a third country the US for [allegedly] breaching the official secrets laws of the US. "Now there are lots of journalists in Australia or America or Britain who might be writing about official secrets in Israel or India or Russia or China or Saudi Arabia and so, all the time, journalists are breaking the laws of other countries relating to national security. "So if journalists can't see that, that alone is a massive precedent, then I think they're not paying close enough attention." Assange's team is still holding out hope for an intervention from the Australian, British or even a Biden US administration. But is that hope futile? Sajid Javid signed off on the extradition request as British home secretary and his successor, Priti Patel, hails from the populist Brexiteer, right-wing of the Conservative Party with more hawkish views on national security than her predecessor. Julian Assange's father John Shipton with Chinese contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei, outside the Old Bailey in London. Credit:AP Shipton is sceptical about what a Biden administration might deliver, given Assange's role in email leaks which impacted Hillary Clinton and benefited Trump and, arguably, Russia. "These two parties, they're going at each other hammer and tongs. They just want power, so their considerations are entirely about how to get power in the United States and how to ruin their enemies I don't think Julian is on their minds at the moment," he says. "Julian's matter is institutional momentum from [US Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo and the CIA who want to ruin Julian." But Robinson says the responsibility ultimately lies with Prime Minister Scott Morrison. "He is an Australian citizen, he deserves the support of his government and really, it is the Australian government who ought to be raising concerns about him and doing what they can to have him released and brought home to Australia," she says. The Prime Minister's office did not respond to requests for comment. Assange hasn't stepped foot in Australia for years but his fiancee is trying to gain citizenship for their two children Max, 18 months, and Gabriel, 3. Shipton sees his "child" returning to Melbourne. "Let's bring him home, he's one of us, he's done a good job. "I just want Julian to come and sit in one of those cafes in Lygon Street [Melbourne] and have a cup of coffee and watch the girls go by. That would be nice." He remains one of the most iconic characters in TV history who shot to stardom across the world thanks to his comedic charm and childlike demeanour. But now the tweed-wearing oddball Mr Bean, played by the actor Rowan Atkinson, has become one of the most successful brands in digital media after racking up a staggering 99 million followers on Facebook. The latest figures now make the official Mr Bean account the single biggest television page on the platform - placing it ahead of celebrities including Rihanna, who has 79 million followers, and Justin Bieber who has 76 million. The fictional character, who made his first appearance on television 1990, also has 7.5 million followers on Instagram, two million followers on TikTok and more than 30 million subscribers on YouTube. The iconic character Mr Bean, played by the actor Rowan Atkinson, has become one of the most successful brands in digital media Atkinson, who crafted the character of Mr Bean while he was studying for his master's degree at Oxford University, first took on the role in 1990 in a 15-part series created by himself and award-winning writer Richard Curtis. With audience numbers peaking at 19 million, the show went on to spawn an animated series and two films - Bean in 1997 and Mr Beans Holiday in 2007. Despite the series culminating in December 1995, Shaun Keeble, vice-president of digital at Banijay Rights, the company that has the rights to Mr Bean and is in charge of its social media accounts, said the show had a global reach. He told The Times: 'Because the comedy is so physical, and language-agnostic, it's really one of these great brands where you know that it's going to have a global reach, because anyone can enjoy it. 'There are so many different sketches that people will continue to watch their favourite moments. 'The comedy is so good that people can watch it again and again.' The latest figures mean the official Mr Bean account is ahead of celebrities including Rihanna (left), who has 79 million followers and Justin Bieber (right) who has 76 million followers on Facebook The fictional character, who crafted the character of Mr Bean while he was studying for his master's degree at Oxford University, made his first appearance on television 1990 In 2018, Atkinson admitted that he was unlikely to return to the role of Mr Bean as he felt he had done all he could with the character. During an appearance on the Graham Norton show, he candidly admitted: 'I doubt he will ever reappear. 'There does come a point when you have done all you can. But, never say never.' He also admitted he was not always recognised despite his iconic role, explaining: 'One man said, ''You are the spitting image of Mr Bean''. When I told him I was, he said, ''I bet you wish you were''.' The Blackadder star has since gone on to star in the spy action franchise Johnny English in which he plays a clumsy MI7 agent who goes on to solve a series of criminal plots. RSS chief on Saturday said people's faith in the Sangh is constantly increasing because of the social work being done by the organisation. On the first day of his two-day visit to Jaipur, Bhagwat held discussions with RSS workers here on work done by them during the COVID-19 outbreak. "The RSS sarsanghchalak said social harmony meetings should be held so that malpractices prevailing in society can be eradicated," Jaipur Prant Sanghchalak Mahendra Singh Maggo said. "Along with this, discussions were held about the training being given for self-employment and the projects being run to help people for becoming self dependent," he said in an official release. Bhagwat said people's faith in the RSS is continuously growing due to its social work. The RSS chief will leave for Kota on Monday where he will attend an online conference of Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, on the occasion of 100th birth anniversary of Dattopant Thengadi. (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.) Like two U.S. presidents before him, Donald Trump could temporarily hand over power to his vice president should he become incapacitated, for example while undergoing a medical procedure as treatment for the coronavirus. Trump said on Friday that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was going into quarantine to begin the recovery process immediately. Under Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 25th Amendment, adopted in 1967 following the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy, Trump could declare in writing his inability to discharge his duties. Vice President Mike Pence would become acting president, although Trump would remain in office. The president would regain his powers by declaring in writing that he is again ready to discharge them. The 25th Amendment's Section 4 also offers a path to stripping a president of power if, for instance, his Cabinet believes he has become incapacitated, but this has never been invoked. SECTION 3 PRECEDENTS - On July 13, 1985, President Ronald Reagan elected to have a precancerous lesion removed after it was discovered during a colonoscopy. He signed a letter that, while not specifically invoking Section 3, said he was mindful of its provisions. Vice President George H.W. Bush was acting president for nearly eight hours, from 11:28 a.m. until 7:22 p.m., when Reagan issued a letter declaring himself able to resume his duties. - On June 29, 2002, President George W. Bush invoked Section 3, temporarily transferring his powers to Vice President Dick Cheney before undergoing a colonoscopy. Cheney was acting president from 7:09 a.m. to 9:24 a.m. - On July 21, 2007, Bush again invoked Section 3 before another colonoscopy. Cheney was acting president from 7:16 a.m. to 9:21 a.m. SECTION 4 Under Section 4, the vice president and a majority of either Cabinet officials or such other body as Congress may by law provide" can inform leaders in the two houses of Congress that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office". In such a case, the vice president takes over as acting president. The president resumes office after informing the same two congressional leaders that no inability exists" unless the Cabinet officials or other body declare otherwise. Congress then must assemble within 48 hours to decide the issue. If two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate vote in their respective chambers that the president is unable to discharge the duties of office, the vice president remains acting president until after the next scheduled presidential election decides the next White House occupant. Otherwise, the president resumes office. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics Northern Irish farmers have urged the government for fairness when inspecting biomass boilers. Inspections of all Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) accredited biomass boilers will be completed by the end of March 2021 Over 1,000 sites in NI have been subject to an investigation as part of the Department of Economys (DfE) 100 percent programme of inspections. A common problem has been the suspension of RHI payments for participants who must endure additional checks because of issues that arose during the initial audit. The Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) is seeking for fairness to be applied in the audit process. UFU deputy president David Brown said: Whilst RHI boiler owners acknowledge the need for audit, they remain fiercely critical of the current inspection process. "They take issue with the sheer volume of records and details required which is crippling. "Any inspection referred from DfE to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), requests the exact same information from the boiler owner." He asked: "What is the need for duplication? Why cant the details retrieved be passed from DfE to Ofgem? Bearing in mind the majority of audits are being referred to Ofgem and while boiler owners are required to respond to Ofgem within seven days, it can take months for Ofgem to respond back. "The often lengthy follow up process after inspections leads to delays in RHI payments and according to the RHI regulations, periodic payments may be placed on hold for a variety of reasons. We hope that the audit process which is occurring in Great Britain is the same approach that is being taken here in NI and that our counterparts across the water are being audited in an identical fashion. "All we are asking for is fairness. We want every boiler owner to have a fair, physical, onsite inspection to make sure fraud is not happening. In April 2019, the Buglass Report confirmed the UFUs view that boiler owners were left with no choice but to return to fossil fuels because of the financial hit they have taken following drastic tariff cuts. Since then, there has been a slump in fossil fuel prices with oil price predicted to remain low going forward, widening the gap between different types of fuel and driving more boiler owners to the fossil fuel alternative. The union added that tariff cuts made a 'mockery' of any moves to reduce fossil fuel use and the wider debate of future energy policy in NI. Mr Brown said DfE had effectively created this 'self-perpetuating downward spiral': "Boiler owners had a budget and then DfE dramatically cut the tariff and are now making an unfair assumption that boiler owners had previously been generating heat for the purpose of making money. "Theyve been asked to justify the change in heat use since 2017 when they have been forced to make changes on account of the tariff cuts imposed upon them. "This is incredibly frustrating for RHI participants, just because theyve reduced their heat output generated from a renewable source since then doesnt mean they were using too much before. They simply cant afford it anymore and have been forced to revert to fossil fuels, said Mr Brown. RTHK: President Trump hospitalised 'as a precaution' US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believes he is "doing very well," in his first public comments since announcing he had tested positive for Covid-19. "I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support," Trump said in a short video message posted on his Twitter account, just as he was arriving by helicopter at a military hospital near Washington for Covid-19 treatment. "I am going to Walter Reed hospital. I think I am doing very well. But we are going to make sure that things work out," Trump said. "The First Lady is doing very well," he added. A short while earlier Trump walked out of the White House unassisted and wearing a mask to the Marine One helicopter. Trump, who was in a dark suit, walked past waiting journalists without taking questions. The helicopter left for the quick trip to the Walter Reed military hospital where the president has a special secure medical suite. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2020-10-03. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A member of the National Communications Team of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dzifa Tegah, says President Akufo-Addos promise to deal ruthlessly with persons plotting to foment trouble in the December polls is a joke. She feels President Akufo-Addo does not have a track record of dealing with perpetrators of violence. Speaking on Citi TV's Breakfast Daily on Wednesday, September 30, 2020, she cited the incidence of Ayawaso West Wuogons by-election among others as her justification. Akufo-Addos assurance of not allowing any group of persons to disturb the peace of this country in the upcoming elections is a joke because he has a bad track record in doing so we went to the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-elections and we all saw what happened there. A Commission of Enquiry was established and White Paper issued and nothing was done. So I am very sure and I know that President Akufo-Addo made the peace promise to deceive us [Ghanaians]. But Madam Linart Osman who represented the New Patriotic Party disagreed with Madam Dzifa Tegahs claim and urged Ghanaians to believe President Akufo-Addo. Everybody who knows President Akufo-Addo is a peaceful man. He is one who is not of violence. He always preaching peace. Violence is not good for anybody. Violence is not good for me and it is also not good for you too. The President is a man of peace and he will not tolerate violence. Akufo-Addos promise President Akufo-Addo said he will ensure that the upcoming polls are violent-free and Ghanaians are able to undertake their civic duty without any hindrance or intimidation. When it's time for the elections, anyone who has registered should go and vote. The upcoming polls will be peaceful, we will not allow anyone to foment trouble. For those who will seek to bring trouble, we will deal with them. They will know that the government has the power to deal with them. So, the polls will be peaceful for everyone to exercise their franchise, he said. citinewsroom Islamabad, Oct 3 : Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has asked his aides to devise a plan for the return of his predecessor Nawaz Sharif and also urged Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leaders to foil all moves of the opposition to destabilise the incumbent government. An informed source told Dawn news that Khan issued the directives while presiding over the first meeting of a committee recently formed to counter the narrative of the opposition. The source added that Khan was committed to bringing back Sharif from London and has directed the committee members to devise a legal strategy because in the absence of an extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK, it would become difficult to get the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo extradited. Last week, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior and Accountability Shahzad Akbar told Dawn that he had written fresh letters to the British authorities for Sharif's repatriation, adding that a formal application had also been sent for his extradition. The source further said the committee would meet on a daily basis and make day-to-day plans on how to counter the opposition's moves in Parliament, media and on political forums. Sharif has been targeting the incumbent government in his speeches from London, where he has been residing since last year following his bail for medical treatment. Sharif first spoke at the multiparty conference on September 20, where he declared that the opposition was up not against Prime Minister Khan but against those who had brought him into power in the 2018 elections. Aides were divided on the risks. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser, and Dan Scavino, the White House social media director, were among the least concerned, colleagues said. They viewed themselves as protected because of the testing available to them and maintained that getting the virus was not a death sentence. Ms. Hicks, a longtime aide who is one of the presidents closest advisers, was more concerned, colleagues said. She took more precautions than most others and sometimes wore a mask in meetings. Colleagues said that newcomers to Mr. Trumps orbit, like Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, never wore a mask in his presence, in what was interpreted by other staff members as an attempt to please the new boss. As the months progressed, a small number of people in the White House tested positive, including a valet to the president, a top aide to the vice president and Robert C. OBrien, the national security adviser. But when few others did, aides to the president grew even less concerned. By June, the month before Mr. OBrien tested positive, the White House had already stopped conducting temperature checks for people entering the complex. Only those aides who were interacting directly with the president received daily tests. Masks remained rare sightings. The attitude was widespread in the administration. At the Justice Department in May, Attorney General William P. Barr told a New York Times Magazine reporter who arrived in a mask for an interview that Im not going to infect you, and then sat by as an aide suggested, twice, that the reporter take the mask off. The reporter did. Even on Friday, only hours after the president had announced at 1 a.m. on Twitter that he and the first lady had tested positive, the White House was trying to project that it was business as usual. We had a great jobs report this morning, Mark Meadows, the presidents chief of staff, told reporters at the White House. Unfortunately, thats not what everybody is focused on this morning. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development worsened the forecast for the fall of the Ukrainian economy in 2020, the State Statistics Service reported an increase in the average salary in August, while gas suppliers further raised gas prices ahead of the heating season these are the main economic developments of the outgoing week. Ukrainians this week felt the first breaths of cold weather and started taking out warmer clothes from their closets before the launch of the heating season. Utility companies did a final check of their pipes to ensure safe hot water supply, and gas distributors kept up the trend of raising gas prices for households. Towards the end of September, gas suppliers offered households to buy gas for October at a price of UAH 4.7 to UAH 6.8 per cubic meter. Thus, the minimum gas price increased by 7% to the previous month. For the majority of Ukrainians who buy gas from regional gas suppliers (the Gazzbuts), prices have increased by at least 8.5%, since in October they will buy gas at a price of at least UAH 5.37 per cubic meter. It is worth recalling that for the first time households in Ukraine are able to independently choose their gas supplier all thanks to the opening of a competitive gas market. In October, the upward trend in gas prices slightly weakened against the dramatic increase in August by a third and in September up to 50%. For heat generators, gas prices set by NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine has also increased by 30-45% over the past two months. It can be assumed that after the shocking hike over the past two months, gas companies have decided to slow down the increase of gas prices ahead of the local elections on October 25. But Ukrainians should prepare for the fact that the coming months will bring them unpleasant surprises in the form of hefty bills for gas and heat. By the way, from October 1, the Last Hope Supplier started serving Ukrainian households if for some reason they were left without a supplier. The LHS is obliged to ensure gas supplies within 60 days. To save energy resources, thereby reducing payments, citizens have only one way out to upgrade their homes. Taking this into account, this week the Cabinet extended their "warm loans" campaign for another year, allocating UAH 150 million for its implementation in the 2021 state budget. However, the figure is much lower than that laid down in previous years, but the authorities' idea is that it will be only owners of houses, not apartments in blocks, who will make use of the program, since the programs of the Energy Efficiency Fund with a separate budget of UAH 2.7 billion apply to high-rise apartment blocks. Thus, house owners will once again have the opportunity to attract "warm loans" for energy-saving modernization of their homes. Also, the program will allow purchasing power storage systems, e-vehicle chargers, and smart electricity meters. Worsened economic outlook The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has revised downward its May outlook for a decline in Ukraine's economy in 2020 from 4.5% to 5.5%. The EBRD also predicts that the Ukrainian economy will see a 3% growth as early as in 2021, instead of a 5% rise projected for the next year in May 2020. The drop in external and internal demand for Ukrainian products over the coronavirus pandemic was the major reason for economic decline in the country, the report said. At the same time, Ukraine was able to maintain macroeconomic stability thanks to its effective monetary policy and the IMF's financial assistance, the EBRD notes. However, the Ukrainian economy still faces high risks, which reflect unclear prospects for further quarantine restrictions and uncertainty in fulfilling by the government of its obligations related to structural reforms, the report concludes. Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko noted that all institutions engaged in macroeconomic forecasting are confident that in 2021 the country's GDP, after falling this year, will rebound by more than 3%. According to some indicators, Marchenko added, the economy is already recovering. The growth will occur including due to an increase in minimum wage, which will stimulate consumer demand, as well as macroeconomic stability. "Against the background of quarantine, our consumption has 'sagged '. But for four months now we have been seeing growth of retail trade. There's a noticeable positive trend in electricity consumption. We have reached last year's levels. The depth of the industrial sector decline is shrinking. Markets are recovering, both domestic and global," Marchenko said. The National reported that the economic crisis in our country caused by the coronavirus pandemic was not accompanied by that in the banking system, for the first time. "Not only the robustness of the banking system, but also the effectiveness of monetary policy all these factors helped to save Ukraine from a big shock. We can say we've gone through the crisis relatively calmly. At the onset of recession, we observed a deposit outflow from banks, but the situation stabilized within two weeks," said Deputy NBU Governor Kateryna Rozhkova. The regulator does not see significant risks for the banking sector's capital and liquidity, as it was the case during previous crises, but there are challenges to the banks' profitability. Growing wages The State Statistics Service has announced an increase in the average nominal wage of a full-time employee in August by 8.6% on year, to UAH 11,446. At the same time, compared with July, the size of the average nominal wage slid by 3%. Real wages in August increased by 6% on year, while decreasing by almost 3% to the previous month. Against the backdrop of the ongoing economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the pessimistic forecasts for Ukraine's economic development, the growth in real wages, albeit not so significant, is somewhat encouraging. The stats agency has also reported on the stabilization in terms of wage arrears at enterprises. In August, the arrears increased by 0.6 percent to the previous month, up to UAH 3.42 billion. At the same time, in July, the arrears had increased by more than 8%. Not only ordinary citizens were affected by the coronavirus fallout. Back in April, the Verkhovna Rada put a UAH 47,000 cap (that's 10 minimum wages) on salaries of officials and members of the supervisory boards of state-owned enterprises. For executives accustomed to receiving much higher monthly salaries, this is a serious cut. Also, a number of other innovations await them. Last week, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal proposed introducing KPI for members of SOE supervisory boards to be used to assess their work and pay. "Corporate governance reform should become an example of success," the prime minister said. In the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's Parliament, lawmakers voted to remove most of the plenary sessions from schedule due to a sharply growing number of COVID-19 cases among the legislative corps. For the next two weeks, MPs will be working in committees, mostly via videoconference. Next week, President Volodymyr Zelensky, together with Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, plans to present new services and digital documents in the Diia 2.0 mobile application, which will become available to over 30 million Ukrainians. Anna Bredikhina The appeals court upheld a ruling by a district court, which sentenced the former president to 13 years in prison. Kyiv's Court of Appeals has dismissed an appeal against the ruling by the city Obolonsky district court on former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in the high treason case. This was announced by Yanukovych's lawyer Vitaly Serdiuk on Facebook. Read alsoEx-President Yanukovych, two ex-defense ministers notified of suspected treason The lawyer considers the ruling of the Obolonsky district court, which sentenced Yanukovych to 13 years in prison, is "exclusively of a political nature." According to Serdiuk, an appeal against the decision will be lodged with the Supreme Court as soon as possible. "The decision of Kyiv's Court of Appeals shows that representatives of ex-President Petro Poroshenko still have an impact on the judicial system and court rulings. Their goal was to 'organize' Yanukovych's conviction, shifting responsibility for their crimes to him and, accordingly, to avoid their own punishment," Serdiuk. The prosecutor's office on the recent verdict The prosecutor in the case, Ruslan Kravchuk, told the RBC Ukraine news agency that the sentence delivered on the ex-president had come into force. "The Kyiv Court of Appeals has just rejected the appeals filed by Yanukovych's defense team and kept the [previous] verdict unchanged. From that moment on, Yanukovych is officially considered convicted," he said. Yanukovych's treason case in brief YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The Turkish regime is responsible for moving terrorists to Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone, ARMENPRESS reports Ambassador of Syria to Russia Riad Haddad told Interfax. This information confirms that Syria was right in its numerous warnings that the terrorist groups sent for the destabilization of the region are a threat for regional and international security and peace, the Ambassador said. He said that Syria would not be their final destination and that those acts need an international reaction. Syria has emphasized the necessity to fight against terrorism and punish their leaders, with the Turkish occupant forces in control of them, Ambassador Riad Haddad said. Starting from September 27, Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, unleashed military operations against Artsakh, using its entire arsenal and targeting even civilian population both in Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia. There is confirmed information that Turkey has deployed mercenaries from Syria in Azerbaijan to fight against the Armenian forces. French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that they have serious facts about it and that the jihadists are linked with the Islamic State terrorist group. Russia also has facts about the involvement of mercenaries in Nagorno Karabakh conflict. A source from the U.S. Department of Defense has also confirmed the information. Artsakh successfully repels the attacks of Azerbaijan and in some places carries out counter-attacks. Editing and Translating by Tigran SIrekanyan The 46th Annual Running Water Draw Arts and Crafts Festival is set for its regular run of dates in the middle of October. The event will open to the public at 10 a.m. Oct. 16 and run through 5 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Ollie Liner Center, 2000 S. Columbia, in Plainview. The festival is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Plainview and according to coordinator Ted Baker, health protocols to protect against pandemic risks will be in place throughout the weekend. Proceeds from the show are used by the Plainview Rotary club to fund student and local education efforts, Baker said. In addition to those fundraising efforts, he continued, patrons will be able to purchase tickets at $10 per ticket to win a Nintendo Switch. Proceeds from this will go to support The Rotary Foundation. President Donald Trumps case of COVID-19 is bound to hobble a campaign that was already far behind, in the view of the conventional wisdom, or if youre a Republican, the mainstream media message. That may be true. At the least, it erases big events from his schedule. Even for supporters, it tarnishes his self-proclaimed patina of success and, most important, strength the No. 1 reason he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But that view masks, pun intended, a complex set of dynamics and possible outcomes that make Trumps illness just part of a re-election battle no one can figure out. Consider, if he does lose the election to former Vice President Joe Biden, he will now have a ready excuse: the illness. Thats important to Trump, whose honed image of strength goes far beyond his presidency. He has already spent time and energy building a case with not a scant evidence that widespread absentee ballot fraud will rob him of millions of votes. COVID could help him. His 18-second video, released on his Twitter account from the White House Friday evening before he headed to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and his 4-minute video Saturday and 1-minute chat on Sunday were all designed to show that hes doing fine, if looking pale. They depict him in a slightly more human light than his disgraceful debate image last week grateful for the support of the nation though he still cant bring himself to warn people about the dangers of COVID-19, nor to show interest in anyone else with the illness. Could he actually elicit sympathy and show strength at the same time in this illness? Trump might have to show some humility for the first time in his life. Or he could power through it like he did four years ago after a tape emerged in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women. Some Republicans notably Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, the outgoing House Republican leader, a possible candidate for governor in 2022 are not happy that Trump disparaged mask-wearing and has generally failed to follow the rules of his own government. That makes his illness less sympathetic. Im disappointed that he didnt follow the rules, Klarides said Friday afternoon. The president should follow the same guidelines being published by the public health officials. The irony of his publicly downplaying coronavirus from start, holding numerous undistanced events, making fun of the way former Vice President Joe Biden wears a mask excessively in Trumps view only to have the president test positive is lost on no one and the source of glee to Trump-haters. A few, though no elected Democrats as far as I could tell, even publicly wished him death. The mystery is where all this goes. Democrats, of course, cling to the idea that COVID-19 will nix Trumps hopes for Election Day, period. They should have no reason to hope he suffers physically. Republicans I spoke with, including Klarides, see no way to sort out all thats happening. Sympathy votes? A ready excuse for losing? Will Trump actually encourage his anti-science followers who scoff at protections to take this thing seriously? How about his illness as a platform to exit the election with honor? Were too far along for the Republican National Committee to seat another candidate in time to make it onto ballots, but if the illness were to be severe, Trump would have the out that some people speculate he wants if he cant win. There are so many things in this race that are fluid to both candidates that its hard to see what to focus on, Klarides said. In Trumbull Friday afternoon, Republican Rep. Dave Rutigliano knocked on doors for his re-election campaign for 2 1/2 hours. Trumps illness was topic No. 1, right? Wrong. It barely came up, he said. My voters are upset, a lot of board of education talk here in Trumbull, Rutigliano said. The distance learning has caused a lot of stress ... People are worried about their kids. As for Trump, Rutigliano wishes him well, of course, but isnt focused on him. Hes got his race to run, Ive got mine, he said. Im in my bubble. So few voters are undecided on Trump vs. Biden that Trumps illness diminishes in importance. Besides, the rap that Trump came down with the sickness because he wasnt careful isnt accurate in the view of many supporters. If he caught it from Hope Hicks, a top aide, that could have happened to anyone. When Im inside my law office and Im talking to my law partners, Im not wearing a mask, said state Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, who, like Klarides and Rutigliano, supports distancing guidelines. The guy has COVID, Fasano said. Can we just wish him well? U.S. Rep Jahana Hayes, D-5, has the illness even now, Fasano pointed out. Did she do something wrong? Its going to happen, its out there. ... Its part of life, unfortunately. All true, and its unseemly to shame anyone, Trump included, for any type of illness, accident or medical condition. That he did so ruthlessly exactly four years ago to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, after her bout with pneumonia, that he mocked a disabled news reporter in his 2016 campaign, is part of the irony but beside the point. Civilized people dont do that stuff. The point is not revenge, its that Trump has painted himself as different, above the fray, a consummate winner. I dont know that it has any consequential impact on votes hes going to win or not win, said Chuck Pyne, chairman of the Woodbridge Republican Town Committee and treasurer of the GOP state central committee. It certainly proves hes human and I dont think its a declarative statement about him not being careful, Pyne said, noting that a journalist reported Friday that Trump had asked him to keep his distance when he leaned in to talk to the president on Air Force One. The public perception depends on how the illness unfolds and how the president reacts. On Friday night, Trump joined the 30,742 Americans hospitalized with COVID-19, although the threshold for making that decision in his case had to be lower because hes commander-in-chief (with great insurance). That has to hurt him more than it would if Biden caught COVID, because of the image thing. Anything that happens with Donald Trump is cataclysmic to somebody, Pyne said. This is one more event in the saga of Donald Trump and well see how it plays out. dhaar@hearstmediact.com By Abhishek Manikandan and Michelle Price (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co has agreed to pay more than $920 million and admitted to wrongdoing to settle federal U.S. market manipulation probes into its trading of metals futures and Treasury securities, the U.S. authorities said on Tuesday. The landmark multi-agency settlement lifts a regulatory shadow that has hung over the bank for several years and marks a signature victory for the government's efforts to clamp down on illegal trading in the futures and precious metals market. JPMorgan will pay $436.4 million in fines, ... To the editor: There is not space here to list the reasons to vote for Joe Biden over the current president. So I will limit my choices to three, to which any Democrat, Republican or Independent should agree. 1. The current president answered the question Will you commit to a PEACEFUL (my emphasis) transferral of power?" The presidents response was Well see." The obvious/proper answer from any candidate for the presidency of the United States is Of course." 2. In July 2018 in Helsinki, he literally stood by Vladamir Putins side and told the world that Putin assured him that he had not interfered in the 2016 election. The President then said I dont know why he would, thus accepting the word of the Russian dictator over the American intelligence community, which had concluded that there had been Russian interference in the 2016 election. 3. He has already delegitimized the 2020 election by repeatedly saying, The only way we can lose is if the election is rigged and ...get rid of the ballots referring to mail-in (absentee) ballots, among other destabalizing comments. And while casting your ballot, remember those who have stood silently by, in particular John Moolenaar, while the president has said these things. Also vote out the presidents friends in the Michigan Legislature because they are the ones who ultimately decide how electoral votes are distributed. You may recall the Republican legislatures attempt after the 2012 election to change that distribution to be more in their favor, an attempt that not even the Republican governor at that time would support. TERRY R. GRAF Midland A California man was sentenced to 11 months in prison for the attempted sexual abuse of a young girl with whom he had close contact while living in Benton County. Matthew Lee Reich was facing 19 counts of sexual abuse in the first degree for touching the girl inappropriately between 2011 and 2013 in Benton County. According to prosecuting attorney Jay Hughes, the alleged abuse happened on multiple occasions, including while sharing a bed with the girl. Court documents further allege hed abused her between the ages of 10 and 18 in both Benton and Lincoln counties. He was arrested on March 5 of this year in Mariposa County, California, where he currently resides. The 40-year-old appeared before Benton County Circuit Court Judge Joan Demarest via Webex on Thursday afternoon for a plea and sentencing hearing, pleading guilty as part of a deal to two counts of attempted sexual abuse. Demarest sentenced him to 11 months in prison with credit for time served, plus three years of supervised, zero-tolerance probation. He will also register as a sex offender, be prohibited from unsupervised contact with children, have to undergo psychosexual evaluations and pay restitution for the victims medical and counseling costs. John Rich, Reichs attorney, said his client regrets his involvement in the alleged crimes. I truly am sorry for the pain and trauma that Ive caused, Reich said. In a prepared statement read by Hughes, Reichs accuser, who is now of college age, said she suffers from numerous mental ailments, including post-traumatic stress disorder, since the crimes occurred. For the rest of my life, I will battle with overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame, fear and stress, her statement said. I grew up with this ongoing crime in my home, and I couldnt speak up because I was ashamed and introverted. My mental health will forever be a struggle, and I wont ever be the same. Before concluding the hearing, Demarest made it clear that the girl was not to blame. The defendant was an adult, you were a child, she said. This is not your fault. Nia Tariq can be reached at 541-812-6091. Follow her on Twitter @NiaTariq. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 5 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Odisha Assembly adjourns as ruckus begins over Hathras gang-rape case India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P Bhubaneswar, Oct 03: The Odisha Assembly was adjourned several times on Saturday as members of the opposition Congress created ruckus in the well of the House over the alleged gang rape in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras that has triggered a nationwide outrage. The issue was raised by Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Narasingha Mishra as the House assembled for the day at 10.30 am. The Congress MLAs shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, protesting against the incident. 'We need justice, not money,' says Hathras gang-rape victim's kin They also condemned the BJP-led government in UP for the "misbehaviour" towards Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Unable to run the House, Speaker SN Patro adjourned the proceeding thrice, first for 10 minutes at 10.58 am, then for 15 minutes and finally from around 11.30 am till 3 pm. The speaker invited CLP leader Mishra, Leader of Opposition PK Naik, Parliamentary Affairs Minister BK Arukha and Jajpur MLA PP Das for an all-party meeting in his chamber. During the protest, Congress members led by Taraprasad Bahinipati and Suresh Routray rushed to the well of the House and shouted slogans. Hathras gangrape case: Not our girl's body says the mother; Demands narco on DM Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News As Bahinipati attempted to climb the speaker's podium, the House was adjourned till 3 pm. Mishra termed the 'high-handedness' of the UP Police as unfortunate. Opposition leader Naik of the BJP said that there is no point in disrupting the proceedings of the Odisha Assembly over an incident in Uttar Pradesh. The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 16:01 [IST] On October 2, Defence Minister of Ukraine Andriy Taran, Minister of National Defence of Poland Mariusz Baszczak and Minister of National Defence of Lithuania Raimundas Karoblis took part in the events dedicated to the 5th anniversary of establishment of the international Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade LitPolUkrBrig. As an Ukrinform correspondent reports, the ministers underscored the need for defence cooperation between the three countries in view of the threat posed by Russia. The efforts of the three countries are aimed at ensuring peace and stability in Central and Eastern Europe. This is especially true today, when the Russian Federation is waging war against Ukraine for the seventh year in a row, as a result of which the Crimean peninsula was annexed and part of eastern Ukraine was occupied, more than 14,000 Ukrainians have died and millions have become displaced, said Ukraines Defence Minister Taran. He stressed that the decision to create a brigade was "timely and far-sighted", and the Kremlin received a clear signal that "any manifestation of aggression will receive a consolidated response." In turn, Minister of National Defence of Poland Mariusz Baszczak pointed out that Russia had attacked Ukraine in 2014. "We must draw conclusions from this and make every effort for the armies of our countries to be as strong as possible, trained and cooperate with each other," Baszczak said. According to him, the brigade's slogan "Three nations, one vision" shows the dimension of cooperation between the three countries and the challenges which Kyiv, Warsaw, and Vilnius face. LitPolUkrBrig is a good format of cooperation that needs to be developed and expanded, Minister of National Defence of Lithuania Raimundas Karoblis stressed. "The challenges to our security and the threats to us are similar. Russia poses a threat to our countries and to our region in general, Karoblis noted. After the official events, Minister of Defence of Ukraine Taran held talks with his Polish and Lithuanian counterparts. The agreement on the establishment of LitPolUkrBrig was signed in September 2014. The brigade was finally formed in autumn 2015, and the operational status was reached in January 2017. In the fall of 2017, the brigade was named after Grand Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski. The brigade command is headquartered in Lublin, the higher command changes every three years. ol Haiti - News : Zapping... Cap-Haitien : 4 mysterious deaths Thursday, October 1 in the morning, the lifeless bodies of 4 people were discovered in the locality of Fort Saint-Michel. These are 3 men and a woman, a 5th person who was unconscious was taken to hospital. One do not yet know the official causes of this tragedy... The Government will borrow more than US 258 million from local banks To finance the purchase of power plants, including that of General Electric, the funds will not come from the Public Treasury, but from a Government loan of 16.3 billion gourdes ( 258 million dollars) from the Haitian banking sector, declared Friday 2 October Michel Patrick Boisvert the Minister of the Economy and Finance See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31930-haiti-news-zapping.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31565-haiti-news-zapping.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31326-haiti-flash-moise-gives-details-on-his-project-to-electrify-the-country.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31483-haiti-news-zapping.html Cuba : Message from the Embassy of Haiti While Cuba is under the rising effects of a Covid-19 rebound, the Embassy of Haiti in Cuba informs that until further notice, the consular services offered by the Embassy are still suspended. The Government very optimistic about the GDP Thanks to its post-pandemic economic recovery plan, the Government is very optimistic about the growth of Haiti's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which it estimates at +2.4% for the financial year 2020-2021 against -2.9% for the 2019-2020 fiscal year which ended on September 31. France's conditions for the elections In a press release, the French Embassy sets the conditions for the organization of free, democratic and transparent elections : "- The constitution of sincere and exhaustive electoral lists, still in progress, must be completed; - At the political level, it is necessary to build the broadest possible consensus; - Voters must be assured that they will be able to vote freely without being pressured by armed groups." Dramatic drop in income : According to the National Food Security Commission (CNSA), the incomes of 95% of households have dropped dramatically and unemployment has increased by 10%. HL/ HaitiLibre In Chicago, you can end up anywhere despite of what you did in public service, because you dont have stuff like this," he said, shaking the memo in the air. "It gets put in a drawer, licensed attorneys come in and try to hide it. Queensland schoolgirl Georgia Santucci (pictured) was just 16 when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma Georgia Santucci was chatting with school friends between classes when she noticed a swollen rash on her neck that felt burning hot to touch. That was in June 2017, but it wasn't until the following July that doctors discovered tumours in her face, neck and chest - the largest pressing hard against her lungs and heart. She was just 16 when she was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin lymphoma, the most advanced form of blood cancer. Today, the 18-year-old from Far North Queensland who spent 18 months of her teens in a Brisbane hospital is in partial remission - but the intensity of her treatment has left her with debilitating side effects that may last the rest of her life. The student teacher suffers from memory loss, chronic fatigue and post-traumatic stress disorder, along with the devastating reality that she is unlikely to carry her own children. Georgia told Daily Mail Australia it was her mother's persistence that led to her eventual diagnosis, saying: 'Without her, I don't think I'd be here today.' Scroll down for video The intensity of her treatment has left her with memory loss and post-traumatic stress disorder, along with the devastating reality that she is unlikely to carry her own children Itchy lumps on her neck were signs tumours had grown from her face down to her chest where they were pressing on her lungs Hindsight shows that something sinister was happening with the teenager's health earlier in 2017, when shortness of breath forced her to quit the swimming club where she'd been training for years. 'I thought it was from being unfit and not able to keep up but in reality, it was much more,' Georgia said. When the swelling appeared at school, her mother a nurse was immediately concerned and drove her straight to hospital. An ultrasound detected abnormalities in Georgia's lymph nodes and white blood cell count, which doctors attributed to a harmless infection. She was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics. The absence of telltale symptoms like night sweats and unexplained weight loss meant lymphoma was never mentioned - until 2018 when Georgia began struggling to breathe in bed at night. She spent months propping herself up on pillows to lessen the sensation of her throat closing over. The 18-year-old believes she wouldn't be here today if it hadn't been for her mum's persistence First symptoms of Hodgkin lymphoma Excessive tiredness, fever, night sweats, unexplained weight loss, itchy rashes and painless swelling of lymph nodes in the neck, armpits or groin. Source: Cancer Council Australia Advertisement Her fears renewed, Georgia's mother insisted on a biopsy of the lymph nodes along with a series of specialised scans to uncover the cause of her illness. Those tests revealed the devastating truth - Georgia's body was riddled with tumours. Cancer had silently spread from her neck up behind her nose and down into her chest where one mass was weighing on her lungs - the reason for her persistent shortness of breath. At just 16 years old, Georgia was told she had three weeks to live if she did not start treatment that very day. Doctors prescribed a gruelling six-month course of BEACOPP chemotherapy, a potent cocktail of drugs that offers the best chance of destroying advanced lymphoma. 'Those six months were the biggest rollercoaster, definitely not like what you see in the movies,' Georgia recalled. She spent her 17th birthday attached to an IV drip, confined to the four walls of her hospital room to protect her from infections that could be fatal to her already battered immune system. Her chemo finished in November 2018 but she wasn't discharged until January 2019 because her body was so weak. Georgia spent her 17th birthday hooked up to an IV drip in a Brisbane hospital Georgia Santucci is one of roughly 600 Australians diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma every year. It is a rare disease that accounts for just 0.5 percent of all cancers diagnosed in Australia, and one most likely to occur in people aged between 15 and 25 or those over 65 years old. Georgia's story stands as sobering testament that cancer does occur at the lowest point of that spectrum. Hodgkin's is notoriously difficult to diagnose because symptoms are vague and easily confused with those of less sinister illnesses like bacterial or viral infections - including glandular fever, just as Georgia's were. Unlike cervical, breast and colon cancer, there are no screening programmes for Hodgkin's and it cannot be diagnosed with a generic blood test, leading health organisations to label it a 'silent killer'. Warning signs include night sweats, itchiness, inflamed rashes and painless lumps in the armpits, groin or neck all of which Georgia experienced as well as fatigue and unexplained weight loss. Hodgkin lymphoma explained Hodgkin lymphoma is a rare form of cancer that starts in a type of white blood cells called lymphocytes. The disease begins in a lymph node, usually in the neck, then spreads through the lymphatic system from one group of lymph nodes to another. Hodgkin lymphoma represents just 0.5 percent of all cancers diagnosed in Australia. About 11 percent of all lymphomas are types of Hodgkin lymphoma, while the remainder are non-Hodgkin. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma may arise in lymph nodes anywhere in the body, whereas Hodgkin lymphoma typically begins in the upper body, such as the neck, chest or armpits. Hodgkin lymphoma is often diagnosed at an early stage and is therefore considered one of the most treatable cancers. Approximately 600 people in Australia are diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma every year, most commonly younger people aged 15 29 and older people over the age of 65. It is more common in men than women. The causes of Hodgkin lymphoma remain largely unclear, but risk factors include family history - with those who have a parent or sibling who has had Hodgkin's slightly likelier to develop the disease - certain viruses, including glandular fever and HIV, and a generally weakened immune system which can occur because of autoimmune conditions or lengthy periods taking immunosuppressant drugs. Source: Lymphoma Australia Advertisement At 16, Georgia was told she had three weeks to live if she did not start treatment immediately In its initial stages, most forms of lymphoma are highly treatable and associated with long-term survival, which means early intervention can be the difference between life and death. It's even curable at stage four when tumours have spread to organs outside the lymphatic system, as Georgia's had. But advanced cancer patients like Georgia Santucci still face incredibly difficult decisions about treatment. While BEACOPP chemotherapy offers the best chance of survival, it also causes devastating side effects that can change the course of people's lives - including leaving them at greater risk of developing other types of cancer. It also causes chronic fatigue, memory loss, weight gain and post-traumatic stress disorder, problems Georgia struggles with today. There are no screening programmes for Hodgkin's and it cannot be diagnosed with a generic blood test, leading health organisations to label it a 'silent killer' But worst of all was the development of the hallmark symptoms of menopause months before her 18th birthday. It's unlikely she will ever be able to conceive children naturally. Georgia recalls a consultant mentioning 'something quite vague about fertility' but feels the urgency of her treatment saw those life-altering consequences sidelined and brushed under the rug. She is now in 'partial remission', which means there is no active cancer in her body, but won't be declared in 'full remission' until 2024 when she hopes to be five years cancer-free. Georgia (pictured in 2020) but won't be declared in 'full remission' until 2024 when she hopes to be five years cancer-free Despite her harrowing ordeal, brave Georgia says she is 'grateful' for the lessons cancer has taught her. 'As weird as it sounds, I feel like this whole experience has really changed me and shaped me into a stronger, more persistent person,' she said. 'I don't find myself stressing about the little things. My focus is my friends, family and health all I want to do is help people be happy and healthy.' Doing that involves encouraging others to be observant of changes in their bodies, no matter how insignificant they may seem. 'Trust your gut and always get things checked! It might be a hassle at the time to wait around and have to go to the doctors, but it could quite literally save your life,' she said. 'If my mum and I hadn't kept going back to the doctors and persisting, I'd say I wouldn't be here today.' For more information on Hodgkin's lymphoma and other types of blood cancer, please visit Lymphoma Australia or the Australian Cancer Council. People from various organizations stage a protest against the alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. PTI Photo Ashes to ashes, dust to dust nothing changes in our brutal and brutalized India. For centuries, we have lived with the tyranny of caste and oppression. Today, Indias dark and ghastly secret lies exposed in an even more graphic manner with the alleged rape, mutilation and death of a 19-year-old dalit girl in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. To call UP anything else but a barbaric, no mans land, would be insulting women across the country. And this is the state ruled by a person who calls himself a yogi! What sort of a yogi looks the other way, encouraging his administration to do the same, while a defenceless pulped female victim is treated worse than a discarded rag and unceremoniously cremated by cops? Even stray puppies in distress receive more attention. The accounts of what the poor girl endured at the hands of those four beasts are too horrific to recount. The visuals, too sadistic. But the pathos of her hasty cremation will -- or should -- haunt generations of Indians. She was denied basic human dignity in death. Her mothers heart-rending pleas to say her final goodbye to a beloved daughter, by putting haldi on her dead body, fell on deaf ears. A poor, disenfranchised dalit girls corpse was dragged to a secluded spot and hastily cremated, surrounded by the very police force that not just failed to protect her, but thought nothing of the rape, and strenuously tried hard to ignore the national outcry of horrified citizens when they raised their voices in protest. We are punished for being born dalits. Our only sin is our birth as Dalits, a distraught relative of the victim was quoted as saying, as the administration wasted not a minute in sealing the Hathras border after this heinous act. An official asked: How can we arrest anybody? Has rape even been proved? This isnt just Hathras hour of shame. Its equally Indias collective shame. This is 2020. And we refuse to deal with our countrys biggest scourge --bigger than the Covid-19 crisis by far -- the scourge of caste. So-called educated, upper caste men from the region have traditionally strutted around terrorising those who they deem inferior. Dalit men who go to the market to buy essentials are instructed by shopkeepers to stand at a distance, while their purchases are thrown to them. Even an accidental touch is considered worse than coming in direct contact with a Covid-19 positive patient. The whole idea of purity is so deeply embedded across India (not just in UP) that it should embarrass us deeply and lead to a questioning and outlawing of this nasty, discriminatory practice that has gone unchecked for centuries. Caste, and lets add colour. Both exert a diabolical control over the lives of Indias most vulnerable segment -- women. Think about it -- even Suhana Khan, daughter of superstar Shah Rukh Khan, has not been spared. Her post this week talked about being viciously targeted by troll armies and called a Kaali Billi. In this context, I came across a news report on a short film thats attracting attention The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas, with a provocative premise: Three people with a deadline to complete a project go in search of a character to be cast as a dalit! Raising the key question: what does a dalit look like? One of those shortlisted for the role is outraged! He is a brahmin! And it was below his dignity to play a dalit. Writer-director Rajesh Rajamani says his main intention was to put the ruling classes under public glare, for they are the ones who are perpetuating the caste system. Many powerful movies have been made on this disturbing, volatile subject over the years. Many books have been written. And yet, when something as stomach-churning as the Hathras death takes place, India finds itself divided! Uttar Pradesh, that lawless, unwieldy and chaotic state, is after all, a microcosm of India. Its chief minister and his cronies have the support of the Prime Minister and his core team. Had there not been such a widespread condemnation, it would have been just another mutilation and death of an anonymous, inconsequential dalit girl who was of no further use to anybody. So the sordid saga carries on. Protests and arrests. Token gestures and compensation. But the deep-rooted contempt for and revulsion towards Indias most marginalised people does not shift an inch. From discriminating against dalit kids in primary schools, to denying dalits a chance at playing on a level playing field later in life, our so-called upper castes continue to perpetuate the prejudices that have kept millions of fellow citizens from daring to dream of a better tomorrow. The callous administration in Uttar Pradesh is counting on everybody forgetting what happened in Hathras, when a helpless woman was left to die, and then stealthily cremated in the dead of the night, while her mother wailed and beat her breasts to express unimaginable sorrow. The unfeeling cops formed a cordon around the pyre as if to protect -- protect who? Themselves? From? Surely not the girls impoverished father who is now being pressured by the district magistrate to rethink his statement, since the media will lose interest in a few days? The veiled threat is hard to ignore. Meanwhile, Prashant Kumar, UPs additional DGP (law and order), denies that any rape took place. So, Prashantji did the 19-year-olds spinal cord break spontaneously? It is more than obvious that Yogi will meditate and then mediate swiftly, to create a fresh narrative and hastily bury this shameful chapter. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi were prevented from meeting the victims family was anybody surprised? Murderous, casteist mobs can cut off a womans tongue, break her spinal cord, strangulate her and burn the remains like so much discarded rubbish or raddi. The Allahabad high court has taken suo moto cognisance of the fatal assault on a dalit woman in Hathras. There are millions of other equally vulnerable dalit men and women out there. India will run out of prisons for those guilty of butchering co-citizens who do enjoy equal rights under the Constitution. Not that it matters. Which is why nobody bothers to follow up and take action against the culprits. These atrocities have been institutionalised and eerily accepted by the vast majority. To use Mahatma Gandhis last and final sigh: Hey, Ram! Congress leader and former party president Rahul Gandhi has put off his Punjab visit by a day and will now be taking out tractor rallies in the state against the centres agriculture laws from October 4 to 6. The change in programme was announced by chief minister Capt Amarinder Singhs media adviser Raveen Thukral on Friday. Change in @RahulGandhi tractor rallies programme; rescheduled to October 4, 5, 6. Rest remains the same, he tweeted. During his three-day visit, Rahul will lead the partys tractor rally in Moga, Ludhiana, Sangrur and Patiala districts of the Malwa region, covering more than 50 km, according to a Punjab Congress spokesperson. Besides the chief minister, all party ministers, MPs and MLAs are expected to participate in the protest rallies along with All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of party affairs in Punjab, Harish Rawat, and state party president Sunil Jakhar. Meanwhile, Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja, on Friday, said a meeting of state party leaders will be held in Delhi on Saturday, ahead of Rahul Gandhis October 5 visit to Haryana. The HPCC chief said in a statement that Gandhi will visit Haryana to extend support to farmers against the controversial farm laws. Also Read: Farmers stir in Haryana fading out, Cong banks on Rahuls visit There are several disgruntled leaders in the state Congress, but Rawat is making efforts to ensure that the party presents a united face at the event. Rawat met former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who has been sulking ever since he quit the state cabinet last year after being stripped of key portfolios, in Amritsar to placate him. Sidhu will participate in Rahul Gandhis tractor rally and so will other leaders. It is a party event in support of the states farmers who are protesting against the three new laws, a party leader said. Also Watch: FIR filed against Rahul & Priyanka Gandhi over March towards Hathras Rajya Sabha MP Shamsher Singh Dullo, who has been critical of the chief ministers functioning in recent months, said if he gets an invite, he will participate in the tractor rally. Meanwhile, director general of police Dinkar Gupta, on Friday, reached Moga to review the security arrangements for Rahuls rally, which will start from Badhni Kalan of Moga district. Faridkot range inspector general of police (IGP) Kaustubh Sharma and Ludhiana range IGP Naunihal Singh were also present in the meeting. College is so expensive that even the affluent can be considered needy. Oct. 1 is opening day for financial aid season, but the Free Application for Federal Student Aid the dreaded FAFSA that families were able to start filing on Thursday is by no means the last aid form that many of them will fill out. If they want a discount on their favored schools list prices, which approach $80,000 annually at some private colleges, those forms will help financial aid administrators determine just how needy any given family is. All that data entry can pay off, because lots of people can qualify for financial aid that is based solely on need. In fact, over a four-year span, families with annual household income of $200,000 can get a third or more of the cost knocked off an education with a $300,000 list price. But that doesnt satisfy everyone. Even if you have to pay a mere $40,000 per year about what a $200,000-earning family could owe at Northwestern, Rice and Vanderbilt, according to the net price calculators on their financial aid websites that can be a tough check to write. At the same time, outside observers often wonder why a $200,000 family is being subsidized instead of one making $20,000. A fresh set of families encounters the undergraduate financial aid system for the first time each year, and only a small minority end up understanding exactly what is happening to them. Much of the confusion rests with the fact that there are different kinds of families, different kinds of aid and different kinds of schools. D onald Trump went through a "very concerning" period on Friday and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care as he battles coronavirus, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has said. The comments came after it was revealed that Mr Trump was reportedly given oxygen on Friday morning at the White House before he was transported to a military hospital, although staff insisted he had only mild symptoms. Mr Trumps doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre painted a rosy picture of the presidents health during a press conference on Saturday, while Mr Trump also tweeted to say he was "feeling well". The president's physician, Dr Sean Conley, said his medical team was "extremely happy" with Mr Trumps progress, adding he was fever-free, not on oxygen and was not having difficulty breathing. Another medic said the president was in "exceptionally good spirits" and said Mr Trump told doctors on Saturday: "I feel like I could walk out of here today." The medical team looking after Mr Trump at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre / AFP via Getty Images But reports in the US gave a less positive picture, with sources telling the Associated Press that some of the presidents vital signs on Friday were very concerning. Speaking at the briefing, Dr Conley had refused to confirm whether Mr Trump had received oxygen at any time during his hospital stay, but a source said the president was given oxygen at the White House on Friday before going to hospital. Mr Meadows said the next 48 hours will be "critical" in terms of Mr Trump's care. "We're still not on a clear path yet to a full recovery," the White House chief of staff said. But he added: "The president is doing very well. He is up and about and asking for documents to review. The doctors are very pleased with his vital signs. I have met with him on multiple occasions today on a variety of issues." White House doctors said the president began exhibiting "clinical indications" of Covid-19 on Thursday afternoon, earlier than previously known. Boris Johnson sure Donald Trump will come through coronavirus 'very well' The president tweeted on Saturday: "Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!! "Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well!" The medical team could not say when he was expected to be discharged, but Dr Conley said Mr Trumps symptoms, including a cough and nasal congestion, "are now resolving and improving". First lady Melania Trump also has tested positive for coronavirus and is recovering at home. The president was airlifted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre on Friday, less than 24 hours after he tested positive for coronavirus. A White House spokeswoman had stressed the hospital stay was "out of an abundance of caution" and that the 74-year-old would work from the hospital's presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to continue his official duties. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he is sure the president will "come through" his treatment "very well". Speaking to reporters on Saturday morning, Mr Johnson said he rang the White House on Friday night. "I think obviously everybodys wishing him and Melania the very best and hoping that they recover speedily and Ive no doubt that he will, hell make a very strong recovery," the Prime Minister said. When asked if he had any advice for Mr Trump, Mr Johnson added: "I think that he will be doing exactly what the doctors tell him to do and Im sure he will be having the best care he can possibly get." Mr Trump walked out of the White House wearing a mask before boarding Marine One on Friday evening, and in a video on Twitter said: "I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out." Donald Trump arriving at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre / REUTERS He later tweeted: "Going well, I think! Thank you to all. Love!!!" The US has been left reeling by the unfolding events surrounding Mr Trumps health troubles, with the presidential election only four weeks away. The president announced his diagnosis in a tweet in the early hours of Friday, following a positive test from one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks. First lady Melania Trump has also tested positive and has a "mild cough and headache", according to the doctor, but the remainder of the first family, including son Barron, who lives at the White House, have tested negative. The presidents re-election campaign said all events featuring Mr Trump and members of his family would either be postponed or go online, but that vice president Mike Pence would resume campaigning as he had tested negative. Mr Trumps Covid-19 diagnosis is the latest among world leaders, with Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier also falling ill. This story is being updated. The family of an asthmatic teenager who choked to death during Australia's fatal bushfire season have issued a plea ahead of summer. Courtney Partridge-McLennon, 19, died in bed at her parents' house in Glen Innes, northern New South Wales, during bushfires in the area last November. The teenager desperately fought to save her own life by reaching for her medication after suffering a sudden asthma attack in a granny flat, where she was alone. The Partridge family are on a mission to spread Courtney's story, in a warning to other Australians that smoke can be just as deadly as the flame itself. Courtney Partridge-McLennan (pictured), 19, died from an asthma attack last November The teenager's (pictured) family are trying to spread awareness about the dangers of bushfire smoke ahead of summer 'People need to know the risks that not just fire poses, but the smoke too,' Courtney's sister Cheryl Leigh Partridge told 60 Minutes in a segment that will air on Sunday. 'I never in my wildest dreams realised it would be as deadly as it was.' According to official records, the horrific 2019-20 bushfire season claimed the lives of 33 people. But more than 400 Australians died 'indirectly' and as a result of smoke inhalation. 'When you think that that over 400 families are potentially sitting in the same situation that we are, from one bushfire event, I think that's calling itself for something to be different,' Cheryl Leigh said. Cheryl Leigh, who is working with Asthma Australia to raise awareness, said the conversation needs to start before the next bushfire season. Courtney's family gave evidence in June at a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into the health impacts of the deadly bushfire season. The teenager, one of six children, was not a severe asthmatic and had been able to manage the condition her whole life. Courtney (pictured) choked on bushfire smoke surrounding her parents' home in Glen Innes in November 2019 'She was found in her bed with her phone torch on and her reliever medication quite close to her, so she didn't have time to ask for help,' Cheryl Leigh said. Cheryl Leigh told the inquiry how Courtney had struggled to overcome the asthma attack brought on by the smoke and that her sister was unaware of the severe danger it posed. 'We don't have air quality monitoring the same way that metropolitan areas do,' she said. 'You can look outside and use common sense and go 'it's pretty smoky out there', but the understanding of what the levels are, if they're hazardous don't exist for regional NSW. 'She was found in her bed with her phone torch on and her reliever medication quite close to her, so she didn't have time to ask for help.' Cheryl Leigh called for up-to-date and understandable air quality information to be readily available across all of NSW. 'It wasn't until after my sister's passing and the South Coast fires kind of took off... where I began to see in the media that people were being recommended to wear P2 masks and to stay inside and activate air filters if they had access to them,' she said. Courtney (pictured), who had suffered with non-severe asthma all her life, was found in bed with her phone torch on and her reliever medication close to her The inquiry heard a government campaign was required to provide real-time air quality information to help asthmatics make decisions on what level of protection they needed. The bushfires that raged near Glen Innes in November killed three people and left the town covered in thick smoke. Air quality in some areas of New South Wales reached such hazardous levels that just being outside became the equivalent of smoking an entire packet of cigarettes. Asthma Australia chief executive Michele Goldman told the inquiry that hazardous air quality should be treated with more urgency. 'We've seen with the coronavirus how we can prepare ourselves and how we can respond to emergencies, 'We're seeing the intensity and duration of fires increasing, we're now starting to understand the true health impacts of exposure to smoke,' Ms Goldman said. Ms Goldman called for the development of a uniform approach to measuring and reporting air quality across the country. She said: 'We need to ensure that the community both understand the potentially harmful impacts ... and we need to give them the tools to be able to understand what air quality is like at any given time, on any given day in any given jurisdiction, and to have strategies that they can put in place to protect themselves.' BAY CITY, MI Harbor Freight Tools is opening a new store in Bay City this month. The new store, located at 3762 Wilder Road, is the 37th Harbor Freight Tools store in Michigan and will bring approximately 35 new jobs to the community, according to a company news release. It opens at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17. Store hours are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Were ready to serve and deliver value to customers in Bay City and all of Bay County, Store Manager Caitlin Luberda said in a statement. At Harbor Freight, we recognize that now, more than ever, our customers depend on Harbor Freight for the tools they need to get the job done at an affordable price. The 10,000-square-foot store will stock a full selection of tools and equipment in categories including automotive, air and power tools, storage, outdoor power equipment, generators, welding supplies, shop equipment, hand tools and more. During the COVID-19 pandemic, all Harbor Freight stores have implemented more-frequent cleaning and are following the guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including social distancing to protect the health and safety of customers and employees, the release states. Company officials ask anyone who has any COVID-19 symptoms to shop online at www.harborfreight.com rather than in store. Read more on MLive: Bay Citys historic Barneys Bakery reopening with new name, new concept New businesses opening, Family Video closing and more mid-Michigan business news Local Eats: 5-2-oh brings Asian fusion street food to Bay City STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened on Friday to issue $10,000-a-day fines if localities dont increase their enforcement of COVID-19 enforcement. His office announced Friday that the state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker would issue an order to localities with coronavirus hot spots establishing frameworks for their enforcement activities and consequences if they do not meet those requirements. Cuomo has repeatedly blamed local governments, particularly New York City, for their lack of enforcement helping lead to 20 hot spot ZIP codes around the state with surging infection rates. I have asked the local governments many times to actually do the compliance, Cuomo said. Compliance is not public educationit is enforcement. People know what the rules are and theyve heard them every day. Local governments have to do enforcement. Whether or not it fits with their political agenda really is pointless. Its the law and their job is to enforce the law. Cuomo said the hot spots are primarily in Orange County, Rockland County, a small portion of Nassau County, and New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasios office did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. The state has been conducting increased testing in the hot spot ZIP codes and found that rates continue to rise. On average, the hot spots have an infection rate of about 6.4%, while the rest of the state excluding the hot spots of about 1.04%, according to the governors office. Weve seen the Orange, Brooklyn and hot spots go up in some zip codes and we see some spreading into a part of Queens, Governor Cuomo said. So that is our priority and our focus, and the Department of Health is going to have people on the ground in the hot spot zip codes today. The governor said Thursday that hed been in contact with religious leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community, which is heavily represented in the hot spot ZIP codes. The governor has offered to create a statewide task force, similar to the State Liquor Authority task force that has focused on enforcement in restaurants, to address compliance enforcement, but said it would need to be partially staffed by local authorities. In the latest development in Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case, Dr Sudhir Gupta, head of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) panel probing the late actor's post-mortem and viscera reports, has ruled out the murder angle in the death case, stated a report in ANI. Dr Sudhir Gupta was quoted as saying by the news agency, "We have concluded our conclusive report. It is a case of hanging and death by suicide." The AIIMS forensic head further added, "There were no injuries over the body other than hanging. There were no marks of struggle/scuffle in the body and clothes of the deceased." ANI quoted Dr Gupta as saying, "The presence of any sedative material was not detected by Bombay FSL and AIIMS toxicology lab. The complete examination of ligature mark over the body was consistent with hanging." (sic) The ANI report further stated that the medical board refused to provide the details as the case is still subjudice. It was earlier reported that the AIIMS panel re-investigated Sushant's post-mortem and viscera reports based on the 20 per cent viscera available. Meanwhile, Sushant Singh Rajput's family lawyer Vikas Singh had earlier claimed in a tweet that that a doctor, who is a part of the AIIMS team, had told him "long back" that the actor's photos indicated that his death was by "strangulation" and not suicide. In response, Rhea Chakraborty's lawyer Satish Maneshinde said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has to constitute a new medical board to keep the investigation in Sushant's death case "impartial". However, Dr Sudhir Gupta refuted Vikas Singh's claims while speaking to a news channel. He said, "No conclusion or conclusion opinion of homicide or suicide could be made by seeing ligature marks and scene of occurrence. It's difficult for doctors and next to impossible for general people, needed solely internal link discretion and forensic interpretation." Earlier this week, the CBI released a statement that the investigation in Sushant Singh Rajput's death case is still on and no aspect has been ruled out yet. For the unversed, Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his Bandra flat on June 14, 2020, and the Mumbai Police had confirmed his death by suicide. ALSO READ: R Madhavan On Sushant Singh Rajput's Death: I Remember Him As A Guy Full Of Energy ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput's Death Case: NCB Opposes Rhea And Showik Chakraborty's Bail Plea CHICAGO - When it comes to surgery, minority children lag far behind white children, according to two analyses of large national databases being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2020 annual meeting. One found Black children are more than twice as likely as white children to die following surgical complications that require an unplanned additional operation. Another study determined Black, Asian and Hispanic children are about half as likely to have surgery as white children. All parents want the best medical care for their children, and ensuring that quality surgical care is available for minority as well as white children will require a multifaceted solution, said Ethan L. Sanford, M.D., lead author of one of the studies and assistant professor of anesthesiology and pain management at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. Clearly we have a lot of work to do. Black children more likely to die after reoperation Researchers at Nationwide Childrens Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, set out to better assess a surgical outcome known as failure to rescue in Black children. In this context, failure to rescue means the patient suffered a post-surgical complication that led to a second unplanned operation, but ultimately died. While previous studies have looked at racial disparities related to this outcome in children having heart surgery, this study looked at failure to rescue in all surgeries. The researchers analyzed data from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Pediatric Participant Use Data file and found that of 276,917 children who had an inpatient surgical procedure between 2012 and 2017, 10,425 (8,409 white children and 2,016 Black children) suffered a complication that sent them back to the operating room. Two-hundred and nine children subsequently died, 135 white (1.6% of all white children who suffered a complication) and 74 Black (3.7% of all Black children who suffered a complication), meaning Black children were more than twice as likely to die. They found the racial disparities in failure to rescue were greatest among the sickest children and when the reoperation occurred within four days of the initial surgery. The researchers note there are many possible factors that lead to failure to rescue in Black children after surgery, including: socioeconomic status and access to quality care and preventive measures; and health risk factors, such as higher incidence of obesity, asthma and sleep apnea. We dont fully understand all of the issues that place a Black child at greater risk and how all of these issues interact with each other, said Brittany Willer, M.D., lead author of the study and a pediatric anesthesiologist at Nationwide Childrens Hospital. Our study gives physician anesthesiologists and surgeons insight into those at highest risk to heighten their awareness of the most vulnerable patients during the early post-operative period, which may have the biggest immediate impact on easing racial disparities. Minority children less likely to have surgery than white children Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center conducted the first study to assess the difference in the incidence of surgery between Black, Hispanic, Asian, and white children. They analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey, which is conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study included 227,025 children age 18 or younger, of whom 11,018 had received any type of inpatient or outpatient surgery within the previous 12 months. Even after adjusting for factors, such as the health of the child, poverty, whether the child was insured and the level of education attained by the parents, minority children were about half as likely as white children to have surgery. The authors note there is no evidence to suggest that white children are more likely to need surgery or to have cosmetic procedures factors that potentially could play a role in the large difference between the two groups. We must consider implicit systemic biases within perioperative health care, said Dr. Sanford. Bias can occur at several points, from deciding whether to refer a child to a surgeon, when a surgeon is deciding whether or not to operate on a child and when a physician anesthesiologist is deciding whether it is safe for a child to proceed with surgery. Further, some minority families may mistrust the health system, there may be communication or cultural difficulties, as well as barriers such as travel and the ability to take time off work. Dr. Sanford said he hopes the research will help lead to broader health disparities research, such as routine collection of race and ethnicity data for children during all health care visits. Also important are quality improvement initiatives such as standardized teaching for health care workers about systemic bias and cultural competency, as well as increasing workforce diversity. ASAs Committee on Professional Diversity recently posted a living document, Anesthesiology and Health Equity, which looks into health care disparities in resources, quality of care, outcomes and mortality based on race and socioeconomic status. The committee anticipates the document will be reviewed and updated as new insights and perspectives on the issue are brought to its attention. ### THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific society with more than 54,000 members organized to raise and maintain the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology. ASA is committed to ensuring physician anesthesiologists evaluate and supervise the medical care of patients before, during and after surgery to provide the highest quality and safest care every patient deserves. For more information on the field of anesthesiology, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists online at asahq.org. To learn more about the role physician anesthesiologists play in ensuring patient safety, visit asahq.org/WhenSecondsCount. Join the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2020 social conversation today. Like ASA on Facebook, follow ASALifeline on Twitter and use the hashtag #ANES20. A vandal was caught by security camera kicking over candles and violently sprinting through a memorial honoring Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen, who was murdered at the Texas base by a fellow soldier earlier this year. The clip was shared to Facebook on Friday by the League of United Latin American Citizens, a volunteer group dedicated to empowering Latinos in the U.S. at all levels. The organization, one of the oldest Latino civil rights groups in the country, is seeking the communitys help in identifying the person recorded vandalizing the site in Killeen, not far from the Fort Hood East Gate. A time stamp on the surveillance footage shows the incident unfolded round 2:40 a.m. on Thursday. In the video, a person with their face mostly obscured by their hood can be seen stomping through flowers and kicking over candles arranged in front of an image of Guillen. Just when the suspect appears to be finished with their destruction, they race again toward the memorial flailing wildly and knocking over even more of the decorations before walking off. According to KXAN, the site was cleaned up by morning. I would ask that we focus on reminding the community that the mural is there to bring the community together and bring awareness to sexual assault, sexual harassment and its prevention, League of United Latin American Citizens District Director Analuisa Tapia said in a public statement. Our community has already been damaged by the loss of one too many soldiers. We ask that we collectively take care of the mural as we honor our service members who live in that silent combat. Guillen was last seen alive on April 22 in the parking lot of her squadron headquarters. Her disappearance, preceded by claims she made to family about sexual harassment on the Texas base, generated national concern with calls for help in the case fueled by celebrities and other high-profile figures. Guillens dismembered remains were found near the base two months after she vanished. Story continues When police moved in to arrest Specialist Aaron Robinson, 20, in connection with the death, he shot and killed himself, authorities said in early July. A second individual, Cecily Anne Aguilar, has also been charged with conspiracy to tamper with evidence. 2020 New York Daily News Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. BRIDGEPORT Two people were wounded in separate shootings hours apart Monday, as the city continues to see a wave of gun violence. The latest shooting took place around 9 p.m. Officers were dispatched to Bridgeport Hospital after medical personnel alerted police to a gunshot wound victim who had been dropped off by a private vehicle. Police said there was no further information immediately available Monday night, including where the shooting might have happened or the extent of the victims injuries. Earlier Monday morning, around 2 a.m., police were dispatched to the P.T. Barnum apartment complex for a report of a person shot. Police said the individual suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the arm. Mondays shootings came after two fatal shootings within hours of each other Sunday. Shortly after midnight Sunday, 31-year-old Daron Jones was found unresponsive on a Worth Street porch after he was shot once in the chest when police responded to a ShotSpotter gunfire activation ni the area, according to Capt. Brian Fitzgerald. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Not long after, around 2:20 a.m. Sunday, 21-year-old Nyair Nixon was shot multiple times inside Keystone Bar on Barnum Avenue. Fitzgerald said after Nixon was shot, he stumbled outside ... collapsed in the street, and was then struck by a vehicle that fled the scene. The captain said the arriving officers were confronted by a large, hostile crowd that were interfering with their ability to secure a crime scene. Police had to call in police from Stratford, who stayed on scene to help for several hours. Nixon was taken by medics to Bridgeport Hospital, where he died from his injuries. Jones marked the citys 17th homicide of 2020, Nixon the 18th. Sundays two homicides came just days after the citys last two killings. Around 8 a.m. Sept. 24, 36-year-old Jorge Tirado was found slumped over the wheel of a vehicle that had crashed into a tree in Black Rock, in the area of Fox Street and Canfield Avenue. Tirado had been shot twice in the chest and was pronounced dead at the scene, Fitzgerald said. He marked the citys 15th homicide. of 2020. Less than 12 hours later, shortly before 8 p.m., 27-year-old Raymond Sierra was shot in the 600 block of Union Avenue, Fitzgerald said. Sierra was taken to Bridgeport Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Sierra was the citys 16th homicide this year. Anyone with information on any of these shootings or homicides is asked to call the Bridgeport police tips line at 203-576-TIPS. Callers can remain anonymous. Sen. Ron Johnson tested positive for COVID-19, his office said on Saturday. That made the Wisconsin lawmaker the third Republican senator to test positive for the coronavirus over the past 24 hours. Johnson, who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, was tested Friday afternoon and is not experiencing symptoms, his office said in a statement. Johnson had undergone a two-week quarantine after he was exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 14, his office said. He never developed symptoms and tested negative twice during that time. But Johnson was exposed to someone who later tested positive for the virus once he returned to Washington on Sept. 29, his office said. Johnson feels healthy and will remain isolated. Advertisement The announcement from Johnsons office came shortly after Sens. Mike Lee from Utah and Thom Tillis from North Carolina had said Friday that theyd tested positive for the coronavirus. These developments mean the Republican majority is down three votes from its 53-member caucus. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not said yet whether there will be a change in plans to reconvene the Senate on Monday. Tillis and Lee are both on the Senate Judiciary Committee that will be considering the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. Johnson is not on that committee. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday evening that it is irresponsible and dangerous to move forward with a hearing on the Supreme Court nominee and there is absolutely no good reason to do so. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As the tears flowed again all I could do was ask why? Why, when I had dedicated so much of life to the country I love to call home, was I was being treated like a prisoner simply for the "crime" of being born overseas with immediate family in a different country? Astrid Magenau with her father Horst Magenau, 76, on an earlier trip back to Germany. I am a 42-year-old medical research scientist and the Australian hotel quarantine system caused my distress. Several weeks ago, I became one of the first Australian residents to speak out about the emotional harm and suffering that the ban on leaving the country was causing. But worse was to come. I was born in Germany and came to Australia in 2005 to complete my PhD. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to my family and my friends but at the same time I was excited and full of joy I had dreamed about Australia since I was a child. I met my Australian husband and five years ago our son, Hendrix, was born. I was happy he would hold dual citizenship and would have two countries he could call home. Boris Johnson said he is pretty optimistic about striking a trade deal with the European Union as he prepares to discuss progress in the talks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. The Prime Minister is due to take stock of the negotiations in a conference call with Ms von der Leyen on Saturday following the final scheduled round of talks between Brussels and the UK this week. Ms von der Leyens remarks that talks need to intensify have sparked speculation that an agreement could be reached before Mr Johnsons deadline of the EU Council meeting on October 15. We have been members for 45 years, and I don't see why they can't have the same deal with us, so I'm pretty optimistic Prime Minister Boris Johnson According to Financial Times, both sides are set to agree to further last-ditch discussions dubbed the tunnel in London as they look to finalise an agreement. In an interview with the Telegraph, Mr Johnson said the chances of a deal are very good if everybody just exercises some common sense and looks at the deal that is there to be done. He added: The UK has always been very clear what we want we want a Canada-style relationship. We have been members for 45 years, and I dont see why they cant have the same deal with us, so Im pretty optimistic. But, in a pointed warning to Brussels, he kept his threat of leaving without a trade deal on the table, arguing that Britain would be fine under an Australian agreement with the EU a Downing Street code term for a no-deal arrangement. Asked about the prospect of failing to do a deal, Mr Johnson, reportedly adopting an Australian accent, replied: Australia holds no terrors for us, mate. We say: Good on yer, no worries, no wukkas. Speaking at a news conference in the Belgian capital on Friday, Mrs von der Leyen said she believed a deal was still possible but warned that time was running out. She said the most difficult issues including fisheries and state aid rules still had to be resolved if they were to get an agreement in place by the end of the Brexit transition period at the end of the year. It is good to have a deal but not at any price, she said. We have made progress on many, many different fields but of course the most difficult ones are still completely open. Expand Close The Prime Minister has set the deadline of October 15 for agreeing a trade deal with the EU (Jonathan Brady/PA) PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Prime Minister has set the deadline of October 15 for agreeing a trade deal with the EU (Jonathan Brady/PA) But overall, where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations because it is worth working hard on it. We are running out of time around 100 days to the end of the year so it is worth stepping up now. Downing Street made clear Mr Johnson still believed there needed to be a deal by the time of the next EU summit in two weeks time on October 15, otherwise it will be too late to implement before the transition ends. The UKs chief negotiator Lord Frost was less upbeat than the Prime Minister about the level of progress made so far. Here is the UK statement about the state of play in our negotiations with the EU after the ninth round of talks. https://t.co/2wXSZeKgJW David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) October 2, 2020 In a statement issued after his meeting with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Friday, he said that while the outlines of an agreement were visible, there were still familiar differences to be overcome. Lord Frost added that there had been some limited progress on state aid while the gap over fisheries was unfortunately very large and may prove impossible to bridge. I am concerned that there is very little time now to resolve these issues ahead of the European Council on October 15, he said. Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, who briefed other EU leaders with Mrs von der Leyen on the state of the negotiations, said it was highly unlikely there would be an agreement by October Council meeting, although there would need to be significant progress in the coming weeks. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Three men released from prison after spending a combined 55 years in prison for killings they did not commit were among several people who rallied outside the Cuyahoga County Justice Center on Friday to mark Wrongful Conviction Day. RuEl Sailor, Laurese Glover and Derrick Wheatt joined family members of other men fighting their convictions across the state to bring awareness to wrongful convictions. The group EPIC, which stands for Ensuring Parole for Incarcerated Citizens, organized Friday afternoons rally. The Association of Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted in 2014 declared Oct. 2 to be international Wrongful Conviction Day, meant to bring awareness to the issue of wrongful convictions around the world. Jeanna Kenney, president of the group EPIC that organized the rally, said she wanted to bring awareness to all wrongful convictions, but one in particular. Kenneys husband, Peter Kenney Jr., is currently in the 19th year of a life sentence he received when he was 17 years old. A juvenile court judge transferred Kenneys case to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, where prosecutors tried him as an adult in the shooting Terrence Robinson in 2001. A jury convicted him of multiple counts, including murder, and Judge Nancy McDonnell imposed a life sentence with no chance at parole until he served 36 years behind bars. We want to bring awareness to the community to tell you that you may not think that this can happen to you, but this can happen to anybody, Kenney said. One wrong move and youre done. And it takes decades. Sailors case involved witness misidentification, which, according to the Innocence Project, is the most common cause of wrongful convictions. The organization says that of 375 convictions overturned after DNA testing exonerated the defendant, nearly 70 percent featured faulty witness identifications. Sailor told the crowd that rallies like Fridays were why he wound up being freed from prison and encouraged those in the crowd to continue. Glover and Wheatt, who, along with Eugene Johnson, came to be known as the East Cleveland Three when their murder convictions were overturned in 2015, featured another common thread in wrongful convictions: police misconduct. East Cleveland police detectives withheld from their defense attorneys at trial a police report that included statements from witnesses that would have helped them prove their innocence. The detectives also coerced a 14-year-old boy into identifying the trio as the culprits. Melinda Elkins, who in 2005 helped exonerate her ex-husband Clarence Elkins of the 1999 rape and murder of her mother and the sexual assault of another young family member in Summit County, also spoke at the rally. DNA testing cleared Clarence Elkins of the killing and the young family member recanted her testimony identifying him as her assailant after his conviction. Another man eventually was charged and pleaded guilty to the crime. Charles Keith, whose brother Kevin Keith has been imprisoned on death row since his 1994 in a triple homicide in Crawford County, also spoke. Last year, a federal appeals court ruled granted Kevin Keith the ability once again to mount an appeal to his conviction and sentence. Kim Kardashian-West posted a message on Twitter calling him innocent. Read more stories Former Ohio death-row inmate will get chance to challenge murder convictions How Barberton police wrongly accused Clarence Elkins Man whose murder conviction was overturned in 2018 says Cleveland police withheld evidence, manipulated witnesses Three East Cleveland men each awarded $5 million for wrongful murder convictions Centre had allowed states an additional borrowing limit of up to two per cent of Gross State Domestic Product for 2020-21 Chennai: Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have been granted permission to raise additional borrowing to the tune of Rs 7106 crore for successfully implementing some of the reforms prescribed by the Centre during the stimulus package. While Andhra Pradesh has become the first state to implement Ease of doing Business reforms after Public Distribution System reforms, Uttar Pradesh became the sixth state to implement One Nation One Ration Card. By undertaking Ease of doing Business reform, Andhra Pradesh has become eligible to raise an additional amount of Rs 2,525 crore through Open Market Borrowings. The reforms prescribed by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade include assessment of District Level Business Reform Action Plan, elimination of renewal of certificates/ approvals/ licences and computerized central random inspection system. Earlier, Andhra Pradesh was allowed to borrow another Rs 2,525 crore or 0.25 per cent of its Gross State Domestic Product for successfully implementing One Nation One Ration Card along with Telangana, Goa, Karnataka, and Tripura. All the five states were granted permission to raise additional financial resources of Rs 9,913 crore then. On Friday, Uttar Pradesh too joined the list of states that have implemented One Nation One Ration Card. This has made the state eligible to raise Rs 4,851 crore through Open Market Borrowings. Under the reform, states have to ensure availability of ration to beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act and other welfare schemes, especially to the migrant workers and their families at any fair price shop in the country. As part of the stimulus package, the Centre had allowed states an additional borrowing limit of up to two per cent of Gross State Domestic Product for 2020-21. This made Rs 4,27,302 crore available to the states to borrow. However, one per cent of this is subject to implementation of One Nation One Ration Card System, Ease of doing Business, Urban Local body/ utility reforms and power sector reforms. A sale of Dublin-based Stobart Air, which operates the Aer Lingus Regional service, is the key focus for the UK's Stobart Group, according to its chief executive, Warwick Brady. "We're entirely focused on sorting out Stobart Air," said Mr Brady yesterday in a presentation to investors. Stobart Group said on Thursday that Stobart Air was operating below expectations since June, due to continuing quarantine regulations in Ireland. Mr Brady said in his presentation that the group has a four-step plan for the carrier, including tight cost control and mitigating the group's risk in terms of parent guarantees. Stobart Group has about $100m (85m) in liabilities attached to Stobart Air, including aircraft maintenance costs. Mr Brady said that step three of the group's plan would entail "entering into a new commercial arrangement with Aer Lingus". However, he made no mention during the presentation that Aer Lingus has recently sought tenders to operate the Aer Lingus Regional service beyond the end of 2022 when Stobart Air's current contract expires. "We'd be disappointed if we had not exited that business at or before the end of our financial year," said Mr Brady. Stobart Group's financial year ends next February. The company signalled earlier this year that it intended to sell Stobart Air. The group has been in talks with potential buyers for the carrier, including UK leasing firm Falko, which owns Irish carrier CityJet. Stobart Group owns London Southend Airport, and its longer-term strategy is to make the continuing development of that asset its key focus. The company has already sold some assets and has also said it intends to offload its energy business. Stobart Group raised 100m (110m) from investors in June via an equity placing at 40 pence per share. Its shares are now trading at about half that level. Mr Brady said that London Southend Airport has benefited from continued logistics demand during the pandemic. The airport is used by retail giant Amazon for shipments. "We believe flying in and out of London will return and we will capitalise on this," said Mr Brady. Qatar Airways resumed flights to several destinations in South Africa, the airline announced Thursday. The Gulf carrier is nearing the number of flight destinations it had before the crisis. Qatar Airways is now offering regularly scheduled flights to Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban in South Africa, the airline said in a press release. Between the three cities, Qatar is flying to the African country 19 times per week. This is more than any other international airline, Qatar Airways said. Many Middle Eastern airlines suspended services for a period during the COVID-19 pandemic. Qatar Airways was unique in continuing to fly throughout the crisis. The airline did stop flying to numerous destinations in March, and has steadily resumed routes since then. Last month, Qatar resumed services to Amman. The Doha-based carrier aims to fly to 124 airports by the end of 2020, it said today. Before the coronavirus, Qatar Airways flew to more than 160 destinations. Qatar has the highest number of coronavirus cases per capita in the world. Like other regional airlines, Qatar Airways has suffered financially from the decrease in air travel across the world resulting from COVID-19. In May, the airline announced it was seeking billions in loans. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form One thing has been made very clear over the last three decades -- former Iron Curtain nations of Eastern Europe and the former USSR that follow the rule of law survive and prosper. Those that don't, fall into the depths of corruption and reduced standards of living. Georgia is one of those new nation states which rose to the top after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now, Western observers fear the nation is backsliding. The impact of this Georgian regression will be felt in its bid to join the European Union, via-free regimes to the EU, and possibly even its close relationship with the NATO alliance. A striking example of this backsliding away from the rule of law is a move by the Georgian government to stonewall and ultimately expropriate a legally transacted communications deal and disenfranchise a major investor, an Azerbaijani firm with a grand vision seeking to connect the Caucasus to Europe on the digital highway. The company in jeopardy is a Georgian Internet services provider called Caucuses Online. A large part of the investment effort logistically was to run cable through the democratic nation of Georgia, away from Iran and the Russian Federation. Azerbaijani investor completed the acquisition from private parties, and secured blessingsfrom regulators, meticulously following the law. The acquisition formed a strategically important initiative aimed to change the digital landscape of the Caucasus and Central Asia. However, someone forced the Georgian government to change course, outlaw the project and embark on an extrajudicial effort to expropriate the assets. Laws were hurriedly pushed through to allow for an appointment of a manager. Similar to an American receiver or trustee, the Georgian manager would have absolute control once empaneled. This is heavy-handed measure and appears to be completely against Georgian law and procedural industry standards. It is obvious that the government of Georgia has established a certain regulatory framework to support its attack and to take over control over Caucasus Online, with an ultimate goal to undermine the Digital Silkway Project. Georgian governments surprising actions are a signal of caution to potential investors into Georgian economy both foreign and domestic. The question is why? Georgia has doggedly built a reputation of erecting a transparent, effective government to serve its people, an astonishing feat after years of Soviet corruption and colonial-style rule over the Caucuses. All of these aggressive extrajudicial tactics are putting these decades of progress at risk, squandering Georgia's precious reputation and potentially turning it into just another oligarchic vassal state. These actions endanger Georgia's eventual access to the European Union, harm the economic progress of its people, and forces a significant infrastructure node that could facilitate an economic renaissance for the region to be routed through Iran and Russia, not necessarily reliable examples of democracy and freedom, and of course not what Brussels or Washington would like to see. An Iranian routing would be especially problematic for Western powers, as it would expose digital traffic to the mullahs who are accused by the Trump administration of moving forward on a nuclear weapons capability. A routing through Iran, implemented by seeming derelictions of Georgian government, will substantially strengthen the position of the Mullahs in the region. It will allow Iranian authorities to control the increasing data traffic volumes to/from Central Asia, an area of significant interest for anti-terrorism efforts. It will essentially facilitate integration of the region into the Iranian-influenced information system. Therefore, Georgia, a nation that wants to join NATO, and a nation that recently exercised with NATO forces in-country, will be aiding and abetting the largest global sponsor of terrorism. This would be a significant blow to Secretary of State Pompeo's 'maximum pressure' campaign against Tehran. The successful implementation of the Digital Silkway Route via the Caspian Sea/Azerbaijan/Georgia has global strategic importance for the US and its international allies, countering Iranian attempts to take control over international data transit flows, and influence the integrity of regional and global information communications systems. With the current Western focus on Chinese harvesting of information from malware and routing sensitive online traffic through Beijing for surveillance, the Digital Silkway Route takes on added significance. If Georgia abandons free markets and denigrates the integrity of its laws and treaties, it will end up not only losing foreign investment and support but will end up inadvertently accommodating dangerous influencers in Central Asia. Colonel (Retired) Wes Martin has served in law enforcement positions around the world and holds a MBA in International Politics and Business. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Military operations on Artsakh-Azerbaijan contact line continue with the same intensity, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of Artsakh. The Defense Army units successfully carry out their military tasks inflicting heavy manpower and equipment losses on the adversary. At about 15:50 the air defense units of the Defense Army downed the adversarys helicopter in the southern direction, says the Defense Army. The Defense Army of Artsakh has succeeded in thwarting a large-scale Azerbaijani offensive today, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said earlier today. The Artsakh Defense Army began a counteroffensive in one direction, she added. Fierce defensive battles are taking place in all other directions. Editing and Translating by Tigran SIrekanyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. In an interview with Al Jazeera Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan reiterated his concept that any solution to Nagorno Karabakh conflict should be acceptable for the peoples of Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) and Azerbaijan, ARMENPRESS reports PM Pashinyan emphasized that the dictatorial authorities of Azerbaijan are not inclined to compromise. Assuming the post of the Prime Minister of Armenia, I brought a concept as the basis of my policy regarding Karabakh conflict settlement. I said that any solution to Karabakh issue has to be acceptable for the people of the Republic of Armenia, people of Nagorno Karabakh and people of Azerbaijan. I offered this concept as basis for the settlement of the conflict. Unfortunately, starting from mid-2000s Azerbaijan has been developing the philosophy and policy of a military settlement and denies any kind of compromise. The dictatorial authorities in Azerbaijan are not inclined to any compromise. Only democratic, elected authorities can offer options of compromise, like the concept I have mentioned, Pashinyan said. According to Pashinyan, in response to his calls, Azerbaijani president Aliyev said that the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict can take place only in the sidelines of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, which means that Karabakh issue will go back to the situation of 1988, era of the Soviet Union, from where everything started. Its impossible to resolve a conflict by returning to the point from where it started, the PM said. Answering the question if there was an opportunity to avoid the eruption of violence, PM Pashinyan said that there was only one opportunity for that yield to the blackmails and threats, which could never be acceptable for Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Nikol Pashinyan also commented on the remark that following the velvet revolution there were great hopes in Azerbaijan that his coming to power would be a step towards peace. We hoped that the democratic wave would reach Azerbaijan. Those hopes never became reality since the president of Azerbaijan continuously uses Karabakh issue for justifying his dictatorial rule. When the velvet revolution took place in Armenia, the Azerbaijani public had greater hopes that a similar revolution could take place also in Azerbaijan. But for preventing that revolution and continuing the dictatorial rule Azerbaijan intensified militaristic rhetoric, which led to this situation, PM Pashinyan said. Editing and Translating by Tigran SIrekanyan Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered that a case be registered against the local police official, and two senior officials be shunted out Narsinghpur: A 32-year-old Dalit woman, who was raped allegedly by three men four days ago, died by suicide on Friday in Madhya Pradesh's Narsinghpur district, police said. The woman's family alleged that the police did not register a complaint in the last three days. On Friday, the police arrested three persons, including one of the alleged rapists. Late in the evening, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered that a case be registered against the local police official, and two senior officials be shunted out. The shocking incident, which comes in the wake of Hathras rape-and-murder case, took place in Gadarwara area of the district. On Friday, assistant sub-inspector Mishrilal Kodapa of Gotitoriya police outpost was suspended for laxity in duty, said Gadarwara Sub Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) SR Yadav. "We registered a case today against Arvind and Parsu Choudhary, who belong to the same community as the victim, and another accused Anil Rai for gang-rape," Yadav informed. "Arvind Choudhary has been arrested and a hunt has been launched for the other two," he added. The trio allegedly raped the woman on Monday when she was out in a field to cut grass for the cattle. The SDOP, however, said the woman's two nieces who saw the incident stated that the accused caught hold of her and teased her, but did not confirm that she was raped. When they raised alarm, the accused fled, the two girls told police. The woman and her husband orally complained to the police on the same day but the complaint was not clear, Yadav claimed. On Friday, when the woman went to fetch water from a tap, Leela Bai, another woman, allegedly taunted her, after which the victim went home and hanged herself, the police officer said. Her husband alleged in his complaint that they were trying to get a case registered for the last three days but to no avail. "We have arrested Leela Bai. Besides, Motilal, Arvind's father too was arrested under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) as he had said something insulting to the woman," Yadav said. "We have registered a case of gang-rape and are investigating further," he added. Late in the evening, Chief Minister Chouhan directed that a case should be filed against the in-charge of the police outpost who failed to register offence and he should be arrested, said a state government spokesperson. Chouhan also ordered immediate transfer of Narsinghpur additional superintendent of police and Sub Divisional Officer of Police. Crime against women would not be tolerated at any cost, the chief minister was quoted as saying. A collection of working suicide prevention helpline numbers are available here. Please reach out if you or anyone you know is in need of support. The All-India helpline number is: 022 2754 6669 Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi leaving for Hathras to meet victim's family on October 3. (Photo Credit: ANI) The Uttar Pradesh government on October 3 allowed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to meet the Hathras victim's family. Along with them, the state government allowed three more members to meet the victim's kin. "Any group with no more than five people allowed to meet Hathras victim's family," news agency PTI quoted UP additional chief secretary Awanish Awasthi as saying. Apart from the Gandhi siblings, the names of the other three members have not been disclosed as of yet. Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka head to Hathras again to meet victim's family Noida police confirmed that both Rahul and Priyanka have been allowed to meet the victim's family. Though the Congress leaders were stopped by the police at Delhi-Noida border on the DND expressway while they were trying to enter Hathras. Earlier in the day, Awasthi and DGP HC Awasthy met the family of alleged gangrape victim in Hathras. After meeting the kin, Awasthi told the reporters, "We met the family of the victim and assured them that stringent action will be taken against the guilty. SIT is investigating the case. Statements of the family members are being recorded." The additional chief secretary even mentioned that the police personnel will be deployed in and around the village in Hathras for now. Earlier on September 14, a 19-year-old Dalit girl was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped by four men. She was referred to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on September 29. The local administration cremated her in the early hours of September 30, amid her family members claiming that the police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. A Stamford resident is spearheading the American Cancer Societys local campaign to raise both funds and awareness for childhood cancer research. Kelsey McGettigan, who handles community development for the American Cancer Society, convinced her coworkers to band together throughout the region to highlight #GoldTogether, the organizations pediatric cancer initiative. The #GoldTogether campaign aims to provide a lifeline for children with pediatric cancer and their families, giving them a dedicated space to connect with others impacted by cancer and learn about resources. Gold Together creates a community within Relay for Life for children and families to share their stories and learn more about pediatric cancer resources, research, treatments and support that may positively impact their lives, said McGettigan. The local campaign for pediatric cancer awareness and research spans across Fairfield County and both Putnam and Westchester counties in New York. McGettigan credits the push to unite the American Cancer Society throughout the region to a Fairfield University student. She met Gabriella St. Pierre, a childhood cancer survivor, at the virtual Fairfield University Relay for Life back in April. To hear someone so young speak so gracefully about the support she felt by attending a Relay for Life event and the courage she gained by talking to other kids going through what she was going through, really showed that the work done at the American Cancer Society is so special, said McGettigan. St. Pierre is only one of the local #GoldTogether ambassadors. Along with four other local leaders, St. Pierre committed to raising at least $1,000 for the American Cancer Society while also raising awareness about pediatric cancer throughout September. The American Cancer Society has raised more than $1 million for pediatric cancer research through #GoldTogether to date. The original #GoldTogether movement was born out of an 18-year-old cancer survivors vision. Cole Eicher, who had pediatric brain cancer, partnered in 2018 with the American Cancer Society to fundraise for pediatric cancer research across the country. Jamie Foxx's IG Story Last night the actor confirmed the news with an Instagram story by sharing producer Keith Jefferson's story. Keith congratulated Jamie for finalising the role and wrote, "Congrats Boy! Spider-Man 3 December 2021 @iamjammiefoxx," with fire emoji. Jamie Foxx Debuted As Electro In The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Jamie Foxx who was seen playing the villain, Electro in the second Andrew Garfield-starrer Spider-Man movie. Garfield made his debut with 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, but was let go' after he failed to show up at an event where Sony chief Kaz Hirai was supposed to announce The Amazing Spider-Man 3 for a 2017 release. Since part two had failed to impress fans, after much talk, Sony Pictures struck a deal with Marvel Studios to share the character. MCU's Spider-Man Will Release In December 2021. Spider-Man 3 is set to be directed by Jon Watts. The film will also mark the return of Zendaya, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon and Tony Revolori in pivotal roles. The movie is scheduled to release on December 17, 2021, and will be produced by Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal. 02.10.2020 LISTEN The Greater Accra Regional Executive Committee of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has suspended the party's Ningo Prampram constituency secretary Mr Okoe Mensah over false claims. This follows an accusation levelled against the Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Mr Samuel Nartey George suggesting that he fired a weapon during one of his campaign tours in certain parts of his constituency. In a statement, the opposition lawmaker said: My attention has been drawn, this morning, to a false, malicious and obnoxious statement signed by the Assemblyman for the Mobole electoral area in my constituency, Mr Okoe Mensah, who doubles as the NDCs constituency secretary. Mr Nartey George stated that this wicked lie is the work of a devious mind that needs help, adding that: For the avoidance of any doubt, I wish to unequivocally state that at no point in time, was any weapon discharged during my visit to the Mobole electoral area, as part of my campaign activities this past Sunday. The people of Ningo Prampram have welcomed me into their communities over the past 14 days that my team and I embarked on our door-to-door and publicity drive, the statement said. A statement signed by the Greater Accra Regional Secretary, Theophilus Tetteh on Friday, 2 October 2020, said Mr Okoe Mensah has been suspended for six months in accordance with Article 46 of the NDCs constitution. We are by this copy of this letter referring the matter to the Constituency Disciplinary Committee for further action to be taken. Additionally, the Ningo Prampram MP, Sam George has sued Mr Mensah for defamation. ---classfm In an escalation of the US maximum pressure campaign against Venezuela, the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has deployed a guided-missile destroyer, the USS William P. Lawrence, barely 15 nautical miles off the Caribbean coastline of the South American nation. USS William P. Lawrence, deployed off Venezuela's coast (US Navy) Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza issued a statement denouncing the deployment as an erratic and infantile provocation on the part of Washington, while ridiculing US claims that it is part of a US operation against drug trafficking. In the midst of the surging coronavirus pandemic last April, US President Donald Trump announced the deployment of US naval and air assets, the largest such US operation in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama, on the pretext of preventing drug traffickers from exploiting the COVID-19 outbreak. The justification was preposterous on its face as even Washingtons own agencies acknowledge that the source of the bulk of drugs bound for the US is its own closest ally in the region, Colombia, and that the shipments do not pass through the Caribbean, but up the Pacific Coast and through Central America, through countries whose governments are also aligned with Washington. In addition to the drug interdiction pretext, the Pentagon also justified the deployment of the advanced warship as a freedom of navigation operation designed to challenge what it termed Venezuelas excessive maritime claims in international waters. The illegitimate Maduro regime improperly claims excessive controls over those international waters, which extend three nautical miles beyond the 12-nautical mile territorial sea, a claim that is inconsistent with international law, the US Navy said. It noted that it had similarly deployed warships into waters claimed by Venezuela in June and July. The international law invoked by the Pentagon is the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which limits member states claims to control over coastal waters to12 nautical miles. Neither Venezuela nor Washington are signatories to the agreement. The provocative deployment of the US warship follows by barely two weeks joint exercises conducted by the US and Colombian militaries in a threatening show of force against Venezuela. The exercises were timed to coincide with a four-day Latin American tour by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited every country bordering Venezuela, promoting regime change in Caracas and railing against Chinas influence in the region. The US naval provocations are particularly threatening under conditions in which Venezuela is receiving desperately needed gasoline supplies aboard tankers sent from Iran, which is also the target of a maximum pressure sanctions campaign and continuous military provocations aimed at achieving regime change in Tehran. The Faxon, the third in a group of three Iranian tankers carrying fuel, is expected to arrive at a Venezuelan refinery port over the weekend. Together with two Iranian ships that have already reached the country, the Forest and Fortune, the total cargo amounts to 800,000 barrels of gasoline. While Venezuela has the largest known petroleum reserves, its production has fallen precipitously under the impact of US sanctions, falling global oil prices and a lack of investment and maintenance of the countrys state-owned energy firm, PDVSA. It is also dependent on the import of condensate, a natural gas needed to turn Venezuelas crude oil into gasoline. Its two functioning refineries are producing just 55,000 barrels per day, roughly 50 percent of the countrys requirements, meaning that the Iranian imports will not go that far. Nonetheless, Washington is determined to cut off the gasoline imports. Last month, Washington claimed to have intercepted four ships carrying Iranian gasoline to Venezuela. None of the vessels were Iranian-flagged or owned, and the UAE, Oman and UK-based owners of the cargo shipped on Greek-owned tankers are suing the US government, insisting that the fuel was bound for Trinidad and destined for sale to Colombia and Peru. If US warships were to attempt to seize Iranian tankers bound for Venezuela, the outcome could be a spiraling military escalation threatening region-wide war in the Middle East or even a global conflict. Gasoline shortages and a protracted economic crisis sharply exacerbated by onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the official figures standing at nearly 80,000 cases and nearly 650 deaths, have led to growing poverty and hunger as well as a breakdown of basic services in Venezuela. Lack of fuel, electricity, water and other necessities has triggered a wave of protests in recent weeks. The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict reported over 100 separate protests over the last week in September across 19 of the countrys 23 states. Unlike previous protests, these have been concentrated in small towns and villages in the countrys interior and are driven by social unrest, rather than the machinations of the US-backed right-wing opponents of the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Nonetheless, the Maduro government has dispatched troops, police and paramilitary colectivos, or militias, to repress them. The Maduro government has attempted to counter the countrys deepening crisis with a further turn to the right. While suppressing popular revolt from below, it pardoned in late August over 100 rightists who engaged in attempted coups and terror plots, in hopes of forging some kind of national unity accord and lending legitimacy to parliamentary elections scheduled for Dec. 6. In addition, on Tuesday, the Maduro government unveiled what it described as an anti-blockade bill that it will submit to the National Constituent Assembly. The most significant clauses in the bill call for measures to stimulate and favor the growth of the private sector and foreign direct investment by means of labor and tax incentives along with guarantees of investments. At the same time, it proposes to grant the government power to modify the mechanisms of the constitution, property, management, administration and functioning of public enterprises. This has been widely interpreted in Venezuela as opening the door to the privatization of PDVSA or its subsidiaries. Washington, however, has shown no interest whatsoever in reaching an accommodation with Caracas, no matter how far Maduro goes in subordinating his regime to the interests of world imperialism. Its latest round of sanctions has targeted not just the Maduro government, but also those elements of the right-wing opposition that have agreed to participate in the Dec. 6 election. This includes representatives of the countrys four largest opposition parties: Justice First (PJ), Popular Will (VP), Democratic Action (AD) and A New Time (UNT). The Trump administration has also successfully pressured the European Union to back out of providing election observers, with the EU now demanding that Maduro postpone the election for six months. The shift in the EUs position was joined with one of the main opposition figures, Henrique Capriles, a former governor and presidential candidate, announcing his withdrawal from the election, joining the demand for its postponement. Washingtons puppet, the self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido, meanwhile, has openly called for military intervention to topple Maduro. Addressing remarks to the United Nations, he urged the countrys member nations to invoke the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine to justify military action and to consider a strategy that contemplates different scenarios after the diplomatic route has been exhausted. Since his self-anointment as president in January of last year, Guaido has utterly failed to mobilize a popular base of support or to trigger a military coup. He and his coterie of right-wing politicians are implicated in an abortive invasion led by an ex-US special forces operative, as well as in multi-million dollar corruption scandals surrounding their attempts to lay hold of Venezuelas foreign assets. That he now openly calls for military intervention represents a serious threat under conditions in which a crisis-ridden Trump administration may seek to execute an October surprise in the form of a new eruption of American militarism. Smoke permeates everything. It turns the sky orange and blocks the sun so thoroughly that mid-afternoon shift changes occur under what appears to be the cover of night. Even after Justin Schwersinske had been back almost three weeks from battling wildfires in California, his possessions still reeked of burned forest. I left some gear in my car, in the trunk, he said. I need to open all the doors and the trunk and drive around a bit. Everything smells like a camp fire. Schwersinske and three other members of the Schertz Fire Department were in the vanguard of the scores of area firefighters who have driven or flown to California in recent weeks, part of a Texas effort to help out. On the other side of Bexar County, Keith Haycraft, 46, also described days that were completely hazed with smoke and soot. Firefighters among 60-foot pines had to keep both near and distant landmarks in sight to avoid getting disoriented, he recalled about a week after returning to his San Antonio Fire Department routine at Station 53 near Braunig Lake. We were carrying at least 45 pounds at altitude, with all our gear on, Haycraft said. You have to be in great shape to do that work. You have to be a machine. More than 17,000 firefighters in all are deployed in California, where 29 people have died and thousands of structures destroyed in the more than 8,100 wildfires that have burned almost 4 million acres this year. Schwersinske, Lt. Carl Schultze, Myron Boerger and Mack Melancon shipped out Aug. 22 for a two-week stint that eventually stretched to three, part of a strike team of five pumper engines and a command unit. On ExpressNews.com: COVID-19 shelves another S.A. tradition: Thanksgiving with the troops We convoy out and stay together the entire time, Schultze said. When we get there, we are assigned as a strike team to a particular division or branch. It just depends how they have it all set up. In his 18th year with the Schertz department, Schultze also shipped to two major fires in California in 2018. Were assigned to a division supervisor, then we get our tactical assignments, he said. A division could be miles long. Your coverage area is huge. Well be assigned, whether its to patrol, or mop-up, firing operations, or any kind of hazard mitigation out there. Billy Calzada /Billy Calzada Their team performed all of those chores at one time or another, Schultze said. Their first assignment was the SCU Lightning Complex Fire, about 25 miles east of Oakland, which consumed about 350,000 acres before being contained. It was an hours drive from the base camp and some firefighters dispatched to the other side of the fire spent a good three hours driving just to get to the point where they could begin to approach the blaze on foot. Well hike miles and miles up and down mountains with our wildland packs on, said Schwersinske, who has been with the Schertz FD for 10 years. Its basically a backpack weighing 40-50 pounds but with five gallons of water on top of that all the water you have out there. The wilderness aspect of the fires means much more digging and chopping than hose work. A lot of what we accomplish is done with hand tools, Schultze said. So when we go in, well dig it, well bury it, well scrape it, well cut it down with chainsaws. Billy Calzada /Billy Calzada Haycraft also had to hike an hour or more to actually reach the fire line. His crew stayed in the Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino and a Holiday Inn Express near Oakhurst, waking at 4:30 most mornings and driving 50 to 100 miles into pine forests at elevations that reached 8,000 feet. A self-described big ol country bumpkin at 6-2 and 260 pounds, Haycraft knew from his first job out of high school on a cattle and ostrich operation in eastern Bexar County that he was destined to fight fires. At SAFD he became a wildland fire specialist and he, too, joined the Texas contingent to California in 2018, fighting the Woolsey Fire in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. This year Haycraft and two other SAFD firefighters left Sept. 11 to deliver the stout, four-wheel-drive Ford F550 they had outfitted for brushfire work. They joined 2,000 others from across the nation trying to contain the Creek Fire, which as of this week had consumed 309,000 acres south of Yosemite National Park in the Sierra National Forest. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio area firefighters joining Texas wildfire teams in California The Creek Fire has now been called the largest single fire in the states history. (The ongoing August Complex Fire in northern California, where many Texans also have been assigned, has burned some 900,000 acres, but it originally started as 38 separate fires.) Billy Calzada /Billy Calzada In addition to the standard hard hats, fire retardant pants, portable aluminum fire shelters, goggles and two-way radios, Haycraft knew from his first tour of duty to take such things as waterproof notebooks and pens that can write in the rain, extra pairs of shoelaces and duct tape for broken shoes. You took as much water as you could carry. And I never went without my white chocolate and macadamia nut energy bars and beef jerky, he said. When they worked into the night, he wore a knit cap and an extra sweatshirt. Almost always, they worked with someone serving as a lookout who had a radio, binoculars and vehicle to monitor wind direction and make sure the team was never caught by surprise. Haycraft and the Schertz firefighters alike expressed admiration for the resources and efficiency of Cal Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. When we arrived, they had a Type 1 incident management team in place. California knows how to set those up, Schultze said. They have multiple base camps for a fire of that scale. They have everything from food, to laundry service to shower trailers, to sleeping trailer, to air-conditioned tents. They pretty much have everything you need at one of those command posts. Shifts are 12 or 24 hours, followed by the same amount of down time. On a typical day, a 7 a.m. briefing gets things started. When we get up in the morning, we go to briefing, well get our truck in order, and make sure were fueled up and watered up, Schultze said. The teams then go to breakouts, to receive drop point locations, line up their vehicles and head there for their final assignments. he said. California really has their stuff together in these fires, Haycraft said. They have drones, helicopters. They always knew what the fire was doing. Thats why we never really had any emergencies. Billy Calzada /Billy Calzada The most dangerous task Haycraft faced was simply navigating a forest floor littered with giant dead trees and covered with decades of decayed bark and pine needles. At first it seems like a harmless, fine gray dust, but it was combustible fuel that could often hide subsurface fires. Youd learn to put your bare hand on the soil to see if it was hot to the touch, Haycraft said. Youd spray water on it, and it may not show any signs of smoke, but youd have to keep on squirting to turn it into a soupy mess just to make sure it was truly out. When they return to base camp, its basically lights out. The firefighters operate at the whim of incident commanders, who can recall them to the line at any time. You never know when youre going to get your next bit of down time, Schultze said. Were always trying to rest as much as possible. Even if we complete a 24-hour operation period and we get off and have that next day off, the reality is that they could say, I know its your day off, but we just had this new start over here. We need all of you to go over there. We go where were needed, when were needed, he added. His crew arrived back in San Antonio on Sept. 11 - just as Haycrafts team and another set of Schertz firefighters were headed out. Were eligible to go back and were ready to be recycled, if they need us, Schultze said. Billy Calzada /Billy Calzada Aside from the universal camaraderie of a nation of firefighters doing what they love, Haycraft said the California duty gives him a sense of perspective when he returns to Texas. We hardly ever see anything in Texas as large as what they have, so this experience just helps me know to not panic when I see something huge. Every little bit of knowledge helps. JFlinn@express-news.net The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has barred all TV channels from airing news about a brutal gang-rape that took place last month in Punjab province, after an order was passed by a trial court on the request of the police. "All satellite TV channels (news and current affairs) are therefore directed to comply with the orders of the honorable Anti-Terrorism Court, Lahore, regarding Sialkot motorway incident in letter and spirit and refrain from airing any content with regard to the instant case, in future," Dawn news quoted a directive issued by Pemra's General Manager (Operations-Broadcast Media) Muhammad Tahir, as syaing on Friday. Investigating Officer (IO) Zulfiqar Cheema had filed an application before the ATC seeking a ban on media coverage of the incident. He pleaded that the incident was a heinous offence and the media was indulged in reckless coverage of the instant case. Cheema further told the court that the media coverage of the incident had been creating hindrance in the arrest of the prime suspect. In his decision, Presiding Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta admitted the contention of the IO and observed that due to media coverage the victim and the family will also be disgraced. _SHOW_MID_AD__ JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You should upgrade or use an You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: Resentment is brewing among Government employees as some departments have started counting the home quarantine period as leave of those who follow the Covid-19 protocol after detection of positive cases in their families. Several departments are treating the home isolation period of their staff as leave though they are not infected but have to stay away from their work as their families are Covid-19 positive. The quarantine period is debited from their earned leave (EL) which they are entitled to surrender and encash. In a similar situation, an OAS officer of General Administration department said, such a move not only violates the March 19, 2020 order of the Government but will create a situation when even asymptomatic Covid positive staff will report duty to save their earned leave. As a preventive measure to contain the spread of coronavirus, the GA department issued an order on March 19 which said that all employees should look out for symptoms of coronavirus and if feeling unwell, should leave the workplace immediately after informing the superior officer. They should avail leave for home quarantine for a period of 14 days. Leave necessary for quarantine purpose in excess of this period shall be treated as ordinary leave wherever admissible and may be considered under Rule 5 of Odisha Service Code, the order said. Similar provision was applicable to Government employees who were residing with a family member who had returned from a visit from abroad. However, the order has nothing specific for those Government employees who are not infected but some members of their families are tested positive for the virus. A Government college teacher who tested negative even after detection of coronavirus in her husband and son is in home quarantine. Her college authority sought a clarification from the Higher Education department how to treat her leave. The department is reported to have clarified that the leave be adjusted against her earned leave. Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee took out a rally in Kolkata in protest against Hathras gang-rape case. I feel like going to Hathras and meeting the victims family members; what has happened is condemnable, she said at her first rally since Covid-19 pandemic began. For me my caste is humanity, Banerjee said, adding that she will stand by her Dalit brothers and sisters. The 19-year-old Dalit woman was gang-raped and tortured by upper caste men in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras on September 14. She died in New Delhi Safdarjang Hospital on Tuesday. Meanwhile, workers of Congress and left wing parties broke police barricades near Esplanade Metro Channel in city while protesting against the gang-rape. #WATCH West Bengal: Workers of Congress & Left parties broke police barricading today near Esplanade Metro Channel in Kolkata, during their protest march against the #HathrasIncident. pic.twitter.com/fw3en5jk2V ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 The TMC has already started its campaign to raise the issue, targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Friday afternoon, TMCs media cell in Bengal posted on social media videos of its four MPs engaged in a scuffle with policemen about a kilometre away from the Hathras victims village. The leaders were stopped by the police from going to the victims village to meet her family. #WATCH: TMC delegation being roughed up by Uttar Pradesh Police at #Hathras border. The delegation, including Derek O'Brien, was on the way to meet the family of the victim of Hathras incident. pic.twitter.com/94QcSMiB2k ANI (@ANI) October 2, 2020 The team was led by TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek OBrien and included Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. Bluecross Ruckers Hill's threatened quarantine ties into wider concerns over homes keeping residents in their rooms, discussed in the Aged Care Royal Commissions coronavirus special report released on Thursday. It found directing residents to remain alone in their rooms for weeks on end, along with fears of catching the virus, had seen levels of depression, anxiety, confusion, loneliness and suicide risk in residents increase since the pandemic began. It also found public health directions limiting visitors to once a day, or stopping visits altogether, had been issued by most state governments but some operators were imposing stricter restrictions to halt the spread of coronavirus. These visit restrictions had "serious consequences for residents, it said, and warned quality of life for residents during the pandemic was just as important as preparing for and responding to outbreaks. Aged care home visits are unlikely to return to normal until 2021, Premier Daniel Andrews has said. Premier Daniel Andrews says aged care home visits will be limited until next year. Credit:Simon Schluter Audrey Stones father lives in a Melbourne home, and has spent 56 days alone in his room since February over the course of four lockdowns. Ms Stone understands the reasons for the isolation, but said it was unsustainable. "The constant yo-yoing in and out of lockdown is difficult, mentally and physically," said Ms Stone. She has been allowed to intermittently visit her father, who has had a stroke, is non-verbal and dependent on care. While homes provide other ways of interacting with residents, video chats or phone calls do not work for many because of dementia or other reasons. And there isn't enough staff or enough time to provide the one-on-one attention residents need, said Ms Stone, who wants the federal government to impose strict staff ratios on aged care homes. Before the pandemic, staff didn't have time to walk her father so Ms Stone came in every day. During hard lockdowns, no one walked with him. "With every lockdown, his mental and physical state deteriorates and it becomes more challenging to build him up again." Restrictions to movement have serious consequences for residents in aged care. Loading Removal of incidental exercise walking to the dining room and back three times a day can result in rapid deterioration in strength, balance and mobility, said Australian Physiotherapy Association director Rik Dawson, a gerontology physiotherapist. The Bluecross home in Northcote, when asked why families were told residents would be required to stay in their rooms for 14 days after medical appointments, said in a statement this would be decided on a case-by-case basis. Asked if the requirement would lead residents to avoid medical appointments, it said: No resident is prevented from accessing medical care. The company pointed to a survey finding 90 per cent of our residents and families support our restrictions. Jeremy King, from Robinson Gill Lawyers, has acted in matters involving illegal detention and Victoria Police, and has been consulted by a client whose parents were being kept in their room at an aged care home. He warned some homes could expose themselves to false imprisonment or unlawful detention accusations, which he noted does not have to be malicious. Some homes were going beyond what the Department of Health and Human Services specifically ordered to stop the spread of coronavirus, Mr King said, and needed to balance protecting residents from coronavirus with illegally detaining them in their rooms. Some homes orders to isolate appeared to be making it up as they go along, he said. Sarah Russell is director of advocacy group Aged Care Matters and said homes were making rules about not leaving rooms and visitations that were illegal because depriving someone of their liberty was serious. We are imposing rules on residents that we dont impose on anyone else in the community, she said. Its perfectly reasonable to take this highly contagious virus seriously and to take a proportional response - but homes are making their decisions based on fear. Monash Universitys Professor Ibrahim said it was essential both infectious disease guidelines and human rights needs were contemplated before locking a person in their room for two weeks. Loading It needs to be asked: Is this proportionate and where is the risk?, he said. The risk of harm from being isolated for 14 days is high. Arbitrary rules with good intentions are not good enough. Minister for Aged Care Richard Colbeck said it was important aged care providers continued to allow visitation, particularly for dementia patients and their families, during the pandemic. The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. Close Throughout the spring and summer, UW-Madisons admissions office fielded thousands of inquiries from prospective students and families. Many, like Mills, wanted to know if classes would remain online in the fall and if dorms would be closed, questions administrators were working through at that time. Some students on the East and West Coasts weighed whether attending college halfway across the country was the best idea. International students sought clarity on travel restrictions and new federal guidance that threw their visa status into jeopardy. Parents of some admitted students lost their jobs in a virus-rocked economy, sparking increased calls and emails to the universitys financial aid office. Depending on residency, depending on distance, depending on familys fiscal position, any number of these dynamics were impacted by COVID and our campus had to address them all to the best of our ability in an environment that was ever-changing and continues to unfold, Phillips said in an interview. Data crunching 22 companies won bids for the 31 contracts on offer; 15 were new entrants to the oil and gas business. Three years on, none of them have started production. When the first round of auctions for discovered small fields (DSF-I) took place in 2016, the event was described as the entry point for Indias future oil and gas barons. Indeed, promoters and executives from companies in sectors as diverse as steel, power, software, iron ore, textile and education turned up to bid. The newbies included names such as Dilip Shanghvis Sun Petrochemicals. All told, 22 companies won bids for the 31 contracts on offer; 15 were new entrants to the oil and gas business. The contracts for these bids were finally awarded in February 2017. Three years on, none of them have started production. Most of these investments are waiting for clearances from the environment, forests and wildlife departments, approvals that had been assured when contracts were signed. Take the case of Ramayana Ispat, a private company with interests in steel and education. It won two assets, the Barsilla field and Dipling cluster in Assam. Having been assured speedy clearances by the government, the company invested Rs 70 crore to create a base in the area. Based on the initial contract, the company was supposed to start production in March 2020. But, as Avnish Jindal, director of the consortium led by Ramayana Ispat, pointed out, Our blocks are stuck for forest and statutory clearances. "Unless we get those clearances, we will not be able to start work in any of them. The problem is a classic one for investors in manufacturing operations in India. The state government has its own interpretation of rules and the Centre has its own interpretation of rules. "There is no common platform where they come together and discuss the issue. Our money is stuck because of that, Jindal added. With the bids for bigger fields under the National Exploration Licensing Policy attracting little interest from the global oil majors, the government started offering discovered small fields for development to attract small players and start-ups and reduce Indias energy import dependency by 10 per cent by 2022. Based on initial government estimates, the gross revenue from the first round alone was expected to be Rs 46,400 crore - of which the governments share in the form of royalty and revenue was to be around Rs 14,000 crore. The high level of private sector interest in the first round led to a second round of DSF that concluded in February last year. This time, 23 contract areas were awarded to eight companies. Bizarrely, however, two of these were government-owned companies that had surrendered these blocks earlier - Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India. Even more strangely, these companies bid for their own blocks - on which they undoubtedly have proprietary information on reserves and so on - which, as several analysts pointed out, created an uneven playing field with new entrants. But this is only one element of the problems associated with this second round of bids. The other is the extent to which ONGC et al would share their infrastructure. In an interview with Business Standard, Suniti Bhat, who owns Arch Software, which won blocks in Mumbai offshore and in the Bengal Purnea basin, said, We were told that the infrastructure of companies such as ONGC, Oil India and Cairn can be shared. "However, there is no clarity in this regard. Bhat is a former chief operating officer of Cairn India and his company received private equity (PE) funding from Oaktree Capital, a global asset management major. Arch Software is not the only PE-backed entity in the DSF space. Contrary to beliefs that Indias hydrocarbon sector was not a lucrative investment, DSF was expected to be Indias shale moment, attracting small investors. That is why PE players were drawn to it and remain upbeat about it. As a unique PE-backed upstream company, our investment committee took a decision to build an India-centric portfolio of producing properties that had the potential to contribute 15 per cent to Indias domestic production. "We are progressing steadily and will be an active participant in future DSF and other bidding opportunities, said Manish Maheshwari, chairman, Invenire Energy, another PE-backed company that acquired Tata Petrodyne and Hardy Oil last year. But the hurdles to getting production started remain high. The second round bidders are expected to start production by 2022. Several bidders cited solutions such as an extension of deadlines, giving back bank guarantees and, most important, some amount of handholding on clearances. We DSF operators feel the government should consider reducing its share of revenue to half the current rates for at least two years and lowering bank guarantee amounts for contract areas to 10 per cent of current rates to boost the confidence of Indian and international investors. "This will also help create a stronger response to the upcoming rounds as well, said D S Rajput, managing director of UAE-based South Asia Consultancy, the only foreign company that won a block under DSF. The continuing confidence in DSFs is striking given that the public sector giants had initially deemed them commercially unviable. The challenges for the winners of these blocks are to make investments for a fresh evaluation of reserves, drill more wells if needed, and arrange for the evacuation of oil and gas. "Offshore developments are highly capital-intensive and even more challenging, said R S Sharma, former ONGC chairman. At many companies, however, the pandemic has affected progress, and falling oil prices has left them struggling to deploy more capital in these fields. As with other efforts to lower Indias high dependence on oil imports, this initiative, too, appears to be mired in poor policy planning. Photograph: Reuters WATERLOO REGION The Humane Society of Kitchener Waterloo and Stratford Perth is calling on anyone thinking about fostering a rescued or surrendered pet to step forward. We are in urgent need of fosters, said Anya Barradas, spokesperson for the organization. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a reduction of staff and volunteers at the organizations centres. Adoptions are still happening, but only fast trackers kittens, puppies or unique breeds that quickly go up for adoption after they arrive are kept at these shelters. All other animals are moved into foster care once theyre cleared by the medical team. The problem is there isnt enough foster families to take them. In July, there were close to 100 families fostering animals on a regular basis. At that point in the pandemic, many people were sticking close to home. But now that the province has opened up a bit more, the number of foster families has dropped significantly. There are now 70 families in the program. If it wasnt for covid, 70 foster families would have been a great number for us to have, Barradas said. In pre-covid times, foster families would only care for those animals that are too sick or too young to be put up for adoption. Under these circumstances (during the pandemic), a drop of 30 foster families is significant. The more foster families were able to recruit, the more animals were able to care for. Anyone over 18 and interested in becoming a foster volunteer can learn more online at kwsphumane.ca. The Uttar Pradesh administration on Saturday also removed the barricades outside the gangrape victim's village in Hathras district allowing the media to meet her family The Uttar Pradesh government announced on Saturday that it is reccomending a CBI probe in the Hathras case amid a growing political storm over the death of a 19-year-old Dalit victim who was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped by four "upper caste" men. The Uttar Pradesh administration on Saturday removed the barricades outside the girl's village to allow the media to meet her family. Later in the day, it also allowed five Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi to meet the rape victim's family. However, the scene of scores of police personnel in riot gear lined up at the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway to prevent a Congress convoy from moving to Hathras, about 180 kilometres away, summed up the resistance Opposition leaders have been facing in meeting the victim's family. On Thursday, Priyanka and Rahul's attempt to travel to the village was blocked by the Uttar Pradesh Police, which had led to a chaotic scuffle. They were then detained by the state police and escorted back to Delhi. On Saturday, they made a second attempt to visit the family, after the state government lifted restrictions on entry into the village for the media. As the convoy arrived at the site, swarms of Congress workers and others jostled with each other amid loud honking, slogans, and Congress flags fluttering in the air. Reports said that the police lathi-charged party workers at the toll plaza. In a video shared by Congress leaders and ANI on Twitter, Priyanka can be seen standing between a man in a white kurta and policemen with lathis. An NDTV report said that the man being shielded from the police by Priyanka was injured. Congress workers some who described the scenes as "brutal repression" claimed that the police used batons to disperse the crowd. Eventually, the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police finally allowed five leaders, including Rahul and Priyanka, to go to Hathras. UP Congress leaders Pradeep Mathur told PTI that KC Venugopal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Mukul Wasnik accompanied the Gandhis on the visit. "CrPC Section 144 has been imposed in Noida, Greater Noida as well as in Hathras and some other districts in Uttar Pradesh due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Considering social distancing and other related norms, permission has been granted for five people, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra," Noida Police Commissioner Alok Singh told PTI. The Hathras gangrape has drawn nationwide outrage after the victim died due to grievous injuries on Tuesday and was cremated in the dead of night allegedly without the consent of her family on Wednesday. Till Saturday, the government had not allowed anyone, including Opposition leaders to meet the victim's kin despite accusations of intimidation by district authorities. Will fight till justice is given, says Priyanka Gandhi after meeting victim's kin Speaking to reporters after meeting the family members, Rahul and Priyanka said that "they will fight for justice" for the victim. "We will fight against injustice, and fight till justice is done," Priyanka said after the meeting that lasted about 45 minutes on Saturday evening. Meanwhile, Rahul said "no power can stifle the voice of the family". PTI reported that locals gathered outside as the Congress leaders entered the family's home. Some were seen on the rooftops nearby, waiting to catch a glimpse of the Congress leaders. Meanwhile, several journalists, including those from TV channels, also made their way to the village where various family members spoke of their grief and trauma since 14 September, when the victim was brutally assaulted and allegedly gangraped by four upper caste men. Earlier, in the day, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor had tweeted that over 50 party MPs were expected to travel to the family's residence. Tharoor had also appealed for the state government to "behave sensibly" alleging tthat its Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu and other workers were put under house arrest. Meanwhile, Union women and child development minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani has termed the Gandhis' plan to visit the victim's village as a political gimmick. Rahul Gandhis march towards Hathras is for politics, not for justice, Irani said, according to a report in Hindustan Times. UP official meets victim's family in Hathras Uttar Pradesh Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi also visited the victim's family in Hathras on Saturday. Marking a departure from the last few days when media and politicians, including from the Congress and TMC, were turned away from the village, Awasthi said Saturday that a group "with no more than five people" will be allowed to meet the victim's family at a time. Speaking to reporters after meeting with the victim's family on Saturday, Awasthi said, "It is an extremely sad incident. We met everyone in the family. We spoke to them and assured them that the strictest action would be taken against all those found guilty." "Whatever points and the complaints they have raised, the SIT will note them, and we will make all efforts to ensure that each of them is addressed," Awasthi said, without elaborating. Awasthi said that the government has received the first report from the SIT, following which it had suspended five policemen involved in the case. On Friday, the state governemnt suspended five police personnel, including Hathras SP Vikrant Vir. Amid allegations of intimidation by the district administartion, the state government also announced that all, including the cops and the victim's family, will have to undergo a polygraph and narco test to establish the veracity of their claims. Awasthi also said tha the SIT would soon submit a final report to the chief minister. The Indian Express had also reported earlier on Saturday that Uttar Pradesh DGP HC Awasthy also met the family on instructions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Adityanath had set up three-member Special Investigation Team on Wednesday and instructed that it submit its report by 14 October. The death of the young woman, whose brutal assault recalled for many, the horrors of the gangrape of Jyoti Singh on 16 December, 2012 in Delhi, continued to snowball into a major political issue. Earlier today, in a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul said the behaviour of the Uttar Pradesh government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable". The former Congress president asserted that "no power in the world" can stop him from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and sharing their pain. Hitting out at the Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka described the state government as "morally corrupt" and said, "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test." The party also alleged that the woman and her family had been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government. Mamata, Mayawati slam UP govt Meanwhile, other Opposition leaders also criticised the government and state police's handling of the case.According to reports, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is expected to participate in a protest rally in Kolkata on Saturday against the gangrape and murder of the Dalit girl. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the BJP-led government at the Centre for running a "dictatorship" in the country and said the saffron party is a "pandemic" which is torturing Dalits the most. Banerjee, who held a protest march against the Hathras gang rape case, said she will stand by the Dalit community "till the end as her caste is humanity" and she does not believe in differentiation on the grounds of caste and religion. The march, the first by the TMC supremo since March when the nationwide lockdown was declared to break the coronavirus infection chain, covered the 2-kilometre distance between Birla Planetarium to Gandhi statue on Mayo Road in Kolkata. Banerjee, who is gearing up for Assembly polls in the coming year, said, "COVID-19 is not a big pandemic. BJP is the biggest pandemic. It is the biggest pandemic of atrocities against Dalit and backward communities." "We should stand up against these atrocities ... The kind of atrocities that are taking place are completely unacceptable," she said addressing the rally. "A dictatorship is going on across the country. Instead of government for the people, it is running a government against the people, the Dalits and the farmers." Left and Congress activists also held a protest in Kolkata on Saturday against the Hathras case. Carrying placards having slogans such as "Defeat fascist BJP at Centre and TMC in Bengal" and "Down with fascists who throttle democracy", around 1,000 members of the CPM, Congress and their affiliates marched from Moulali to Esplanade in the heart of the city in the afternoon. Additionally, BSP president Mayawati demanded a CBI or a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the incident and said people were not satisfied with the initial investigations in the matter. "There is tremendous resentment in the entire country over the Hathras heinous gangrape case. The public does not seem satisfied with the initial probe report. Therefore, this matter should be investigated by the CBI or under the supervision of the honourable Supreme Court. This is the demand of the BSP," Mayawati tweeted in Hindi. The BSP leader also appealed to the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, to intervene in the case. "Also, the honourable president of the country, who also comes from Uttar Pradesh and is a Dalit, it is a strong appeal to him to intervene in this case, keeping in mind the inhuman attitude of the government, to bring justice to the victim's family," she said. With inputs from agencies A senior Maoist allegedly responsible for the killing of civilians in Bijapur district of Bastar region in Chhattisgarh was killed by his own subordinates, police claimed on Friday. We had received confirmed information about Gangaloor Area Committee in-charge and Divisional Committee Member Modiyam Vijja getting killed by his own cadres on Thursday, said Bastar ranges inspector general of police Sunderaj P, in a written statement. Senior Maoist leader Vijja was behind most of the killings of civilians and rallies organized in Gangaloor area in West Bastar division region of Bijapur. In Bijapur, 12 people, including three policemen and a forest ranger, have been killed in the last one month. This is a very important development in the background of recent civilian killings in the South Bastar Region. There was a lot of dissent among the senior cadres and local cadres with regard to mindless violence against the innocent tribals, the IG stated in his statement. Also Read: Maoists kill 2 villagers in Chhattisgarh for being informers: Police We have information that a confrontation broke out between Vijja and his subordinate Dinesh Modiyam, secretary of Gangaloor area committee, over the recent killings of innocent tribals in Bijapur, following which, the former was killed. The Maoists then handed over his body to his family in Mankeli village for cremation which was performed on Friday evening, he said. It appears there is a lot of dissent among the senior cadres and lower rung cadres and they are in confrontation mode with regard to violence being committed on innocent tribals by senior ultras, the IG reiterated. On Thursday, two villagers from two villages of Bijapur district, including one former deputy sarpanch, were killed by Maoists on suspicion that they were police informers.The incidents took place on Wednesday night in two villages under Jangala police station area. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The family of Hathras rape victim on Saturday accused the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the case of being hand in glove with the accused and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe. The mother of the 19-year-old woman, who died at New Delhis Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday, said the police did not hand over her daughters body after her death. She demanded an investigation monitored by a Supreme Court Judge and said the family doesnt trust SIT or CBI. These people didnt let me see the body of my girl even after I kept begging for it. We dont want the CBI enquiry either. We want that the investigation of the case be conducted under a Supreme Court Judge. Why should we go for a NARCO test, we never changed our statement, she said. After restricting entry for more than two days, Hathras district administration finally allowed the media to enter the victims village on Saturday morning. Speaking to media, the victims sister-in-law said, First of all, police should clarify whose body was cremated that night. It wasnt our girls body, we didnt see it. Why should we undergo the Narco test? We are telling the truth, we are seeking justice. The DM and SP should undergo the Narco test. It is they who have been lying. Refuting reports that the deceaseds grandfather was present when her body was cremated, her sister-in-law said, The grandfather of the girl died in 2006. How can anyone claim that he was present during the cremation? Nobody from the SIT visited our house yesterday. They came day before yesterday and were here from around 9 am till 2:30pm. The district magistrate has been continuously saying, what if the girl had died from coronavirus? We were stopped from going outside in order to stop us from interacting with media. Why was body of our girl not showed to us? We dont trust SIT as they are hand in gloves with the administration. Speaking on the alleged tapes of familys conversations with a political leader, she said, No one from our family spoke to any political leader. I dont think politicians visits here will do us any good. We want justice for our girl. The 19-year-old woman died at Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday, over two weeks after four men in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras allegedly raped and assaulted her, leaving her legs fully and arms partially paralysed. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday suspended Hathras Superintendent of Police and four other policemen for alleged dereliction of duty in the events that led to the womans death, followed by a hasty cremation at night in the absence of her family. Opposition parties have demanded the suspension of Hathras District Magistrate. There were speculations of District Magistrate Praveen Kumar Laxkar being suspended after official was he was caught on camera issuing a veiled threat" to the rape victims father as he asked him to comply with the government. Those suspended include SP Hathras Vikrant Veer, Circle officer Ram Shabd, Inspector Dinesh Kumar Verma, Sub-Inspector Jagveer Singh and head constable Mahesh Pal. They were suspended on the basis of a preliminary investigation conducted by the state government. Madrid. AFP-Yonhap Some 4.8 million Madrid residents will be barred from leaving the area from Friday evening, making it the first European capital back into lockdown due to a surge in new COVID-19 infections. Restaurants and bars in the Spanish capital and nine satellite towns will shut early and slash capacity by half in what has again become Europe's worst infection hotspot. The new restrictions, to start at 10 pm (local time), are not as strict as the previous lockdown from March, when people were barred from leaving their homes. However, the authorities have advised residents not to move around unless absolutely necessary. "Madrilenos" were exasperated at the political wrangling between the central and regional governments, and anxious about whether the measures would work. "We have been eight months with masks and without nightclubs and parties, and there is still contagion. Then what kind of impact will these restrictions make?" said Sonny van den Holstein, owner of the Sanissimo restaurant. "People are confused, they hesitate to go out ... they are in fear," he said, as a customer called to cancel a reservation. The conservative-led Madrid area authority reluctantly complied with the order from the Socialist-led central government to ban travel except for school, work, health or shopping. Famous for its late-night carousing and usually lively tourist flow, Madrid's bars and restaurants must close at 11 p.m. instead of a previous 1 a.m curfew, while restaurants, gyms and shops have been ordered to cut their capacity by half. Gatherings of more than six people remain banned indoors and outdoors, but parks and playgrounds can stay open this time. Legal challenge The measures widen confinements already in place in poorer parts of the city with high infection rates. People who do not comply will face fines. Other busy European cities have tightened measures in recent days, including limiting numbers in restaurants and making face masks compulsory in more places. But none have gone as far as Madrid the new lockdown will last at least 14 days and could be extended if needed. Conservative regional head Isabel Diaz Ayuso has launched a legal challenge, fearing economic damage and accusing the central government of exceeding its mandate by ordering the measures. With Madrid's Barajas International Airport staying open, Diaz Ayuso tweeted her anger at the prime minister: "From tomorrow one will be able to get to Madrid from Berlin but not from Parla. Thanks for the chaos, Pedro Sanchez." Parla is a periphery town south of Madrid. In its appeal, the region argues that the measures do not adequately fight the pandemic and would cost the local economy 750 million euros ($879 million) per week. But Sanchez said the only goal was saving lives and protecting health. "All decisions are made based on scientists' criteria," he said at a summit in Brussels. With 850 cases per 100,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, the Madrid area has Europe's worst infection rate. Spain recorded a total of 789,932 coronavirus cases as of Friday, a rise of 11,325 since Thursday. There have been 32,086 fatalities. Daily deaths are now around their highest levels since early May but far below the late March record of nearly 900. (Reuters) Evangelical Pastor Jentezen Franklin admitted he didnt know what to make of Donald Trump when the reality television star announced he would run for president. Standing on stage in the auditorium of a Troy megachurch, Franklin said he had no intention in 2016 of supporting Trump; he wasnt sure whether Trump was presidential material. Franklin is sure now. Hes one of a handful of Trumps evangelical advisers who visited Michigan this month to tout the presidents rock-solid record" for Christian voters. - President Donald Trump is not alone as Prophet TB Joshua has gone spiritual on his behalf - Trump had announced that he and his wife, Melania, tested positive for Covid-19 - In his reaction, the man of God recalled his warning to the American leader four years ago PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed Prophet T.B. Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations has joined the list of people who have reacted to the COVID-19 status of US president Donald Trump. In a statement on the TB Joshua Ministries Facebook page, the Nigerian cleric said four years ago, he had warned the US president about some challenges he would face. TB Joshua says he is praying for President Donald Trump. Photo credit: TB Joshua Ministries Source: UGC Joshua said he would be offering prayers for the recovery of Trump. The statement on Facebook read: "Four years ago on November 6, 2016 - just before the election of US president Donald Trump - Prophet TB Joshua gave a warning to the new president. "He said: I want to share with you what I saw 10 days ago. I saw the new president of America. The new president will be facing challenges over many issues, including passing bills, an attempt to possibly pass a vote of no confidence in the future. In summary, I can see that the boat of the new president will be rocked. When you are inside the boat and the boat is rocked - the water there is troubled... "We are praying for President Donald Trump." This is not the first time Joshua will be reaching out to Trump. In May, he warned the US president about his re-election bid. According to him, Trump's approach to security issues would affect his re-election bid. He said the prophecy is coming to pass already, adding that another one is coming. The world woke up to reports of Trump and his wife, Melania, testing positive for the virus on Friday, October 2, the president made the revelation via his social media handles. The US leader said he and his wife would start quarantine immediately and that they would do it together. Tonight, [the first lady] and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this together! he tweeted. According to media reports, Trump's aide Hope Hicks had travelled with him multiple times in the recent past including to the debate with Joe Biden in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday, September 29. Hicks, a former White House communications director who now serves as counsellor to the president, attended other events with Trump aboard Air Force One. In light of the president's positive COVID-19 test, he has cancelled Friday's rally and his only scheduled event is a closed press call on COVID-19 support to vulnerable seniors. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme. This is me coming to you with a heavy heart. My friends left after I got cancer - Esther Nyambura/TUKO TV. Source: TUKO.co.ke The Delhi High Court has sought a response from the police on the bail plea of former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh in a case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL). Justice Suresh Kumar Kait issued the notice on Shivinder Mohan Singh's plea and sought a response from the Delhi Police and RFL, the complainant in the case. "The Additional Public Prosecutor accepts notice and seeks time to file a status report. Let needful be done within one week with an advance copy to the other side," the court said and listed the matter for further hearing on October 12. Singh has challenged a trial court's September 25 order dismissing his bail plea. Senior advocate Mohit Mathur, appearing for complainant RFL, said he will file a reply to the contention raised in the petition by Singh. He had opposed the bail plea in the trial court saying RFL did not get back its money and suffered losses because of the acts and omissions of Singh and others. The trial court had observed economic offences having deep-rooted conspiracies needed to be considered as grave offences affecting the economy of the country. It had said the possibility of the witnesses being influenced by Shivinder cannot be ruled out as during investigation statements of directors of the companies to which loans were extended by RFL were recorded and they were found to be associated with him. The trial court had also said it was prima facie established from the investigation that Singh in conspiracy with others caused wrongful gain to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crores. Shivinder Mohan Singh's brother Malvinder Singh(46), also a former Fortis Healthcare promoter, former CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) Sunil Godhwani (58), Kavi Arora (48) and Anil Saxena were arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police last year, for allegedly diverting RFL's money and investing in other companies. His counsel had submitted that the entire evidence was documentary in nature and has been seized and thus there was no possibility of evidence being tampered with by him. The police had opposed the bail plea saying huge financial fraud has been committed in the case and hence, Shivinder Mohan Singh was not entitled to bail. RFL's counsel had alleged it was the public money which was swindled by Shivinder Mohan Singh. The EOW registered an FIR in March last year after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder, Godhwani and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies. The Enforcement Directorate lodged a money laundering case based on this. RFL is a group firm of REL, which was earlier promoted by Malvinder and his brother Shivinder. Nana Owusu Kontoh II, the Omanhene of Mehame Traditional Area in the Ahafo Region, has described former president Mr John Dramani Mahama as a trusted leader who has the skills and experience to provide prosperity for all Ghanaians. A statement issued by Mr James Agyenim-Boateng, the Spokesperson of the NDC Campaign Team, copied to the Ghana News Agency said the Paramount Chief had therefore endorsed the Presidential Candidature of Mr Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and urged electorates to vote for him in the December 7, general elections. Speaking at a durbar at Mehame, when Mr Mahama called on him as part of a two-day tour of the Ahafo Region on Friday, Nana Owusu Kontoh II expressed his gratitude for the numerous development projects that the Mahama administration gave to Mehame and other communities in the Asutifi South Constituency. I have a good road, electricity, ICT centre, health centre, and nursing training college, among other infrastructure developments and these are all because of Mr Mahama and Alhaji Collins Dauda, who is our MP, he said. Nana Owusu Kontoh was concerned that some projects began by the Mahama administration, including a maternity centre, have been abandoned by the government. He, therefore, appealed to Mr Mahama to complete those projects for them when he wins the December 7 presidential election. To show appreciation for the sterling performance of the then Mahama government in the Mehame Traditional Area, Nana Owusu Kontoh enstooled Mr Mahama as the Nkousohene of the area, under the stool name Nana Oseadeeyo Boafuor Mahama. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Furious protesters took to the streets across India today demanding justice for the horrific gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman as five senior police officers were suspended over their handling of the case. The teenager from the disadvantaged Dalit caste, was found in mid-September outside her village in northern India's Uttar Pradesh state with a broken spine after the savage attack. She died at the end of September in a New Delhi hospital. The police have arrested four high-caste men on charges of gang-rape and murder. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath late Friday announced the suspension of the Hathras district police chief and four others. Protests erupted across India today, with demonstrators burning effigies of PM Narendra Modi in Assam, clashing with police in Noida, and people carrying banners and chanting slogans in villages and towns across the country. Supporter of India's main opposition Congress party shout slogans as they burn an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath during a protest demanding justice for the death of a Dalit woman after an alleged gang rape in Uttar Pradesh Pradesh Hathras in Nagaon District of Assam, India today All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) activists hold placards during a protest over the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman after an alleged gangrape in UP's Hathras, in Guwahati, India today Demonstrators walk following Chief Minister of West Bengal state, Mamata Banerjee during a protest against the alleged gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in the Uttar Pradesh state in Kolkata today The police have faced criticism for cremating the woman's body in the middle of the night - reportedly with the help of some petrol - against the wishes of her family and religious custom. A senior policeman on Thursday sparked further outrage after claiming that a forensic report and an autopsy had shown that the woman had not been raped. This contradicts statements from the victim and her mother and reported hospital findings, while experts said the forensic test was carried out too long after the attack. Hundreds of police have also barricaded the village, preventing the woman's family from leaving and journalists and opposition politicians from talking to them. The family's mobile phones have also reportedly been seized. Protesters clash with police personnel to demand politicians access to visit the family of the 19-year-old allegedly gang-raped victim, at the Delhi Noida Direct flyway toll plaza today National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (centre) speaks with relatives of the 19-year-old woman allegedly gang-raped and killed by four men in Bool Garhi of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh state today Rahul Gandhi, leader of India's main opposition Congress party, addresses his party workers at Delhi-Noida border during a protest after the death of a rape victim, in Noida, India, October 3, 2020. The victim's brother told one Indian news channel that the family were scared for their lives. The local high court has ordered authorities to provide the family protection. The Hindu monk and close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced that the victim's family, the accused and the suspended policemen would all undergo lie-detector and drug tests. 'We (women) are not actually free, even though India is independent,' Sanskriti, one of the women at the Delhi protest site yesterday told AFP. Shiv Sena party youth wing activists hold posters of Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his eyes covered with a face mask, during a protest condemning the alleged gang rape and killing of a Dalit woman, in Mumbai, India today 'This is something I want to raise my voice against. And I just wish all the people get united and they understand that it is high time to do something about it,' she added. The young woman's death comes months after four men were hanged for the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi, in a case that came to symbolise India's epidemic of sexual violence. An average of 87 rapes were reported in India every day last year, according to data by the National Crime Records Bureau, but large numbers are thought to go unreported. The US-Mexico border wall severs some of the richest wildlife communities and oldest human settlements in North America. The latest segment runs through the most fragile desert area in the Southwest and has been given bipartisan support for the past 25 years. The most recent updates were initiated in a 2018 appropriations bill which provided $1.6 billion for border barrier enhancement and construction, along with an increase in border militarization. This funding was used to begin the first major border wall construction under the Trump administration, severing critical migration corridors for endangered Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and decimating rare national wildlife refuge habitat in South Texas. A further $1.3 billion was provided in 2019. These fund allocations follow attempts in 2013 to pass a border surge provision in the Senate bill S744 which would have provided $40 billion for what Senator John McCain called all-out militarization of the US-Mexico border, including $20 billion for border wall construction. The bill would have destroyed the future for jaguars, ocelots, Sonoran pronghorn and dozens of other endangered borderlands species. It passed in the US Senate with the support of every Democrat in the Senate, plus nominally independent Senator Bernie Sanders, but failed in the House of Representatives. The building of the border wall along the US-Mexico border began, however, under the initiative of President Bill Clinton within five years after the fall of the Berlin wall. President Clintons wall was confined to the cities of El Paso and San Diego, where impoverished farmers displaced by NAFTA had begun crossing in exploding numbers in the mid-1990s. The wall did not stop desperately poor migrants from crossing the border, it re-routed them through the harsh terrain in the desert Southwest, where thousands of migrants died as a result of the Clinton administrations prevention-by-deterrence border policy. In 2005, more than one million migrants crossed the Mexico border into the US. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US Congress began using the attacks as an excuse for building more walls on the US-Mexico border, even though the attacks had nothing to do with this border or undocumented immigration. This did not stop Congress from passing the Real ID Act of 2005, which allowed the head of the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to waive all laws, including environmental laws, to build a border wall. This was followed by the Secure Fence Act in 2006, which mandated that DHS construct about 700 miles of border barrier along the US-Mexico border. It passed and resulted in about 350 miles of wall being built by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The ongoing construction increased an already tragic rate of migrant deaths. It also has destroyed, fragmented and degraded hundreds of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat, and now threatens the extinction of more than 100 endangered species on the border. The 2006 legislation enabled the building of continuous barriers separated by an access road for patrol vehicles on long stretches of the border in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Environmental activists and the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) raised the alarm in 2006 about this legislation. Environmentalists and USFWS wardens warned that the barrier would disrupt the migration of scores of species from jaguars and Mexican wolves to hawks and hummingbirds along a wildlife corridor connecting northern Mexico and the US southwest. A chain of 40 mountain ranges links the northern range of tropical species such as the jaguar and the parrot in the Mexican Sierra Madre Mountains, and the southern limit of temperate animals such as the black bear and the Mexican wolf in the US Rocky Mountains. One of the major habitats that is being destroyed is the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge. It lies at the headwaters of the Rio Yaqui, a large river that drains portions of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico in the United States, as well as eastern Sonora and western Chihuahua in Mexico. Within this basin, the San Bernardino cienega (marshland) has historically been considered the largest, most expansive wetland in northwest Mexico and this part of the Southwest US. It provides an important corridor for wildlife to migrate between Mexicos Sierra Madre Occidental and the Rocky Mountains to the north. William Radke, Manager of the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge (SBNWR) warned that the planned barrier would also sever the rugged highland trails used by pioneer jaguars currently crossing from Mexico and repopulating the rugged Peloncillo Mountains east of Douglas, Arizona after decades of absence. The spotted cats originally roamed the Americas from Argentina in the south to the Grand Canyon, in northern Arizona, but they vanished from the United States several decades ago due to hunting and pressure from human encroachment on their habitat. The San Bernardino NWR was established in 1982 to protect the rare wetlands in the middle of the desert that are home to a variety of wildlife, including several species of fish that are protected by the Endangered Species Act, like the Yaqui chub, Yaqui minnow and Yaqui catfish. Sitting on over 2,300 acres on the US-Mexico border in southeastern Arizona, close to New Mexico, the refuge is home to hummingbirds, 75 species of butterflies, bats and, most importantly, to these native Rio Yaqui fish, which the refuge was set up to protect. That no major statement has been issued by either the Democrats or Republicans against the destruction of this region speaks to the bipartisan drive to build the border wall and their indifference toward the environment as a whole. Since Donald and Melania Trump tested positive for Covid-19, leaders from all over the world have wished the pair a speedy recovery. While Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message on Saturday evening, he lagged behind other state leaders even North Koreas Kim Jong-un a possible indicator of the state of US-China relations. Trump announced early on Friday that he and his wife had both tested positive for the coronavirus, raising concerns about his campaign in the month before Americans take to the voting booths on November 3. Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China. Narendra Modi and Imran Khan, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan, were two of the first leaders to send their best wishes, highlighting both countries perennial jostling for US support. Taiwan, which is pushing for greater aid from Washington, was also swift in releasing a statement via the islands foreign ministry on Friday. Trumps Democratic rival Joe Biden sent his best wishes and Russias Vladimir Putin also sent his sincere support. Kim, a staunch ally of Beijing, also offered his sympathies to Trump. Despite the historical enmity between Washington and Pyongyang, Kim said he sincerely hoped the president and first lady would recover soon. He hoped they will surely overcome it, the Korean Central News Agency reported. He sent warm greetings to them. After earlier messages of goodwill from the ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, and a foreign ministry spokeswoman, on Saturday evening Xi said that he and his wife Peng Liyuan extended sympathy to their American counterparts and said they hoped they would make a swift recovery, state news agency Xinhua reported. Shi Yinhong, director of the centre of American studies at Renmin University in Beijing, said it was understandable that the Chinese leader had not rushed to wish his US counterpart good health. Story continues [Xi] has no reason to send his condolences to Trump ahead of other leaders, said Shi. Trump has publicly boasted about his friendship with Xi and Kim, even when relations between the countries were strained. In March, he said he had a good relationship with China and with President Xi but that the Covid pandemic had got out of control. Kim Jong-un sent warm greetings to the US President. Photo: Reuters But ties between China and the US have continued to deteriorate since then over issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, restrictions on Chinese tech companies and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which Trump has repeatedly described as the China virus. Shi said it was likely Trumps hawkish China policies had ruined any good will between the two leaders. Their personal relationship since April has been very bad because Trump has adopted an extremely hard stance towards China since then, bashing China and ratcheting up sanctions, of course driven in some measure by his hopes of getting re-elected, he said. Jon Yuan Jiang, a researcher in international affairs at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, also said it was understandable Xi had not rushed to wish Trump well, imputing this to the protracted US-China trade war. Jiang said Trumps Covid-19 diagnosis could even be good news for his re-election prospects as it might prompt a surge in support as happened with Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro that could offset [his] shortcomings in Covid-19 governance. This article US-China relations: Xi Jinping sends best wishes to Donald Trump a day after Covid-19 diagnosis first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020. Namita Bajpai By Express News Service LUCKNOW: After two days of siege, as the UP government on Saturday allowed media persons and delegations of political parties to visit the family of the Dalit girl, who died early this week at a Delhi hospital after allegedly being gang-raped, in a Hathras village on September 14, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi and three Congress leaders met the victims family at their house on Saturday evening. The Congress leaders held a closed-door meeting with the victims family for around 30 minutes with media persons taken out of the house. The sources claimed that the Congress leaders consoled the family and assured them their support in the fight for justice. Earlier in the day, Additional chief secretary (ACS), home, Awanish Awasthi, and DGP HC Awasthy visited the victim's family and assured them of quick and stern action against the culprits and full justice to them. Later, addressing a press conference in Hathras, Awasthi said that five-member delegations of political parties were allowed to visit the family at Boolgarhi village of the victim. Following this, Congress ex-president Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, along with partys three senior members -- KC Venugopal, PL Punia, and Mukul Vasnik -- met the family in their village on Saturday evening. ALSO READ: Hathras rape case: SIT will look into all issues raised by victim's kin, says UP Addl Chief Secy UP DGP and ACS reached Hathras and visited the victim's family in the afternoon. During the visit, first by such high-ranking officials in the face of the tragedy, in a bid to assuage the grieving family, both the officials squatted on the ground with them and heard them patiently for an hour. The media was also allowed to enter the village on Saturday this morning as the borders re-opened 48 hours after the village was sealed. Later talking to media persons at Hathras SP office, ACS Awansih Awasthi said: "We have spoken to the family members and assured them that we will investigate the case properly and ensure full justice to them. The Chief Minister has already formed a special investigation team (SIT) and a woman officer is also a part of the team. While the action has already been taken against district police officials on the basis of the Preliminary Enquiry (PE) report furnished by the SIT, its first full report will be out by tomorrow 4 pm." The ACS claimed that he and DGP heard the victims family patiently and noted all their grievances and concerns. We assured the family that all their concerns will be addressed to their satisfaction and strictest action will be taken against those found guilty, said Awasthi adding that all the concerns of the grieving family were already conveyed to the SIT. ALSO READ | Rahul, Priyanka among 5 allowed to proceed to Hathras: Noida Police He also said that for now the family would be given 24X7 security and the security of the village would also be permanent to check any possible caste conflict. We met the public representatives as well and urged them to help maintain peace and tranquillity in the district, said Awasthi. Both the high ranking officers were expected to submit a report on their visit to the CM by Saturday evening. The family of the victim, while meeting the officers, alleged multiple lapses on the part of the police and district administration throughout the case. They raised questions over hurried cremation by the cops. "We want to know whose body was burnt on that day. And if it was our sister's body then why did they burn her (the body) in this manner? All of us requested the police and the administration to allow us to see her one last time," said the victim's brother while talking to officers. They also accused district officials of locking the family up in their home and taking away their phones. On the other, UP cabinet minister for social welfare and SC/ST (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe) welfare Ramapati Shastri on Saturday launched a counter-attack on the Opposition parties over the issue by claiming that the opposition was behaving irresponsibly, and it wanted to throw the state into a caste conflagration. ALSO READ | Bengal polls: Mamata makes Hathras case a ploy to win Dalit votes In a televised statement, Shashtri said: The Opposition has adopted a completely irresponsible approach and it does not want the truth to come out. The Dalit womans honour is not dear to the Opposition. The Opposition deliberately wants to foment caste riots. Behan Mayawati (BSP chief) is a former chief minister. She should have understood the seriousness of the matter. The medical, post-mortem examination and forensic reports gave negative report (indicating there was no rape). Still she, by giving irresponsible statements on social media, has been insulting the victim. The CM has already constituted SIT (special investigation team) and action has begun on the preliminary report of SIT. This initiative of the government will bring out the truth, he added. The minister questioned the oppositions objection to Narco Analysis and polygraphic tests. Tweets, audio-tapes, old incidents of the Opposition point towards a caste riots conspiracy. Hathras is only an excuse, alleged Shastri. Your browser does not support the video tag. (Newser) North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis announced Friday that he has tested positive for COVID-19. Now, bad news for his Democratic challenger, though for something completely unrelated to the virus. Cal Cunningham is apologizing after his campaign confirmed Friday that the married father of two teens had been sexting with a California PR strategist, though he also has no intention of dropping out of the race, per the News & Observer. The National File, which first reported on the story, has photos of the texts, which seem to suggest that Cunninghama lawyer and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves who married his wife in 1997and strategist Arlene Guzman Todd have met up in person before. "I've had the most amazing dreams of our time together," Cunningham writes in one text. "Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now." story continues below "You're so sweet. I would enjoy that," Todd replies, also imploring Cunningham to "get away for a night soon" because "I want a night with you." Cunningham's response: "Sounds wonderfulI want that too!!! Very badly." Although it's unclear when the texts were sent, one of the ones Cunningham sent mentions he's "nervous about the next 100 days," which the News & Observer notes could indicate Election Day; that would place the date of that text around the end of July. "I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry," Cunningham said in a statement sent to the paper. "The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do." However, he added, he's still vying to unseat Tillis: "In the remaining weeks before this election I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state." (Read more North Carolina stories.) Google discontinued the Daydream View VR headset last October and now the Internet search giant has announced it has dropped support for the Daydream VR platform with Android 11, hence, it may not work with devices running Android 11 or later. While the platform will not receive any software updates, Google says some third-party VR apps may still be accessible through the Play Store. Google ending Daydream support is hardly a surprise, though, and we had it coming after Google discontinued the Daydream View headset last year, citing less developer adoption and decreasing usage over time as the reasons behind the discontinuation of the VR headset. That said, while Google is no longer working on VR, it has shifted its focus on AR and we've already seen its use in Google Maps in the form of Live View. Source | Via Germany said on Friday it will hold talks with India on October 6 on how to resume passenger flight operations between the two countries. "We have received signals that India is also interested in a quick and satisfactory solution for both sides," the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) told PTI. On Tuesday, Lufthansa had announced cancellation of all "planned flights" between India and Germany from September 30 to October 20 because of an "unexpected rejection" of its flight schedule by the Indian authorities. Air India on Thursday cancelled all 12 flights between Frankfurt and India till October 14 because Germany withdrew its permission to operate them. In response to queries sent by the PTI, the BMVI stated it and the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation are "confirmed to hold bilateral talks on October 6 through video conference". "The aim is to find a solution on how to restore civil air transport between Germany and India in the spirit of the existing air transport agreement between our two countries," it added. In response to question on what is the way forward to resolve the situation, the BMVI said it "does not want to anticipate the bilateral talks". "In the light of our long history of good aviation relations, we are convinced that we can reach a mutually beneficial solution. We have received signals that India is also interested in a quick and satisfactory solution for both sides," it added. Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus lockdown. However, special flights have been permitted under "air bubble" arrangements India has formed with 16 countries, including Germany. Few hours after Lufthansa's announcement on Tuesday on the cancellation of flights, Indian aviation regulator DGCA had said there are restrictions in place for Indian nationals desiring to travel to Germany which was putting Indian carriers at a significant disadvantage resulting in inequitable distribution of traffic in favour of Lufthansa. "As against Indian carriers operating 3-4 flights a week, Lufthansa operated 20 flights a week. In spite of this disparity, we offered to clear 7 flights a week for Lufthansa which was not accepted by them. Negotiations continue," the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) noted. Asked to comment on DGCA's observation about "inequitable distribution of traffic", the BMVI said on Friday that the German authorities, like Indian authorities, have adopted special entry requirements due to the coronavirus pandemic and they are applicable regardless of which airline is carrying passengers into Germany. "German airlines and their passengers must also comply with the regulations. Even in the crisis situation, the German authorities have in principle not restricted the frequencies approved for the 2020 summer flight schedule," the BMVI added. Lufthansa said on Tuesday it had applied for continuation of the special flights it was allowed to operate until the end of September but would now have to cancel them because of the "unexpected rejection". The German carrier said it "sincerely urges" Indian authorities to work together with the German government to establish a temporary travel agreement between both countries. Also read: Custom-made Boeing 777 aircraft for President, VP, PM arrives in Delhi Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to cloudy skies with snow developing overnight. Low 19F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 90%. 1 to 3 inches of snow expected.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to cloudy skies with snow developing overnight. Low 19F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 90%. 1 to 3 inches of snow expected. Members of Victoria Police patrol through Chadstone Shopping Centre on September 20, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images) Melbourne Chadstone Cluster Reveals Risks: Andrews An outbreak of COVID-19 linked to Australias biggest shopping centre shows why its unsafe to ease restrictions, Premier Daniel Andrews has said. A cluster of cases at a The Butcher Club inside Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbournes southeast has grown to 11 and includes a family in Frankston. The premier challenged Victorians in his Friday press conference to consider the potential impact of a cluster in a such a large, busy setting. If we were to open up now, just as our modelling tells usit will be many hundreds of cases, he said. The average needs to drop below five and there must be fewer than five mystery cases in a fortnight before authorities further ease Melbourne restrictions. The premier expects this to happen by October 19. Meanwhile, authorities responsible for reviewing the states hotel quarantine program have tried to reassure the public ahead of flights resuming. We want Victorians to feel very, very assured the accommodation program is a very, very focused one, Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said. The hotel program now has strong and accountable leadership committed to making sure that we have got proper oversight, audit and proper checks and balances, she said. An inquiry into the program has heard the first iteration of it beginning in March was responsible for the states second wave of COVID-19, which has killed more than 800 people. Corrections Victoria took over the running of the scheme in late June. Weve left no stone unturned, Corrections Victoria Commissioner Emma Cassar said at her first media appearance on Friday. We are really confident in the reset and when flights arrive we will certainly be ready. Corrections staff now receive face-to-face infection control training, and processes for cleaning, waste, transport and food standards have been reviewed. Travellers to Melbourne airport will be medically assessed as soon as they disembark and transferred directly to a hotel if symptomatic, Cassar said. She and Hennessy joined the premier and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton in front of the media after authorities confirmed two workers in the revised hotel program were on duty while infectious. Staff from Spotless were replaced by police mid-shift on Wednesday at the Novotel in Southbank, after a healthcare worker told The Age she feared their practices would lead to further COVID-19 outbreaks. The workers are among nine who have tested positive since the program was overhauled, but were asymptomatic at the time. DHHS has confirmed that one hotel quarantine staff member thought to have acquired the virus in an aged care facility was, at the same time, working shifts at the Grand Chancellor Hotel. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said all nine cases contracted the virus at the height of the second wave, most likely because of community transmission. None were responsible for breaches and none had caused further transmission, he said. Prof Sutton said cleaning staff could not be expected to be limited to just one facility as they would not earn enough income. There have not been any active cases related to the workforce running hotel quarantine for at least four weeks. There are 107 people currently in hotel quarantine, of whom 55 are frontline workers. Flights into Melbourne are not expected to resume until after the hotel quarantine inquiry delivers its findings, which are due by November 6. A small number of flights are still operating for those granted special exemptions. Victoria recorded another two coronavirus deaths on Friday, taking the state toll to 802 and the national figure to 890. There were seven new cases in the state, as Melbournes 14-day average dropped to 12.8 and the regional figure to 0.2. Andi Yu in Melbourne President Trumps positive coronavirus test has raised the possibility, however remote, that he could become incapacitated or potentially die in office if his symptoms worsen. While that outcome remains highly unlikely, and few in Washington were willing to discuss it on Friday, when Mr. Trump was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment, the Constitution and Congress long ago put in place a plan of succession to ensure that the nation is protected from adversaries and internal conflict when the elected president cannot serve. The Constitution makes ... The African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have turned blind-eyes to the unprecedented and indiscriminate killings of civilians mostly in the southern parts of Nigeria. Nevertheless, the International Court of Criminal Justice (ICC) has utterly refused to categorise these as a genocide in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Amnesty International (AI), the International Crisis Group and local human rights organisations, have documented, in several reports, frequent attacks on civilians, mostly Igbo and Yoruba, in the Christian dominated southern Nigeria. Armed Fulani and Jihadist Moslem groups from northern Nigeria committed heinous attacks. Human rights reports say attacks also take the form of structural and cultural violence targeted at Christians by the heavily Moslem controlled central Government of Nigeria. The structural and cultural violence against Christians by the present Nigerian Government involves the enactment of pro-Islamic laws and promotion of policies that are pro-jihadist, including the gross lopsided composition of the country's public security establishments. Key heavily-Moslem controlled agencies condone the atrocious acts of the Muslim jihadists against the Christian population and provide them with state cover and protection, according to the reports. The violence against Nigerians by 'eco-jihadist' Muslim groups is locally called "banditry", and that involves targeted abduction of residing and travelling citizens and forcing them to pay monetary ransoms in captivity or permanent disappearance or killing without any traces. Such young Christian women are forcefully married off by their Islamic captors, converted to Islam and made sex slaves. Men among them are forced to be converted to Islam or risk being killed or permanently disappeared in custody. Captured Christian children are radicalised with radical Islamic doctrines and forced into child soldiering, including suicide bombing. IDN research checks reveal that there were, at least 1,800 Christians killed in Nigeria between January and September 2020. Further breakdown indicates that Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen accounted for between 1,150 and 1,200 Christian lives while Boko Haram and other jihadist groups accounted for, at least, 600. The number of abductions on the grounds of religion have also risen to 500 during this period. "The current Government that was founded on fraud, can never credibly and correctly tackle corruption because anti-corruption crusade firmly demands moral decency and uprightness. It requires clean hands, a saintly posture that the present Government does not have or possess. There is confidence, and the will power to take up this task. It scratches the problems on the surface," Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, told IDN in an emailed comment from Onitsha city, Eastern Nigeria. He explained that the Government and its security agencies must return Nigeria to its secular status or divide the country in peace so that any party wishing to Islamize itself and its culture can do so freely and peacefully. Other regions that are not in the agreement can be given self-governance or self-determination, regional autonomy or statehood. During the celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari appealed for nation-wide unity and integration. This principal task has not been realised after Nigeria gained independence in October 1960. Tensions have persisted between the north and south, and there have been rivalries between ethnic groups. Millions have been killed in ethnic clashes, with the south-Eastern region working hard to break away to become the Biafra state. "An underlying cause of most of the problems we have faced as a nation is in our consistent harping on artificially contrived fault-lines that we have harboured and allowed unnecessarily to fester," President Buhari said in a televised address in an apparent effort to appease the population, majority deeply frustrated by his administration. He promised to consolidate Nigeria's democracy and called for patriotism. The president suggested that Nigeria's population -- now around 200 million and projected to be the third highest in the world by 2050 -- is both a challenge and an asset for the country. That has sparked debates, with scholars and researchers expressing divergent views. "Nigeria is in the third place globally among countries most ravaged by terrorism. The structural insolvency in Nigeria is pronounced with the distrust, which has characterised the interactions between the Government and the governed since independence. Unattended to for years, the dissatisfaction of the oppressed has germinated into a chorus of clamour for an equitable and just society that now manifests as calls for self-determination by various ethnic spheres in the country," according to Funmilola Ajala, an independent Researcher on African Affairs, based in Berlin. Expressing some optimism, he explained: "As the drums of apocalypse sound louder in Nigeria, it is germane to say that, despite its intractable challenges, the strategic nature of the country makes it more appealing to remain one. The strength of its huge population is one reason which has over the decades made Nigeria a place of choice for trade and economic interests by many foreigners." That said, however, Ajala further offered a few suggestions. First, there is a need for a national document that genuinely reflects the will of the people to live together. The notion that the indivisibility of Nigeria is 'non-negotiable' is a farce and should be discarded in search of a template for peaceful co-existence. Second, a return to regional autonomy in place of the subsisting quasi-federation is long overdue; the system is yearning for deconstruction to help redress its many apparent contradictions and the attendant deficient outcomes. This would afford the regional components opportunity to develop from within without necessarily dictated to by the federal authority. Third, the 'gentlemen agreement' for rotational Head of Government should be constitutionally sanctioned to avoid making such a privilege an exclusive preserve of a particular ethnic group at the expense of others. Nigeria's population is estimated at over 200 million, which means the country has skilled and unskilled labour in abundance. The population also makes it a fertile ground for global trade. Nigeria is also rich in mineral resources. It is sub-Saharan Africa's largest, and the world's 13th largest, producer and exporter of oil. These endowments should have made Nigeria one of the critical destinations for global investment. And with its wealth in petroleum and natural resources as well as its vast agricultural potential, Nigeria should have by now become Africa's undisputed economic giant, Sheriff Folarin, Professor of International Relations, Covenant University, wrote recently in an assessment report. "Sixty years after independence, Nigeria, like a vehicle struggling to climb a hilly road, has yet to achieve its potential. Its large population has thus become a source of weakness, not strength. With mass unemployment and overstretching of inadequate and poorly maintained infrastructure, many Nigerians have had to seek their fortunes abroad," Folarin observes. In comparison, Folarin said "Smaller nations such as Ghana, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are beginning to catch up. At the same time, big corporations from industrialised and wealthy countries in Europe and South Asia find the Nigerian business climate inauspicious. That's largely due to decaying infrastructure, corruption and insecurity. Big European corporations have, over the years, shut down or relocated their Nigerian manufacturing plants. They point to a lack of stable electricity supply and endemic corruption, both of which impede their smooth operations." In a research paper he co-authored, he argues that national integration and its benefits could be realised only with the development and entrenchment of a supportive public culture. Nigerians must understand, respect and tolerate differences occasioned by socio-cultural diversity and develop new institutions and mechanisms that address poverty, revenue allocation and other national issues peacefully. "Nigeria can transform its potential into success. With a huge population, its citizens can be mobilised and empowered to engage in manufacturing as China, Singapore and South Korea have done. This will change the society from a consuming country to a powerhouse in manufacturing and exportation. At 60, Nigeria should not be groping in the dark. There have been numerous wasted opportunities, no doubt, but it takes just a right turn at any second for a vehicle in the middle of nowhere to find its bearing," Sheriff Folarin suggested. For Celine Akigwe, former General Secretary of the Nimo Brotherhood Society (NBS) UK & Ireland, multiple unresolved problems including frequent ethnic and religious attacks, deep-seated corruption, ineffective federal system of governance make Nigeria not the Giant of Africa. In her estimation, Nigeria is endowed with substantial natural resources. By population, it has the highest and that signifies the extent of its human capital in the country. As already known, Nigeria has three ethnic groups, namely the Hausa-Fulani in the North, Yoruba in the West and the Igbos in East. Ethnic conflict pulls down the expected high development, contributes to insecurity and youth unemployment in the country. "Nigeria exposes the rich and poor divide in every aspect of society. The masses continue to suffer more and more electricity outages. Access to clean drinking water is another example, where the masses suffer poor quality water. Nigeria, lack of constant electricity, good roads, hospitals and schools have become the norm. The security situation all over Nigeria has reached a critical level," Celine Akigwe told IDN in an emailed comment from London. According to interpretation, there are too many problems facing Nigerians that nothing short of a total rethink, revamp and reworking of every denomination of our civilisation is required to change the status quo. This broken society must be dismantled and rebuilt. From its very inception, the concept of Nigeria was doomed. The land that is referred to or called Nigeria was created by the British. It made colonising Africans easier for them to administer. Conclusively, Akigwe thinks Africans, or specifically Nigerians deserve that right. It has taken over 60 years for Nigerians to reach this point of agitation and Nigerians have suffered enough. It is time to leave the past behind and cease the administration of the colony not former colony called Nigeria. Nigeria is an administrative convenience to ease the complications for the British. If Africans are totally honest with themselves, all of the borders that were drawn as a result of the Scramble for Africa should be erased. Integration simply means to continue to live in a state of denial of the past. Independence is not a myth but a reality that will happen now or in the future. If this generation is not ready for true independence, then future generations should do everything for that. This story was first and originally published by InDepthNews. This story is no longer updated here. For updates on all aspects of the coronavirus, with local, state, national and global news, go to The Chronicles Live Updates page. On Friday morning Eastern time, President Trump tweeted that he and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus. The revelation came after Trumps aide, Hope Hicks, tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. The revelation has raised many questions about his health outlook, the future of the campaign and about who has been or is being tested among the circle of people he has come into contact with in recent days. Even if someone has tested negative, it does not necessarily mean they do not have the coronavirus. Experts say it typically takes five to seven days after exposure to have enough virus in the body to generate a positive test result. If someone takes the test before that window and the result is negative, it could just mean the virus is present but yet sufficient to be detected the person could already be infected but not test positive for a few days. Here are the latest updates on the officials, family members and others in Trumps circle who have been tested for the coronavirus since the president announced his positive result. Three unnamed members of the White House press corps have also tested positive. Stephen Miller: One of President Trumps top advisers and a speechwriter, tested positive on Tuesday. Miller said in a statement that he already had been self-isolating over the previous five days. He is married to Katie Miller, Vice President Pences communications director. Adm. Charles Ray: The Coast Guard vice commandant tested positive on Monday after feeling mild symptoms over the weekend, the Coast Guard said in a statement. The news caused top Pentagon officials who had interacted with him to go into quarantine. Kayleigh McEnany: President Trumps press secretary, who meets regularly with reporters in a variety of settings, including most days in the cramped White House briefing room, tweeted Monday that she tested positive for the coronavirus and was beginning quarantine. News accounts reported two press aides also were infected. Nick Luna: The close aide and body man to President Trump has tested positive, according to tweets from journalists at Bloomberg News and the New York Times. He is married to an aide to senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, who is President Trumps son-in-law. Chris Christie: The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie tweeted that he has tested positive for the coronavirus. In consultation with my doctors, I checked myself into Morristown Medical Center this afternoon. While I am feeling good and only have mild symptoms, due to my history of asthma we decided this is an important precautionary measure, he tweeted Saturday. Christie helped Trump with debate preparation prior to the presidents face-off with Joe Biden. Rick Scott: Florida Gov. Rick Scott rushed to clarify that he has tested negative for the coronavirus Saturday morning after he said the opposite during a television appearance. Ron Johnson: Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, tested positive for the coronavirus, according to multiple media reports Saturday. Johnson is the third GOP senator to test positive. Johnsons office released a statement saying he was exposed to someone infected with the virus on Sept. 14, stayed in quarantine for two weeks, in which time he tested negative twice. He returned to Washington, D.C. on Sept. 29 and was exposed to another positive individual, his office said. Bill Stepien: President Trumps campaign manager Bill Stepien has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a Politico report. Kellyanne Conway: The counselor to Trump said on Twitter on Friday that she tested positive. My symptoms are mild (light cough) and Im feeling fine. I have begun a quarantine process in consultation with physicians, Conway, who has been Trumps counselor, said. As always, my heart is with everyone affected by this global pandemic. Joe Biden: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden reported that his coronavirus test was negative by tweeting Friday: Im happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for COVID. Thank you to everyone for your messages of concern. I hope this serves as a reminder: wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands. Kamala Harris: Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, tested negative for the coronavirus Thursday as part of the campaigns routine testing protocol, an aide for the California senator said Friday. She again tested negative on Tuesday, the day before her debate with Vice President Mike Pence. Nancy Pelosi: The House speaker said she was tested for the virus Friday. Her deputy chief of staff tweeted that she tested negative Friday afternoon. Dianne Feinstein: The California Democratic senator was tested for the coronavirus on Monday, with a negative result, her spokesman said. She was present at a hearingThursday where a GOP colleague who later tested positive spoke while not wearing a mask. Mike Pence: Vice President Pence and his wife Karen Pence have tested negative for the coronavirus, a spokesman for the Vice Presidents office tweeted Friday. Pence has been tested for the virus routinely for months, according to the spokesman. MSNBC reported Saturday that both tested negative again. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump: Trumps daughter and son-in-law tested negative for the coronavirus Friday, a White House aide tweeted Friday. Amy Coney Barrett: The Supreme Court nominee tested negative after being with President Trump last Saturday, the White House said. Barrett had previously recovered from a coronavirus infection Mike Pompeo: The secretary of state told reporters he tested negative Friday. Ronna McDaniel: The Republican National Committee chairwoman tested positive on Wednesday, a spokesman said. William Barr: The attorney general tested negative five times between Friday and Tuesday, aides said. He planned to self-quarantine for now but was expected to return to work this week, they said. Mike Lee: Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a statement that he had symptoms consistent with longtime allergies but tested positive for the coronavirus. He is isolating for 10 days and plans to return to Congress to vote to advance the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Thom Tillis: The Republican senator from North Carolina tweeted Friday evening that he had tested positive: Tonight my COVID-19 test came back positive. Im following the recommendations of my doctor. Thankfully, I have no symptoms and feel well. He urged anyone exposed or with symptoms to call your doctor, self-isolate, and get tested. Steven Mnuchin: A spokeswoman confirmed Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is tested daily and was negative Friday morning. Mnuchin met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, earlier this week on coronavirus relief talks. Mark Meadows: The White House chief of staff has tested negative for the coronavirus. His aide Ben Williamson also tested negative. Hope Hicks: The president and first lady were tested after Hicks, one of Trumps closest aides, tested positive for the virus Thursday. White House reporters: The White House Correspondents Association said in a letter Friday, Oct. 2: As of this moment, three White House journalists tested positive for COVID-19 today. All three had been at work at the White House and/or in the small press pool traveling with the president over the previous few days. MBABANE Registrar of the Examinations Council of Eswatini Dr Edmund Mazibuko insists that he has never been romantically involved with a staff member at the institution he leads. Dr Mazibuko says he is the subject of a smear campaign perpetrated by people who have an agenda unbeknown to him. In a report of the Select Committee probing the Examinations Council of Eswatini on allegations of gross irregularities relating to maladministration, production of results and other corrupt practices, Dr Mazibuko is also quoted submitting that allegations that he slept with staff were false. Reads an extract from the report, under Submissions by the Registrar: According to the CEO, he has never slept or engaged himself romantically with or to any staff member let alone junior officers. The report states that such claims were purportedly being said by the Dr Dlamini-led team trying to discredit and bring down the name and dignity of the CEO, Dr Mazibuko. Dr Dlamini is Director of Research at the institution. However, he is currently embroiled in an Industrial Court case with his employer over allegations of misconduct levelled against him. Details of the romance allegations made against Dr Mazibuko were not included in the report. The allegations of romance at work, were also posed to Graphic Designer Sithembiso Mkhabela, who told the Select Committee that he was not aware of any allegedly existing romantic affair between some staff members and the registrar. Denied Rachel Hlengiwe Gumbi, the Product and Development Standards and Data Capturer officer Nandi Hlubi also denied knowledge of any affair between the registrar and staff members. During an interview this week, Mazibuko said the allegations were unfortunate and made by people who had ulterior motives. On another note, Dr Mazibuko also told the select committee that he had never influenced the hiring of staff by Kobla Quashie. He believes that Kobla Quashie Consultants and Dr Sikhomba Gumbi Consultants can attest to such and he has never leaked any information or papers so to give advantage to those candidates who were supposed to be interviewed, the report states. Submissions by Alpheus Dla- mini, the Systems Analyst at the Examinations Council was to the effect that the registrar and the council were hiring people without involving line managers. The Select Committee also heard submissions by former employee Sipho Kunene, who said he had been harassed by the Exams Council for misplacing or losing scripts. Kunene believes he was eventually dismissed by ECESWA because of bad blood between him and the registrar due to personal vendettas. unprofessional While working for the Exams Council, he never at any given time conducted himself in an unprofessional manner. At some point, the registrar is alleged to have threatened to dismiss him because he was seen driving the institutions vehicle after working hours. It was unfortunate that he was seen carrying a mobile phone in a secluded area where exam papers are kept. He alleged that it was not truthful that his intention was to take pictures of the examination papers, the report reads. Kunene submitted that he never stole the papers and was not aware if the matter was reported to the police. Findings of the committee were to the effect that there is maladministration at the Examinations Council, which has led to conflict within management and staff. Above that, it was clear to the committee that the registrars leadership style is too autocratic, and this coupled with rebellious elements from staff further compounds the problems, it said. The MPs also said it was their finding that there was lack of cooperation, dispatching of information and working spirit in ECESWA. The committee then recommended that the registrar must have an open door policy by allowing line managers and staff members to voice their professional advises while carrying out the work of the institution. The Select Committee is mindful of the fact that the matter between Dr Clement Dlamini, who is the Director of Research at the Examinations Council is before the courts and the committee hereby recommends that the Ministry of Education and Training, the Eswatini Examinations Council and all parties concerned must within 30 days after adoption of this report finalise the matter by finding an amicable solution. This must be done to harmonise the situation and if need be, the director be re-instated to his position. The report of the select committee is yet to be debated in parliament before being adopted. (Alliance News) - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he is "pretty optimistic" about striking a trade deal with the EU as he prepares to discuss progress in the talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Johnson is due to take stock of the negotiations in a conference call with von der Leyen on Saturday following the final scheduled round of talks between Brussels and the UK this week. Von der Leyen's remarks that talks need to "intensify" have sparked speculation that an agreement could be reached before Johnson's deadline of the EU Council meeting on October 15. According to Financial Times, both sides are set to agree to further last-ditch discussions a dubbed "the tunnel" a in London as they look to finalise an agreement. In an interview with the Telegraph, Johnson said the chances of a deal "are very good if everybody just exercises some common sense and looks at the deal that is there to be done". He added: "The UK has always been very clear what we want a we want a Canada-style relationship. "We have been members for 45 years, and I don't see why they can't have the same deal with us, so I'm pretty optimistic." But, in a pointed warning to Brussels, he kept his threat of leaving without a trade deal on the table, arguing that Britain would be fine under an "Australian" agreement with the EU a a Downing Street code term for a no-deal arrangement. Asked about the prospect of failing to do a deal, Johnson, reportedly adopting an Australian accent, replied: "Australia holds no terrors for us, mate. "We say: 'Good on yer, no worries, no wukkas'." Speaking at a news conference in the Belgian capital on Friday, von der Leyen said she believed a deal was still possible but warned that time was running out. She said the "most difficult issues" a including fisheries and state aid rules a still had to be resolved if they were to get an agreement in place by the end of the Brexit transition period at the end of the year. "It is good to have a deal a but not at any price," she said. "We have made progress on many, many different fields but of course the most difficult ones are still completely open. "But overall, where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations because it is worth working hard on it. "We are running out of time a around 100 days to the end of the year a so it is worth stepping up now." Downing Street made clear Johnson still believed there needed to be a deal by the time of the next EU summit in two weeks' time on October 15, otherwise it will be too late to implement before the transition ends. The UK's chief negotiator Lord Frost was less upbeat than the prime minister about the level of progress made so far. In a statement issued after his meeting with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Friday, he said that while the "outlines" of an agreement were "visible", there were still "familiar differences" to be overcome. Lord Frost added that there had been "some limited progress" on state aid while the gap over fisheries was "unfortunately very large" and may prove "impossible to bridge". "I am concerned that there is very little time now to resolve these issues ahead of the European Council on October 15," he said. Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, who briefed other EU leaders with von der Leyen on the state of the negotiations, said it was "highly unlikely" there would be an agreement by October Council meeting, although there would need to be significant progress in the coming weeks. By Patrick Daly, PA Political Correspondent source: PA Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Bihars opposition Grand Alliance announced on Saturday that it has reached a seat-sharing deal for the upcoming assembly elections in the state and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav will be its chief ministerial candidate. The announcement was made at a press conference in the presence of leaders of the coalition. The RJD, which is spearheading the opposition coalition, will contest on 144 seats in the 243-strong assembly. The Congress has been offered 70 seats, besides contesting the by-poll to Valmiki Nagar Lok Sabha seat, while CPI-(M) and CPI have been given four and six seats, respectively. CPI-ML will contest on 19 seats. RJD said it would accommodate Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahnis Vikasheel Insan Party (VIP) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in its quota of 144 seats. However, after the press conference, VIP president Mukesh Sahni announced that he was quitting the grand alliance since he did not get a respectable offer". The announcement on the seat-sharing deal for the upcoming assembly elections comes after days of deliberations. Notably, the seat-sharing exercise gained momentum after RJD supremo Lalu Prasads emissary Bhola Yadav returned to Patna from Ranchi on Thursday with his message on the distribution of seats among different partners, they said. Seat-sharing has been finalised and an announcement will be made in all likelihood today evening, RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari had told PTI earlier on Saturday. The RJD, the Congress, Left parties CPI-ML, CPI and the CPI(M) and Jharkhands ruling party JMM are unitedly fighting the Bihar elections scheduled in October-November. The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is also expected to announce a seat-sharing agreement for Bihar assembly elections soon. In what may be a setback, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) is likely to contest on 143 seats outside the NDA alliance with the slogan Modi se bair nahi, Nitish teri khair nahi, or No enmity with Modi but wont spare CM and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar. However, the LJP said that it wasnt walking out of the alliance as the party is in alliance with the NDA at the national level. It is being said that the LJP will act as BJPs proxy in the alliance. Voting for Bihar assembly elections will be held in three phases first on October 28, second on November 3 and the third on November 7 while counting of all votes will take place on November 10. The election in the state is being conducted at a time when India is recording one of the highest cases daily. However, in the view of Covid-19 situation, the election commission increased the polling hours from 7 am to 6 pm instead of the usual 5 pm. it is being done to avoid crowd and maintain social distancing in the polling process. There will be several arrangements for voters including 7 lakh sanitizers, 46 lakh masks, 6 lakh PPE kits, 7.6 lakh units of face shields and 23 lakh units of hand gloves, the poll body had said. She is set to return to reprise her role as Theresa McQueen in Hollyoaks, for the Channel 4 soap's 25th anniversary. And Jorgie Porter had a spring in her step as she was spotted heading out for dinner at Peter Street Kitchen restaurant in Manchester on Saturday night. The actress, 32, cut a fashionable figure in a blush pink dress which scooped at the front to emphasise her toned legs. Looking good: Jorgie Porter looked sensational as she headed out for dinner at Peter Street Kitchen restaurant in Manchester on Saturday night Jorgie appeared to be in good spirits as she posed for some snaps, even taking off her jacket in the rain to best flaunt her sizzling physique. The blonde beauty tied her locks back for the evening outing and added a full face of makeup including a pink lipstick to accentuate her pretty features. Never one to forget the details, the soap star donned some snake print ankle boots and toted a large beige Chanel handbag. All dolled up: The soap star added some extra height to her frame with a pair of snake print ankle boots and toted a large beige Chanel handbag Last month, Jorgie was spotted enjoying a dinner date with hunky businessman Ollie Piotrowski, 31. The actress wowed onlookers in a black mini as she made her way into upscale eatery The Ivy. Ollie boasts years of experience as a businessman, serving as the managing director of Pinnacle Holdings, which oversees a broad range of property investments. All wrapped up: Jorgie donned a black coat to keep her warm as she made a stylish arrival He also has fashion credentials among his portfolio, serving as the co-owner of new brand Transpire Clothing. Jorgie's outing came several months after she admitted that, after getting plenty of attention on dating apps, she had decided to start virtual dating some of her matches. It has also recently been revealed Jorgie will be reprising her role as Theresa McQueen on Hollyoaks later this autumn, four years after the character left the village for a new life in Spain. Date night? Last month, Jorgie was spotted enjoying a dinner date with hunky businessman Ollie Piotrowski, 31 Jorgie said: 'I was excited, but obviously a bit nervous. What if Theresa has gone out of my body and my mind? 'And the anticipation of coming back has taken so long because of lockdown, but coming back felt just like home and as if I haven't even been away for five minutes.' Despite her nerves, Jorgie admitted she has been able to get back into her character 'as if she's never left'. Mischa Barton has recently been packing on the PDA with her new beau Gian Marco Flamini, more than a year after her split from model James Abercrombie. And on Thursday, the 34-year-old actress, who rose to fame in 1999 in films like Notting Hill and The Sixth Sense, stepped out on a solo grocery run in Los Angeles. After stocking up at a Trader Joe's, the MTV star could be seen wearing a long leather jacket and a pair of fitted black leggings. Bringing home the essentials: Mischa Barton cut a casual figure as she stocked up on groceries at a Trader Joe's in Los Angeles on Thursday As the reality star unloaded her shopping cart, she removed her white face mask and appeared to be wearing minimal makeup. She accessorized her look with a pair of aviator sunglasses, several gold necklaces and light grey Nike sneakers with mint green shoe laces. During her afternoon outing, she kept her blonde hair pulled into a tousled ponytail and toted around an iced beverage. Always chic: Adding a touch of glamour to her otherwise casual ensemble, Barton carried a medium-sized black Fendi purse Adding a touch of glamour to her otherwise casual ensemble, Barton carried a medium-sized black Fendi purse. Her outing comes just a month after she was spotted sharing a kiss with her hunky new man, Gian Marco Flamini, in Echo Park. The actressturnedreality star's new relationships follows her breakup with James Abercrombie last July, after two years of dating. Coronavirus lockdown: Her outing comes just a month after she was spotted sharing a kiss with her hunky new man in Echo Park Classic: Following early roles in Notting Hill and The Sixth Sense, Barton burst into the spotlight with her starring role on the teen drama The O.C., which premiered in 2003 At the time, a source to RadarOnline that 'James just turned out to not be the person she thought he was,' and that Mischa was 'taking some time to focus on herself right now.' Another source to E! News that Mischa 'broke up with him is to focus on her career.' Amid the coronavirus lockdown, she has kept her more than 460,000 Instagram followers dutifully updated on her quarantine. Updates: Amid the coronavirus lockdown, she has kept her more than 460,000 Instagram followers dutifully updated on her quarantine This includes sharing snaps night swimming with pals and a trip to Aspen in July, where she was able to 'disconnect from society' and become a 'biking enthusiast.' 'Aspen was so beautiful and offered me the solitude, nature & disconnect from society I was looking for,' she captioned a slideshow of her trip on Instagram. She continued: 'Im down for all the hikes and bikes to Maroon Bells through the back country and visits to my Utah / Colorado friends!' The O.C. is available to stream on Stan in Australia Islamabad, Oct 3 : Pakistan Army killed two hardcore terrorists in North Waziristan, a tribal district of Khyber-Paktunkhwa, the military said in a statement. "Security Forces conducted IBO (intelligence based operation) on terrorist hideout in Boya, North Wazirstan. Two hardcore terrorists, including an IED specialist, killed while one terrorist apprehended," The Express Tribune quoted a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) as saying on Friday. The military's media wing said the terrorists were involved in killing locals, extortion, planning and executing more than 25 attacks on security forces. The former mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, was sentenced Friday to seven years in federal prison on charges that he shook down businesses for bribes and campaign contributions. Bill Courtright resigned last year as mayor of the city of 78,000 and pleaded guilty to bribery, extortion and conspiracy. Prosecutors said Courtright took bribes from a company that had a contract with the city to collect delinquent taxes and garbage fees. Courtright must surrender to serve his prison sentence by Oct. 30, The (Scranton) Times-Tribune reported. U.S. District Judge Malachy Mannion also ordered Courtright to pay a fine of $25,300. Courtright told the judge Friday that he betrayed Scranton residents, adding: As hard as I try, I cant give you an answer why I did what I did. I should have known better. Courtright, 63, served as Scrantons mayor from 2014 until 2019. He joins Allentowns Ed Pawlowski and Readings Vaughn Spencer as the third Democratic, one-time leader of a Pennsylvania city jailed for corruption in two years' time. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Lizzo is one of the stars of this years Savage X Fenty Show, and with good reason: shes the definition of #SavageNotSorry. Lizzo has always been the face of having confidence in yourself no matter how you look and living your life the way you want to and not caring about what others think. Though shes single at the moment, Lizzo keeps this same energy even when it comes to planning her future wedding. Lizzo attends The 2019 Met Gala | Theo Wargo/WireImage Lizzo is private about her dating life For someone who likes to live life with all of her business out in the open, Lizzo is surprisingly quiet about her dating life. Despite having a sultry soul song called Jerome, theres never been any indication of a real-life Jerome. Her new man on the Minnesota Vikings from her smash hit single Truth Hurts is equally mysterious, as shes only referenced him once in concert as someone from Detroit. Nearly ever song on Lizzos Grammy-winning album Cuz I Love You was about a Gemini man she was seeing at the time. She says the relationship fell apart because of bad timing and her need for freedom. As fucked up as it sounds, I needed that heartbreak experience, she told Rolling Stone. Im not sad, because I use the pain so constructively. Its inevitable. The pain is human experience. Lizzo performs during her Cuz I Love You Too Tour at Radio City Music Hall in New York City | Steven Ferdman/Getty Images Lizzo has had many weddings before Lizzo told Rolling Stone that for many years she saw herself having a lonely lifestyle no children, two friends, and focused on her work. But its different now, she added. Like my relationship with my family, Im working on that. I open myself up to friendships. I open myself up to the idea of children, which is big for me, cause my albums are my babies. That doesnt mean that Lizzo hasnt been in her fair share of weddings. When she performed Truth Hurts at the BET Awards in 2019, she and her dancers all wore white outfits and danced on a giant wedding cake. This set design is something she continued with every performance of Truth Hurts on her Cuz I Love You Too Tour. RELATED: Lizzo Learned This Musical Talent From Growing Up in Houston Lizzo wants to walk down the aisle to one particular song Lizzo also made history this year by becoming the first plus-size Black woman on the cover of Vogue magazine. In a video interview after her cover shoot, Lizzo opened up about her music, her life, and where she hopes to go from here. When asked about what song shed like to walk down the aisle to at her wedding, she effortlessly dodges the question and asks if they were talking about the aisle at the grocery store or the aisle of an airplane. While she doesnt give a straight answer regarding her wedding, she gave a classically Lizzo answer to the question. I like to walk down the private jet aisle to Shake That Laffy Taffy by D4L, she laughed. She added that shed love to have her first dance at her wedding to Knuck If You Buck by Crime Mob, and even calls the hip hop classic the national anthem. Yellowstone County residents should be wary of possible fraudsters calling under the guise of being public health officials, according to an announcement from RiverStone Health. The announcement made in a press release issued Friday is one of several cautions made by local and state officials about the rise in scam artists looking to take advantage of the epidemic. Phone calls from RiverStone Health contact tracers are not recorded or automated messages, the announcement read. If RiverStone Health contact tracers are unable to reach someone, they will leave a message identifying themselves and providing their direct phone number at RiverStone Health in Billings. RiverStone Health contact tracers dont tell people to call the state or the local information line. The public health service for the county reported that several people had received messages from people claiming to be with Yellowstone Public Health. The messages said recipients should call the local public health office, or gave a Montana phone number to a line that is not accepting incoming calls. In the announcement, RiverStone Health CEO John Felton said the messages were confusing and were not from RiverStone Health. Every morning at about half past 10, I get a slightly sick feeling in my stomach. Maybe you do, too. Thats when the number of new COVID-19 cases in Ontario is announced. As the rate of infections has shot up, its hard not to be struck with anxiety. We have tools to combat the virus social distancing, masks, handwashing and, of course, the COVID Alert app made available by the federal government. But the app has seen disappointing uptake. By last count at the beginning of September, it was at only 2.2 million downloads in Ontario, a province of nearly 15 million people. With a second wave of the pandemic decidedly here, why are we avoiding one of the key tools to help us fight it? We can guess at least one reason: a profound mistrust of tech, born of the surveillance and privacy failures of our current tech environment. With so many people suspicious of how technology keeps track of them, even helpful, well-intentioned programs can get hijacked by the way tech has become untrustworthy. Strangely enough, where privacy is concerned, the COVID Alert app is actually rather good. Built on joint technology from both Apple and Google, the app works by sending out randomized, anonymous codes that are read by other phones. If someone marks themselves as having tested positive for COVID-19, anyone who has come into contact with them is notified of potential exposure. The information isnt sent to any sort of central database, and no identifying information is shared. The focus on privacy also means that we do not know how many people have been notified of potential exposure. Its not perfect. Because the app relies on Bluetooth, the same technology used for earpieces and wireless headphones, it can mistakenly register exposure say, through walls of an apartment building where someone might technically be 10 feet away, but there has been no exposure. Nonetheless, compared to most of the apps we use on our phones, its extremely private. But how are people to trust that? Consider that the major apps we use Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and so on not only openly track us, but do so as the core part of their business model, making tracking and smartphone use seem synonymous. Then there are the gaffes in privacy or social responsibility: Google workers hearing conversations recorded by peoples smartspeakers, Facebooks role in spreading coronavirus misinformation, the murky questions surrounding TikToks relationship to the Chinese governing party. There is a persistent sense that you can never quite trust what big tech is doing. This is to say nothing of the broader culture of surveillance enabled by tech: the use of Amazons Ring cameras to track what goes on near ones front door; tracking software to proctor exams during the COVID-19 home-schooling period; or, more simply, the wider social deployment of such technologies in conjunction with governments and the police. Just this fall, Amazon announced a new drone that flies around ones home, ostensibly to record potential intrusions. Quite simply, modern digital technology has fostered distrust because it so regularly tracks our behaviour while also cultivating a culture of watchfulness and surveillance. Is it any wonder then that when presented with an app the explicit purpose of which appears to be tracking a persons health that people are hesitant to download it? If private enterprise has corrupted the once promising potential of tech by turning it into an ominous, seemingly ever-watchful eye, it is not the only target of blame. After all, in ceding so much of social and cultural life to big tech companies, governments have also allowed them to dominate the cultural response to tech that the tools we use to work, socialize and inform ourselves are so often seen as being caught up in this privacy-invading approach, rather than being thought of as helpful, productive, new. This is a deeply strange and untenable situation. In almost all other significant aspects of life, there is a role for the state to play in offering the basic stuff of life: utilities, roads and the broader infrastructure that underpins the economy and cultural life. Perhaps it is time that the government also play a role in digital life by offering basic digital services as part of its public obligation be it straightforward things like email or calendars, or a suite of apps related to government functions that would protect privacy as a core principle. These measures may act as a counterbalance to the domination of tech tracking giants. As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, there will be times when we collectively need to rely on technology to address the challenges of modern life. That requires trust something that Facebook, Google, Amazon et al have all too successfully undermined. What if instead one could use their phone without a sinking feeling they are being watched and tracked? And what if the bodies we elect to represent us were the ones to help us reclaim that trust? Read more about: Four children and a woman from one family have been fatally stabbed in a knife and hammer attack in a Paris home. Four others were wounded, three of them seriously, local media reported. The attacker, reportedly an uncle in the family, was found at the scene unconscious and injured with a knife and hammer by his side. Police are investigating the incident, which took place in Noisy-le-Sec, an eastern suburb of Paris. TV broadcaster BFM Paris reported that on Saturday morning, a bloodied youth ran to a nearby bar for help and told the manager his uncle had gone mad and assaulted his family with a knife and hammer. Recommended Paris bars face possible closure as virus patients fill ICUs Police were sent to to the scene urgently at about 11am and used a battering ram to force one of the house doors open. The suspect was taken to Beacon Hospital and the area was cordoned off by national and municipal police. The Jewish Democratic Council of America ran an ad comparing Nazi Germany to President Trump's America. This ad is blatantly untrue, and it dangerously minimizes the Holocaust and the real threat to American Jews from Antifa and Black Lives Matter, leftist groups that hate Israel. Worst of all, though, the ad lies about the fact that Trump is the most pro-Israel, Jewish-friendly president in modern history. Ironically, Democrat Jewish are allying themselves with America's left. The left hates Israel. BLM protests have included anti-Semitic rhetoric, and there was a BLM pogrom in the Los Angeles area. The left also ignores that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was anti-Trump due to the president's strong connection to Jews. Instead, many leftist Jews scoff when Republican Jews heap praise on Trump and ignore Trump's growing support from moderate Democrat Jews. These leftists are not in on the open secret: Trump is good for the Jews. More than any other president, President Trump has stood with the only Jewish homeland, a country that is also one of America's greatest friends and a strategic ally. Additionally, Jews in the Diaspora are safer when Israel is strong. Even as leftists were calling Trump a "Nazi," the Trump administration fulfilled a decades-old promise to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel's actual 3,500-year-old capital. In 1995, a bipartisan Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, authorizing the U.S. embassy's move to Jerusalem. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama all invoked the legislation's waiver provision instead of recognizing reality and moving the embassy. Despite massive pressure from both international and domestic political anti-Semites not to act, President Trump moved the embassy, cementing a promise to Jews that our ancestral capital matters and should be treated with diplomatic deference. No Democrat officials attended the embassy's opening ceremony in Jerusalem. In the past three and a half years, Trump enacted a dizzying number of pro-Israel policies. After the U.S. withdrew from the failed JCPOA (Obama's Iran nuclear deal), sanctions have choked Iran's terrorist regime. Trump made Nikki Haley his ambassador to the United Nations, where she spoke out clearly and forcefully against anti-Israel actions in that body. Under President Trump, the U.S. left the Israel-hating UNESCO, which routinely declares Jewish heritage sites "Palestinian." President Trump also stopped funding the anti-Semitic UNWRA, a U.N. agency dedicated solely to Palestinian Arabs. UNRWA perpetually keeps Palestinians as refugees and "victims" of the 1948 Arab-led war. Adding to the long list of counter-terrorism measures, Trump closed the terrorist PLO office in D.C. The president, through his directives, made it clear that he stands with the Jewish homeland. The above moves should prove that Trump is no Nazi, but there is more! When Trump recognized the Golan Heights, he surprised even U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Unlike Judea and Samaria, which were originally Jewish lands that Jordan occupied until the end of the Arab-initiated 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategic area in the north of Israel, on the Syria border, in a defensive war and then annexed the region. Trump implemented pro-Jewish policies against actual terrorists (e.g., cutting $200 million in funds to the Palestinian Authority because of its pay-for-slay tactics) and pulled the United States out of the anti-Semitic United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). This anti-Semitic body existed to prop up authoritarian Arab regimes. When Trump had Iranian Quds Force arch-terrorist Gen. Soleimani killed, his order was celebrated domestically and internationally by those who understood Soleimani's trail of the terror carnage. Israel has been debating applying sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, Israel's ancestral heartland, and the Jordan Valley. In a very non-Nazi way, Trump and secretary of state Mike Pompeo have indicated that, if Israel asserts its sovereignty, the U.S. will recognize this action as legal. The Abraham Accords have also fundamentally realigned the Middle East geopolitically and normalized relations between key Arab states and Israel. At home, the Trump administration's pro-Jewish and pro-Israel actions have been significant. The State Department now uses the correct language Judea and Samaria instead of the propaganda phrase "West Bank." Education secretary Betsy DeVos is fulfilling her promise to investigate anti-Semitism on college campuses, including the most pervasive type, anti-Zionism. And on December 11, 2019, the White House enacted the ultimate philo-Semitic executive order when it included Jews in Title VI, protecting Jewish students from anti-Semitism in federally funded institutions. Before 2019, Jews were excluded from Title VI and therefore fared poorly at programs and universities, especially where anti-Israel hate was expressed without fear of repercussion. Presidents Washington and Lincoln were friendly to their Jewish citizens, but President Trump might as well be a member of the tribe. Like many people in 2016, I didn't vote for my candidate; I voted against the other. Thus, I voted against Hillary. Her colossal failures and massive corruption scared me. This November, though, I will be voting for President Trump enthusiastically, both as a proud American and as a Jew. Laureen Lipsky is a pro-Israel advocate living in New York and the founder of "Taking Back the Narrative." An op-ed writer, previously published in Jewish publications, she has recently written an exclusive piece on anti-Semitism for the Center for Security Policy. Image: Trump at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. YouTube screen grab. Queensland's Deputy Premier made a joke at Donald Trump's expense on Twitter on Friday after the US President announced he and First Lady Melania had tested positive to COVID-19. However, the state Opposition has questioned whether Health Minister Steven Miles' move was wise, considering the US is one of Queensland's most important trading partners. Mr Miles' tweet "Have you considered intravenous disinfectant?" was labelled "disgraceful" and "tasteless" by some readers in the comments section. However, Mr Miles defended his "joke" by citing the President's "bizarre statements about treatments" during the pandemic, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans. President Donald Trump is doing very well" about 72 hours into his diagnosis with COVID-19, said the presidents physician, Dr. Sean Conley, at a press conference late Saturday morning. Trump as of Saturday morning is not on oxygen and does not have a fever, Conley said alongside a group of physicians outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where the president was taken Friday as a precautionary measure. Conleys statement of 72 hours raises questions about the timeline of Trumps diagnosis. The president announced that he and First Lady Melania Trump were positive just before 1 a.m. Friday. Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020 A little clarity on what Dr. Conley meant when he said they're 72 hours into Trump's coronavirus diagnosis: he was saying its day three, per one official. (Thursday night positive result, Friday to Walter Reed, and it's now Saturday.) Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 3, 2020 The president has been fever-free for more than 24 hours, but Trump did have a fever Thursday into Friday, Conley said. On Saturday morning, Trump is up and walking around in, physicians said. Physicians provided the update on the presidents health Saturday morning from outside Walter Reed. About 48 hours ago, Trump received a special antibody therapy directed against the coronavirus," Dr. Brian Garibaldi said, and has received a first dose of Remdesivir. The plan is to keep the president on a five-day treatment course of the drug, Garibaldi said. Trump is in great spirits," Garibaldi said," and the plan for the day is to encourage him to eat, drink and stay out of bed. Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!!Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2020 Another physician, Dr. Sean Dooley, said Trump is in exceptionally good spirits. In fact, as we were completing our multidisciplinary rounds this morning, the quote he left us with was I feel like I could walk out of here today, and that was a very encouraging comment from the president, Dooley said. Trumps cardiac, kidney and liver are all functioning normal, Dooley said. Physicians continue to monitor Trump for any possible complications of the virus. Conley added that Hydroxychloroquine was discussed and asked about by the president but Trump is not on the drug. More than anything, Conley said, the president has felt rundown. On Thursday, Trump had a mild cough, nasal congestion and fatigue, Conley said, all symptoms that are improving. Reporters outside Walter Reed repeatedly asked Conley if Trump had received any oxygen at all. Conley continued to say only that Trump has not been on oxygen Saturday morning. The president and First Family are grateful for the support and prayers, Conley said. Trumps positive test followed a debate with candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday and a ceremony on Saturday announcing Judge Amy Coney Barretts nomination to the Supreme Court. That ceremony was held outdoors, though attendees sat close together and few wore masks. Following Trumps diagnosis, several advisers and allies have tested positive for the virus. Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, the president of the University of Notre Dame, and at least two Republican lawmakers, Utah Sen. Mike Lee and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, have reported positive tests. Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, also reported a positive test on Saturday morning. I just received word that I am positive for COVID-19. I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues who have reached out to ask how I was feeling in the last day or two. I will be receiving medical attention today and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition. Governor Christie (@GovChristie) October 3, 2020 Material from The Associated Press was used in this report. Related Content: The South African government declared the Phoenix Settlement in Durban as a National Heritage Site on the 151st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi even as several events were organised across the country to celebrate the occasion. Indian High Commissioner Jaideep Sarkar on Friday welcomed the announcement regarding the Phoenix Settlement where Gandhi established a commune, started his experiments with Satyagraha, and printed his newspaper Indian Opinion. This confirm the strong links that bind India and South Africa, and it also gives us a roadmap here in Johannesburg to do the same for Tolstoy Farm, Sarkar said as the keynote speaker at the commune south of the city where Gandhi established a similar facility while practising as a lawyer. Let us all work together to petition the South African government to get equal recognition for Tolstoy Farm as a National Heritage Site as well," he said. Sarkar said this would not only preserve the physical site, but also the legacies, ideas and values that Gandhi held dear for future generations. Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm are the places where he transformed as a political, physical and spiritual being. The political ideas of non-violence and passive resistance mass mobilisation were ideas that were relevant in the 20th century. But unfortunately human history has shown us that oppression, and injustice are never far away from societies, he said. Sarkar joined the Mahatma Gandhi Remembrance Organisation (MGRO) in officially launching public ablution facilities at Tolstoy Farm. Some other events, coordinated on the day by Indian Consul General in Johannesburg Anju Ranjan, included a food festival featuring some favourite dishes of Gandhi, the last of a series of virtual lectures on Gandhi and the lighting up the towers at Constitution Hill in the colours of the Indian flag. President Donald Trump, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and First Lade Melania Trump after Tuesday's debate. C-SPAN/YouTube Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Friday, hours after President Donald Trump announced he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the virus. Cleveland Clinic, which worked as a health adviser for the Commission on Presidential Debates for Tuesday's debate between Biden and Trump told Insider there was a "low risk of exposure" to the event. But the risk wasn't zero it's unclear exactly when Trump and Melania Trump were first exposed to COVID-19. Photos show Melania Trump walking closely to Biden on stage while not wearing a mask, and speaking loudly indoors may have led to a higher risk for virus particles to linger in the air. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Related: Highlights from Trump and Biden's first presidential debate President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19, just days after he participated in an in-person debate against Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Cleveland, Ohio. Photos from the debate show Trump and Biden maintained their distance throughout the event but Melania Trump was pictured walking close the former vice president on stage while not wearing a mask, and that coupled with the risk of transmission during indoor events, reveals just how close the US came to having two presidential candidates contract COVID-19. The Cleveland Clinic, which worked as a health adviser for the Commission on Presidential Debates during the event, told Insider that it put multiple safety measures in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the debate, and confirmed everyone attending had tested negative prior to entry. "Individuals traveling with both candidates, including the candidates themselves, had been tested and tested negative by their respective campaigns," the Cleveland Clinic said. "Based on what we know about the virus and the safety measures we had in place, we believe there is low risk of exposure to our guests." Story continues Debate moderator Chris Wallace said on Fox News on Friday that there was an "honor system" for candidates to confirm they were tested for COVID-19, though that has not been confirmed by the Cleveland Clinic. While the Cleveland Clinic said there was "low risk of exposure" to the virus at the debate, the risk of exposure wasn't zero. It's unclear exactly when or how the Trumps contracted COVID-19. It can take four to five days between exposure and symptoms to start, and top White House aide Hope Hicks who had been in close contact with the president announced she was positive hours before the president announced his diagnosis. First lady Melania Trump walks past Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at the conclusion of the first 2020 presidential campaign debate between U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden held on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., September 29, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder The World Health Organization said that being indoors can allow the virus to linger in the air through small particles called aerosols, and research suggests that loud talking can propel particles even further. Biden and Trump spoke loudly throughout the debate and there's a chance Biden could have been exposed to COVID-19 if the president and First Lady had already contracted the virus prior to the event and medical experts told Business Insider it was likely they did. As for Melania Trump walking closely to Biden, it's unclear exactly how far Biden's podium was from the steps Melania Trump walked up to get on stage, but Insider estimates between five and 10 feet. Neither the Huntington Convention Center, where the event was held, nor Commission on Presidential Debates immediately responded to Insider's requests for further information. In this Sept. 29, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump, left, watches as first lady Melania Trump, center, walks on stage past Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, at the conclusion of the first presidential debate at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. President Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus, the president tweeted early Friday. AP Photo/Julio Cortez Business Insider reporter Anna Medaris Miller reported that Biden will likely have to take another COVID-19 test, since it's only been two days since he shared the debate stage with Trump. Amesh Adalja, a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, told Business Insider that more details need to be known before it's determined if Biden was exposed or not. "Knowing the timeline of the president's last negative test ad when he became symptomatic and when the positive test was resulted knowing that timeline is the only way you can really determine whether or not Joe Biden was a significant exposure," he told Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider Lorenzo.ae Lorenzo.ae is a premium merchandising store in the heart of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai. Lorenzo.ae is a premium merchandising store in the heart of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai. Dubai, UAE, Oct. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mohamed Sarhan, a young entrepreneur from the land of the deserts has set out to make the world fashionable with his unique taste in merchandising. Mohamed Sarhan established Lorenzo.ae in 2016 to add more life to what can be considered boring and mundane clothing. He set out to make his mark in one of the ever-evolving industries i.e. the fashion industry. He is an entrepreneur with a vision to bring the best of the fashion to the party culture and leave people in awe of even basic apparel like a face mask that he sells. However, there is nothing basic at Lorenzo.ae ! What can be pushed off as a simple face masks stand out when you buy them from Lorenzo.ae as they are sound activated with optic fiber lights on them. When asked about what made him enter the fashion industry with the idea of merchandising unique clothing Mr. Sarhan quirkily replied Lifes too short to wear boring clothes and that fashion always fascinated him. He is the only merchandiser and retailer in the whole of the middle east to sell the clothes that he does. His clientele extends to all corners of the globe. He started with a single shop in the global village and gradually grew to have 5 shops in the global village in 2019. He has a diverse workforce from different countries who vouch for his work ethics and long vision. Mr. Sarhans goal is to have his clothes rule every party. With a big vision, he is set out on a mission to light up the world with his unique and futuristic fashion that incorporates the latest and the best of the technologies available. +971 56 989 2555 info@lorenzo.ae ### Attachment Authorities in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras on Saturday reopened the borders and said they will allow media to enter the village in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras, where a 19-year-old woman was gang-raped, officials said. Police had set up barricades roughly 2km from the village on the main road early on Thursday, blocked off all access paths and deployed policemen on the mud tracks and in the fields to prevent any outsiders from accessing the village. Officials had also said that Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits the assembly of four or more people, was clamped in the area. They had said the ongoing probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was the reason for the restrictions. Also read | Mayawati demands CBI probe, Akhilesh seeks FIRs against DM, SP Since SIT probe in the village is complete, the restriction on media has been lifted. More than five media persons are now allowed to gather as Section 144 of CrPC is in place, Prem Prakash Meena, Sadar senior divisional magistrate, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Also read | UP Congress chief under house arrest ahead of Rahul Gandhi, Priyankas Hathras visit: Party Only the media is allowed right now. When orders come in to allow delegations, we will let everybody know. All allegations about phones of the family members being taken away or confining them in their homes are absolutely baseless, Meena said. UPs director general of police HC Awasthi will visit Hathras amid a controversy over local administrations handling of the alleged rape case. Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, are expected to visit the village later in the day to meet the womans family, the party has said. The woman was allegedly raped by four dominant-caste men on September 14 when she had gone to the fields in her village to gather cattle fodder. She was admitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of Aligarh Muslim University after she was left partially paralysed and then shifted to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi when her condition did not improve. She died on Tuesday morning. The former High Court chief justice who recommended an academic freedom definition be made law later agreed to remove the most contentious element after universities raised concerns. A version of Robert French's definition of academic freedom will be legislated in university funding reforms after One Nation demanded it in exchange for supporting the government's bill. Robert French edited his proposed definition of academic freedom from his report after consulting with universities. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer In his government-commissioned report into free speech at Australian universities, Mr French proposed inserting a lengthy definition into the Higher Education Support Act that included a broad freedom of academic staff to teach, discuss, and disseminate their research. The definition also said academic staff would have the freedom to "make lawful public comment on any issue in their personal capacities" and that this should occur "without constraint imposed by reason of their employment by the university". YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan announced that the analysis of the developments of the previous day show that 150-200 soldiers of the enemy attack 1 military position of the Defense Army of Artsakh. Moreover, this kind of attacks are repeated several times during a day and are supported by missile and conventional artillery, armored vehicles, aircrafts and UAVs, ARMENPRESS reports Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in his October 3 address to the nation. According to our military, in addition to the Azerbaijani army units, Syrian mercenaries and terrorists, special units of the Turkish army are involved in the attacks. We have information that 150 high level Turkish military officers are in different Azerbaijani command centers and control the military operations. What I mentioned here show how fierce clashes are taking place on the frontline, he said. Its already a week that the Defense Army of Artsakh, together with units of volunteers are fighting on the holy land of Artsakh. By now we have already suffered many casualties military and civilian. A lot of military equipments have been destroyed, but the enemy has failed to solve any strategic task. The resilience with which our soldiers, officers, generals and volunteers withstand this heinous attack is unbelievable. Our soldiers and volunteers spare nothing and demonstrate unimaginable acts of heroism. Today hundreds of armored vehicles, dozens of airplanes and helicopters, hundreds of UAVs of the adversary have already been destroyed. Manpower losses of the adversary are over a few thousands. AT this moment fierce clashes continue in different parts of the frontline, in some cases the Defense Army units have appeared in rather unfavorable situation, in other places confidently keep control of the situation, Pashinyan said. Its already a week the Armenian people in Artsakh and Armenia are withstanding the terrorist attack of Turkey and Azerbaijan. The scale of the attack is unprecedented, military experts say such attacks are seldom in the 21st century. Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan Africa | Wealth in the continent increased by around 14 percent to reach $1.6 trillion in 2017. However, at just $3,000, the per capita wealth remained very low. (Image: Reuters) On September 24, an Indian medical team arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo to upgrade Indian Peacekeeping Field Hospital. Simultaneously, the 15th Confederation of Indian Industry-EXIM Digital Conclave on India-Africa partnership was being held. Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar emphasised that Africa is Indias priority, and For India, Africas rise as one of the global systems poles is not just desirable, it is absolutely necessary... Broader global rebalancing is incomplete without the genuine emergence of Africa. This then is what both drives and informs India's Africa outreach. Indeed, India has never been as engaged in Africa as it is now. According to official data, India has completed 194 developmental projects in 37 African countries at a cost of $11.6 billion and is currently working to complete 77 additional ones in 29 countries. These span multiple sectors, including infrastructure, ICT, power generation, agriculture, irrigation, even oil and gas. India has also invested around $7 billion in Mozambique, South Sudan and other regions of North and West Africa. India-Africa ties have seen a steady growth over past few years, so much so that India has become Africas third-largest export destination. With an investment of $54 billion, India happens to be one of the biggest investors in the continent. COVID-19 in particular seems to have propelled greater Indian outreach to the continent. India has been delivering aid and training to African countries in their fight against the virus. It has thus far sent medical teams to, Mauritius, Comoros, as also to other countries such as Maldives. The Indian Navy medical teams have been stationed in Mauritius and Comoros, where theyve toured local hospitals, trained personnel and assisted in COVID-19 management techniques. The above also reflect the fillip to defence ties between India and Africa. India has also been active in peacekeeping in Africa, setting up of defence academies, deployment of training teams. On February 6, the first-ever India Africa Defence Ministers Conclave took place in Lucknow in conjunction with India's defence expo. Over 154 delegates from Africa participated in the conclave, which also included defence ministers from 14 African countries. However, the arena remains crowded as other powers are also reaching out extensively to Africa, which has become a coveted destination for FDIs, loans and even defence bases, not just for traditional powers such as France and the United States, but also for others such as China and Turkey. In fact, the greatest challenge to India in Africa comes from China, with its far larger economy. Africa is key to China's Belt and Road Initiative with 20 African countries signing on to it. The Africa Attractiveness report, found that from 2014 to 2018, China was the largest investor in Africa in terms of total capital, with around $72,235 million, whereas India accounted for only $5,403 million. China also has a reputation for speedy delivery of projects undertaken, something India lacks. With the private sector at the fore, private companies have also come under scrutiny for tax evasion and flouting local rules. India, however, has an edge in its approach and the emotional bonding it shares with Africa. This not only includes Mahatma Gandhi's legacy, but also the Indian diaspora in countries such as South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania. Besides, India's developmental partnership is also far less exploitative than that of China's, and simultaneously more responsive to African needs. For instance, while countries such as Nigeria and Kenya have been quick to welcome Chinese investments and infrastructure projects, many have come under scrutiny or renegotiation of terms. In 2019, a court in Kenya halted construction on a $2 billion power plant financed by China for lack of transparency. There have also been reports of labour abuse of African workers on Chinese projects. According to UN trade data for 2017, total imports of 39 African countries from China exceeded $71 billion, while those from India amounted to $21 billion, again making Africa far more dependent on China. However, most importantly, Africa's debt to China has increased exponentially over the past decade, almost $30 billion in 2016. With COVID-19 hitting Africa hard, the International Monetary Fund estimates project that sub-Saharan African economies will shrink by nearly 3.2 percent this year. While China has announced some debt relief, countries are now increasingly reviewing Chinese investments and loans. In 2018, Ethiopia renegotiated its Chinese debt. Now pandemic-hit Kenya wants to renegotiate its Chinese loan borrowed to build a railway, and in Nigeria and Zambia projects are being put on hold because of COVID-19. Countries are having second thoughts about hitherto sought after Chinese loans. No wonder there was joy among some Africans when the Government of India announced special measures earlier this year to pre-empt Chinese investments in India that would leverage the negative effects of the pandemic. COVID-19 will reshape Africa's ties with China and this would present India with yet another opportunity to build on the existing base of its partnership with Africa. Where it will be difficult for India to go alone, it will have to enter into partnerships, like activating the India-Japan-Africa corridor, or partnering with other countries such as France or the US. The Special Investigation Team set up by the Uttar Pradesh government has completed its probe into the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped, officials said on Saturday as barricades outside her village in Hathras were lifted and the media was allowed in. IMAGE: Police personnel beefed up at Hathras border, in Lucknow. Photograph: ANI Photo All roads it seemed led to Hathras with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath sending senior officials, including Additional Chief Secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police H C Awasthy, to the village to meet her family. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who were detained amid high drama on Thursday, were also headed towards Hathras in another effort to meet the family. There was heavy police deployment on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with barricades on Delhi-Noida Direct flyway and scores of policemen deployed. The border is not sealed but checks have been intensified at the Delhi-Noida border, according to a local police officer. As the Congress delegation from Delhi prepared to make its way to Hathras, about 180 km away, its Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu and more than 500 workers were put under house arrest, the party alleged. The Dalit teen died of her grievous injuries in the early hours of Tuesday in a Delhi hospital and cremated in the dead of night near her home on Wednesday with her family alleging that they were forced by local police to hurriedly conduct her last rites, triggering outrage nationwide and protests in several places. She was attacked on September 14. On Thursday, the Hathras administration clamped prohibitory orders barring the assembly of more than four people in the district, where scuffles broke out as politicians, including from the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, as well as the media tried to access the village. About 300 police personnel stood on guard to prevent anybody from entering. On Saturday, however, the administration lifted restrictions on the media's entry. "Only the entry of media has been allowed into the village of the victim as the probe of the SIT has completed," Joint Magistrate Prem Prakash Meena told reporters. Adityanath had set up three-member Special Investigation Team on Wednesday and instructed that it submit its report by October 14. The state's government's top officials, Awanish Awasthi and police chief H C Awasthy, will meet the woman's family members and submit their report to the chief minister on their return. "After returning from there we will be submitting a report on the entire incident to the chief minister," Awanish Awasthi said. The death of the young woman, whose brutal assault recalled for many the horrors of the Nirbhaya case, continued to snowball into a major political issue In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable". The former Congress president asserted that "no power in the world" can stop him from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and sharing their pain. Hitting out at the Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi described the UP government as "morally corrupt" and said, "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test." The party also alleged that the woman and her family had been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the Bharatiya Janata Party government. Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati demanded a CBI or a Supreme Court monitored probe into the incident and said people were not satisfied with the initial investigations in the matter. "There is tremendous resentment in the entire country over the Hathras heinous gangrape case. The public does not seem satisfied with the initial probe report. Therefore, this matter should be investigated by the CBI or under the supervision of the honourable Supreme Court. This is the demand of the BSP," Mayawati tweeted in Hindi. "Also, the honourable president of the country, who also comes from UP and is a Dalit, it is a strong appeal to him to intervene in this case, keeping in mind the inhuman attitude of the government, to bring justice to the victim family," she added. NEW YORK New York unleashed another weapon in its arsenal to fight the new coronavirus. This one will reside on your smartphone. At a news conference Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state had launched its new COVID Alert NY app. He said the free app uses the phone's built-in Bluetooth technology to alert the phone's owner that they have been in close contact with another person who is infected with the virus. Close contact, according to the app, is defined as being within 6 feet of someone for more than 10 minutes. Cuomo said the app was really creative and could make a big difference. Even though the state has about 19 million residents, there are just 15,000 contact tracers, or as Cuomo calls them "disease detectives." He said the app could help identify faster those who have been potentially been exposed to the new coronavirus. "Testing is only as good as your contract tracing," he said. New York's app will work in concert with those in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware and soon in Connecticut as a regional alert network to help stop the spread of the virus. The app works by sensing nearby phones and storing anonymous close contact codes. If someone who has activated the app tests positive, they will be called by a representative of their local public health department who will ask if that person is willing to share their close contacts stored on their phone. If the person agrees, then those close contacts will receive an exposure alert, along with next steps to stay safe and prevent community spread. Officials said the alert will never reveal the identify of the person who tested positive for the virus, nor will the app collect location or personal data from your phone. The big "if" in all of this is, how many people are willing to use the app. The more phone users opting in, the better the notification system will work, officials said. The app can be dowloaded for free from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Story continues For more information on the app and how it is used, go to the state health department's website. Now it's your turn to weigh in on the issue. Vote in our unscientific poll and tell us what you think in the comments. This article originally appeared on the Yorktown-Somers Patch Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 16:31:28|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The 21st-century Maritime Silk Road proposed by China in 2013 benefits countries and people along the route and brings them peace and development opportunities, several experts have said recently. In promoting the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has advocated multilateralism, emphasized win-win and mutual benefits, and shown a strong driving force in global governance, they said. Cavince Adhere, a Kenya-based international relations researcher with a focus on China-Africa relations, said that by bringing together countries across different continents, the BRI "expands the space of multilateralism." In a global governance system in which some major powers are "increasingly looking inside with strong economic nationalism, and show disregard for the established rules, the Maritime Silk Road is another opportunity by China to galvanize progressive countries and shape a more beneficial, equal and inclusive international system," he said. "The number of countries that have subscribed to the Maritime Silk Road is a testament to the utility of the initiative as a new frontier of global governance and development," he added. Karim al-Omda, professor at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, said that China has paid close attention to the BRI by facilitating trade between the participating countries, and has prioritized mutual benefits in cooperating with other countries. "China transfers its experience and technology and makes great progress in the mobile networks and the 5G technologies which will improve the world growth rates and increase the trade volume that suffered a decline during the COVID-19 period," he said. Cambodian People's Party spokesman Suos Yara said that it's vital for countries along the route to jointly build the Belt and Road, "especially to maintain an open and liberal international economic architecture," and promote "win-win cooperation." The BRI is "evolving to become a key pillar in global governance," said Yara, adding that he is convinced that the BRI will create more economic development opportunities for Cambodia and safeguard regional and global peace and development. Enditem Our homeland is now in a state of war, Bishop Daniel Findikyan, primate of the Armenian Church of Americas Eastern Diocese, said in a Monday letter to the faithful in his diocese, which includes Wisconsin. On Sunday, Sept. 27, the Republic of Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, began attacking territory that is, legally speaking, its own land. Turks call the region Nagorno-Karabakh, while Armenians know it as Artsakh. The mountainous territory, which is slightly smaller than Delaware, is almost entirely populated by ethnic Armenians, although it lies within Turk-populated Azerbaijan, just east of the country of Armenia. With around 200 dead combined from both sides over the past week, including dozens of civilian casualties, its the worst violence seen in the region in decades. But violence there is nothing new. From 1992-1994, 30,000 people died during a conflict in which the Armenians occupying Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh tried to become independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here we are again, Fr. Avedis Kalayjian, the pastor at St. Mesrob Armenian Church in Caledonia, thought somberly when he heard the news last week. On Wednesday and Saturday, he led prayer services calling for peace in the region. With fighting continuing daily, more volunteers enlisting and the death count rising, peace cant come soon enough. The most frustrating part about this particular set of attacks is that they come unprovoked from the Azari side, Kalayjian told The Journal Times. It appears that Turkey, while theyve always had a behind-the-scenes effort to always support Azerbaijan, is taking a more overt course of action by using their military hardware to support Azerbaijan. Many Armenians, Kalayjian included, believe that this ongoing conflict is just a facade for Turkeys longheld desire to establish what Kalayjian calls a Pan-Turkic Empire, while the Turks have maintained that they are simply trying to regain control of land they believe should belong to them. For Armenians and for me personally, this is just another episode in a long conflict between Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians, Kalayjian said. I think a lot of Armenians in the diocese look at it that way. Theres no real distinction between the Turks of Azerbaijan and the Turks of Turkey. One of the reasons why this conflict is so scary is because Armenia is the only thing that is blocking a pan-Turkic empire that would run from all the way from Istanbul, near the westernmost point in Turkey, to China. History of violence, genocide Relations between Turks and Armenians have really never been good, especially not since the Armenian Genocide, in which as many as 1.5 million people were killed from 1914-1923 via starvation, mass drownings, death marches and other atrocities carried out by the Republic of Turkey and former Ottoman Empire. It was a calculated effort to get non-Turkic people out of that area, Kalayjian said. Turkey has disparaged the use of the word genocide to describe what happened, but most historians and more than 30 countries including the U.S., Russia and Germany still recognize the atrocities as being one of the deadliest genocides in history. Following this new violence, The Daily Beast published a story Tuesday with the headline Armenians Fear Turkey Is Back to Finish Off the Genocide. Following the genocide is when many Armenians came to the U.S., with a large number of them settling and finding jobs in southeastern Wisconsin. Now, Kalayjian said, there are few Armenian immigrants or first-generation Armenians living in Wisconsin. But ties to the country of Armenia are strong, particularly for those who have visited the landlocked country and volunteered there. These kinds of conflicts, these kinds of border skirmishes, hit very close to home, Kalayjian said. During the 20th century, the lands that now make up Armenia and Azerbaijan were under rule of the Soviet Union. But as the USSR began collapsing in the late 1980s, Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh almost entirely made up of Armenians despite sitting inside Turk-controlled Azerbaijan tried to break off. In 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan independently became independent of the Soviet Union. Around that same time, Artsakh sought to become independent on its own, with Armenians there taking control of Azerbaijani land and holding it until and after a ceasefire was put in place in May 1994. This territory of Artsakh has been an ancestral dwelling for Armenians for centuries, Kalayjian said. Years after that, the United Nations passed resolutions that said the land taken by Armenians should be relinquished back to Azerbaijan proper. But the U.N. has never really done anything to enforce or back off on those resolutions, despite tensions consistently bubbling. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told the international news outlet Al Jezeera that one of the reasons behind the current fighting is that mediators do not insist or exert pressure to start implementing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said something similar in a Tuesday speech, stating that The United States, Russia and France have not been able to resolve the conflict for almost 30 years. On the contrary, they are doing everything they can to prolong the problem ... Azerbaijan has already listened to you for 30 years! But whose lands are occupied? Azerbaijans! We have no time to wait another 30 years. The conflict must be resolved now. Kalayjian said that the Armenian Church of America is putting our (U.S.) government on notice by trying to get the U.S. to step in and serve as a fair broker to whatever resolution takes place We would like the United States to take this seriously. Armenian-Americans want U.S. to step in Bishop Findikyan said that Armenian-American advocacy groups meeting with legislators and the Trump administration want to call for an end of all aid from the U.S. to Azerbaijan while the conflict drags on. In recent years, however, the U.S. has grown less likely to get involved in foreign conflicts, according to Thomas de Waal, a historian and journalist, who noted that the U.S.s backing off could open up gaps for aggressors to exploit if they dont believe the worlds predominant military power will intervene. This current flare-up in Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh can also be seen as a symptom of a world in which the U.S. is no longer acting to defuse regional conflicts, de Waal wrote for Politico Europe. In an interview with The Daily Beast, de Waal said that it appears Azerbaijan thinks that currently the U.S. is preoccupied with the presidential elections and thus is less likely to try to protect Armenians against invaders. Another factor that heightens global wariness of this conflict is that Armenia still has a friendship with Russia. Should the small country call on the Kremlin for help and the Russians agree, it could drag out the conflict and lead to more deaths on both sides a scary concept for all involved, especially since Azerbaijan and Turkey are not necessarily on bad terms with Russia. On Friday, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. and Russia had come to an agreement regarding the conflict, but did not elaborate on what that agreement was. On Saturday, Turkeys foreign minister claimed that demands for a ceasefire were superficial, indicating that fighting will likely continue for the time being. Reporting from the Associated Press contributed to this story. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Varanasi, October 3 : During a visit to Varanasi on Saturday, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Zubin Irani described the incident in Hathras as painful. "Chief Minister Yogi will do justice in this matter. But Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka going to Hathras is just playing politics." Irani says she is confident that the Uttar Pradesh CM will carry out justice in this case. "I have also spoken on the phone with the Chief Minister on this matter." Taking a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, he said, "His attempted journey to Hathras is just playing politics. People of the country and the state understand this. They should go to Rajasthan and take the initiative to bring justice to the victim's family there, but they are trying to come to Hathras again and again for the sake of votes." Elaborating on the incident in Hathras she said, "I do not interfere in the affairs of any state because of constitutional decorum. But I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath on the Hathras case. The Chief Minister has formed the SIT. Action has already been taken against the SP and others on the preliminary report yesterday. Let the SIT report come. After that Yogi Adityanath will take stern action against those who have interfered with the investigation or those who have conspired to deny justice to the victim." The Union Minister further said, "Rahul Gandhi has always strived to do politics, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been successful in the realm of national policies. I think the people have understood the tactics of the Congress very well. If any leader wants to do politics on any subject, I cannot stop him, but the public understands that the journey to Hathras is for the sake of Rahul's own politics and not to deliver justice to the victim." Samajwadi Party and Congress women activists protested outside the Circuit House in Varanasi about the Hathras case. BJP MLA Saurabh Srivastava came out and tried to assuage the activists. But the protests continued. Meanwhile, Irani also spoke to the activists at the Circuit House. -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text The U.S. president is "not yet out of the woods" even though he is doing well and has completed the second dose of Remdesivir therapy, White House physician Dr. Sean Conley said in a statement on Saturday night. His comments came hours after President Donald Trump tweeted his first video statement since being admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center with coronavirus. In the video, Trump said he was feeling much better but also sounded cautious about his condition. He acknowledged the "real test" will come over the next few days as he receives treatment. The latest updates come amid confusing reports about Trump's condition. The White House physician said Trump is not currently on supplemental oxygen but would not comment on whether he had received oxygen at all. In an interview with Fox News on Saturday night, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said the president's oxygen levels "dropped rapidly" on Friday morning, causing some concern. Here are today's key updates so far: Manipur chief minister Nongthombam Biren Singh on Friday said that the state government will approach the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct bye-elections on all 13 vacant assembly seats instead of just two in the state. We are urging the ECI to conduct bye-elections in the left out vacant assembly constituencies too, Biren said, while responding to a question after flagging off a cycle rally in the capital held on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti and National Cleanliness Day 2020. On September 24, Biren had dropped six of his cabinet ministers and inducted five new faces in a major reshuffle. Three days after their induction, ministers were assigned portfolios. On the day of oath-taking by the new ministers, the BJP national vice president Baijayant Panda had even hinted about inducting another minister after the bye-elections. On September 29, the ECI announced that bye-elections for Lilong and Wangjing-Tentha assembly constituencies will be held on November 7. Sitting MLAs on these two seats had quit, necessitating the bypolls. At present, altogether 13 assembly constituencies are lying vacant in the 60 member Manipur legislative assembly after nine MLAs resigned and four were disqualified. Also Read: Manipur Unlock 2: Reopening of schools, colleges, cinemas, entertainment parks allowed The pending court cases could be the reason behind ECI not announcing bye-elections to the remaining assembly constituencies, according to the joint chief electoral officer of the state. The last date for making nominations is October 20 and the last date of withdrawal of candidature is October 23. The dates set aside for counting and completion of the election process, are November 10 and 12 respectively. Meanwhile Congress MLA Khumukcham Joykishan has demanded a separate standard operating procedure (SoP) for holding bye-elections for the two assembly constituencies to prevent further spread of Covid 19 pandemic in the border state. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A burger restaurant in London has been slapped with a 1,000 fine after it handed a take-away meal to a customer just four minutes after the 10pm coronavirus curfew. Bims Burgers, in Ilford, was hit with the penalty charge after police found it had allowed a single customer to order at exactly 10pm and passed over the food 240 seconds later. A spokesperson for the restaurant said that, given the customer had started placing the order ahead of the nightly curfew, staff believed serving them fell within the law. New rules regarding Covid-19 are being made thick and fast and sometimes it isnt clear exactly how they should be interpreted, they said. The fine was one of many given out across England as the country entered its second weekend with the new curfew and table service-only rules in place for pubs, restaurants and other leisure venues. In Liverpool, one nightclub was hit with a 1,000 levy after police found not all customers were seated and several were not adhering to social distancing rules. The venue, 24 Kitchen Street, was raided by officers at 8.30pm on Friday following reports. Chief Inspector Karl Baldwin of Merseyside Police said: It is extremely disappointing that for the second weekend in a row we have been forced to issue a fine because a premises has failed in its obligations to act responsibly. Meanwhile, it was revealed on Friday that a hotel manager in Solihull became one of the first people in England to be hit with the maximum 10,000 fine for breaching coronavirus regulations after hosting a wake with more than 200 guests. Castle Bromwich Hall Hotel was handed the penalty after West Midlands Police were called to reports of the huge gathering on 25 September. The venue has also now been banned from holding any events until January. Cal Cunningham, the Democrat running to unseat incumbent GOP Sen. Thom Tillis in North Carolina, acknowledged Friday that he sent intimate text messages to a woman who isnt his wife, according to the Raleigh-based News & Observer. Why it matters: Tillis and Cunningham's race is a key competition for Democrats as they try to win control of the Senate, though Cunningham has said he wont drop out. What they're saying: Cunningham apologized in a Friday night statement released by his campaign. I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry, Cunningham said in the statement, according to the Washington Post. The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do. I ask that my familys privacy be respected in this personal matter. Cunningham said he has no plans of dropping out of the race. I remain grateful and humbled by the ongoing support that North Carolinians have extended in this campaign, and in the remaining weeks before this election I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state, he said. The big picture: Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Friday he tested positive for coronavirus. The two candidates debated in-person in Raleigh on Thursday night. A research conducted in 300 communities within four districts of the Upper East Region has shown that mothers and newborns were receiving essential care with breastmilk as the only food. This came to light during a Mother Baby Friendly health event in Accra yesterday. Supported by Ghana Health Service (GHS), and UNICEF, the community component of the Mother Baby Friendly Health Facility Initiative (MBFHI) was implemented in Bawku, Bongo, Bolga and Kasssena Nankana West Municipalities over a two year period. Results of the initiative showed improvements in early attendance of antenatal care (ANC), facility based deliveries and uptake of UNICEF and GHS recommended practices and male involvement. According to the research, some nursing mothers in the Upper East region preferred to give water to their babies in addition to breastmilk to prevent heart burn and quench thirst during dry harmattan winds. The Director of Dodowa Research Centre, Dr John Williams said the overall goal of the initiative was to contribute to the reduction of maternal newborn and infant deaths. He said it was also to improve facility-based quality care for mother and newborns, increase optimal breastfeeding practices, postnatal care for mothers and newborns and support countries to develop, implement and monitor real-time data-driven national and subnational plans. He said despite the positive outcome, challenges such as improving the frequency and regularity of outreach visits to households by Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) staff, reports of incorrect and questionable breastfeeding recommendations, inadequate health resources for communities and CHPS workers remained fragile. A researcher at Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC), Mr Francis Yeji, recommended the need to improve the quality of newborn care infrastructure, services and resources, while strengthening monitoring and supervision. He said it was necessary to incorporate prevention of stunted growth and early childhood development in the first 1,000 days by replicating the approach to community engagement, equip CHPS and communities to respectfully reach out to households and special populations that were particarly vulnerable. Mr Yeji said Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) should broker and catalyse community engagement in maternal, newborn, infant and child nutrition and health and called on GHS to strengthen its health promotion team through capacity building, supportive supervision and routine monitoring. Source: The Ghanaian Times Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video There has never been anything polite or classy about American politics. As George Washington's term came to an end and the campaign to succeed him got up to speed, it was easily as nasty as what we see today. The Jefferson vs. Adams campaign was nastier than one might imagine, given the brilliance of both men and their contribution to our founding. One example: Jefferson's supporters called Adams a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." The Adams camp called Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father." Fast-forward to Lincoln's re-election campaign of 1864. His campaign in 1860 was brutal, but by 1864, the Civil War was raging. The Democratic Party was unified in its opposition to emancipation, but in 1864, it found itself divided between those who favored the continuation of the war and those who sought peace through a negotiated settlement with the South. The former faction found a candidate in Gen. George B. McClellan, who had led the Union army in 186162 but was personally contemptuous of Lincoln. Sound familiar? Can we say Mattis? Self-appointed elitists have believed that their opinions should trump those of the American people for well over a hundred years. So intent upon preserving the ugly institution of slavery, so viciously opposed to Lincoln...well, we all know how that ended. And now we see that our own vicious left of 2020 hates President Trump as much as the pro-slavery Democrats of 1860 and 1864 hated Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest American presidents, if not the greatest. So by enduring the vitriol of the Democrats of today and prevailing, our President Trump is in very good company. The left today is every bit as beastly as Lincoln's verbal and actual assassins. They are gleefully celebrating the president's diagnosis with COVID with a host of savage, venomous tweets. CNN and MSNBC thoroughly disgrace themselves on a daily basis but dug themselves a new hole in response to Trump's diagnosis. Words cannot describe the Democrats' childish, mendacious merriment at the news. These are well and truly the worst people in the world. President Trump has been the best president since Ronald Reagan and he has surpassed even Reagan's successes in this first term. He has accomplished phenomenal things: he's rebuilt the military, which Obama/Biden had eviscerated; he's built 450 miles of the desperately needed border wall; he cut taxes, brought manufacturing home to the U.S., effectively began prison reform, punished China for its egregious crimes against America (the Wuhan virus may be one of them), permanently funded our black colleges and universities, and managed the pandemic masterfully (he saw the danger before any Democrat) and he's kept us out of war! Quite a record of success. Is this why the Democrats hate him so much? He's run rings around all previous presidents, especially the Democrat presidents, and they know it. That is why they feel duty-bound to destroy him. They have been trying to do exactly that since before he was even elected. Once elected, they doubled down, likely on Hillary Clinton's direction, with the aid and comfort of John Brennan, James Comey, et al., and the phony Russia hoax. The Democrat party of today operates like the Mafia; it's a gang of thugs. It includes the horrifically rude and lying members of the mainstream media. Nothing proves this more than their euphoria at President Trump's COVID diagnosis. Even the doctors on MSNBC and CNN are bought-and-paid-for hacks. Their determination to denigrate hydroxychloroquine because Trump mentioned it early on as a possible treatment very likely caused thousands of deaths; that is how deranged the American left is today. Their doctors still refuse to admit that it is a viable treatment if administered early. They are already on screen, trashing the treatment the president is receiving as if they know better. It is shocking that anyone watches these propaganda outlets because they actually do spew fake news 24/7. Their viewers are so sadly misinformed, disinformed. It is an undeniable fact that Joe Biden's career is characterized by a wholesale lack of achievement beyond enriching himself and his family. He has lied pathologically over and over again, about his college years, the death of his first wife (he says she was killed by a drunk driver, but that is a lie), and more. He tells tall tales about things he has done that are simply not true and easily proven untrue. He is the Walter Mitty, or the Zelig, of Congress, but he relished belittling Robert Bork and humiliating Clarence Thomas at their SCOTUS confirmation hearings. Biden is a very little man, in stature and in spirit, compared to either of those two men. Despite the unrelenting attacks on him by the left, President Trump has been a truly great president these past nearly four years. Biden was never a great anything; he is the very definition of mediocre. He's handsy, creepy, even with children. And he is corrupt to his core. That the left is so pathologically determined to destroy this president tells us more about them then about President Trump. And now that President Trump has tested positive for COVID, they are digging themselves into the deepest hole ever, exposing themselves as the malevolent and inhumane people they are. Trump is good (their fear of him proves that), the Democrats are bad, and all those wishing for his death by COVID are stomach-churningly ugly. The American people, even those who identify as Democrats, deserve so much better that what they've got. The Democrat delight across the board at the news of Trump's COVID test, their instant attempts to use it as political fodder (e.g., to delay Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation, for one, or the specter of the party that wants to control your health care wishing death on a political opponent, or their sudden fascination with the 25th Amendment regarding presidential incapacity), tells us everything we need to know about who and what the modern, radical Democrat party has become. Yes, they had predecessors in American history but the behavior of those ruthless political ancestors is not what a hundred years more of supposed civilization should have wrought. America will not survive a Biden/Harris administration; they have made their intentions clear destroy America as founded and remake it as a socialist utopia like Venezuela. Image credit: Marion Doss via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. This election is like no other, at least in recent memory. Maybe back in 1800 when Republican Thomas Jefferson wanted to prevent Federalist John Adams from winning a second term it was equally tumultuous. But then again, they didnt have social media to inflame everyone two centuries ago. So here we are in 2020: Foreign governments interfering in our presidential election reportedly by spreading disinformation, a president calling the voting process fraudulent (with no evidence) and telling followers to patrol polling places, a U.S. Postal Service deliberately slowing the processing of mail by dismantling sorting equipment, and likely record numbers of people voting through absentee ballots because of a deadly pandemic. Imagine if you were responsible for this election in our state. With everything going on, what keeps you up at night? What is your 3 a.m. fear? My worst fear is that the day following the election, people wont trust the results, said the one person who doesnt have to imagine what its like. It is all-important that people trust in the election. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has met in person numerous times with the Hearst Connecticut editorial board, of which I am a member. But Wednesday morning when we chatted about the election, at my request, it was remotely through FaceTime. I knew I could count on her for a thoughtful and honest response. But can we trust the results? Ive read speculation that President Donald Trump will declare himself the winner after the polls close Nov. 3 and throw into question the millions of mail-in ballots that could take days to count and change the outcome. When asked by moderator Chris Wallace, a FOX news anchor, during the debate Tuesday to pledge tonight that you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified, Trump pivoted and called on supporters to go in to the polls and watch very carefully, because thats what has to happen. I am urging them to do it. Merrill said she read a disturbing survey that showed 50 percent of Americans Republicans and Democrats said they will not trust the results of the election, which will have profound consequences. We will do all we can to combat that, she said. By we, she means her counterparts around the country who have taken to the hashtag #trusted source. States set their own laws about voting. Some allow early voting as you read this, someone in Pennsylvania could be casting a ballot right now and five states vote primarily by mail. Connecticut has some of the most restrictive rules. Voting in person happens only on Election Day between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. Although absentee ballots have been allowed since 1832 (Did you know that? I was surprised when Merrill mentioned that fun fact), reasons have been extremely limited, such as military service. This year is different. The General Assembly agreed to a no excuses absentee ballot during the pandemic so no one has to choose between their health and their vote. Connecticuts ballots are also incredibly complicated for these state and federal office elections. If you think about it, one city could have several different ballots because of the way state House and Senate districts are drawn. For example, Danbury is divided among six state representatives (some of whom also represent pieces of Bethel, Brookfield, New Fairfield, Ridgefield, Redding, Newtown, New Milford and Sherman) necessitating separate ballots for each section. All total, Connecticut has printed 500 different ballots, Merrill said. Its a very local process, she said, even in a national election. Oct. 2 is the day these ballots go out to town and city clerks. Lets talk about what you can do to make sure your vote counts. Usually in an election 5 percent of the ballots cast are absentee; for the party primaries in August the percent jumped to 68. For the Nov. 3 election, absentee ballot applications (applications, not ballots) were mailed to every registered voter in the state. I stress that these were applications because Ive seen people holler fraud when some went to incorrect addresses. An application must be verified by a local town or city clerk, using updated voter databases, before an actual ballot can be sent. To a degree, this process relies on the mail. Even the U.S. Postal Service is recommending, in postcards mailed to customers, If you plan to vote by mail, plan ahead. It recommends requesting an absentee ballot at least 15 days before the election and mailing it at least seven days ahead. Thats necessary advice even here in Connecticut. Merrill told me she saw a sorting machine taken apart in the Hartford mail distribution center. I couldnt believe it, she said, Its hard to explain. If you are voting by mail, get the details right. Make sure you sign the inner envelope (and that name exactly matches the outer envelope), seal it, and place in the outer envelope. If its unsealed or the name is incorrect or even if more than one ballot is in the envelope, thats a problem. You could mail it, but better yet bypass the postal service and drop it in the ballot box that is in front of your local town or city hall. These are checked every day by local election officials. To ease the expected historic volume of absentee ballots, state legislators voted this week to allow local voting officials to begin opening the outer just the outer envelopes after 5 p.m. on Oct. 30. This voluntary effort should save time when the count begins on Election Day. For peace of mind, you can check to make sure your absentee ballot is received by going to https://portaldir.ct.gov/sots/LookUp.aspx Heres something easy you should do before voting: Check to make sure your address is correct on voter rolls and that you are marked active. (Names go inactive if you havent voted in two consecutive federal elections.) This can be checked by going to myvote.ct.gov, where theres a wealth of information. I honestly think everyone should do that, Merrill said. Know where your information about the presidential election is coming from. Merrills office has several services that are checking for foreign bots spreading misinformation, but be proactive yourself and turn to reputable news sources. If you decide to vote in person on Election Day, then be aware that steps are taken to help make it safe in a pandemic. Municipalities are getting federal grants for personal protective equipment, social distancing will be observed and masks are required. Voting is different this year. But then again, its often changing. I remember when my daughters were younger, they enjoyed going with me to pull the big handle that shut the curtain around us and I flicked little levers to indicate my vote. Those machines are gone now and we have paper-and-electronic voting. For quite a while Ive been thinking this is the year for an absentee ballot because of the virus. But the more I hear (the debate) and read, Im inclined to vote in person on Nov. 3, as long as Im well. I want my vote to count that very night. And not contribute to Merrills 3 a.m. fear. Jacqueline Smiths column appears Fridays in Hearst Connecticut Media daily newspapers. This is solely her opinion. She is also the editorial page editor of The News-Times in Danbury and The Norwalk Hour. Email jsmith@hearstmediact.com I don't think I'm alone in tormenting myself and my family with the 'Where do you most want to go when this is all over?' question. For me, Spain and France are definite contenders. Madrid was the last city I visited pre-lockdown, for Picasso's Guernica at the Reina Sofia, for the Palo Cortado sherry at the decades-old watering hole La Venencia and for the rabbit ribs in a heaving Taberna Laredo. Was that only January? It's hard to believe. I left vowing to return very soon. And we all know how that worked out. Paris is in the running, too, because I was supposed to be there for a rugby match that never happened in March and I'm still sore about all those carefully chosen restaurants I booked and then cancelled. But Italy is the country I miss most of all. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a photo on Instagram of the tables and umbrellas set up on the cobbled street outside Rosa Madre in Dublin's Temple Bar, bathed in the golden light of evening. It looked exactly like a restaurant I love near the market in Ortigia, Sicily. I'd never eaten in Rosa Madre, but during lockdown owner Luca de Marzio sent me a few dishes from his takeaway menu - simple homemade pastas with gutsy sauces - to try. They were excellent. It's hard to plan how to dress for outdoor eating in Ireland at this time of year. There's no way of knowing until you get to the restaurant what the set-up will be in terms of keeping things cosy and dry. But we're all going to be doing a lot more of it, so we need to figure it out. I reckon layers are the way to go. At Rosa Madre, our table sits under a big umbrella and is next to a patio heater, so we're more than comfortable. There's been a lot written about the demise of the city centre, and I wish the powers that be at Dublin City Council had got their collective act together earlier in the year to facilitate outdoor dining. I'm not sure that I would have wanted to eat on the street in Temple Bar pre-pandemic, but it is lovely to sit here on Crow Street watching interesting people walk by. We start with wild Argentinian red prawns cooked with plenty of garlic and good olive oil, small zebrino tomatoes (the oldest and most flavoursome variety in Italy, according to de Marzio), slender sprigs of broccoli, and a cream made from the prized trombetta zucchini, almost avocado-like in texture. Despite the number of elements, this is a simple dish, beautifully executed. A fine tartare of hand-chopped beef from Pat McLoughlin comes with a gorgonzola cream and an intensely savoury and crisp Parmesan biscuit. We eat lush handmade ravioli filled with ricotta and truffle in a Parmesan sauce, and a perfect risotto of courgette cream with Wexford scallops and Galway Bay mussels, the epitome of comfort. You can't go to Rosa Madre and not eat fish, especially when it's wild French sea bass (sourced by Niall Sabongi's Sustainable Seafood Ireland) cooked in a crust of salt doused in flaming sambuca at the table before being cracked open in a flurry of table-side drama. The flavour of the fish is delicate, its texture flaky. We have no room for pudding, probably a good thing given the heft of the portions of tiramisu we see heading to other tables. We drink a 2018 Etna Ross from Tenutadelle Terre Nere (68), made from the nerello mascalese grape, transporting us back to Sicily with its cherry fragrance. The wine list at Rosa Madre is one of the best in the city - there are serious bottles on offer - and the policy of adding an only modest mark-up to the champagnes in particular makes it an ideal celebration spot. Our bill comes to 185 before service, well worth it for a short trip to Italy. THE RATING 9/10 food 10/10 ambience 8/10 value 27/30 ON A BUDGET The full menu is available for delivery or collection at slightly lower than eat-in prices. The minimum order for delivery is 100. There's also a small grocery offering. ON A BLOWOUT Gratinated scallops, ravioli and Irish blue lobster (90/kg) and tiramisu for two could result in a bill of over 300 before wine. THE HIGHT POINT Dinner at Rosa Madre is as close to being in Italy as you can get these days. THE LOW POINT Rosa Madre is not actually in Italy. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Videos of a Kansas City police officer kneeling on a pregnant Black woman while arresting her have led to calls for the officer involved to be fired and reignited demands that the police chief resign. The videos show the woman on the ground with the officer's knee on her back while people in the crowd yell to stop because she is pregnant. Some officers can be heard telling the crowd they will be arrested if they don't move back. Kevin Woolfolk, director of membership engagement for The Southern Christian Leadership Conference-Greater Kansas City, said the videos showed another example of how badly Kansas City police treat the Black community. This most recent act of brutality is shameful and is further evidence that the Kansas City police department is wholly infected with the sin of racism and grossly incapable of protecting the peace and safety of the public where Black lives are concerned, Woolfolk said at a news conference Friday. Police and a lawyer for the woman told different versions of what happened during the confrontation Wednesday night at a business in east Kansas City. The woman's lawyer, Stacy Shaw, said the woman was attending a balloon release for a homicide victim at an intersection that has been the scene of civil justice and anti-crime demonstrations for years. The woman was filming the event and complained when an officer backed into her. The officer responded by pushing the woman and then throwing her to the ground and arresting her, Shaw said. Kansas City police spokesman Capt. David Jackson said in a statement Thursday officers went to the scene after a business owner reported people were fighting. He said the women in the video and a man interfered with officers trying to arrest another man. The officer tried to arrest the woman while she was standing but placed her on the ground when she continued to resist, Jackson said. The officer said he tried not to put pressure on the woman's back while arresting her, according to the statement. Story continues Jackson said Friday police do not comment on personnel issues and did not respond to a question about calls for Smith's firing. Civil rights leaders ridiculed that version of events Friday at a news conference and said the videos show the woman was not resisting. Troy Robertson, who has led demonstrations for peace at the intersection, said he was the one police were trying to arrest. He said police have beaten him several times over the years because of his demonstrations. Robertson said when the woman asked why police were arresting him, people started yelling that she was pregnant and the officer reacted by throwing her on the ground. Why (does) nothing ever happen to them when they are wrong, but if I'm wrong I go to jail," Robertson said. "... I'm tired. Something gotta give. When these officers are wrong, hold them accountable for what they are doing. The woman was evaluated at a hospital and released but was in extreme pain, Shaw said, adding she was checked Friday by an obstetrician and the baby seemed to be fine. This is another example of the lack of humanity that the Kansas City police department has shown to the Black community, Shaw said in an interview. It's another instance of how people in our community have suffered at the hands of Chief Rick Smith and officers of the police department ... There is no justification, there is no excuse and we will be holding the officers accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Civil rights advocates have been calling for Smith's resignation or firing for months, particularly after clashes during demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. Smith has said he has no intention of resigning. Shaw and Woolfolk were joined at the news conference by representatives of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, the AdHoc Group Against Crime, the local NAACP chapter, and the Police Accountability Taskforce calling for justice and Smith's firing. The groups also strongly criticized Mayor Quinton Lucas, saying he has not responded forcefully enough to complaints about the police department and Smith's leadership. Lucas said at a different event Friday that Smith is investigating the arrest and then he and city officials will determine the proper response to be fair to everyone involved. He said the incident doesn't change his view of the chief's employment but that everyone in city leadership can do better in improving relationships and communication with the public. Police released a video Friday that shows people standing between officers and Robertson, who runs out of the frame. The arrest of the woman is not shown on video, which jumps to when she is on the ground. MEXICO CITY: Tropical Storm Gamma has made landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula in southeast Mexico off the Caribbean Sea, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Saturday. The storm touched down near the beach city of Tulum in the state of Quintana Roo very close to hurricane strength, packing maximum sustained winds near 70 miles per hour (110 kmh) with higher gusts. Mexicos government had issued a hurricane warning for the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, including popular tourist destinations Cancun and Cozumel in Quintana Roo, NHC said in an earlier advisory. Gamma was expected to weaken slightly after landfall, the Miami-based weather forecaster added. NHC anticipated maximum rainfall of as much as 15 inches across the northern parts of Quintana Roo and neighboring Yucatan state, and said storm surge could lift tides as much as 3 feet above normal levels. 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 Dick Johnson with his daughter, Kirsten, who made a documentary about his death. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Ive been thinking a lot lately about my dog dying. Hes not sick, and hes not even particularly old 8 plus, Australian shepherds typically live until theyre around 14 or so. But he sleeps more now, sprawling out across the wood floors to keep cool. Or maybe hes always slept this much, and I just wasnt home all day to witness it until the pandemic hit. Still, there are other reminders of his age: The gray hairs in the arch of his eyebrows. The extra few seconds it takes him to rise to his paws. How long he pants after a heated game of fetch. This summer, one of my roommates was giving him a belly rub when she came across a lump under his fur. The veterinarian would later diagnose the spot as benign, but in the moment when I first brought my hand to his chest and felt the abnormality, tears instantly streamed down my face. I was certain it was cancer, and that Id have to put him down to spare him from pain. The dog who had been with me since I was 26 and seen me through such formative years of independence wouldnt be there for the payoff. I wanted want him there when I get married, trotting down the aisle before me to greet my husband, who will heartily scratch him behind the ears. I want him to have his own yard to frolic in, one we dont share with neighbors. I want him to see so much more of the world with me, when the world, hopefully, expands again beyond our front door. I know that this anticipatory grief doesnt serve me or frankly, him. But how can you love a being so much and not be conscious of the fact that your relationship has an expiration date? Is it possible to ignore the looming threat of mortality or, ideally, accept it and strengthen your bond instead? These are some of the questions that Kirsten Johnson wrestles with in Dick Johnson Is Dead, the documentary she made about her father. The film, which debuted to strong acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January, was released Friday on Netflix. The story begins in 2017, when Kirstens dad, Dick, has just been diagnosed with dementia. At that point, Kirsten's already lost her mother to Alzheimer's disease, so she knows what the future holds for her father. She knows shell have to tell him that he can no longer drive, or live alone in their familys home in the Washington forest. She knows hell have to retire from his psychology practice, packing up his office in a downtown Seattle high-rise. And she knows that hell lose his capacity to listen, unable to give her the advice shes long treasured. Story continues So Kirsten came up with an insane idea, and pitched it to her dad: I want to make a movie where we kill you, over and over, using stunt people. Until you die for real. So well just never stop making this. Dick laughed, and then said he was game. This was, after all, the man who had introduced his daughter to Monty Python and Harold and Maude and Young Frankenstein. Sure, pretending to bleed out after tumbling down the staircase or getting clobbered by a falling air conditioning unit was, uh, macabre, to say the least. But it would allow him to spend more time with Kirsten, which was really all he wanted. Kirsten Johnson directs her father in "Dick Johnson Is Dead." (Netflix) For Kirsten, the existential experiment held even more weight. It was an act of defiance. Screw death, man! she said. I really do think cinema is time travel. When were watching people we love through movies, theyre alive for us. So I was like: Can I ask cinema to keep my father alive forever? I was going to use every capacity I had to try to figure out what we could do to change this reality. She knew, of course, that this quest for literal immortality was futile. She really knew it last Sunday, when she FaceTimed me from her brothers house in Washington, D.C. Kirsten had traveled there from her home in New York City to visit her dad at a care facility in Bethesda, Md. Yes major spoiler alert Dick Johnson is not dead. But at 88, he is very ill. After spending three years living in Kirstens one-bedroom apartment, he began walking out the door in the middle of the night. She and her brother had the difficult realization that Dick needed 24-hour-a-day care, and moved him into the home for the elderly in July. When I spoke to Kirsten, she had just visited him at his new place for the first time because of COVID-19. It was a difficult day. When she left the facility, Dick stood at the window, pleading: Can you take me with you? I always said that I wanted to accompany my dad until he falls off the cliff of life, she said. When we moved him to the home and he was like, Please come get me, it was like he fell off the cliff, fell five feet, and was hanging there saying Please, help me up. I was like, I cant. So that was super brutal. When it comes to thinking about her own mortality, Kirsten, 54, has never been particularly fearful. Throughout her career as a cinematographer shes worked on over 50 documentaries, including Citizenfour, The Invisible War and Fahrenheit 9/11 she has developed a reputation as a risk taker. In Taipei, one of 86 countries where shes wielded a camera, she once had to film from one of the tallest buildings in the world. On the 99th floor, the engineer asked if anyone was willing to climb the staircase with him to the 101st level; she didnt even hesitate. Im not as aware of what might happen to me as perhaps some other people are, she said. Its not that Im fearless, but Im deeply interested. Kirsten Johnson made a documentary about working as a cinematographer, 2016's "Cameraperson." (Lynsey Addario / Janus Films) In her personal life, Kirsten has also leaned into uncertainty. When her mother died, she was 41, and the loss crystalized her desire to have children of her own. She was dating a man who didnt want kids, so she broke up with him and started to do the classic thing of, like, Im going to find someone else to have children with in half an hour. While she was searching for a partner and mulling her fertility options she attended a Sundance event in New York City. At the party, she was introduced to filmmaker Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange, Little Men) and learned that he and his husband, Boris Torres, also wanted to have a child. The next day, they all met and decided to try to have a baby together. By then, however, Kirsten was nearly 44, and her doctor informed her that getting pregnant with her own eggs wasn't likely. So she, Sachs and Torres agreed to use an egg donor, and Kirsten soon gave birth to twins. After Viva and Felix arrived, an apartment opened up right next door to Sachs and Torres, and Kirsten moved in. The twins, now 8 years old, have a room in each place in the lower Fifth Avenue building. I remember being terrified before doing this, Kirsten recalled. It wasnt the way my life was supposed to work out. I was going to be married and have children. But I just remember really consciously being, like, fear or love whats the choice? And I had the same experience when it dawned on me that I was in love with Tabitha. Tabitha is Tabitha Jackson, a film producer who this year was named the first female director of the Sundance Film Festival. Kirsten had never been in love with a woman before meeting Jackson, whom she wed in Utah on the opening day of Sundance this year. It was her father, she said, who accepted the relationship before she was even fully able to herself. When I was struggling with I cant believe I fell in love with Tabitha. Who am I now?,' he didnt miss a beat, she said. He was like, Im so thrilled that you have someone wonderful who loves you. I couldnt even do that in relation to my own self. Dicks love for his daughter is unassailable. When she called him on speakerphone which she agreed to do so I could ask him a few questions his affection for her was so palpable I had to grit my teeth to stop from crying. Dick Johnson pretends to be in heaven during a scene in his daughter's documentary. (Netflix) He told me he had a wonderful time being in the documentary, and didnt mind faking his own death. It was fine! No problem at all! My daughter is a very accomplished filmmaker. I trust her explicitly with my life, he said, and I could hear him smiling. Im actually honored by it. And it doesnt bother me a bit. Its really an honor to be filmed by you, sweetie. Theres one scene in the movie where Kirsten literally stages her fathers funeral, and she calls on dozens of his friends to show up at a church and deliver eulogies. Dick watches from the back, listening as those closest to him express their love. On the phone, Kirsten asked her dad if he thought the funeral attendees were aware he had dementia. Oh, very possibly so, he replied. I think most people forgive me a lot for that. They totally forgive you, she said. You dont have to be forgiven. You didnt do anything to cause the dementia. Would you forgive me, sweetie? he asked. I do forgive you. Although sometimes, Im just mad at the dementia. Ill never be mad at you, but Im mad at the dementia. And you dont need to ask for forgiveness. They continued to talk, and Dick asked a few times when Kirsten would be coming to visit him again. He kept saying how anxious he was to see her. She assured him that she would be returning the following day. Tomorrow? Dick said. OK, super. I will live for tomorrow. I love you dearly! After Dick hung up, I asked Kirsten how she thinks shell feel when her dad finally does die. She said shes tired of the dementia tired of him not being able to live the way he wants to. So, in many ways, his passing will come as a relief. It will also be a total devastation, she added. And I will do anything to stop it from happening. Both of those things are true. Riggins, the author's Australian shepherd. (Amy Kaufman / Los Angeles Times) Suddenly, I found myself telling her about my dog. (His name is Riggins, by the way.) I wanted to know if there was something shed learned during this process that has made her feel better about death. She has confronted her fathers mortality head-on. Should we all be doing the same? Talking to those we love most about the fact that living without them is incomprehensible? Filming her dad, she said, really did make her feel better. She felt like she got to extend the good moments keep them alive longer. Introducing a camera into their relationship was catalytic, she said. It also allowed her more time with him during his final years, a way to make money that didnt require her to travel far from home. I needed the movie to help me cope with this, she said. How devastating it is to be human. To love is to have to experience this wrenching, horrible thing. But when you pick up your dog tonight and pet him and give him an extra snack youre going to value him. Acknowledging some of this stuff allows you to embrace pleasure. Because what else are you going to do, cry all the time? She asked me to tilt my computer toward Riggins so that she could see him. She called him a sweetie and said she was happy that I loved my dog so much. Start making a movie with him and youre going to feel a lot better, she suggested. What if you had a film of all of your most favorite things the dog does? You cant predict how certain things are going to wreck you. It may be that your dog dies right after youve fallen in love with someone, and the transition will feel OK. Maybe not. But who knows? This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Much like her prowess on the catwalk, motherhood is coming naturally to Gigi Hadid. Just two weeks after the supermodel gave birth to a baby girl, E! News has an exclusive update on life at home for the new mom and boyfriend Zayn Malik. "Gigi is very tired but is already an amazing mom," an insider shares. "The first couple of weeks have been a hard transition but she hasn't complained and is very elated to be a mom." Prior to their newborn daughter's arrival in late September, the source says Gigi and Zayn traveled to New York City for their final check-ups before the star's team of doctors accompanied her back to the Hadid family farm in Pennsylvania. It's there that the 25-year-old gave birth. Gigi, Zayn and Yolanda Hadid have remained ever since. According to our source, the couple is planning to raise the little one there for the foreseeable future. Gigi Hadid's Pregnancy Pics "They feel peaceful staying there for now. Gigi wants the most privacy for their baby and wants to be able to raise her privately," the insider explains. The new mama is far from alone, though. She has Yolanda to rely on, who the source says is "helping them tremendously." "She is their built-in nurse and they are so grateful to have her," the insider adds. ESC: Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, Yolanda Hadid As for little sister Bella Hadid, E! News is told she's already fulfilling her duties as an auntie. "Bella was very emotional first seeing her," the source says, "and has already been having fun shopping for her and dressing her up." Gigi's dad, Mohamed Hadid, and her brother, Anwar Hadid, are also doting on the baby, however, the model is being "very cautious" about letting others in her inner circle meet her daughter because of the coronavirus pandemic. Fans of the A-list couple are anxiously waiting to find out what they named their bundle of joy. Our source's lips are sealed, but they do describe it as "unique." While we all wait for the big reveal, look back at ZiGi's journey to parenthood right here. WASHINGTON Weeks after India and China engaged in their deadliest border clash in decades, the sight of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier entering the Bay of Bengal drew attention across the region. The carrier, Nimitz, and its strike group deployed to the area in mid-July to conduct an exercise with the Indian Navy in pursuit of a free and open Indo-Pacific, according to a statement by the U.S. Navys Seventh Fleet, whose headquarters are in Japan. But as tensions soar between India and China, two nuclear-armed neighbors, the joint operation took on a greater significance. It was symbolic, said Tanvi Madan, the director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution. Its also signaling to China and others that the U.S. is standing by India. As the rivalry between India and China intensifies, the United States and India have taken their shared anger toward Beijing and forged stronger diplomatic and military ties that could alter the balance of power in the region. Officials note that while that friendship has been on an upswing over the past two decades, the border dispute with China has accelerated relations between the countries. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 17:12:53|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's science news from the past week: MARS PROBE The China National Space Administration (CNSA) released mid-flight images of Mars probe Tianwen-1 Thursday as the Chinese people celebrate the National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Tianwen-1 reports safety to the motherland and sends its best birthday wishes, said the CNSA in a press release. The images showed China's five-star red flag dazzling with the golden orbiter and the silver lander and rover in the darkness of the universe. COVID-19 VACCINES Two inactivated COVID-19 vaccines developed by the China National Biotec Group are under phase-3 clinical trials in the Middle East, with more than 35,000 people inoculated. The trials in the Middle East have so far shown good safety and no serious adverse reactions. Up till now, there have been 11 Chinese COVID-19 vaccines entering clinical trials, with four in phase-3 clinical trials. NEW MASS EXTINCTION Researchers from China and Britain have found evidence of a new mass extinction event which allowed dinosaurs to dominate the earth. The newly identified mass extinction named the Carnian Pluvial Episode took place around 234 million to 232 million years ago and marked the beginning of modern ecosystems. CHINA-CELAC SCI-TECH COOPERATION China will further strengthen cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean countries in sci-tech innovation to fight the COVID-19 epidemic, a senior Chinese official said at a recent sci-tech forum. Amid the epidemic, the two sides have worked hand in hand in COVID-19 drugs, vaccine and test-kit development, Wang Zhigang, minister of science and technology, said at the second China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) forum of science, technology and innovation. Enditem Actor Akshay Kumar has broken his silence amid all the claims and allegation on the Bollywood industry following the probe in Sushant Singh Rajputs death. Releasing a video on his Instagram page on Saturday, Kumar urged his fans to not judge everyone through similar lenses. In the video, Kumar talks about all the allegations that have come up against Bollywood and its involvement in drug abuse. A lot of actors have faced the wrath of media and public, especially after some big names like Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan and Rakul Preet Singh were summoned by NCB in relation to drug usage probe. While the investigation is taking its course, a lot has been said in media and on social media against these stars and Bollywood industry in total. Addressing the same, Kumar pressed his points that Bollywood has been one of the sources to propagate Indias culture on global platforms. He says, the stars are made by audiences and fans, who show support to the industry in difficult times. He said that while there are definitely issues such as drug usage in Bollywood, just like any other industry, it is not right to blame the entire movie industry for the same. He asserted the drug usage is a legal issue and investigations will be carried fair and just. However, blaming the entire Bollywood for the fault of some is not the solution to the current issue. The 4-minute video came with the caption, Bahot dino se mann mein kuch baat thi lekin samajh nahi aa raha tha kya kahoon, kisse kahoon. Aaj socha aap logon se share kar loon, so here goes#DirectDilSe. Kumars video comes a day after he returned to India after completing the shoot of his upcoming movie Bell Bottom. Kumars Sooryavanshi is also in line for release, along with another project Laxmmi Bomb. Tucson travelers will soon have some new flying options from Tucson International Airport, as Southwest Airlines is adding a new nonstop flight to Houston and Alaska Airlines is resuming nonstops to Portland, Oregon, and adding flights to Seattle. Starting Nov. 4, Southwest will fly nonstop to Houstons William P. Hobby Airport and back to Tucson, Sundays through Fridays. Since Hobby is a major hub for Southwest, which accounts for about 90% of traffic there, Tucson travelers will gain connecting options to places including several Florida cities; Cancun, Mexico; New Orleans; New York; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C., TIA noted. Danette Bewley, president and CEO of the Tucson Airport Authority, said Southwests new Houston service couldnt come at a better time as Tucson moves into its important winter tourism season. This weekend, Alaska Airlines is resuming a daily nonstop flight from TIA to Portland, Oregon, and adding two daily nonstops to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, for a total of three per day. New Delhi: In a major relief to thousands of individuals and MSME borrowers, the Centre in an affidavit informed the Supreme Court that it has taken a decision to waive "interest on interest" on loans up to Rs two crore during the six-month moratorium period. The affidavit said the only solution is that the government should bear the burden resulting from waiver of compound interest. "After careful consideration and weighing all possible options, the respondent Union of India has decided to continue the tradition of handholding the small borrowers", said the Centre. The categories of loans up to Rs two crore include: MSME loans, education loans, housing loans, consumer durable loans, credit card dues, auto loans, personal loans to professional and consumption loans. The Centre said it is impossible for the banks to bear the burden resulting from waiver of compound interest without passing on the financial impact to the depositors or affecting their net worth adversely, which would not be in larger public interest. The affidavit said: "The government, therefore, has decided that the relief on waiver of compound interest during the six-month moratorium period shall be limited to the most vulnerable category of borrowers." After the recommendations of an expert committee, the Centre has altered its stand. Previously, the RBI and Centre had argued against waiver of interest on interest, as it would be against the interests of other stakeholders, especially depositors, and also unfair to those who have paid their dues. A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, R.S. Reddy and M.R. Shah had urged the Centre to have a re-look at its decision in the backdrop of financial hardship faced by many amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Although, the top court had agreed to not waive interest altogether. The Centre said the Supreme Court would be satisfied that the government bearing this burden would naturally have an impact on several other pressing commitments being faced by the nation, including meeting direct costs association with the pandemic management. The Centre also cited the example of waiving interest on interest for banks. "In case of SBI alone, waiver of six months` interest would completely wipe out over half of the bank`s net worth which has accumulated over nearly 65 years of its existence", said the affidavit. The apex court will take up the matter on October 5 for further hearing. A clutch of petitions was filed in the top court seeking waiver of interest on interest on the deferred EMIs during the moratorium. In an unprecedented move, the representatives of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the provinces of Ardabil, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, and Zanjan, have issued a joint statement supporting the Republic of Azerbaijan. "There is no doubt that Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan and its government's move to recapture the region is completely legal, according to Shari'a, and in line with four Resolutions of the United Nation's Security Council," Khamenei's representatives have asserted. The signatories to the statement are mid-ranking clerics Hassan Alemi, Mohammad Ali Al-i Hashem, Ali Khatami, and Mehdi Qoreishi. "The Azerbaijani government has acted in a completely legal and religious manner in recapturing these lands and has implemented four UN Security Council resolutions," they wrote in their statement on Thursday. Three decades ago, Nagorno-Karabakh was occupied by Armenia, along with seven other Turkish-speaking areas. Since then, the UN Security Council has issued four resolutions calling for returning the lands to the Republic of Azerbaijan. Apart from Armenia, no country has recognized these lands' occupation and the self-proclaimed government of the "Republic of Artsakh." Last Saturday morning, widespread clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces began in Nagorno-Karabakh, and both sides rejected calls for a ceasefire. The joint statement of Khamenei's representatives in the Turkish-speaking provinces of Iran seems to be in coordination with Khamenei's 'beit', or office, to console the Republic of Azerbaijan. "Unfortunately, the enemies of the relationship between the two friendly countries (Iran and Azerbaijan) have recently raised a clamor under pretenses and accused the Islamic Republic of betrayal (against Azerbaijan)," the statement said, warning against the "enemies' psychological warfare." Furthermore, the statement referred to the Azerbaijani soldiers killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as "martyrs of the great nation of Azerbaijan" and wished them "heavenly high ranks." However, in recent days, Iran has been accused of assisting Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan. Images are circulating on social media of allegedly Russian trucks carrying arms to Armenia via Iran. Nevertheless, Iranian authorities have repeatedly denied assisting Armenia. On Wednesday, September 30, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's Chief of Staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, denied several reports that Iran is assisting Armenia in its war with the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan as "baseless rumors" aimed at disrupting Tehran-Baku relations. Meanwhile, the state-run Mehr News Agency (MNA) reported on Friday, October 2, "Above twenty mortar shells from the military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region have hit Iran's Aslandoz region in northwestern Ardabil province." Since the start of the military conflict on Sunday, numerous mortar shells have hit the Iranian soil. Iran, the European Union, Russia, the United States, and several other countries have called for an immediate ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the strategically important all-weather Atal Tunnel, which reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by five hours, at Rohtang in Himachal Pradesh on Saturday. Modi will also attend public functions at Sissu in Lahaul-Spiti district and at Solang Valley, officials said. The prime minister will be accompanied by defence minister Rajnath Singh, they said. Atal Tunnel is the longest highway tunnel in the world, and the 9.02-km tunnel connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley throughout the year. The valley was earlier cut off for six months every year due to heavy snowfall. MODI TO TRAVEL THROUGH TUNNEL, FLAG OFF BUS The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) from the mean sea level. According to the officials, the Prime Minister will arrive at the Centre for Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) in Kullu district on October 3. He will halt at a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) guest house and interact with the officials there. Meanwhile, the defence minister will reach Manali on Friday evening and hold a meeting with BRO officials. He will also inspect the tunnel ahead of its inauguration by the Prime Minister, officials said. Modi will travel through the Atal Tunnel to reach its north portal in Lahaul valley of Lahaul-Spiti district and flag off a Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) bus for the south portal in Manali, they said. The south portal of Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 metres, while the north portal of the tunnel is located near Teling village at Sissu in the Lahaul Valley at an altitude of 3,071 metres. HORSE-SHOE SHAPED, SINGLE TUBE TUNNEL It is a horse-shoe shaped, single-tube double lane tunnel with a roadway of 8 metres and has an overhead clearance of 5.525 metres, officials said. The tunnel, built at a cost of about Rs 3,300 crore, is significant from the point of view of the countrys defence, they said. The BRO worked relentlessly to overcome major geological, terrain and weather challenges that included the most difficult stretch of the 587-metre Seri Nalah fault zone. The breakthrough from both ends was achieved on October 15, 2017. Talking about the tunnel, a BRO official said it provides a telephone facility at every 150 metres of its stretch, a fire hydrant every 60 metres, emergency exits every 500 metres, turning cavern every 2.2 km, air quality monitors every 1 km, broadcasting system and automatic incident detection system with CCTV cameras every 250 metres. FRIENDS SUGGESTION PAVED THE WAY The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had taken the decision to construct the strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass on June 3, 2000, and the foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. Vajpayee got the idea for constructing the tunnel on a suggestion from his friend Arjun Gopal of Tashi Dobhe village in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur had said. The Modi government decided to name it Atal Tunnel in December 2019 to honour the former prime minister who had passed away the previous year. Kolkata, Oct 3 : A West Bengal court on Saturday convicted eight persons in connection with the Pincon chit fund case and awarded life imprisonment to eight accused for running the Ponzi scheme in the state. The life term was given to eight of the company's top officials on Saturday evening by the third additional district judge of Tamluk in East Midnapore, Mou Chattopadhyay. Altogether 20 people were accused in the chit fund case. The court also ordered the refund of the money to all investors. While eight of them were given life terms, 10 others were released after the court found them to be not guilty. Two accused had died during the course of the court proceedings. Manoranjan Roy, the kingpin of the Pincon Ponzi scheme, who is currently admitted to a hospital with health issues, participated in the proceedings via video conference from the hospital. According to sources, Mousumi Roy, wife of Manoranjan Roy, is absconding since the scam came to light. Mousumi was also sentenced to life in prison by the court. The total volume of the Pincon chit fund scam was about Rs 864 crore as the company had raised money illegally from lakhs of small investors in West Bengal, sources said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-04 00:54:15|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SANAA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 30 Houthi rebels were killed on Saturday in fighting with the government forces in Yemen's central province of Marib, a government military officer told Xinhua. Dozens from both warring sides were wounded in the fighting in the district of Sirwah in the northwest of Marib, the source said on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani tweeted that the government forces recaptured several strategic areas in Sirwah after defeating the Houthi militia. The Houthi group has made no comment yet. It has been trying to storm the oil-rich Marib, which is under control of the government. Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthis seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa. Enditem One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says a new office needs to be established in the government to deal with high rates of suicide and homelessness among men. The Queensland-based politician called for the appointment of a 'Minister for Men' on Friday. 'Political parties have long called for equality across both genders, but only a Minister for Women exists across all levels of government,' she said. 'But as we focus on strengthening womens economic security, their involvement in leadership positions, and ensure that women and their children are safe from violence, the plight of Australian boys and men is on the decline.' Ms Hanson cited a 2019 report that compared the rates of suicide, homelessness and workplace deaths between men and women. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson (pictured in Canberra) says a new office needs to be established in the government to deal with high rates of suicide and homelessness among men There are more than 240 men living rough on the streets for every 100 homeless women (stock image) The number of men dying in workplaces outpaced women by more than 1,000 per cent. For every 100 women who die at work there are 1,294 deaths among men. There are more than 240 men living rough on the streets for every 100 homeless women. There are also 1,000 men living in adult correctional facilities for every 100 women. 'On the subject of alcohol, drug addiction, overdoses, suicide, murder, violent crimes, and incarceration, boys and men are again overwhelmingly disadvantaged,' Ms Hanson said. 'As a mother of three boys and one girl, this raises significant concern for my own children, let alone my young grandchildren.' The study also showed an imbalance between the number of school boys and girls who are expelled and who suffer from emotional trauma. For every 100 girls who are expelled, 291 boys are turfed out. Around 355 boys also report an emotional disturbance for every 100 girls. 'If we truly want equality in society, its time to drop the hardline feminist attack on men and start treating each other with the same level of support, based on need,' Ms Hanson said. ROME After decades of bureaucratic delays, corruption and resistance from environmental groups, sea walls designed to defend Venice from acqua alta, or high water, went up on Saturday, testing their ability to battle the citys increasingly menacing floods. By 10 a.m., all 78 floodgates barricading three inlets to the Venetian lagoon had been raised, and even when the tide reached as high as four feet, water levels inside the lagoon remained steady, officials said. There wasnt even a puddle in St. Marks Square, said Alvise Papa, the director of the Venice department that monitors high tides. Had the flood barriers not been raised, about half the citys streets would have been under water, and visitors to St. Marks Square which floods when the tide nears three feet would have been wading in a foot and a half of water, he said. Former Gambler First Nation chief Gordon Ledoux says the failure on his First Nations part to comply with a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision from 2018 means he cannot access health care on-reserve. In the decision, the tribunal found some of Gordons complaints against Gambler were not proven, but that others were. Gambler First Nation was then required to pay Gordon $33,500 for a variety of human rights violations, such as discrimination and retaliation, and give him priority status for a house. Gordon has not received that payment and while Gambler built two new houses recently neither one was assigned to him. Apparently he (Chief David LeDoux) has given them away to off-reserve members, who are his supporters. Again, Im left without a house, Gordon said. Gordon resigned as chief in 2012 for health reasons, but ran again in 2018. This pitted brother against his brother. David was elected chief on May 31, 2018 and Gordon appealed that outcome due to alleged cheating. The election committee called a second election for August, which Gordon won. That matter remains before the Federal Court. Gordon said these actions related to housing and matters of on-reserve access to health care are his brothers. It was also David, Gordon told the human rights tribunal, that re-allocated his house when he decided to try out assisted living facility Dakota Oyate Lodge when his health issues accelerated in 2013. Tribunal member Alex G. Pannu stated in the decision that Davids actions did amount to denying Gordon occupancy of his house by solidifying Roxanne Brass occupancy by transferring responsibility to her to pay utility bills. In the remedy section of the decision, Pannu writes: I find the Respondent (Gambler First Nation) discriminated against the Complainant (Gordon Ledoux) by denying him the occupancy of his house contrary to section of the CHRA (Canadian Human Rights Act). For that action I award the Complainant $5,000 for pain and suffering. He also found that Davids actions erected barriers to Gordons return, called that reckless, and awarded a further $2,500. Gordon, who is in a wheelchair, continues to suffer from a few ailments, including severe neuropathy in his feet. I went to see the foot care nurse here on Gambler a couple of weeks ago and I was informed by the health director Mackenzie (Olynyk) that since I dont have an address (at Gambler) I wont be able to use the services, he said. It is Gordons understanding that he is now considered by the leadership to be an off-reserve member. Its also his understanding that a contributing factor is his refusal to sign the new housing agreement developed by the leadership. Hes not the only one not signing. The newly developed agreement includes items some object to, such as having to inform the housing manager or a housing committee member if they leave the reserve for more than five days. The implication for those not signing is that if a member were to leave their home without informing the manager or a committee member, the house would be taken from them. Gambler was also ordered by the human rights tribunal to create human rights policies, which was to include an internal review process publicized for Gambler members to be reviewed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission as well as provide human rights training for the current Gambler chief and council, employees and any interested Gambler members. What him and his lawyer are doing is stalling. In the meantime, theyre making a mockery of the justice system, really, and (the Canadian) Human Rights (Tribunal) because theyre not following the instructions they were given. Theyre completely disregarding everything. Gordon has been couch surfing among relatives on the reserve for quite some time now, but has a letter stating that effective Sept. 1 he is residing with a cousin. He has an address. The Brandon Sun sent questions to Gambler First Nation, via its Saskatchewan marketing firm Mash Media, and received a statement. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunals decision is presently under judicial review in Federal Court proceedings. However, Gambler First Nation has been and continues to work with the Canadian Human Rights Commission regarding the decision, despite the fact that chief and council continues (sic) to dispute the decision, according to the statement. Davids daughter Kellie LeDoux is a band councillor, along with Louis Tanner. The statement also said Gambler has a housing committee made up of on-reserve members. All decisions regarding housing, including those concerning Mr. Gordon Ledoux, are made by the committee, not chief and council, according to the statement. Further, it is Gamblers view that the committee has complied with the direction issued in paragraph 99 of the decision (priority status for housing), even though the decision remains under judicial review. The Sun requested the names of housing-committee members, among other further questions it posed. Gambler declined to respond. However, the Sun is in receipt of the new housing agreement, and among the housing-committee members listed is Morgan LeDoux, Davids son. The elected officials of Gambler First Nation had gone out of their way to ensure Mr. Gordon LeDouxs health needs were met including personally covering costs of an electric scooter and a temporary access ramp to be used during construction of a more permanent structure, according to the statement to the Sun. Those actions are referenced in the human rights tribunal decision, and date back to before Gordons house was allocated to someone else. The statement said Gordon has received on-reserve medical care above and beyond any obligation of Gambler First Nation and still has access to excellent care in the public health-care system. Finally, the statement, by way of the marketing firm, concludes, We appreciate the unique situation and medical needs of Mr. Gordon LeDoux and would seek his co-operation to ensure a fair and long-term housing solution for himself and fulfillment of his obligations under the Gambler First Nations Housing Policy, which applies equally to all members. Gordon said its an ongoing struggle with David. But, of course, the money just comes out of the reserve, not his pocket, so he doesnt care, really, Gordon said about professional fees for lawyers and others. There has to be some kind of deterrence for cases like this. mletourneau@brandonsun.com Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism. Read more about: STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Do you want to get your car windows etched for free? The 121st Police Precinct in Graniteville will offer free etching next Friday afternoon to inscribe residents' Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN) into the windows of their vehicles. Car thieves typically remove the VIN so that a car cannot be traced, but etching it means the windows would have to be replaced in order for a stolen car to be sold. The NYPD calls VIN etching a strong deterrent to thieves. Auto thefts on Staten Island have sharply risen during recent months, the Advance/SILive.com previously reported. So far this year there have been 169 grand larceny auto incidents reported to the NYPD representing a 35% increase since last year during the same period when 125 incidents were reported, according to the NYPD CompStat. The free etching event will be held in the parking lot of the International Christian Center Church located at 1501 Richmond Ave. from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., the 121st Precinct said in a tweet. OPERATION ID During Fridays event, residents can also sign up for Operation ID, an NYPD initiative that the agency says helps protect New Yorkers' personal property. The serial numbers of electronic devices are recorded in an NYPD database, and if stolen police say they can often recover the item through the recorded serial numbers or through activating locator software built into the device. If any of the registered items are stolen, police are often able to recover the devices through the recorded serial numbers or through activating locator software built into the device, according to the NYPD. An attorney for the family of Ashley Moore, a Black transgender woman who was found dead in Newark five months ago, had a suggestion for police on Wednesday during a virtual town hall. Cops could start each stop with a question: 'How would you like me to address you?' That, Celeste Fiore said, would help officers address people who are transgender or gender nonbinary more respectfully. (Newser) Sen. Rick Scott said he misspoke Saturday when he said on national television that he had tested positive for COVID-19, the AP reports. The Republican from Florida tweeted: "I misspoke this morning in my @FoxNews interview. I was tested yesterday for COVID and tested NEGATIVE." During an interview Saturday morning on Cavuto Live, when asked about three Senate colleagues who had contracted the virus in recent days, Scott said, "I was tested yesterday, I think for the 6th time, and I tested positive again." story continues below At least three Republican colleaguesSens. Mike Lee of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsinhave been diagnosed with the virus in recent days. A few moments before he misspoke, Scott had said that senators were still doing their jobs. "They're talking to people. They're trying to do their job every day," Scott said. A short time later, Scott's spokesman, Chris Hartline, tweeted, "For everyone calling and texting right now, Senator Scott misspoke on TV this morning. He tested negative for COVID yesterday." (Read more Rick Scott stories.) The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced on Friday that the American film producer Harvey Weinstein, has been charged with six new sexual assault counts. The Hollywood Reporter said that the sexual assault charges were filed against Weinstein by two victims stemming from incidents that allegedly occurred more than a decade ago. Authorities revealed new charges include an incident between September 2004 and September 2005, where Weinstein allegedly raped a woman at a hotel in Beverly Hills. The case that was previously filed against Harvey Weinstein earlier this year, has been amended to add three felony counts each of rape and forcible oral copulation. The new charges mean Weinstein now faces a total of four counts each of rape and forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery and one count of sexual penetration by use of force, involving five victims for crimes that span from 2004 to 2013. Harvey Weinstein In Prison In New York Reportedly, Weinstein is currently in prison in New York after he was convicted of multiple sex crimes. He was originally charged by the Los Angeles District Attorney (DA) in January of sexually assaulting two women during alleged separate incidents in 2013. The complaint was amended to add a charge that he allegedly sexually assaulted another woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in May 2010. District Attorney Jackie Lacey On Harvey Weinstein's Case Talking about the case, District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement, "I am thankful to the first women who reported these crimes and whose courage have given strength to others to come forward. The willingness of these latest victims to testify against a powerful man gives us the additional evidence we need to build a compelling criminal case." Hearing Set For December 11, 2020 In Buffalo According to authorities, Los Angeles prosecutors are now seeking temporary custody of Weinstein from New York, with an extradition hearing set for December 11, 2020 in Buffalo. Harvey Weinstein Case Which Sparked Global MeToo Movement Ends With 23 Years Prison Sentencing Report: Harvey Weinstein In New York State Prison, Tests Positive For Coronavirus Graj + Gustavsen is reimagining and re-positioning CAPEZIO for a new generation of consumers and is pursuing brand-right and market-right pathways to extend the 130-year-old dance brand into new products, experiences, and audiences in line with market and consumer trends of fitness, self-expression and demand for authenticity. The new positioning was created to inspire and empower everyone to dance, perform, and express themselves beyond the stage into a world of dance infused and inspired products, experiences and inspiration for everyone who loves to move. CAPEZIOs legacy as a dance brand is incredibly inspiring as we think about market trends of fitness, movement, creativity, and changing needs for dressing for everyday functionality, comfort, and style. says Scott Todd. Were thrilled to be working with G+G to update our positioning and extend our brand into new categories and audiences. says CAPEZIO EVP/Board of Directors Anthony Giacoio. The new CAPEZIO positioning will be introduced to the market in the fall of 2020. For information regarding CAPEZIO licensing opportunities contact Scott Todd at Scott@ggny.com About Capezio CAPEZIO was founded in 1887 by Salvatore Capezio as a shoe repair shop and ownership has remained with descendants of Salvatore ever since. After creating custom pointe shoes for a Russian dancer, the Capezio name earned global recognition. Since then CAPEZIO has been worn by performers like Madonna, Beyonce and Maddy Zeigler. CAPEZIO is the most recognizable dance brand in the world and uses this position to advocate for others to dance through The Capezio Foundation and Dance Award founded in 1957. About Graj + Gustavsen The Company Behind The Company G+G is a growth and value focused think tank and brand transformation agency. We work with businesses large and small to rethink, reimagine, and reinvent in line with where consumers and markets are headed, for sustained growth and relevancy. G+G combines rigor with creativity, looking for the Aha! moments that reveal the truth of your brand and the authentic ownable position it can hold. By bringing a future vision to life, all stakeholders can see where things are headed before investment is made in rollout. Our three divisions, tailored to specific client needs, provide unique pathways to purpose and profitability: G+G Branding, G+G Licensing, G+G Ventures. About G+G LICENSING G+Gs Licensing Division blends 30 years of brand, consumer, and retail expertise with its track record of creating award winning and successful brand extensions and licensing programs including HGTV HOME, Food Network Kitchen, Timberland PRO, Brooks Brothers Red Fleece, Field & Stream, Harley-Davidson Black Label, and Levis Denizen. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan met with servicemen of the Defense Armys special units at night before heading to the frontline. The President post a video from the meeting with the special units on his Facebook account. No one can defeat our soldiers, and this is not just an emotional recording. We will defend our united Homeland with honor, he said. In his remarks the President of Artsakh stated that today our future, the Armenian peoples right to live in this country are determined. We live the most crucial time of the centuries. We live in a critical period of having or not having a Homeland. The future of not only Artsakh, Armenia, but also the Armenian people depends on each of us. I want you all to carry out your service and continue living in this Homeland as dignified sons. Be sure, we will win. We faced a more difficult time in the 90s. That time we succeeded, today as well we will succeed. Today our childrens right to live in a free country is being determined. We have a mission before our nation and generations, the Artsakh President said. He informed that earlier he met with the Yazidi brothers, they are also in the frontline. Harutyunyan said the international community has also united because it understands the great evil which has started in the region. Earlier today Arayik Harutyunyan informed that he is heading to the frontline to carry out his fight. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan Have you hit the six-month crisis wall on the pandemic? Youre certainly excused if you are frustrated, worried or just plain fed up after half a year of enduring a pandemic. That natural reaction is a phenomenon of every prolonged emergency. You might ask, what have we achieved from six months of arduous adjustment to a new reality? Our hard work seems only to have brought us to the outset of a second pandemic wave. But we have already accomplished a great deal. Tens of thousands of us are alive today because 38 million Canadians have adhered to the COVID-19 safety precautions since the pandemic first struck in March. Ontarios $857-billion economy, one of the worlds largest, is not only functioning at a rate closer to full capacity than expected. It is also poised to emerge from this ordeal stronger than the pre-pandemic economy. Lessons learned during the pandemics first wave ensure that come 2022, Ontario will have greater prowess in advanced manufacturing methods, environmental technologies, supply-chain efficiencies and self-sufficiency, notably in medical supplies we no longer outsource. Advances in our social economy include a new proficiency in remote work and education, and long overdue attention to the health-care needs of seniors and migrant workers. And we have experimented successfully with a type of universal basic income (the Canada Emergency Response Benefit). It must be said, however, that in recent weeks it has appeared that we might be losing our battle against the pandemic. Though a second wave was anticipated in the spring, Ontario and other Canadian jurisdictions squandered the summer in failing to prepare for it. And so, we entered the second wave without the world-class testing, tracing and isolation methods long ago perfected by South Korea, Germany and Iceland. Each of those countries has a far lower COVID-19 fatality rate among infected patients than Canada. In the past month, even some of the governments in Canada most sure-footed during the first wave have taken to issuing conflicting safety directives, eroding the public trust in government essential to defeating a pandemic. Since the COVID-19 outbreaks that followed Canada Day long-weekend family gatherings, we knew that deadly infections were migrating from the long-term-care sector to Canadians living rooms and backyards. But the updated restrictions on gatherings, when they finally arrived, were and continue to be a hodgepodge that sets varied limits on personal residences, banquet halls, weddings and church meetings. The new restrictions are difficult to follow and often seem contradictory or unfair. In a particularly bizarre decision, Ontario recently imposed restrictions on the hours of operation of bars and restaurants, while on Monday it reopened casinos, which the province itself has identified as COVID-19 hot spots. Meanwhile, the feds dithered all last month on making a decision about rapid-result COVID-19 testing devices that had been approved elsewhere, but not by Health Canada. Their absence helps account for the record 700 new daily reported COVID-19 cases in Ontario on Monday, and a projection that daily cases will exceed 1,000 by mid-October frightening numbers that eclipse the first wave. Finally, over the summer some Ontarians got too casual about safety precautions, as Ontarios chief medical officer put it on Monday. Thats because governments at all levels were casual in dealing with reckless behaviour by a minority of people who, thinking the worst of the pandemic was over, defiantly violated public-health guidelines with unsafe gatherings across southern Ontario. But all that said, the second wave is markedly different from the first. It is devilishly complicated to manage. The near-total economic shutdown of the first wave was a relatively straightforward, if brutal, method for successfully containing the virus. Pandemic 2.0, by sharp contrast, has a goal of keeping the economy as open as possible while protecting lives. That accounts for much of the seeming inertia and policy contradictions of governments and public-health authorities. In Pandemic 2.0, the schools are open. That is among the biggest differences between the two waves of the pandemic. And every effort is being made to keep as many Canadians employed as possible, which was not an issue in Pandemic 1.0. And in todays highly upgraded system of COVID-19 detection, contact tracing and isolation, a degree of personal privacy intrusion is required that naturally encounters pushback. But the folks in charge are getting a handle on this new approach, which tries to balance health, economic and privacy issues, among others. The COVID-19 apps that Ontario and the feds have introduced respect privacy with a guarantee of anonymity to those using them. Quebec has just imposed a return to the more restrictive conditions of the provinces equivalent to Ontarios Stage 2, but only in Quebecs three most heavily populated regions. Should that measure be required in Ontario, it will be applied in the GTA and Ottawa, the provinces two hot spots, and not across the entire province as in the pandemics first wave. The City of Toronto has gone further, with surgical strikes to shut down specific workplaces four of them last weekend that are found to be COVID-19-unsafe. Ontario, deficits be damned, is investing $1 billion to rapidly expand COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, to ease unacceptably long waiting lines for tests. On Monday, Ottawa announced its plan to buy 7.9 million rapid-result COVID-19 tests that provide results in under 15 minutes. Two days later, Parliament voted unanimously to extend the income supports that cushioned the first-wave pandemic blow for close to nine million Canadians. (In the U.S., those supports expired July 31.) And the light touch with COVID-19 miscreants appears to have stopped with last weekends unauthorized car rally at Wasaga Beach. Police have issued nearly 200 tickets to the participants, ranging from $750 to $10,000. (Theyre lucky. This week, a Maryland violator of state COVID-19 rules was sentenced to a year in prison.) To be sure, patience is required of us in monitoring this more imaginative and ultimately beneficial method of defeating the virus. Mistakes will be made, since many of the promising safety measures are experimental. They must be undertaken with a caution that can be mistaken as inaction. To this day, for example, expert opinions are divided on the merits of rapid-result test devices. But by and large, events are unfolding as we would hope for. We will bend the curve again, because we have the will and knowledge to do it. Our kids will be in school this time. And only those economic participants who violate the safety rules will be forced to close. And this much hasnt changed. The fight will be won or lost by 38 million Canadians continuing to adhere to the safety precautions, especially with the approach of flu season and COVID-19-friendly cold weather. Be well, and stay safe. File image: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav will be the opposition Grand Alliance's Chief Ministerial candidate for the forthcoming Bihar Assembly polls. RJD is contesting the elections in alliance with Congress and Left parties. The Grand Alliance has hammered a seat-sharing deal for the upcoming assembly elections in the state and a formal announcement on the allotment of seats, according to reports. The Congress will be contesting on 70 seats, CPI (M) on four, CPI on six, CPI (M-L) on 19, while the RJD will contest on 144 seats in the 243-strong assembly, Tejashwi said during a press conference on October 3. "All components of UPA have decided to come together as coalition for the Bihar Assembly elections. Congress, RJD, CPI, CPM & Vikassheel Insaan Party will be part of this alliance under leadership of RJD. We want Bihar to prosper under Tejashwi Yadav," Congress' Avinash Pandey said. The seat-sharing exercise gained pace after RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's emissary Bhola Yadav returned to Patna from Ranchi on Thursday with his message on the distribution of seats among different partners. Sources in the Congress, however, said the grand old party is not happy with the distribution of the seats because besides being offered a lesser number of seats, it is being given constituencies where the party has never won. Polls in the state will be held in three phases starting from October 28, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic . The counting of votes will happen on November 10. Lately, Nollywood star, Ramsey Nouah, wears the directors hat on movie sets. Since he made his directorial debut with the sequel of Nollywood classic, Living in Bondage, the actor appears to be enjoying his newfound love for directing. At the digital press conference for the remake of Amaka Igwes 1995 hit movie, RattleSnake, on Thursday, the actor spoke about his directorial role in the movie and why he agreed to do the job. Play Networks boss, Charles Okpaleke, bought the rights to RattleSnake five years after he acquired the rights to Living in Bondage. RattleSnake was a 1994 Nollywood classic directed by the late Amaka Igwe and produced by Austin Awulonu. It told the story of a young boy named Ahanna Okolo (Francis Duru), who got into the life of crime as a result of unfortunate events in his childhood. The movie star jokingly said that although the executive producer of the film, Charles Okpaleke, had to literally put a gun to his head to make him agree to work on the film, he appreciates works of art and he decided to work on the remake. This will be Okpalekes third movie. His first, Living in Bondage: Breaking Free made over N140 million within the first few weeks of its release in cinemas. Charles of Play shared the idea of making replays of old Nollywood movies with me. We made Living in Bondage and it was a success and we decided to make others. Living in Bondage was a sequel, Rattlesnake is a remake. The producers of the film believe in works of art and the sense of nostalgia that these films bring also contribute to their appeal, he said. He added that the strength of nostalgia was what Mr Okpaleke saw that influenced him into making the remake, instead of allowing the good old classics to go to waste. When they succeeded in making a sequel, they decided to also do a remake. He said, I love the fact that we can actually speak our dialect. That is nostalgia. Any movie that can actually stand the test of time, is worth remaking. Imagine if our classics were made on strong formats then there wont be reasons to remake them. The format Rattlesnake was made in then is not good enough but the format we are making now, in 20 years time, Id still watch it. Mr Nouah also said the film is a way to celebrate the memory of the producer of the original movie, the late Amaka Igwe, who he said was one of the best to ever make movies in Nollywood. He said, We also celebrate the original producer of the movie, Amaka Igwe. Right from the start, I knew she was way beyond Nollywood. She was one of the best hands we had in the industry. Making a remake of her film will definitely bring back those memories. Chris Odeh, one of the producers of the movie also said he joined the crew of the movie because it is an indigenous movie that promotes the culture and it is deserving of a remake so it can be made better for viewers in the present generation. One of the reasons I came on board is that we have 93 dialects with different cultures in this country. Most of them are left untouched waiting for the western world to come tell our story. I appreciate the way we all came together and spoke our language to promote our culture. Also, I watched the initial and it was very blurry because it was made for cassette players. If you come now and see this, youll be amazed to see a clearer picture with better music, better cinematography, and all, he said. Challenges The screenwriter, award-winning Nicole Asinugo, talked about the challenges of writing the story for the movie. She said she found it much easier to write the story for Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, for which she co-won an award at the AMVCAs. She said, The process was different, based on the time. I wrote Living in Bondage in 2015/16, I was much younger. This one was different because I had so much more going on but what made it unique is the fact that there was a team. Several times, I was on zoom with Charles, Ramsey, and Chris, discussing the story. Then, the story wasnt like starting from the scratch but putting the original story in the context that we are looking at. The director, Ramsey Nouah, also said it was quite challenging interpreting the story to fit into the current era. A story that was made in an era being remade in another era when the demography is completely different. We had to make it to appeal to the viewers of this era. The good thing about Rattlesnake is that it is a story that remains relevant at any period because the ills that were addressed then are still very much in our society today, he said. Mr Odeh talked about the challenges of having to shoot the movie during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into consciousness every preventive measures they could, in order to be safe. He said, We had to be extra conscious of hygiene. Moving here and there and having to sanitize and wash our hands at every point. We had a PR Health, they gave us sanitizers, text kits, face shields, and masks. It was not easy but we had to do that just to be safe. Casting Choosing actors to play different characters in the moving was equally taxing, they said, as they had to find the right actors to fit with the kind of energy they want in the film. The producer, Mr Odeh, said they put extra efforts into finding the characters for the film because a story can only be told with proper casting. While Nicole was writing, she created very strong characters for the story and we had to find actors that match the energy. It was during the COVID time, it was very challenging, we went online, looked for actors, invited them for reading, and each time we found an actor we shared with the crew members, he said. Advertisements Judith Audu, a line producer for the film commended the choice of characters, saying they brought their individual energies to create a fire. They came together and brought their energies with them. When the director saw them for the first time, he was impressed by the energy. He already had the kind of characters he wanted in his head and they all met up to his expectations, she said. The director added that even though there are lots of great actors in the industry, there are no sentiments attached to choosing characters in Play Network. Sonny McDon, the only character from the original movie that is brought into the remake said playing the role again, 25 years after the first one, makes him feel young again. It is wonderful. I feel like a Gee right now. I feel younger than everybody there. It is like a man seeing his franchise being born. I feel elated, I feel happy. I can only say thank you to God for making me witness this. Thanks to my director, my producer, and the entire family. 20 years ago, I directed Ramsey and in 2020, Ramsey is directing me. It is like being young to old and then back to young again, he said. Mr McDon played the role of the main characters father in the original movie and is returning with the same role in the remake. The award-winning Nigerian music producer, Larry Ndianefo aka Larry Gaaga, is producing the movies soundtrack. The movie will premiere in cinemas nationwide on November 8. See some behind-the-scene photos from the set below: , We're sorry, this article is not currently available It's a dog-eat-dog world, folks. And possibly no man alive has had to deal with as many vicious ankle-biters as our president, Donald Trump. But whether he likes it or not, his COVID-19 diagnosis is going to take him out of the wild melee for a brief time. Trump's absence will give Americans some much needed perspective on things. Voters, especially that key group of people called "Undecided," will now get an up-close look at Joe Biden, the Democrats, and their media lapdogs. They're not gonna like what they see. While Joe Biden may seem fine as an idea, a return to the era of Hope and Change, he's going to wilt under closer examination. In Trump's absence, Americans will notice how little work Sleepy Joe actually does, how lethargic he is compared to our president. They'll notice how frail and stooped and elderly Biden appears. He, not Trump, looks like the nursing home residents most at risk of dying from this disease. With the microphone temporarily all to himself, Joe Biden will be revealed as an empty shell, a man way past his prime. His halting, disjointed speech will be noticed, his lack of vigor exposed as he takes days off for no obvious reason and studiously avoids the press. With the stage all to himself, will frail, forgetful Joe Biden stand tall in the eyes and minds of the Undecideds? No. The U.S. electorate will also see how Democrats behave with their main punching bag temporarily out of commission. They won't like it, not one little bit. Voters will see Hollywood stars wishing death on President Trump, pro athletes cheering for his demise, and NeverTrumps hoping our president suffers grievously. It's no wonder liberals are fond of wearing face masks; it hides their essential ugliness as human beings. Common folk will surely notice Chuck Schumer using the president's illness as leverage to delay Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett. They'll recall Nancy Pelosi's mask-free hair salon antics as she criticizes Trump for not wearing a mask. They'll remember Rep. Rashida Tlaib, upon learning of the president's diagnosis, saying Trump cares only about himself. Common folk will be appalled and repulsed. Americans who may not ordinarily consume much news will also note the despicable behavior of the U.S. press: the Washington Post giddily imagining a world without Trump, the Los Angeles Times saying Trump deserves COVID for downplaying the threat, the New York Times speculating that the president may be faking his illness. Fair people don't kick a man when he's down. And undecided voters are going to notice, some perhaps for the first time, how terribly unfair our mainstream media are to President Trump. How vile, slanderous, and endless are their lies. The public's trust in the media, already historically low, can only erode further. Donald Trump is a force of nature, a larger than life individual who's no doubt working hard this very moment from his hospital room. He loves his country so much that he stoically suffers the slings and arrows from outrageous Democrats and an amoral media to serve it. A lesser man of his age and financial status would be sitting around the pool, drinking pina coladas. Joni Mitchell's lyrics come to mind regarding President Trump's hopefully temporary absence from the White House. "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?" Get well soon, Mr. President. Image credit: Anthony Easton via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. Zelensky praised the progress, says the Ukrhydroenergo operator. During a working trip to Chernivtsi region, President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Dniester Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Power Plant, which is currently an integral element of the state's energy strategy until 2030. The head of state has inspected three operating hydraulic units and construction zones, where hydraulic unit 4 is being built, according to the President's Office. Zelensky praised the progress in construction, says the Ukrhydroenergo operator. "The completion of construction works at the Dniester PSP will increase reliability of energy supply and expand the export potential of the state energy grid. It is possible to maintain high-quality electricity to Moldova and Romania," said Zelensky. The power plant operates in a unique "pump turbine" mode and allows using energy accumulated overnight to generate electricity during peak loads on the grid. The PSP is a powerful mechanism for regulating the balance of production and consumption of electricity in Ukraine's power grid, which improves quality of electricity and its economic attractiveness to potential consumers in Europe, according to the report. The construction of the 4th hydraulic unit of the second stage of the Dniester PSP is scheduled to be completed in the 4Q 2020. The capacity of its launch complex will be 421 MW in pump mode and 324 MW in generation mode. "This year we plan to make the first launch of the unit on Energy Workers Day. And in the first half of next year we are planning to put it into industrial operation," CEO of Ukrhydroenergo Ihor Syrota said. Read alsoShare of renewable generation doubles in Jan-AugAccording to a preliminary plan, the construction of all hydraulic units is set to have been completed by 2028. While at the power plant, the Head of State discussed with the management the possibility of their faster completion. Ukrhydroenergo performance Having failed to crack Bihar Peoples Party (BPP) leader Kaushlendra alias Chhotan Shuklas murder case and a couple of other murder cases related to it, the Bihar police on Friday filed a closure report, after 26 years, before the CJM court in Muzaffarpur, citing insufficient evidence. Chhotans murder had triggered off a chain of crimes, including the killing of Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah, 35, by an irate mob in 1994. Chhotan, a resident of a village in Vaishali and the brother of former JD (U) MLA from Lalganj, Vijay Kumar alias Munna Shukla, was gunned down on December 4, 1994 in Muzaffarpur, when he, with four others, was returning from an election meeting at Keshariya assembly constituency. Also Read: Bihar assembly election 2020: NDA likely to announce seat-sharing arrangement today A murder case was lodged on the basis of statement of the then sub-inspector of Brahmpura police station, Ravindra Kumar, against unidentified criminals. After probing for 26 years, the police filed a final report in the court for case closure on the grounds of insufficient evidence. In the final report, all the evidence that was available and could be gathered during the probe and the gaps in evidence, have been detailed, said the investigating officer of the case, Kailash Yadav. Also Read: Like in Sushant Rajput case: Bihar police gets FIR request from actor Akshat Utkarshs family Police officials said an RJD minister Brijbihari Prasad was shot dead at Patnas Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, where he was undergoing treatment, in June 1998. The motive was cited as revenge for Chhotan Shuklas murder, since Brijbihari Prasad was alleged to be involved in the killing. His brother-cum- deputy mayor Manmardan Shukla said he will seek legal help from senior lawyers. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Avinash Kumar Avinash, a senior correspondent, reports on crime, railways, defence and social sector, with specialisation in police, home department and other investigation agencies. ...view detail After a decent correction, bulls came roaring back this truncated week pushing benchmark indices higher by 3 percent, the best weekly gain since May. The action was not limited to benchmark indices as small and midcap stocks also participated equally in the holiday-shortened week. Indian market remained shut on Friday on account of a public holiday. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 3.5 percent while the Nifty50 was up 3.3 percent in the week ended October 1. S&P BSE Midcap index and the S&P BSE Smallcap index closed with gains of about 3.3 percent each in the same period. As many as 27 stocks that rallied 10-30 percent in just four trading sessions. These include KEC International, Delta Corp, L&T Finance Holding, Dish TV, Welspun India, PVR, and Himatsingka Seide Ltd among others. A large part of the rally was led by global cues amid expectations of another round of stimulus from the US government. Domestic cues such as upbeat September auto sales numbers, robust GST collections as well as Unlock 5 also supported market sentiment. Markets posted decent gains last week, thanks to upbeat global markets and favourable local cues. Among the key factors, rising hope of a stimulus package in the US and guidelines on Unlock 5 boosted the sentiment, Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking Ltd told Moneycontrol. Besides, the rising trend of auto sales numbers in September month for the passenger vehicles and tractor segments also cheered investors, he said. The action in the coming week is likely to be dominated by September quarter earnings, Supreme Courts decision on the interest waiver. On the global front, any update on the US President's COVID situation will also be closely monitored. Mishra is of the view that the next week marks the beginning of earnings season and among the top names, IT major, TCS, is scheduled to announce its number on October 7. Besides, news related to COVID-19 and updates on the US Presidential election will also be closely tracked. Technical View: The Nifty50 formed a bullish candle on the daily and weekly charts for the week that ended on October 1. It closed above 5-Days Exponential Moving Average as well as 50-Days EMA. Experts are of the view that the banking theme which led the rally from the front is likely to dominate the price action in the coming week along with FII activity. The S&P BSE Bankex closed with gains of over 6 percent followed by the S&P BSE Consumer Durable index which rose 5.7 percent. The rebound in banking and financials is a welcome relief as other sectors. The breakout above 11,300 in Nifty has again shifted the bias in the favour of bulls. Based on the derivative data FIIs are playing a crucial role in the broader direction of the market. In the past, ahead of the US elections most of the time FIIs have proved right in terms of market direction, Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President, Equity Technical Research at Kotak Securities told Moneycontrol. On Monday, 11460 and 11450 would be major hurdles for the Nifty 50 index, however, the outcome from the Supreme Court on the interest waiver would decide the broader trend for the market. The index would find supports at 11300 and 11250 levels, he said. : The views and investment tips expressed by experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. United States President Donald Trump has mild symptoms of COVID-19 after announcing Friday that tests showed that he and his wife Melania have the coronavirus. Trump wrote on Twitter early Friday, Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! The White House also released a letter from the presidents physician to confirm that they both tested positive for the virus. Speaking to reporters on Friday morning, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said, "The President does have mild symptoms, and that he will remain on the job. The virus threat to health So far, more than 7 million Americans have been infected with the new coronavirus. The deaths of more than 208,000 people in the U.S. have been tied to the virus. That is more than any other country. Trump has pushed for schools and businesses to re-open. He also held campaign events attended by many people who did not wear face coverings or practice social distancing. Just hours earlier on Thursday, the president said in a pre-recorded message to the Al Smith Dinner, "I just want to say that the end of the pandemic is in sight, and next year will be one of the greatest years in the history of our country. During Tuesday night's debate against former Vice President Joe Biden, he said, I dont wear masks like him. In a tweet Friday morning, Biden said he and his wife Jill send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. Biden added, Im happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for COVID. And he reminded people to wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hand. World leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered their best wishes. Threat to the government The presidents announcement raised concerns about administration officials. The White House has required daily testing for the presidents top assistants. Anyone in close contact with the president or vice president is also tested every day, including news reporters. Vice President Mike Pence is next in line for the presidency. Tests on Friday showed that he did not have the virus. He remains in good health, his spokesman said. Many administration officials were undergoing tests. And the White House Medical Unit was getting information on people who came in contact with the president. Before Trump announced he had the virus, the administration said an assistant, Hope Hicks, had tested positive. Hicks had been with Trump at Tuesdays presidential debate in Cleveland, along with members of the Trump family. An administration official told the Associated Press that Hicks began feeling mild symptoms during the plane ride home from a campaign event in Minnesota on Wednesday. She was kept apart from other passengers, the person said. It is unclear where the Trumps and Hicks may have caught the virus. But speaking to Fox News, Trump seemed to suggest it may have been spread by someone in the military or law enforcement in greetings. Trump is not the first world leader to test positive for the virus. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Britains Boris Johnson also got COVID-19. The prime minister spent a week in the hospital but has since recovered. Im Jonathan Evans. Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller reported this story for the Associated Press. Hai Do adapted it with additional materials for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor. _________________________________________________________ Words in This Story quarantine n. a period when a person who has a disease is kept way from others to prevent the spread of the disease positive adj. showing the presence of a substance like a germ or virus symptom n. a change in the body that shows that a disease is present pandemic n. the fast spread of an infectious disease over a wide area or large part of the world We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. OPINION: Who are you voting for? Nearly every letter in today's edition advocates for a candidate, position or proposition, with the others lamenting the chaos that reigned at Tuesday's first Presidential Debate. London, Oct 3 : At least 770 students at the UK's Northumbria University have been tested positive for the novel coronavirus, leading to hundreds of other pupils to self-isolate. In a statement on Friday, a university spokesman said that of the 770, 78 were symptomatic and all the infected students and their close contacts were currently self-isolating for 14 days in line with the government guidelines, the BBC reported. "The increase in numbers comes in the week after students returned to university and reflects the good access to and availability of testing, as well as rigorous and robust reporting systems. "In parts of the UK where universities started term earlier, numbers of student cases surged in induction week, and then reduced. "We are making it clear to students that if they break the rules they will be subject to fines from police and disciplinary action by the universities which may include fines, final warnings or expulsion. "Both Northumbria and Newcastle universities have Covid response teams on call that are working closely with NHS Test and Trace, Public Health England North East and the City to identify and get in touch with anyone who has been in close contact with those affected," the spokesman added. So far, some 56 universities across the UK have reported at least one confirmed case. There have been more than 200 cases at the University of Sheffield and 177 at University of Liverpool. Following the development at Northumbria, the University and College Union (UCU), which represents lecturers, said that it warned that it was "far too soon for a mass return to campus", the BBC reported. "We told Northumbria University they had a civic duty to put the health of staff, students and the local community first and we take no pleasure in now seeing another preventable crisis play out. "We warned last month that, given the current restrictions in the region, the direction of the infection rate and the problems with test and trace, it was clearly far too soon for a mass return to campus," the Union added. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 3) Senator Leila de Lima wants a probe into the controversial 389-million beautification project in Manila Bay, which critics said was a waste of taxpayers money. In a statement issued Saturday, De Lima said she filed Senate Bill 532, asking the Senate to investigate the overlaying of crushed dolomite along the Manila Bay shoreline. The lawmaker noted the funds for the white sand project could have been used to feed 5.2 million hungry families because of the pandemic, or allotted for healthcare by way of COVID-19 government response instead. The makeover of Manila Bay shows that this administrations priorities lean towards cosmetic beautification rather than health, economic aid, or education. Now is the opportune time to conduct this investigation as we are nearing fiscal year 2021 deliberations in Congress, she added. Environment advocate Oceana Philippines previously said the overlaying of dolomite is a "total waste of taxpayers' money" since rains will just wash away the synthetic sand. But the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has said it has put in place "interventions" to avoid that from happening. Experts from the University of the Philippines have warned that the use of the white sand a project in line with the bays rehabilitation program may pose health risks and threats to the marine environment. The Health Department earlier said that the dolomite dumped along the stretch in Roxas Boulevard cannot cause adverse health effects, since it is not small enough to be inhaled. The Environment Department has also published a report showing the dolomite sand in Manila Bay is not classified as hazardous, as tests done on its samples did not exceed the limits set in the agencys Revised Procedures and Standards for the Management of Hazardous Wastes. President Donald Trump was hospitalized Friday and given an experimental Covid-19 treatment, but said he was "well," following bombshell news he had contracted the virus, knocking him off the campaign trail a month from the US election. After having not been seen in public since the shock announcement, the president walked out of the White House Friday evening, wearing a mask, and flew by helicopter to the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington. In an 18-second video recorded inside the White House and released on Twitter, Trump broke his silence, saying he was being hospitalized but "I think I'm doing very well." "We're going to make sure that things work out," he said, adding that First Lady Melania Trump -- who also contracted the virus -- was "doing very well." Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was receiving the anti-viral drug remdesivir following consultation with specialists. The president was "not requiring any supplemental oxygen," she said in a statement late Friday. Earlier, she said that medical experts recommended Trump work from the presidential offices at Walter Reed "for the next few days." The hospitalization indicated an intense effort to make sure the president's reportedly "mild" symptoms do not deteriorate. The development also highlighted the uncharted waters for the US election on November 3, with Trump -- who is well behind his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in the polls -- having to freeze much of his campaign. At first, aides gave rosy assessments, with Trump's chief of staff saying the president, 74, had only mild symptoms, was in "good spirits" and feeling "very energetic." But later Friday White House physician Sean Conley said Trump received a single dose of Regeneron's antibody cocktail, a treatment not yet approved by regulators. "He's being evaluated by a team of experts, and together we'll be making recommendations to the President and First Lady in regards to next best steps," Conley wrote. The president's son Donald Trump Jr told Fox News his father was "obviously taking it very seriously, but he's a fighter." Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (L) greets local labor leaders ahead of a virtual event at the union's state headquarters on Labor Day, September 07, 2020 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Biden's campaign has organized more virtual events, engaging with supporters using video teleconferencing. (Getty Images/AFP /Chip Somodevilla) Biden out on his own Trump's illness upended the White House race, with Biden suddenly finding himself alone on the campaign trail -- and able to argue that his more cautious approach to Covid-19 had been vindicated. Biden has made Trump's frequent downplaying of the pandemic and mixed messaging on mask-wearing a central campaign theme, while Trump has tried to shift the narrative to areas where he feels stronger, like the economy. The former vice president, who stood in close proximity to Trump for 90 minutes during their ill-tempered first debate Tuesday, announced that he and his wife Jill tested negative Friday. Underlining his sudden advantage in the bitter race, Biden, 77, traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, going ahead with a previously scheduled campaign stop. Biden said he was praying for Trump and his family, and his campaign announced it would take down all negative ads. However, Biden also reminded voters that he has pushed consistently for taking seriously the coronavirus, which has killed more than 208,000 Americans, unlike his opponent who has mocked the Democrat for his rigorous use of masks. "Be patriotic," Biden told supporters in Michigan through a blue surgical mask. "It's not about being a tough guy. It's about doing your part." Campaign grounded Trump's shock diagnosis was a huge blow to his reelection effort, triggering a freeze on plans to barnstorm the country in an attempt to catch up in the polls. The Trump campaign said all planned events involving the president were either being postponed or going virtual -- starting with the cancellation of a Florida rally Friday, one Saturday in Wisconsin and others in western states like Arizona next week. Even the second Trump-Biden debate, scheduled for October 15, is now in some doubt. Rallies are such a key part of the Trump brand that his sudden inability to travel leaves the campaign scrambling to reinvent its strategy. In addition, Trump has made his argument that coronavirus dangers are overblown a central plank of his reelection platform. Hope Hicks, an advisor to US President Donald Trump walks to Air Force One to depart Washington with the president and other staff on campaign travel to Minnesota from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US September 30, 2020. (Reuters/Leah Millis ) Contact tracing News of Trump's infection came after one of his closest advisors, Hope Hicks, tested positive -- sparking fears of a cluster of cases emanating from the heart of the White House. Trump met with dozens of people through the week and reportedly went to a fundraiser in New Jersey after it was known that Hicks had contracted the virus. The White House said it was carrying out contact tracing, while Melania Trump's spokeswoman said the couple's 14-year-old son Barron had tested negative. Vice President Mike Pence and other senior figures tested negative. The White House said Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was negative too. Former White House top aid Kellyanne Conway, however, announced late Friday she had tested positive with "mild" symptoms. Trump's campaign manager, 42-year-old Bill Stepien, said he had tested positive, US media reported, and was in quarantine with mild symptoms. In his 70s and technically obese, the president is in a higher-risk category. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist, told AFP Trump had an estimated 20 percent chance of developing severe disease requiring oxygenation. As the news rattled global stock markets, leaders including Germany's Angela Merkel, Britain's Boris Johnson, and Russia's Vladimir Putin wished the president and first lady a speedy recovery. Trump's predecessor Barack Obama noted the US is "in the midst of a big political fight" but set aside the bitter election battle to extend "best wishes" to the first family. Vijay Diwas: Rajnath Singh lauds Indian Army, says their sacrifice is source of inspiration to Indians Give her immediate medical care: When PM Modi briefly halted his speech India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Oct 03: Prime Minister Narendra Modi briefly halted his address at the Salang Valley when a listener felt unwell. On noticing this, the PM immediacy asked the medical team to give a woman security personnel assistance. Please take her from there and make her sit down. As our medical team to help her, the PM also said. PM Modi on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the Congress, saying India's defence interests were compromised under its rule, and asserted nothing is more important to his government than protecting the country. Atal tunnel will give new strength to India's border infrastructure: PM Modi Modi hit out at the opposition party, which headed the coalition government at the Centre during 2004-14, after inaugurating the strategically important 9.02-km Atal Tunnel, the world's longest highway tunnel which reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by four to five hours. He cited a number of strategically important projects, from Atal Tunnel to the air strip at Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh and Tejas fighter aircraft production, to assert that they were delayed or almost forgotten and questioned as to what "compulsion" and "pressure" might have been behind it, without directly naming the Congress. His government, the prime minister said, has deployed all its strength to develop border infrastructure, adding that never before has work been done at such a big scale, be it building roads, bridges or tunnels. For long, he said, border projects could never come out of planning stage and those which did got stuck or were kept on the back burner. The then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had inaugurated the approach road to Atal Tunnel in 2002 but the project was almost forgotten after his government was gone, Modi said, targeting the Congress-led UPA dispensation. Work on only 1,300 meters was completed by 2013-14, he noted, adding that the project would have been completed by 2040 by this pace before his government took charge in 2014 and speeded it up at an unprecedented rate. "Our govt increased the pace of construction from 300 meters/year to 1400 meters/year and completed the project in 2020," Modi said. In just six years the government completed the work of 26 years, he said. Just like the Atal tunnel, this treatment was meted out to several such projects, the prime minister said, adding that Daulat Beg Oldi air strip remained closed for four to five decades. "There was no political will. I can talk about dozens of projects that are important from the strategic point of view, but for years they were neglected," he said, hitting out at the previous Congress-led governments. "Nothing more important to us than the national interest and protecting the country, but the nation has seen an era when defence interests were compromised," he said, in an apparent swipe at the opposition party. In this context, he also referred to the Kosi mega bridge in Bihar which was envisaged by the Vajpayee government and inaugurated by him last month. The decisions of our government are a testimony to that it does what it says, he said. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News His government has undertaken major reforms so that defence equipment could be made under 'Make in India', he said, adding that fulfilling the defence needs are his government's top priority. Speaking of the Atal Tunnel inauguration, Modi said it is a historic day as not only has the dream of the former prime minister been fulfilled but the decades-long wait of people of the state is also over. The tunnel will be a lifeline not just for Himachal Pradesh but also for Leh-Ladakh, he said. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh highlighted on the occasion the strategic importance of the tunnel, saying it will make soldiers' deployment and movement of weapons and ration easier. It will also be a big help to people and tourism sector, he said. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and Union minister Anurag Thakur were also present on the occasion. Polestars 2 EV is off to a rough start. The automaker told Dagens Industri (via Reuters) that it was recalling all examples of the Polestar 2 (nearly 2,200) due to a software glitch that led to power losses, even while the vehicle was driving. There have been no crashes or injuries, but the company nonetheless urged people to get the issue fixed quickly as possible by visiting a service station. The company only started producing the Polestar 2 this year and sells it in only a handful of countries, including China and the US. About 600 have been sold so far in Polestars native Sweden. There hasnt been much damage, then, and the company doesnt expect sales to top 50,000 per year until two to three years from now. Still, the recall comes at a less-than-ideal moment for Polestar. The 2 is considered one of the closest rivals to Teslas Model 3, and has both a Volvo association and the weight of Chinese car giant Geely behind it. The brand cant afford too many missteps if its going to become a major force in EVs, and a dangerous software flaw certainly counts as one of those errors. New Delhi, Oct 3 : On the run after smothering his girlfriend to death at his rented home in Dwarka nearly 10 days ago, a 28-year-old man has been arrested in Dibrugarh in Assam, Delhi Police said on Saturday. Satish Kumar, son of a retired Army personnel, had allegedly murdered Dishu Kumari after a fight over sharing of a password of her mobile phone. Police said Satish and Dishu were colleagues at a Gurugram BPO. On September 23, the woman had come to Satish's accommodation in Chhawla. "He grew suspicious as the woman was getting calls from another person while she was with Satish. He asked her to unlock her phone to check the call details. Both had a heated argument, after which Satish smothered the girl to death. He later hid the body inside a bed and fled," said DCP Dwarka Santosh Kumar Meena. The body was discovered two days later after neighbours complained of foul smell from the room and called police. The accused also took away the woman's mobile phone and threw it into bushes near Greater Kailash. He also sold his mobile phones to avoid tracing by police and fled to Dibrugarh, from where he was finally arrested. As the coronavirus ripples through President Donald Trump's inner circle and beyond, a key lesson of the pandemic is again on full display: Power and privilege are not reliable protections from the virus. That has been the case for Trump, who announced Friday he had covid-19 amid a growing cluster of positive tests among White House staff, aides and allies. Earlier in the pandemic, that was also true for members of Iran's parliament - more than 10 percent of whom had contracted the virus that causes covid-19 by early March. Within another month, 31 of its 290 members had confirmed testing positive, including the parliament's speaker Ali Larijani. In the early days of the pandemic, the virus struck the head of Iran's emergency medical services and a deputy health minister. The virus also killed a key adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as several other senior political figures. Much more is now known about how the virus spreads than when reports of a mysterious pathogen began circulating the globe in early 2020. Indoor and poorly ventilated gatherings where people are crowded together and talking loudly are particularly risky, scientists now agree. Men and those above age 60 are at higher risk for complications. People who are asymptomatic can pass on the virus, while "superspreaders" - people who heavily shed the virus - account for a majority of known transmission. And face masks, public health experts repeatedly recommend, can curb the spread of the virus, in addition to frequent hand washing and social distancing. Iran shut its parliament on Feb. 25, six days after confirming its first infections and fatalities. But with an incubation period of two weeks - and sometimes even more - it appears that move was already too late to stem the virus's march through the country's echelons of power once an outbreak had found its way in. In the months since, parliaments and congresses around the world have gone virtual or opted for a hybrid model to prevent these kinds of superspreading events. Occasionally, government buildings have temporarily shut and members ordered into quarantine after one of their own tests positive. In Sudan, 10 members of the country's coronavirus task contracted covid-19 in May. Before Trump's infection, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among the most high-profile world leaders to battle covid-19, which nearly killed him. In the spring, Iran was among the region's hardest hit country by the virus. Critics accused the government of covering up the severity of outbreaks, as hospitals, already crumbling amid an economic crisis, struggled to provide care. When its parliament reopened in April, strict social distancing rules were put in place. State-run television captured images of some members huddled together nonetheless. The Michigan Supreme Court held Governor Gretchen Whitmers continuing declarations of emergency unconstitutional yesterday in a 4-3 ruling by the states supreme court. The decision is posted online here. The Detroit News story on the decision is here. Monarchy is out in Michigan. As you might imagine, the witless Governor Whitmer is deeply disappoint[ed]. She intends to carry on under alternative sources of law. In Minnesota, Governor Walz continues rule by decree for the indefinite future. Evidence of the emergency on which his rule by decree is predicated nevertheless continues to evanesce. In the data reported yesterday, for example, the authorities attributed 10 new deaths to COVID-19. Of these, 7 occurred among residents of long-term care facilities. As set forth in the Department of Healths weekly report dated October 1, the median age of decedents remains 83. Of the 10 new deaths, two involved decedents in their 90s, five in their 80s, two in their 70s, and one in his 60s. I declare the hospitalization data now provided by MDH to be worthless. As I read yesterdays daily numbers, no one was admitted to intensive care and one patient was hospitalized. (The numbers will be updated.) MDH no longer advises us of the total laid up in hospitals with the disease at any given time. Below is a chart based on the relevant numbers up until the day they turned out the lights on current hospitalizations last week (red=deaths, black line=new cases, green line=current hospitalizations), courtesy of C. Nelson, who comments: It doesnt take a genius to see whats going on. If theyre trying to make the case for Casesyou cant afford for people to see that hospitalizations are not increasing at an alarming rate. The Department of Health reported 1,184 new cases yesterday, yet I believe no mention was made of this number at its briefing (audio below). The new case number derived from a total of 32,977 tested, yielding the low positivity rate of 3.5 percent. Perhaps this is why no mention was made of the number of new cases. The median age of new cases remains 35. Minnesota is implicated in the news that President Trump has contracted COVID-19. During his day in the state this past Wednesday, he appeared at a fundraiser in a private home on Lake Minnetonka outside Minneapolis and at the public rally that evening in Duluth. Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann opened the briefing with a statement related to these events and several reporters raised related questions. Of these, my favorite was the question raised by WCCOs Erin Hassanzadeh at about 22:00. Eric Trump appeared for a rally at Potter Trucking in Becker on Thursday following the Trump campaign events in Minnesota on Wednesday. Question: Has MDH put Becker County on notice? Answer: No. (Note: Becker is a city in Sherburne County. I dont think MDH notified Sherburne County either.) Looking back on last week, as global deaths attributed to the epidemic passed 1,000,000 and total deaths in Minnesota passed 2,000, I believe we reached a grim milestone on the use of the cliche grim milestone in news on the epidemic. A search on grim milestone and COVID19 now returns about 300,000 stories. There is undoubtedly more to come in the grim milestone department as we approach November 3. New Delhi: Bihar's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Chirag Paswan will address a meeting of the party`s parliamentary board on Saturday (October 3, 2020) to decide whether the party goes solo or remains with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections. The LJP is reportedly unhappy with the number of seats offered to it by the alliance. The LJP has sought 36 Assembly and two MLC seats, however, the Janata Dal-United is not keen to give more than 20 seats. The development comes a day after Paswan met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda in New Delhi to discuss the seat-sharing formula. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had commented that the NDA is united and that it will fight the elections in Bihar together with the Lok Janashakti Party. According to party sources, the meeting will begin at 5 pm and the seat-sharing formula will be discussed. Also, whether the party should fight the elections on its own or in alliance will be decided. Live TV The LJP has been critical of the Nitish Kumar-led government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant worker situation and issues related to the recent floods. Meanwhile, "Mahagathbandhan" alliance has finalised its seat-sharing ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, sources said on Friday adding that Congress will be contesting nearly 70 seats whereas the Left parties will field candidates on around 30 seats. According to news agency ANI, Lalu Yadavs RJD will give 70 seats to Congress but will not let them have a seat of their choice. Senior NDA leaders also held a meeting in Patna on Thursday regarding the finalisation of seats for the Assembly polls and are likely to announce the seat-sharing formula before October 4 in Delhi. The Bihar Assembly elections will take place in three phases on October 28, November 3, and November 7. The counting of votes will take place on November 10. The LJP had won only 2 seats in the Assembly polls in 2015. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, October 3, 2020 11:41 476 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48e507b 1 National Indonesia,COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,swab-test,health-ministry,coronavirus,PCR-test,rapid-test Free The government has set the price ceiling for individually requested COVID-19 swab tests at Rp 900,000 (US$60.6) to eliminate price disparities following concerns over the high costs of tests at private laboratories. The price ceiling was determined after a discussion with the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) on analysis and surveys of health care facilities, the Health Ministrys public health director general, Abdul Kadir, said. Our problem are the price disparities; the prices are not uniform. Kadir was quoted as saying in a statement published Friday. It is for this reason that the caps have been set for the cost of independent swab and RT-PCR [reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction] tests. The prices will be enforced through a Health Minister circular expected to be issued soon, he added. Read also: Research and Technology Ministry to launch rapid and PCR test kits Furthermore, the ministry has asked regional health agencies to ensure that local health facilities in their respective areas implement the price cap. Iwan Taufiq Purwanto, one of the BPKPs deputy heads for government agency supervision, said the comptroller would supervise the implementation of the price ceiling. According to the ministry, the COVID-19 swab test price usually covers the labor cost of the doctors and other testing personnel, consumables such as personal protective equipment and other overhead costs such as waste management. Prior to the regulation, the national COVID-19 task force said several hospitals had charged more than Rp 2.5 million for swab tests. With COVID-19 rapid tests still being widely used in the country, including as a requirement for travel, the ministry set the price cap for the tests at Rp 150,000 in July. According to Worldometer.info, Indonesia has conducted more than 3.6 million COVID-19 swab tests as of Oct. 2. The country has recorded 295,449 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 10,972 fatalities as of Friday. According to Yonhap, this is the "first time" that Kim Jong-un has wished recovery to a world leader after they tested positive for the novel coronavirus. North Korea leader Kim Jong-un on Friday wished US President Donald Trump quick recovery from COVID-19 after he was admitted to Walter Reed hospital in Washington.He sincerely hoped that they (Donald and Melania Trump) would be recovered as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it. He sent warm greetings to them, the Korean Central News Agency was quoted as saying by Yonhap. According to the South Korean news agency, this is the first time that Kim Jong-un has wished recovery to a world leader after they tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Earlier on Friday, Trump had confirmed that he will be staying at Walter Reed hospital for next few days following the recommendation of his physician and medical experts.The President and First Lady had tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Thursday night.I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support. Im going to Walter Reed hospital. I think I am doing very well but we are going to make sure that things work out. The first lady is doing very well, said Trump, in a video message posted on his Twitter handle. Prior to his post, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany had said that out of an abundance of caution, Trump would be working from the presidential offices for next few days at the hospital.President Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the President will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days, McEnany said in the statement on Friday. ALSO READ: NASA launches SS Kalpana Chawla cargo spacecraft Earlier on Friday, Trump was reported to be fatigued after contracting the infection.White House physician Sean Conley in an official note had said: As of this (Friday) afternoon the President remains fatigued but in good spirits. Hes being evaluated by a team of experts, and together well be making recommendations to the President and First Lady in regards to next best steps.As per Conley, Trump was given an 8-gram dose of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail as a precautionary measure. ALSO READ: India is key partner to strengthen non-proliferation, disarmament of nuclear weapons: Foreign Secretary at UN Nitin Puri, co-director of critical care services at Cooper University Hospital, poses with an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine. The machine oxygenates the blood and is used for the sickest patients with coronavirus. Read more In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, doctors in Philadelphia-area hospitals, like colleagues everywhere, were learning on the fly, desperately searching for anything that might help critically ill patients. They were quick to put patients on ventilators and try drugs that had shown even a hint of effectiveness in small studies in China. They called friends in Europe, West Coast hospitals, or New York, where the virus hit a little earlier, in search of anecdotal evidence that anything could stem the tide of death. "People were just throwing anything they could at it, said Debra Powell, chief of infectious diseases at Reading Hospital-Tower Health. Early on, practices were definitely variable, from center to center, physician to physician, and floor to floor, said Keith Hamilton, an infectious-diseases specialist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Now that they have more than six months' experience with the new virus, doctors at hospitals throughout the region have settled on a core set of treatments known to help fight the disease, although none is a cure. Doctors have made countless small changes in the way they treat the disease, said Jonathan Gleason, chief quality officer for Jefferson Health. Testing and protective gear are more widely available. I think that theres a lot less panic, said Gerard Criner, chair of thoracic medicine and surgery and director of the Temple Lung Center. That doesnt sound like much, but thats huge. There are still treatment differences that might matter to patients who can choose a hospital when they have COVID-19 symptoms. Some, for example, offer clinical trials. These are, by definition, unproven treatments, but they have been a way to gain early access to treatments that later proved modestly effective, such as the antiviral drug remdesivir. READ MORE: When a ventilator wasn't enough, this coronavirus patient went on ECMO Other hospitals are trying vitamins that doctors hope might boost immune response. Some are sold on proning placing patients on their stomachs to improve breathing while others use it less often. Smaller hospitals often cant provide ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), an advanced form for breathing help for the sickest patients, but can transfer to larger facilities. Nitin Puri, codirector of critical care services at Cooper University Hospital, says the treatment has helped COVID-19 patients. Currently, the number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 is low. At the local peak of cases in mid-April, Penn hospitals had more than 300 patients a day, Hamilton said. In September, they averaged fewer than 30. Hospitalized cases have fallen from 225 a day to 25 at Temple and from 220 to 10 at Cooper. COVID-19 patients at Jeffersons 14 hospitals peaked at around 800 and are now 50 to 60. However, hospitals worry that cases may rise once cold weather drives people back inside where the virus spreads more easily. While some doctors said mortality rates have fallen significantly since spring, others said comparisons are difficult. The pandemic initially hit hard among elderly patients in long-term care settings, a population that the virus is especially likely to kill. Mortality rates fall with age, and hospitalized patients now tend to be younger. Some doctors also think better testing, earlier monitoring, and much better public awareness may be leading some patients to seek care more quickly. They also better understand this new enemy, which damages not only the lungs but other parts of the body. READ MORE: What coronavirus does to the body organ-by-organ Doctors now agree on a core set of treatments Doctors representing a range of Philadelphia-area health systems Cooper, Jefferson, Main Line Health, Penn, Prime Healthcare, Temple, Tower Health, and Virtua described very similar approaches to core protocols for COVID-19 patients. While these groups usually compete, the pandemic has led to an exceptional degree of cooperation and data-sharing, the doctors said. Because there is no cure, good treatment still rests on supportive care. Doctors say they are slower now to use breathing machines for coronavirus patients with low blood oxygen levels, because the lungs of coronavirus patients did not respond as expected to ventilation. This is a whole new disease that we had to learn, said Eric Sztejman, medical director of the ICU at Virtua Marlton Hospital. Doctors now try giving extra oxygen in a variety of less invasive ways before switching to a ventilator. Proning, which allows for more efficient use of diseased lungs, is also common. Some hospitals use it for almost every patient who is short of breath. Mathew Mathew, chief medical officer for Suburban Community Hospital, said proning is too labor-intensive to provide properly for all patients. The hospital just received a special proning bed that will make it easier to turn patients. Patients also now routinely get remdesivir, a drug that is still being tested but was given emergency authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. So far, it has been shown to reduce days in the hospital but not deaths. Patients also often receive blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors, which contains antibodies. Some doctors are more enthusiastic than others about this approach, which is still being studied. Some say results are uneven, possibly because not all plasma contains the same amount of antibodies. We gave a ton of convalescent plasma, Puri said. I dont know if it helped. Two Virtua patients who got plasma from the same donor had great results, Sztejman said. Others did not do as well. John Zurlo, an infectious-diseases doctor at Jefferson Health, said theres very little demand for plasma. He thinks its best use may be in patients very early in the disease. These treatments are meant to improve immune response. Later in the course of the disease, an immune overreaction known as cytokine storm can cause the most serious damage. The steroid drug dexamethasone, which tamps down immune response, is now frequently given. Doctors said there is good evidence that it helps. READ MORE: When coronavirus kills, the lung condition ARDS can be the culprit Doctors did not initially know that coronavirus increased blood clotting, raising the risk for tissue damage throughout the body. Now that they do, they test for signs that clots are forming. If patients score high, they are given medications that prevent blood from clumping up and clogging blood vessels. Hydroxychloroquine, once touted as a wonder drug by President Donald Trump, has fallen into disfavor. Some doctors said Actemra (tocilizumab), an anti-inflammatory drug that many hoped would help COVID-19 patients, has also been a disappointment, although Mathew thinks theres enough evidence to keep trying it. Cooper has stopped using Kaletra, an HIV drug, after bad trial results. Suburban Community Hospital no longer uses the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. In the early weeks, new COVID-19 patients were often given antibacterial drugs because bacterial pneumonia is common with other respiratory viruses. Doctors said they rarely do that now. How do you choose a hospital? Doctors at smaller community hospitals, regional medical centers, and the largest academic medical centers described the same general approach to care. This raises the question: Does it matter where you go? Many doctors said probably not. A lot of the management around COVID really involves a lot of things that we all have at our disposal in any health-care facility, Hamilton said. Some at larger hospitals, though, said that experience with complex intensive-care patients and more extensive resources may make larger health systems the better choice. The larger academic medical centers are probably better versed on how to take care of really sick patients, Powell said. Others, though, said there are advantages to community hospitals. Ronak Bhimeni, chief medical officer for Primes Lower Bucks Hospital, said his patients avoided the crush some larger hospitals experienced. Lower Bucks always had adequate supplies. There was never a time when we felt that we couldnt manage this, he said. One clear difference is that academic medical centers are far more likely to offer clinical trials. You can search clinicaltrials.gov to see what centers near you offer. If youre the kind of person who wants to help make scientific progress and have early access to new unproven treatments, this may be important to you. Temple has a notably long list of trials, and Criner said more than half of the hospitals coronavirus patients have joined one. We try to have multiple options open so we can offer multiple things to people, he said. In general, current trials are looking at drugs with tongue-twisting names that might reduce inflammation, improve immune response, or combat cytokine storm. I think its going to be a cocktail of different drugs working at different levels thats going to be most beneficial, Criner said. Zurlo said recruiting for trials has become difficult as patient volume has decreased. Only a handful of hospitals mentioned trials for patients who arent sick enough to be in the hospital. Temple and Jefferson are both testing monoclonal antibodies in outpatients and Main Line Health plans to test colchicine, a gout drug, in that group. Penn is testing whether a nasal spray can prevent infection in health workers and is still studying hydroxychloroquine in outpatients. If you dont want a trial, hospitals may also try drugs that are already FDA-approved for other diagnoses. A few are looking at vitamins that have been tied to immune functioning. Some patients at Lower Bucks, for example, get Vitamin C or thiamine. Main Line Healths Lankenau Institute for Medical Research plans to test Vitamin A and zinc. Sztejman at Virtua gives Vitamin D. (Low Vitamin D has been associated with worse outcomes for COVID-19 patients.) Hamilton and Powell dont think theres enough evidence to support vitamin use. Wayne Psek, a health-care quality expert at George Washington Universitys Milken Institute School of Public Health, says there are not enough data available now to know which types of hospitals are doing a better job. Experience usually is helpful, but, in this case, we just dont know how to treat [coronavirus] well enough. Some hospitals, he said, may be better staffed and better equipped to evaluate new information, but most are sharing now. He said he would make sure hospitals had beds available. Albert Wu, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Services and Outcomes, said coronavirus patients may benefit from the extra resources and research at larger facilities. Bigger places have more people to monitor and share study results. Practice often improves care. In general, there is a volume-outcome relationship in almost anything thats complicated, he said. Treating HIV patients reinforced the value of clinical trials for him. Access to clinical trials is an important element of quality care when theres no agreed consensus treatment, he said. Still, he said, many smaller hospitals now have easy access to advice from academic medical centers in their networks. You can expect treatments to continue changing as doctors wade through what Hamilton says is already an absolutely staggering amount of research on COVID-19. In the meantime, dont procrastinate if you have serious coronavirus symptoms, especially trouble breathing. Mathew spent several days in a hospital his own in April when he had COVID-19. If you have shortness of breath, he said, dont sit there. Go to the hospital. A U.S.-backed Zimbabwean charity is helping small farmers in the country improve both the quality and quantity of their yields in order to increase incomes and become more food secure. "Feed the Future Zimbabwe" says small farms comprise 70 percent of Zimbabwe's farmers and making them more efficient could mark an important turnaround for the impoverished country's economy. Its a tale of two ways of life in Rusununguko village in Chirumanzi district about 200 kilometers south of Harare: Life for the haves and the have-nots in this arid area. Those who have utilities like electricity and running water attribute it to dairy farming. That's the story for 80-year-old Felistus Gwatipedza. She started her farm about five years ago thanks to Feed the Future Zimbabwe. Now she sells milk to a company listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and is able to look after her orphaned grandchildren. "In my life," she said, "theres been change since I started dairy farming. I never used to get money. Look at how old I am, she said. I lost my daughter, a mother of two. I look after them. I have bought stuff such as a plow for my home to thrive." Feed the Future Zimbabwe is a local non-governmental organization funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The group says it has empowered more than 13,000 small farmers over the past five years. Kudakwashe Ndoro says his organization trains farmers on how to improve product quality and yields, while holding down costs and ultimately making the country more food secure. Whether [the] government is giving inputs, the farmer must also have something substantial which he has to be putting in, not just receiving. If a donor is coming in with a project, something substantial has to be invested by the farmer, which we can call co-investment, not just what we are seeing where people may be asked to put up a road, do this, food for work. No thats not enough, Ndoro said. The Zimbabwe government says small famers have an important role to play in the countrys economy and will be the beneficiaries of a government initiative to give them the seeds and fertilizer they need. Vangelis Peter Haritatos is Zimbabwes junior agriculture minister. Smallholder farmers are critical in this whole equation of food security. We are targeting 1.5 million households and 1.8 metric tons of cereal crops, 360 metric tons of oil seeds. In the high rainfall areas we will be distributing maize and soybeans for the oil seeds. Lower rain areas we will distributing traditional grains such as sorghum as well as sunflower, Haritatos said. With this initiative and training from Feed the Future Zimbabwe and a forecast of a favorable rainy season ahead, farmers are hoping this year - after two decades - Zimbabwe will begin to regain its status as the breadbasket of southern Africa. A Delhi court has dismissed the bail plea of former Lakshmi Vilas Bank Vice President Pradeep Kumar in a case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vijeta Singh Rawat said as per the charge sheet there was prima facie incriminating material against Kumar. During the period of the alleged offence committed in 2019, Kumar was the Vice President and Relationship Head of North Regional Office (Delhi), of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB). Kumar was chargesheeted in the case by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi police for allegedly abusing his position and conspiring with the then management of RFL, RHC Holding Ltd, and Ranchem Ltd, to misappropriate a sum of Rs 791 crore. The court said in its order passed on September 30, "There is no 'just and proper' reasons or 'any other special reason' emanating from the submissions made and material on record to consider giving bail to the accused/applicant (Kumar) in the present case. "As per the charge sheet there are prima facie incriminating material qua the accused / applicant who was an official of the bank. By facilitating siphoning off of Rs 791 Crores, the economic fabric has been corroded and the implication has to be borne by the public shareholders of REL (Religare Enterprise Ltd). Thus, this court is not inclined to admit the accused on bail." It has been alleged in the chargesheet that Kumar, in his capacity as President (VP), Regional Relationship Head? North, Regional Office, Delhi of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB), abused his position to misappropriate a sum of Rs 791 Crores (Rs 750 crores plus interest) which had been placed as fixed deposits (FDs) by RFL with LVB for a short term and free from all encumbrances. The police submitted that he has been chargesheeted as no such loan could have been disbursed without his knowledge. He, being the Vice President and Relationship Head, North, had suppressed the discussions that took place with officials of RFL (from the Corporate Office) and had not cared for the security and safety of the bank, police alleged. Kumar was arrested by the police on September 24 and is currently in judicial custody in the case. During the hearing, advocate Sanjay Mishra, appearing for Kumar, said the transactions/deposit loans were independently sourced, dealt with and recommended by co-accused Anjani Verma. "The corporate vertical in the Delhi region was manned by separate independent executives who were taking care of Wholesale Banking Business/Corporate Business in the region. The applicant (Kumar) never permitted the Janpath Branch, Delhi of the bank to create a deposit loan on assurance that documentation would be taken care of at a later stage. "He had no scope, authority or motive to influence the officials/executives of Corporate vertical business," his bail plea stated. Senior advocate Mohit Mathur, appearing for RFL, opposed the bail plea, saying the bank was a creditor to RFL with whom the FDs had been created and in complete breach of the contract through which the FDs were created, the money was dealt with by the bankers to cause wrongful loss to RFL. He argued that no steps were taken for intimating the credit committee of the ban and loans were recommended, sanctioned and disbursed without proper documentation and rollovers were approved and FDs encashed wherein Kumar was allegedly actively participating. RFL is a group firm of REL, which was earlier promoted by former Fortis Healthcare Promoters Malvinder and his brother Shivinder Singh. The EOW registered a separate FIR in March last year after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies. ALSO READ: RBI approves panel of 3 independent directors to run Lakshmi Vilas Bank ALSO READ: RFL money laundering case: Delhi court denies bail to ex-promoter Shivinder Singh ALSO READ: RFL Scam: Delhi Court grants bail to Malvinder Singh, but ex-Fortis promoter will stay in jail; here's why When Josh Frydenberg gives his much anticipated budget speech on Tuesday hes unlikely to dwell on the rate of poverty. Its not a topic Treasurers talk about much, even though about one in eight Australians lives below the poverty line. Australia's poverty rate has fallen on Josh Frydenberg's watch. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer The word poverty hasnt been uttered once in the past five federal budget speeches. But something unusual, and important, has happened to Australia's poverty rate on Frydenbergs watch. The governments giant income support programs JobKeeper, the JobSeeker coronavirus supplement and $750 one-off payments to social security recipients dramatically reduced financial hardship. Modelling by the Australian National Universitys centre for social research and methods shows these special payments introduced to combat the economic effects of the pandemic slashed Australia's poverty rate from 14 per cent before COVID-19 to 11 per cent in June. by Bernardo Cervellera At the conference on "The other China" marking the 150th anniversary of the presence of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions in China, the Vatican Secretary of State highlighted the "ecclesial and pastoral" value of the Sino-Vatican Agreement, which touches only episcopal appointments, and is a "starting point" to face the "many other problems" experienced by the Church in China. The Agreement already helps the Church in China to reconcile and contributes to "an international horizon of peace". Milan (AsiaNews) The Vatican seeks dialogue with China just as much as the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) have done in China for the past 150 years, said the Vatican Secretary of State Card Pietro Parolin in his address at the conference held today at the PIME centre on the topic The other China to mark 150 years of PIME presence in the Middle Kingdom. The cardinal defended the Sino-Vatican Agreement, whose renewal is pending, for its ecclesial and pastoral" value despite the discussions and criticism over it because it guarantees the communion of Chinese bishops with the Pope and allows for a common commitment to world-wide peace. The prelate noted that the Agreement only touches episcopal appointments and that the Holy See is aware that the Chinese Church has many other problems" that will need to be addressed in the future. The Agreement, he explained, is a starting point. At the beginning of his presentation, the cardinal said that the Agreement the Holy See signed two years ago with the People's Republic of China has "ancient roots" of dialogue, which go back to Matteo Ricci. It is the continuation of a journey that began a long time ago which the Italians were able to universalise by entering other cultures with respect and love, something that is not foreign. Describing various stages that mark a century and a half of history, thanks to the contributions of Frs Piero Gheddo, Angelo Lazzarotto, Giancarlo Politi and others, the cardinal mentioned the evangelising resolve of PIME missionaries in the late 19th century, and their attempt to distance themselves from the Western powers that dominated the life of Chinese communities for political reasons, especially by influencing their leaders. Card Parolin cited Fr Paolo Manna who eagerly sought to develop Chinese Church leaders, Fr Tacconis work at reconciling warrying warlords, and Mgr Simeone Volonteris suggestion of establishing diplomatic relations between the Chinese Empire and the Holy See. This "prophetic" work led to Benedict XVs apostolic letter Maximum Illud, the plenary council (synod) of Shanghai, and the ordination of the first Chinese bishops. The cardinal then outlined the problems that arose with the Communist takeover in 1949, such as the nationalist choice of some bishops, the condemnation of communism by Pius XII, and the expulsion of foreign missionaries, seen as "as an expression of 'imperialist aggression. The Chinese Church, placed in the hands of a local clergy and bishops, sought ways to develop in the new situation, working with the authorities producing "neither schisms nor apostasy". Most members of the clergy and bishops rejected the triple autonomy movement, which led the Chinese to view the Catholic Church as anti-patriotic. The cardinal quoted extensively from Pius XII (Apostolic Letter Cupimus inprimis, 18 January 1952) who reaffirms the Churchs great esteem for China, stressing that she does not want to be in the "service of any one power" and that Catholics "are second to none in terms of love of country. He pointed out that these words are very similar to the many appeals made by John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis on being" good Catholics "and" good citizens. However, "patriotic" pressure prevailed, starting the "illegitimate ordinations". Yet, Card Parolin explained that the foundations laid by the missionaries in the life of the Chinese Church have remained faithful to tradition. Although "some pastors' under the pressure of particular circumstances consented to episcopal ordination without the papal mandate, at their later request, "the Pope, considering the sincerity of their sentiments and the complexity of the situation, [. . .], granted them the full and legitimate exercise of episcopal jurisdiction "(see Letter of Benedict XVI to Chinese Catholics, n. 8). In fact, it was only with the Sino-Vatican Agreement, signed on 22 September 2018, that full communion of all Chinese bishops with the Pope was re-established. "In the last seventy years, many difficult battles have been lost, Card Parolin said. Sometimes, some battles were lost but could have been won if only there had been a little more good will. But the most important battle has been won: fidem servare. This happened by the grace of God, the faith of Chinese Catholics, and the help of missionaries. Undoubtedly, the Catholic community, who in the last seventy years lived in China without missionaries, is the daughter of their work. Speaking about the present, Card Parolin highlighted the urgency of a dialogue between the Catholic Church and Chinese authorities", which the Church has been seeking since the early 1950s and which only now, with the Sino-Vatican Agreement, seems to have begun. This constitutes "a starting point". The cardinal tried to allay certain "misunderstandings" over certain interpretations of the document. "The Agreement of 22 September 2018 touches exclusively episcopal appointments. I am aware of the existence of many other problems concerning the life of the Catholic Church in China. But it was not possible to tackle them all together and we know that the path to full normalisation will still be long, as Benedict XVI predicted in 2007. However, the question of episcopal appointments is of particular importance. It is in fact the problem that has made the Catholic Church in China suffer the most in the last sixty years. He noted that "until two years ago, the possibility of new illegitimate ordinations remained real and that until a few years ago, new Chinese bishops were illegitimately ordained. Now this problem has been solved "definitively". For this reason, the Agreements objective is above all ecclesial and pastoral to "help local Churches enjoy conditions of greater freedom, autonomy and organisation, so that they can devote themselves to the mission of proclaiming the Gospel and contributing to the integral development of people and society. After noting that the Agreement could favour - as Francis wishes - the internal reconciliation of the Church, Card Parolin highlighted another goal, namely the consolidation of an international horizon of peace at a time in which we are experiencing so many global tensions. CHICAGO: Surgical patients who participate in virtual follow-up visits after their operations spend a similar amount of time with surgical team members as those who meet face-to-face. Moreover, these patients benefit by spending less time waiting at and traveling to the clinic for in-person appointments, according to research findings presented at the virtual American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020. "I think it's really valuable for patients to understand that, in the virtual space scenario, they are still going to get quality time with their surgical team," said lead study author Caroline Reinke, MD, FACS, associate professor of surgery at Atrium Health in Charlotte, N.C. "A virtual appointment does not shorten that time, and there is still an ability to answer questions, connect, and address ongoing medical care." Due to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the widespread adoption of technology, many surgical patients are being offered virtual appointments in place of traditional in-person visits. The researchers say this is one of the first studies to look at how patients spend their time in post-operative virtual visits compared with face-to-face consultations. The study design was a non-inferiority, randomized controlled trial that involved more than 400 patients who underwent laparoscopic appendectomy or cholecystectomy at two hospitals in Charlotte, N.C. and were randomized 2:1 to a post-discharge virtual visit or to an in-person visit. The study began in August 2017 but was put on hold in March 2020 due to COVID-19. "Other studies have looked at the total visit time, but they haven't been able to break down the specific amount of time the patient spends with the provider. And we wanted to know if that was the same or different between a virtual visit and an in-person visit," Dr. Reinke said. "We wanted to get down to the nitty gritty of how much face time was actually being spent between the surgical team member and the patient." Researchers tracked total time the patients spent checking in, waiting in the waiting room and exam room, meeting with the surgical team member, and being discharged after the exam. For in-person visits, on-site waiting time and an estimated drive time was factored into the overall time commitment. Just 64 percent of patients completed the follow-up visit. "Sometimes, patients are doing so well after minimally invasive surgery that about 30 percent of these patients don't show up for a post-operative visit," Dr. Reinke said. Overall, results showed that the total clinic time was longer for in-person visits than virtual visits (58 minutes vs. 19 minutes). However, patients in both groups spent the same amount of face time with a member of their surgical team (8.3 minutes vs. 8.2 minutes) discussing their post-operative recovery. "I was pleasantly surprised that the amount of time patients spent with the surgical team member was the same, because one of the main concerns with virtual visits is that patients feel disconnected and that there isn't as much value in it," Dr. Reinke said. Importantly, patients placed a high value on convenience and flexibility. "We received overwhelmingly positive responses to this patient-centered care option." Dr. Reinke said. "Patients were able to do the post-operative visit at work or at home while caring for children, without having to disrupt their day in such a significant way." The researchers also found that patients embraced the virtual scenario. The satisfaction rate between both groups of patients was similar (94 percent vs. 98 percent). In addition, wait time was much less for patients who got virtual care. "Even for virtual visits, the amount of time the patients spent checking in and waiting was about 55 percent of total time. Because virtual visits have the same regulations as in-person visits, even if you take out the components of waiting room and patient flow within the clinic, patients are still spending about half of their time on the logistics of check in," Dr. Reinke. "Yet, with virtual visits, there is still much less time spent waiting, about 80 percent less time." Still, some patients are not comfortable with the technology. The number of patients who couldn't or didn't want to do a virtual visit was higher than expected, according to the authors. "I think there are some patients that would really just rather come in and shake someone's hand," Dr. Reinke said. "I think for surgery it's a little bit different, because with surgical care there are incisions to check on. However, we were able to check on incisions pretty easily, having patients show us their incisions virtually on the video screen." ### Coauthors are Kristen Harkey, DNP; Nicole Kaiser, BS; Brent Duane Matthews, MD, FACS; Rachel Kelz, MD, FACS; and Michael Inman, BS. This research was supported by the American College of Surgeons Franklin H. Martin Faculty Research Fellowship. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Citation: The Value of Time: Analysis of Surgical Post-Discharge Virtual vs. In-Person Visits. Scientific Forum, American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020, October 3-7, 2020. About the American College of Surgeons The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 82,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 2, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan gave an interview to Canadian The Globe and Mail renowned periodical, in which he referred to the situation along the Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact, the PMs Office told Armenpress. The article on the Prime Ministers interview is presented below. Armenia and Azerbaijan are on the brink of all-out war over Nagorno-Karabakh. In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Pashinyan said his country is on a civilizational frontline and that countries such as Canada that are allied to Turkey, via NATO, need to decide which side they are on. Mr. Pashinyan said Turkey had encouraged what looks to be a full-scale attempt by Azerbaijan to recapture mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian-populated region that has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces since a bloody war in the early 1990s. He said Turkey had sent Syrian mercenaries to aid the Azerbaijani side an allegation supported by Russia and France and that the Turkish air force had also attacked Armenian positions. Turkeys military personnel and the Turkish armed forces are directly engaged in the hostilities, Mr. Pashinyan said by telephone from the Armenian capital of Yerevan. Turkeys NATO allies must explain why these F-16 jets are shelling towns and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh and killing civilian populations. On Thursday, the office of French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that both men share concern about the sending of Syrian mercenaries by Turkey to Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr. Pashinyan also called for Western countries to reconsider weapons sales to Turkey, after The Globe reported on allegations that imaging and targeting systems manufactured by Burlington, Ont.-based L3Harris Wescam and sold to Turkey were being used by the Azerbaijani side in the conflict. He said Turkeys role in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan should be viewed in the context of Turkeys involvement in conflicts in Syria and Libya, as well as Turkeys aggressive stand toward Greece and Cyprus over maritime borders in the Mediterranean Sea. Mr. Pashinyan said his government was in permanent conversations with Russia, and went on to note that Turkeys behavior was an issue for the entire international community. On Thursday, France, Russia and the United States issued a joint call for an immediate ceasefire and for the warring parties to commit without delay to resuming substantive negotiations, in good faith and without preconditions. However, the ceasefire push was rejected by Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Mr. Pashinyan said he welcomed the ceasefire call, and condemned Turkeys rejection of it. Terrorists imported from the Middle East are fighting on the side of Azerbaijan, under Turkeys sponsorship. How could anyone propose now to leave the population of Nagorno-Karabakh unprotected, facing terrorists and extremists? he said. A ceasefire can be established only if Turkey is removed from the South Caucasus. Mr. Pashinyan cast Mr. Erdogan as a leader with dreams of restoring the Ottoman Empire, which decimated its ethnic Armenian population with a series of massacres and deportations carried out during the First World War. A hundred years have passed and Turkey has returned to the South Caucasus, in order to continue the Armenian genocide here. 2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40 Posted on 3 October 2020 by John Hartz A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Sep 27, 2020 through Sat, Oct 3, 2020 Editor's Choice Anxiety Mounts Abroad About Climate Leadership and the Volatile U.S. Election The outcome will have profound consequences for the future of Earths climate. Protesters gather outside the U.S. embassy in Vienna in June. Credit: Martin Juen/SEPA Media /Getty Images VIENNA, AustriaWhenever artist Michael Aschauer returns home after an extended stay in the United States, people here pepper him with questions about the direction America is heading. With gallows humor typical of the city, they often ask, "Will it fall apart slowly, or very fast?" he said, adding that Vienna has plenty of experience with how rising and falling empires can destabilize global systems. Aschauer is married to an American and keenly watches climate and energy politics on both sides of the Atlantic while trying to imagine a post-carbon future. In an informal social media art project, he documents gas stations that have been abandoned or converted to other uses. He said it's hard to imagine that Americans would re-elect the incumbent president, but that it can't be ruled out, either, given the current volatility of U.S. politics. "The outcome will have profound consequences for the future of Earth's climate," he added. Click here to access the entire article originally posted on the InsideClimate News website. Anxiety Mounts Abroad About Climate Leadership and the Volatile U.S. Election by Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate News, Oct 3, 2020 Articles Linked to on Facebook Sun, Sep 27, 2020 Mon, Sep 28, 2020 Tue, Sep 29, 2020 Wed, Sep 30, 2020 Thu, Oct 1, 2020 Fri, Oct 2, 2020 Sat, Oct 3, 2020 As COVID-19 cases surge in their homeland, there are at least some Argentines who feel secure: the scientists and military personnel at South American countrys bases in Antarctica, the only continent without reported cases. More than 765,000 people in Argentina are confirmed to have been infected with the new coronavirus and more than 20,000 people have died of COVID-19 there since the pandemic started. But Argentines who live in the countrys 13 bases in Antarctica- six are permanent and the rest operate only in the summer continue to share a metal straw to sip the traditional mate tea and sit together to eat. They rarely wear masks. The times when the crew is all together are breakfast, lunch and dinner and they watch a movie in their free time, they have some mates. We spend a lot of time together and we share a lot, army Capt. Nicolas Barrios told The Associated Press from the Belgrano II Base that he heads. Barrios said he felt fortunate to lead a normal life there and that, ahead of the next change of the 22-member staff at the base, each one is thinking about how to live when we leave the base and what the process of returning to daily life on the continent will be like. He said the use of masks is not common on the base, except for certain work tasks. If we have to make them, we have a sewing machine,'' Barrios said. The Argentines at the bases conduct scientific and other work, staying in touch with their families back home and following the news as best they can. Relatives of two members of the Belgrano II base had COVID-19 but recovered. The Belgrano II base is located south of Argentina's Marambio and Esperanza bases, near the South Pole. All the bases have an evacuation protocol in the event of positive coronavirus cases, using ships, helicopters and a plane. They also have doctors and ventilators available. For the austral summer season beginning in November, Argentina plans to have just 400 military and scientific personnel at its Antarctica bases instead of the usual 2,000. All will be tested for the new coronavirus before and after a quarantine period at the Campo de Mayo military base in Buenos Aires. The (Antarctic) continent is clean, healthy, and we have a responsibility, and we are adopting appropriate measures to continue with this situation, Argentina's Antarctic joint commander, Col. Edgard Calandin, said from his office in Buenos Aires. (Image Credits: AP) This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Invoking Mahatma Gandhi, UN Secretary-General Anotonio Guterres has call for an end to "loathsome" online and off-line. "Violence takes many forms: from the destructive impact of the climate emergency to the devastation caused by armed conflict; from the indignities of poverty to the injustice of human rights violations to the brutalising effects of hate speech," he said on Friday at the virtual meeting organised by India's Permanent Mission to celebrate Gandhi Jayanti, which is observed at the UN as the International Day of Non-Violence. "Online and off-line, we hear loathsome rhetoric directed at minorities and anyone considered the 'other'. To address this growing challenge, the has launched two urgent initiatives: a plan of action against and another on the protection and safety of religious sites." India's Permanent Representative T.S. Tirumurti said: "Non-violence for meant many things. We need to practice Non-violence as a potent weapon for Truth, and to cleanse our own outer and inner-selves." Representatives of over 20 countries participated in the event broadcast online by the UN. The relevance of Gandhi to dealing with the Covid-10 pandemic was on the minds of speakers at the event. Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenza quoted Gandhi's words, "you must be the change you want to see in the world" in calling for change of attitudes to meet the pandemic. "We hope that this unprecedented threat will unite all nations and enhance international solidarity. "Our joint efforts will not only help us to recover from the pandemic but to build a better world," he added. US Permanent Representative Kelly Craft said: "Happy Birthday, Gandhi. We can really use your presence today. Thankfully your inspiration and guidance still resonate around the world. "Mahatma's principles and appeal to morality serve us here at the United Nations, from defending human rights to peacekeeping, to stepping up to meet the dire needs of refugees, and even confronting the threats to international peace and security." (Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis) --IANS al/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.) Would you prefer the next Broncos ownership group include John Elway or Peyton Manning? You voted: China has unraveled a new military drone with the capability of carrying a directed missile system and grenade launchers. The drone was displayed in footage of recent attack exercises in southern China. Immediate Response China will reportedly respond immediately and with adequate force if the US pounces on the South China Sea islands with drones or any other weapon. The United States Air Force magazine published for the first time in years an artificial imitation of an MQ-9 Reaper drone using China's map in the background which is seen as a war signal, reported Prensa Latina. The rotary-wing aircraft also has the capacity of charging with guided munitions and initiating various missions. This includes tactical military observation and mid-air interposing. The country has leveraged its military drone race with the US in the latest years, reported Daily Mail. MQ-9 Reaper Drone of the United States A US Air Force patch displaying an MQ-9 Reaper drone hovering over China has spat state media in the communist nation. The patch shows a skeletal Grim Reaper provided with his traditional sickle, was donned by airmen participating in an exercise last month, the Agile Reaper, reported Stripes. This was its first drone strategic training activity in the Pacific Ocean. Reports indicate that the last time the United States Air Force inserted a country on their patch was in the Vietnam War. A Reported Edge Over the US According to Chinese military experts on Tuesday, China could easily shoot down the US' MQ-9 Reaper drones in the event that the US sends them and conducts attacks on China. This was after American media reported that the US Air Force is using China as a fictional enemy of the drones. Chinese state media has described the simulated island assault exercise as a provocative gesture. The drill was being carried out in California but has brought upon warnings from China's state media that China would retaliate in case the US pounces. Also Read: China Promotes 'Revenge Travel' to Bolster Economy After Lockdowns China's Drone Swarm-Armored Vehicle Integration China has tested a new attack system that incorporates armored vehicles and drone swarms. This will allow armored teams to obtain more battlefield data and conduct fatal attacks. This technology was created by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). In May, the system was used by an anonymous unit of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for exercises. Chinese Craft The craft is considered to have been manufactured by aviation company Harwar based in Shenzhen in Southern China. The firm, which builds drones with "special" materials, exhibited the model at a drone expo that was held in September. The news is met with new condemnation by the US Department of State over construction works on the Nansha Islands. Reports indicate the possibility of sending MQ-9 Reapers to deconstruct some parts of the domain public works. To China, the US' recent move expresses hostility of war. Their reported option is to pounce at the enemy and teach them an indelible lesson. Related Article: Bubonic Plague Outbreak in China, Mongolia Ignites Distress @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. United Natons: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that the world was living in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe, fuelled by growing distrust and tensions between the nuclear powers. The UN chief told a high-level meeting to commemorate the recent International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons that progress on ridding the world of nuclear weapons has stalled and is at risk of backsliding". And he said strains between countries that possess nuclear weapons have increased nuclear risks. Tourists ride double hump camels at Nubra valley, in Ladakh, India - the scene of a stand-off between nuclear powers India and China. Credit:AP As examples, Guterres has expressed deep concern at the escalating disputes between the Trump administration and China. Relations between the US and Russia are at a low point. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are feuding over Kashmir, and India just had a border skirmish with China. And North Korea boasts about its nuclear weapons. Without naming any countries, Guterres said programs to modernise nuclear arsenals threaten a qualitative nuclear arms race, not to increase the number of weapons but to make them faster, stealthier and more accurate. Press Release October 3, 2020 De Lima seeks probe into P389-M Manila Bay beach 'nourishment' project Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has called for a Senate investigation into the controversial P389 million Manila Bay beach "nourishment" project that poses environmental and health hazards. In filing Senate Resolution (SR) No. 532, De Lima said the budget spent in the Manila Bay project could have been used to feed 5.2 million hungry families because of the pandemic, or allotted for healthcare by way of COVID-19 government response. "Contrary to Presidential Spokesperson Roque claims that 'white sand' makeover will give immeasurable benefit to Filipinos' mental health, this P389 million band-aid project has indeed brought more harm than good," she said. "The makeover of Manila Bay shows that this administration's priorities lean towards cosmetic beautification rather than health, economic aid, or education. Now is the opportune time to conduct this investigation as we are nearing fiscal year 2021 deliberations in Congress," she added. Recently, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) received nationwide backlash for proceeding with a project to fill a 500-meter stretch of Manila Bay with crushed dolomite from Cebu as part of the bay's rehabilitation. A 2012 safety report by Texas distributor and builder Lehigh Hanson showed that crystalline silica in dolomites can cause damage to the lungs, cause irritation to the skin and eyes, or even cancer when it is breathed. In fact, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire herself attested to dolomite's health risk, saying it can cause pain in the stomach and result to diarrhea but the department later softened its stance to qualify that the process of crushing dolomite rocks - not the rocks themselves - was hazardous. Likewise, environmental group Oceana Philippines warned that dolomite could actually destroy both the natural ecosystem and coastal integrity of Manila Bay as the dolomite material is not the natural substrate of that portion of the bay. "Aside from affecting the ecosystem of the bay, the dolomite sand can also damage the other features of the bay like the mangroves, beaches, and mudflats where shellfish, crabs, and fish nurseries thrive," De Lima said. Last Sept. 24, Akbayan Partylist filed a petition before the Supreme Court to cite DENR for contempt for violating the 2008 writ of Continuing Mandamus to clean up and rehabilitate Manila Bay, saying that the dumping of crushed dolomite boulders on the foreshore areas of Manila Bay contravenes the Court order. The lady Senator from Bicol said the DENR must be reminded of its primary responsibility to conserve, manage, develop, and properly use the country's environment and natural resources for the welfare of the present and future generations of Filipinos. "Only in this administration has Imeldific beautification projects once again trumped informed decision-making of supposedly professional organizations like the DENR. Nakakapanghinayang ang mga taon na ginugol ng mga nakaraang administrasyon para sa pagpapadalubhasa sa mga kawani ng DENR kung gagawin lamang silang 'window-dressers' o taga-palamuti," De Lima said in her Dispatch from Crame No. 925. "Officials of DENR must be held accountable for non-compliance with several laws like the Local Government Code, the Philippine Fisheries Code, the Wildlife Conservation Act, and PD 1586 or the Environmental Impact Assessment System, among others, in implementing this project," she said. De Lima, a social justice and human rights champion, stressed that government programs must be geared towards reviving the economy or helping our marginalized Filipinos, and not pouring money on unnecessary, costly, insensitive and hazardous projects such as the cosmetic beautification of Manila Bay. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which controls almost the entirety of Syrias Idlib province, forbids philosophy and related courses in the universities of the area. HTS did not allow the University of Idlib, which is run by its Syrian Salvation Government to open a philosophy department. It also banned any philosophical forums or cultural events as well as publications about philosophy. The groups critics, including activists from the Syrian revolution and academics who do not live under its scope of control, consider banning philosophy part of HTS ideological war on critical thinking. HTS seized the province of Idlib in early 2019 after defeating the Nour al-din al-Zenki Movement, which controlled areas in the western countryside of Aleppo. Its formation of the government meant that no other factions had a say in the management of Idlib. HTS was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations Security Council in 2018 and international sanctions are imposed on the organization. Back in 2013, a group affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra, now HTS, cut off the head of the statue of Abu al-Alaa al-Maari, a blind Arab philosopher, poet and writer, in his northwestern Syrian hometown of Maarat al-Numan. To some jihadist factions, the statue was the embodiment of atheism and heresy and must be destroyed. Also in 2013, Islamic State militants destroyed the statue of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid in Raqqa, because the worship of statues or idolatry is prohibited in Islam. Omar Johar, a 30-year-old teacher, holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He told Al-Monitor in an interview, At the beginning of the jihadist tide and the rise of extremist groups in the years 2013 and 2014 in Syria, I was insulted and bullied a lot. He went on, Sometime in 2013, I was in the city of Harem [in Idlib], and I went into the mosque to pray. A sheikh who was affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra at the time was lecturing a group of students. He invited me to join the course. He asked me about my academic background, and I was very nervous to tell him I had studied philosophy. When I did, he kept muttering, There is no power but of God, which is a phrase indicating the occurrence of a calamity. Johar said, He also kept saying I seek refuge in Allah for this evil suggestion I made. I felt so ashamed. The sheikh invited me to atone and ditch the philosophy books and turn to religious texts instead. The students were eying me with disdain as if I were an infidel for majoring in philosophy. Johar is now living in one of the displacement camps in Deir Hassan in Idlibs northeastern countryside. He is paid by a charity organization to teach children to read and write. Al-Monitor spoke with Abdel Karim al-Oaid, who earned a philosophy degree from the University of Aleppo. With no job opportunities in his field, he is now also teaching children. He said, I was constantly harassed by jihadists who consider philosophy a form of atheism. Maamoun Mahmoud, another philosophy graduate from the University of Aleppo, told Al-Monitor, I suffered a lot during my studies and once I graduated, I would not find a job in the areas under the control of jihadist groups. This is why I headed to Turkey and I am now working in the construction field here. Khaled Abdel Jalil, who has a philosophy degree from Damascus University, told Al-Monitor, I used to teach children at a school run by one of the factions affiliated with what was then Jabhat al-Nusra. They forced me to take a religion test to see if I was influenced by philosophy and turned to atheism. They then made me take a Sharia course to learn about religion and teach children about that. He went on, I am now living in a village in Idlibs western countryside and teaching children. I receive my salary from the Syrian Salvation Government through a certain organization. But I am not working in my field. Orabi Adul-Hayy Orabi, a researcher at the Jusoor Center for Studies and a philosopher from Aleppo who is currently based in Turkey, told Al-Monitor, All jihadist groups reject philosophy and related fields in their areas of control, whether the Taliban, al-Qaeda, IS or HTS. Philosophy is the study and discussion of ideas not as an absolute fact or reality. This is in direct conflict of the jihadist dogma that categorically rejects this concept. Philosophy is based on reasoning. The leaders of jihadist groups are graduates of Sharia schools and applied sciences, which are not abstract. He explained, Jihadist groups seek to eliminate or destroy any text or material that they believe pose a threat to their religion or religious texts. For them, philosophy is heresy. Contemporary philosophy has undermined the centrality of religious texts, which is totally unacceptable for these groups. Orabi added, The majority of HTS leaders are not academics and have little to no knowledge of philosophical texts. Many sheikhs also are totally against teaching philosophy, and HTS is keen to keep them satisfied. Should HTS want to reinvent itself and announce that it does not have a problem with this field, it would anger the sheikhs and religious scholars. HTS does not want that. I dont believe that there will be any philosophy department at the University of Idlib, which is affiliated with the Salvation Government. HTS Shura Council members refuse to allow philosophy classes, not because they lack qualified teachers, but because this is in direct conflict with their dogma. Ahmed Abu Hajar, head of the University of Idlib, has close ties with HTS and its government. He told Al-Monitor, There was no need for a faculty or department of philosophy from an academic or scientific point of view. The Faculty of Literature did not make any recommendation to this effect. Should there be a need to have this department and we have the capabilities and competencies to do so, a department for philosophy might be established. He went on, The specializations currently taught at the university are the same as before and include education and civics, science, law, administrative sciences and arts. New faculties have been created according to the needs of the area and the community, including the faculties of medicine and pharmacy. Mark Smith became the CEO of Billington Holdings Plc (LON:BILN) in 2015, and we think it's a good time to look at the executive's compensation against the backdrop of overall company performance. This analysis will also evaluate the appropriateness of CEO compensation when taking into account the earnings and shareholder returns of the company. Check out our latest analysis for Billington Holdings How Does Total Compensation For Mark Smith Compare With Other Companies In The Industry? At the time of writing, our data shows that Billington Holdings Plc has a market capitalization of UK36m, and reported total annual CEO compensation of UK292k for the year to December 2019. That's a notable increase of 9.8% on last year. In particular, the salary of UK212.0k, makes up a huge portion of the total compensation being paid to the CEO. On comparing similar-sized companies in the industry with market capitalizations below UK155m, we found that the median total CEO compensation was UK355k. So it looks like Billington Holdings compensates Mark Smith in line with the median for the industry. What's more, Mark Smith holds UK41k worth of shares in the company in their own name. Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary UK212k UK180k 73% Other UK80k UK86k 27% Total Compensation UK292k UK266k 100% On an industry level, around 63% of total compensation represents salary and 37% is other remuneration. Billington Holdings is paying a higher share of its remuneration through a salary in comparison to the overall industry. If salary dominates total compensation, it suggests that CEO compensation is leaning less towards the variable component, which is usually linked with performance. A Look at Billington Holdings Plc's Growth Numbers Over the last three years, Billington Holdings Plc has shrunk its earnings per share by 3.0% per year. In the last year, its revenue is up 9.5%. A lack of EPS improvement is not good to see. And the modest revenue growth over 12 months isn't much comfort against the reduced EPS. These factors suggest that the business performance wouldn't really justify a high pay packet for the CEO. We don't have analyst forecasts, but you could get a better understanding of its growth by checking out this more detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow. Story continues Has Billington Holdings Plc Been A Good Investment? Billington Holdings Plc has generated a total shareholder return of 18% over three years, so most shareholders would be reasonably content. But they probably don't want to see the CEO paid more than is normal for companies around the same size. To Conclude... As we touched on above, Billington Holdings Plc is currently paying a compensation that's close to the median pay for CEOs of companies belonging to the same industry and with similar market capitalizations. Billington Holdings has had a poor showing when it comes to EPS growth, and it's tough to say that shareholder returns have done much to excite us. This doesn't compare well with CEO compensation, which is close to the industry median. We would stop short of the compensation is inappropriate, but we can't say the executive is underpaid. CEO compensation can have a massive impact on performance, but it's just one element. That's why we did some digging and identified 2 warning signs for Billington Holdings that investors should think about before committing capital to this stock. Arguably, business quality is much more important than CEO compensation levels. So check out this free list of interesting companies that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Mumbai, Oct 3 : Actress Kangana Ranaut on Saturday reacted to news reports suggesting that the forensic team of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi hinted that late actor Sushant Singh Rajput had committed suicide. "Young and extraordinary individuals don't just wake up one fine day and kill themselves. Sushant said he was being bullied and outcast, he feared for his life, he said movie mafia banned him and harassed him, he was mentally affected by being falsely accused of rape #AIIMS," the actress tweeted on her verified account. "With latest progress we need answers to few questions. 1) SSR repeatedly spoke about big production houses banning him. Who are these people who conspired against him? 2) Why media spread false news about him being a rapist? 3) Why was Mahesh Bhatt doing his psychoanalysis?," Kangana wrote in a separate tweet. Kangana's reaction comes on a day when AIIMS, in its report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), "hinted" that Sushant's death on June 14 happened by suicide and not murder, as per our sources from the hospital. The actress, on Saturday also posted tweets alleging that Sushant had a fallout with Yash Raj Films, there was a conspiracy behind his films getting shelved, and that he was being blackmailed. "He wrote in many his social media posts that he is being thrown out of film industry, spoke openly about his fall out with Yashraj films. His family went to cops because he feared people in his life, abetment of suicide is a murder, legally and morally it's a bonafide murder," Kangana wrote. "He spoke openly about his fall out with Yashraj films, it's a known fact that he was banned by many big production houses, many of his films were dumped which looked like an evident conspiracy. He begged people on social media and told them he is being thrown out of film industry," she added. "His family complained to cops about the threat to his life way before he died, he wanted to live but quit films, he wanted to settle in Coorg but who blackmailed him? Who cornered him in a way that dying was easier than living? Morally and legally abetment of suicide is a murder," Kangana further tweeted. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Ontarios newly released school screening rules are not yet in effect in Toronto, where the medical officer of health indicated Friday that she may push back against the changes, and a growing chorus of physicians are raising questions about the policy. The province touted its new, less stringent guidelines as a shift that would clarify rules around symptom screening and ease burdens for parents of sniffly kids who have been thrown into days or even weeks of COVID-testing chaos. But in Toronto it has so far compounded the anxiety and confusion for families whose daycares and schools are taking direction from Toronto Public Health. In a press conference Friday, Dr. Eileen de Villa did not commit to the new policy, which is effective immediately in York and Peel, according to those health units. De Villa said she is reviewing Toronto-specific data on COVID in kids before making changes to reflect the new provincial policy, which allows kids with certain short-lived symptoms like runny noses to return to class without a test. If our local data differs or tells us that we need to do something different, we will take that course of action up with the province and let them know what it is that we are seeing, so we can make the best decisions for the residents, and the students, in particular, of Toronto, she said. I have no doubt that with their desire to create safe school environments that they will come to a reasonable conclusion that makes sense for our students here in Toronto. In an email Friday, a spokesperson for Ontarios health ministry said it expected its policy to be adopted. We are asking all school boards to align the criteria in the new guidelines so that parents and staff are provided with updated and consistent information. However, a spokesperson for Torontos public board and a Toronto Catholic board trustee told the Star that until they receive updated guidance from Toronto Public Health, they are sticking to the citys more stringent screening tool, which directs all symptomatic kids to stay home for 14 days or test negative for COVID before returning to school and daycare. We take our orders from Toronto Public Health, said Norm di Pasquale, a trustee with the Catholic board. He said de Villas comments came as a great relief. A runny nose can quickly turn into other things, di Pasquale said. Really, what we do need is rapid testing solutions for our students so they dont need to be out of commission for four days, five days. The tension over the new screening tool comes as de Villa is urging the province to allow stricter lockdown restrictions in Toronto, where infection rates have reached unprecedented levels, threatening the ability of schools to stay open. In the past two weeks, there have been 411 COVID cases in Ontario schools and 83 cases in licensed daycares, according to the provinces online portal. Ontarios testing capacity has become increasingly strained with the backlog reaching 90,000 Friday, a record. The new school screening guidelines are among several changes to Ontarios testing policy announced this week, including making testing available at assessment centres by appointment only. De Villa said that because TPH is governed by the province, we are at limited ability to act on our own. The province countered, in an email to the Star, that local medical officers of health could, under provincial regulations, issue orders to set requirements for schools or daycares regarding COVID if the legal test is met. Doctors are also pushing back against the revised guidelines. Dr. Hirotaka Yamashiro, a Toronto-based pediatrician and chair of the pediatrics section of the Ontario Medical Association, said the association met with the province Friday to discuss the widespread concern among family doctors and pediatricians about the new guidelines, which direct families to consult a primary care physician before seeking testing for many symptomatic kids. It is a terrible perfect storm. We have huge demand for flu vaccines, limited doctor hours and resources, Yamashiro said. People who are really sick, children who have either physical or mental issues, are going to be harder to see and may give up. A ministry spokesperson said: We continue to work with doctors in Ontario to understand their concerns and address questions. We expect pediatricians to continue to deliver the quality of care that patients expect and deserve, as they always have. Several prominent infectious disease experts spoke out against the guidelines this week, saying the province had not provided data to justify loosening screening rules as cases surge. The ministry provided some of that data to the Star on Friday, when it shared a report by Public Health Ontario that helped inform the changes. According to the report, PHO was asked to review the scientific literature on COVID symptoms in kids and analyze Ontario epidemiology to support decision-making related to screening of children. It was requested by the health ministry Sept. 22 a day after B.C.s medical officer of health publicized changes to the provinces screening checklist, and after Ontario schools had reopened. The report concluded that fever and cough were the most commonly reported symptoms in kids. The next-most common symptoms were multiple and overlapping with other illnesses or allergies, according to the report, with asymptomatic infections as high as 20 per cent in kids. Looking at Ontario data, the report also found that among 1,332 kids who tested positive before July 13 and had available information on symptoms, runny noses were a reported symptom in between 8 and 18 per cent. The reports authors write that COVID symptoms chosen for school screening are influenced by risk tolerance, epidemiology and local context, as well as testing capacity. Decisions to remove symptoms from the screening list, or combine them, will be dependent on the level of risk tolerance, they wrote. If the goal is to ensure the least number of symptomatic COVID-19 cases enter the school setting (high sensitivity), then symptoms should not be decreased in number nor combined. The new guidelines were greeted with elation by many parents who have been sent into hours-long lineups at COVID assessment centres by their kids runny noses, only to wait days for results. But within hours of the provinces announcement, many Toronto parents were already receiving emails from their schools and daycares, informing them that the old rules remained until they received further direction from TPH. Those old rules have sent Lindsay Scott and her 18-month-old daughter to the assessment centres three times in the last five weeks. The first visit was for a runny nose that swept through the daycare; the second for a "slight" cough. The latest was for a fever, but this time the wait at her local assessment centre was seven hours, Scott said. She isnt sure what to make of the revised rules but says she questions whether the new guidelines are rooted in science. Any policy change (should) be based on actual science and not just as a way to unclog the system that frankly should have been sorted out by the government months before back-to-school, she said. This wasnt a surprise for anybody, and yet it feels like it was. The navies of India and held a mega military exercise in the on Saturday in sync with their growing operational coordination, officials said. A variety of maritime drills and operations were conducted as part of the annual 'Bongosagar' exercise, they said. The first edition of the exercise was held in October last year. On Sunday, the two navies will begin a two-day coordinated patrol in Northern In the 'Bongosagar' exercise, the deployed anti-submarine warfare corvette Kiltan and guided-missile corvette Khukri. The Bangladeshi navy was represented by guided-missile frigate Abu Bakr and guided-missile corvette Prottoy, the officials said. "India and have a close, long-standing relationship, covering a wide spectrum of activities and interactions, which has strengthened over the years," an spokesperson said on Friday. The has participated in a number of joint maritime exercises in the last few weeks including a three-day drill with Japanese navy from September 26-28. Last month, Indian Navy also carried out a two-day mega exercise in the Indian Ocean Region with the Australian Navy that featured a range of complex naval manoeuvres, anti-aircraft drills and helicopter operations. In July, the Indian Navy carried out a military exercise with a US Navy carrier strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship. India has significantly expanded its deployment in the Indian Ocean Region with a plethora of warships and submarines following its border row with China in eastern Ladakh, ostensibly to send across a message to Beijing. (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 York, US (PANA) - The UN Secretary-General repeated his call for a global ceasefire on Friday, commemorating the International Day of Non Violence, which took place this year in the shadow of the devastating human and socio-economic impacts resulting from the coronavirus pandemic RICHMOND People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on Virginia Tech to stop purchasing beagles from Envigo, a controversial dog breeding facility in Cumberland thats been the subject of recent legislative debate. Its the second time PETA has gone after Tech and other state universities in recent weeks. In mid-September, the animal rights organization claimed that both Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia misused state funds by conducting experiments on animals they planned to kill during the pandemic. Both universities denied the accusation, but Jennifer Moschetti, a senior investigator with the Office of the State Inspector General, confirmed in a Sept. 17 email to PETA that the office had opened investigations into both cases. PETAs most recent criticism of Virginia Tech comes after the organization submitted multiple public records requests that resulted in five different order forms between the university and the breeding facility, which until 2019 was owned by Covance a drug development extension of LabCorp, the diagnostic testing behemoth. The orders, which span from 2016 to 2019, show that Tech purchased more than 100 beagles for its College of Veterinary Medicine. In an editorial published by The Virginia Mercury in May, Dr. Helmut Ehall, Envigos senior vice president of veterinary services, said that dogs at the companys facility in Cumberland are well cared for and that animal welfare is a top priority. The orders show that Virginia Tech continued to purchase beagles from the facility after a 2017 USDA inspection found multiple deficiencies, including dogs with skin problems and excessively long nails that became caught in the flooring. There were also sanitation issues, including dog food infested with insects and enclosures with significant buildup of fecal matter. Another animal welfare group, Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, published drone footage in 2019 that appeared to show hundreds of dogs warehoused in the facility. Mark Owczarski, Virginia Techs assistant vice president for university relations, did not respond to an email earlier this week with several detailed questions about Techs purchases from Envigo and Covance, as well as about how the dogs were used at the veterinary school. Alka Chanda, PETAs vice president of laboratory investigations, said Virginia Tech has told the organization that the beagles are only used to train students how to perform physical exams and other standard procedures, such as dental cleaning. But the university also has denied two of the organizations records requests for any research and experimental protocols in which the dogs were enrolled, citing an exception in Virginias Freedom of Information Act laws that protects proprietary records, according to emails provided by PETA. I think Virginia Tech is denying them because they know very well that the citizenry of Virginia knows these dogs should be treated well, Chanda said. A lot of people are horrified to learn theres this kind of breeding facility operating within the state. Owczarski also did not respond to a request for explanation on what made the records proprietary. PETA has pointed to multiple studies by Virginia Tech researchers that involve beagles being used in invasive experiments. There have been previous efforts to shut down or expand oversight over the Cumberland facility, including a failed bill filed during the 2020 General Assembly session that would have largely banned breeding dogs and cats for experimentation. An effort to close a loophole in Virginia law that exempts the facility from state inspections also failed earlier this year, largely based on a flaw in how the amendment was drafted. Legislators have promised to revisit the issue during the 2021 General Assembly session, which begins in January. The Virginia Mercury is a nonprofit, nonpartisan online news outlet based in Richmond covering state government and policy. The 22nd EU-Ukraine summit will take place in Brussels on October 6, the President's Office has reported. According to the report, this will be the first bilateral EU summit with a partner country held physically in Brussels since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. President Volodymyr Zelensky will head the Ukrainian delegation to the summit, whereas the EU delegation will be led by European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The leaders will discuss priority issues in Ukraine-EU relations, including further steps to implement the Association Agreement, the deepening of sectoral integration between Ukraine and the EU, cooperation in the context of overcoming the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and further EU support for Ukraine's reform process. Particular attention will be paid to the security situation in the Russian-occupied territories of Donbas, as well as to discussing ways to strengthen coordination between Ukraine and the EU in order to ensure the de-occupation of Crimea and the protection of the rights of Crimean residents. A number of financial agreements are to be signed between Ukraine and the EU under the European Neighborhood Instrument, in particular, on support for eastern Ukraine, civil society and climate change mitigation. op As doctors in Washington discussed President Donald Trump's case of the novel coronavirus, state numbers released on Saturday show a daily jump in the number of reported cases in South Carolina. Still, both in Washington and the Palmetto State, the warnings are similar: The disease is real and precautions are readily available. DHEC reported 649 new cases on Saturday, more than twice the daily tally reported a day earlier, 256. Also on Saturday, a previously reported pediatric death in South Carolina was retracted. On Wednesday, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported a pediatric death from COVID-19 in Barnwell County. DHEC disclosed on Saturday that the patient tested positive for the virus but did not die. The death was incorrectly reported to the department because of a data entry error. There are currently two pediatric COVID-19 deaths in the state as of Saturday. President Trump was transported to the Walter Reed National Military Center in Bethesda, Md., on Friday. Doctors on Saturday said he was not receiving oxygen and long-term prognosis was good. First lady Melania Trump also tested positive for the virus, as did several White House staffers. Statewide numbers New cases reported: 649, which is 310 percent more than the 158 tallied on March 31, the day S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster ordered nonessential businesses to close. Another 67 cases are probable. Total cases in S.C.: 145,953, plus 4,938 probable cases. New deaths reported: 31, plus 2 probable deaths. Total deaths in S.C.: 3,243, plus 199 probable deaths. Hospitalized patients: 686 Total tests in S.C.: 1,488,067 Percent of positive tests, seven-day average: 16 percent. Five percent of tests or fewer returning positive results is a good sign the virus spread is slowing, researchers say. Hardest-hit areas The top three South Carolina counties for new coronavirus cases reported on Saturday were Richland, 73; Oconee, 71; and Aiken, 46. What about the tri-county? Charleston County had 28 new cases, Berkeley had 11 and Dorchester had 11. There was one coronavirus related death in the tri-county announced on Saturday: An elderly patient aged 65 or older from Charleston County, DHEC said. Deaths Of the 31 new deaths, 24 were elderly patients aged 65 and older, six were middle-aged, 35 to 64 and one was considered young adult, 18 to 34, according to DHEC. They lived in Aiken, Anderson Charleston, Cherokee, Darlington, Dillon, Fairfield, Florence, Greenville, Horry, Laurens, Lexington, Marion, Newberry, Pickens, Richland, Spartanburg and York counties. Hospitalizations Of 686 coronavirus patients who were hospitalized as of Saturday, DHEC said 163 were in intensive care and 88 were on ventilators. What do experts say? Public health authorities continue to urge South Carolinians to take precautions like wearing masks or other face coverings, social distancing and frequent hand-washing. They also urge anyone who believes theyve been exposed to the virus or who is developing symptoms to get tested. There are 119 mobile testing events scheduled through Nov. 23 and 316 permanent testing facilities. Go to scdhec.gov/covid19testing to find a testing site in your area. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended social norms, disrupted industries and caused unparalleled damage across the global landscape. Yet it has also led to a seismic refocusing of priorities and shed an unobstructed spotlight on the worlds ever-urgent need for adept, skilled and future-facing healthcare professionals. My students are currently studying what theyre living, says Steven Hoffman, a professor of global health at York University, which boasts Canadas first-ever global health undergraduate degree program. There are huge opportunities in the healthcare industry for students focusing on issues that defy national boundaries, says Hoffman. We tend to think of healthcare existing solely within our community hospitals, but what we are seeing more acutely is that our health is often determined by factors and decisions made in places far beyond our immediate environments. Considering that viruses dont carry passports, he says globally focused healthcare education is preparing students for issues that require a coordinated international response such as tobacco control, narcotics distribution and, of course, global pandemics. There are plenty of recent headlines around vaccine procurement, for example, says Hoffman. In our learnings we are studying these issues one step further we are looking at the structures we have in place to distribute such a vaccine globally and what factors influence what countries would get it first and last. Hoffman emphasizes that students of today have been born and raised in a globalized world, and are showing increased interest in careers that reflect the world in its entirety. Its just as easy to send a text message to a friend on the other side of the world as it is to pay a visit to your next-door neighbour, he says. The rapid evolution of modern technology has meant that we live in an increasingly connected and interconnected world, and in the healthcare industry thats being reflected in a were all in this together mentality. Michelle Okeefe, a chair of the Program Advisory Committee for the Digital Health Program at Algonquin College, is afforded a unique and firsthand view of the ways that technology is both impacting and elevating the delivery of healthcare in Canada. She brings her frontline experience as a health industry lead in the IT sector to the classroom, and has long emphasized the vital importance of technology upskilling in healthcare education. Digital health has been quietly chugging around in the background for years, but COVID-19 has brought this industry to the forefront, says Okeefe, who describes digital health as the leveraging of data, information and electronic solutions to support patients in their care journey. She stresses that while the pandemic has brought with it tragedy of epic proportions, it has also pushed digital health solutions forward and provided a wake-up call to those who have traditionally resisted the emergence of virtual care and healthcare technology. What technology can help us to do in this context is provide us with a big-picture view, she says. We can vastly improve processes and leverage such tools as robotic process automation to free up time for clinicians to work exclusively at the top of their scope of practice. Digital health will also continue to improve access to care for those who need it most. Dr. Marcus Law, director of foundations for the University of Torontos MD program, agrees that medicine must continue to be taught in tandem with technological advances, but stresses that human-centred skills must also be prioritized in any healthcare context. Lets look at it this way, he says. Students who enter medical school in 2020 will finish in 2024, then they will take on a residency for maybe two to five years. That brings these practicing physicians up to 2029 thats a long time away. The world will have changed a lot by then. Its with this in mind that Dr. Law says he and his colleagues have built their MD curriculum, emphasizing the need to train future physicians who are prepared for times of great uncertainty like the times were facing today. The public may think that an education in healthcare is all about memorizing concepts and terms, but remember that no one would have been able to teach students about COVID-19 two years ago, he says. The pandemic has reminded us that the world is constantly changing, and as healthcare providers we must remain adaptive and possess the humility to know that learning will never cease. That is true both at this particular time in history and will remain so into the future. In a rare development, Indian Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane will go for a two day visit to Myanmar on Sunday accompanied by Indian foriegn secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla. During the 4-5 October visit, Naravane and Shringla will meet the State Counsellor of Myanmar, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing among others, a statement from the Indian foriegn ministry said on Saturday. While visits of the army chief and foreign secretary by themselves to countries neighbouring India are commonplace, the two teaming up for a visit is rare. CDS General Bipin Rawat and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval have visited Bhutan together in early 2018, months after the standoff between India and China on Bhutans Doklam plateau. India's visit sparks speculation The visit of Naravane and Shringla has sparked speculation that India could focus on reports of China arming the Arakan Army, an insurgent group in Myanmars Rakhine state. China is already involved in constructing infrastructure projects in Myanmar and other countries along Indias periphery, something New Delhi is watching with a wary eye. The visit also comes against the backdrop of Bangladesh recently warning India of radicalisation of the Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh. The Rohingyas are seen as residents of Rakhine state in Myanmar but who are not recognised by the Buddhist majority in the country. Some 600,000 Rohingyas live in refugee camps in Bangladesh. On its part, India is speeding up the construction of houses in Rakhine state that would help the resettlement of Rohingyas once they return. According to a statement from the Indian foriegn ministry, India - Myanmar relations are historic, multifaceted and marked by mutual trust and respect. India attaches high priority to its relationship with Myanmar in accordance with its Neighborhood First and Act East policies. In the recent times, both sides have strengthened their cooperation in several areas, including connectivity and trade, development projects, energy, capacity building, defence and security and culture and people to people links." Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, few direct exchanges have taken place between the two sides. This visit will provide an opportunity to take stock of the existing bilateral ties and strengthen cooperation in areas of mutual interest," the Indian statement said. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics The Italian supercar maker has recently announced a second licensing collaboration with premium child wear company Kabooki a Danish brand that is better known for producing the LEGO Wear apparel. The kids clothing specialist will now be delivering a complete, top-to-toe, collection just in time for the 2020 Fall/Winter season.The good news is the two partners have worked out a deal for truly international reach, with the new garments available not only in Europe (Italy, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, the UK) , but also across the pond, in the United States.The collection is also accessible through the official online store , and as far as we can tell prices do not fall in the overly expensive category, with a sweatshirt kicking off from 59.95 euros ($70) and fashionable jackets going for 169.95 to 189.95 euros ($199 to $223, at current exchange levels).Lamborghini is embarking on its second adventure with Kabooki for the year, so they should have some experience by now especially considering the SantAgata Bolognese brand is no stranger to the world of fashion either.The new collection was created specifically for kids aged 3 through 16, and they will get acquainted with some of the automakers most iconic design traits such as the trademark Y-shape or the hexagonal elements any Lambo aficionado is well accustomed to.We are very pleased with the results of our first collection with KABOOKI, and we see our brand DNA clearly interpreted in the right way through this range. Lamborghini is a young brand, and this licensing agreement is another step in our mission to be part of the kids world, explained the decision to continue the collaboration Katia Bassi, Chief Marketing and Communication Officer of Automobili Lamborghini. Our brand is for real lovers of Lamborghini, and we want this passion to start from childhood. An 18-year-old British schoolgirl has been tipped by Vogue to be one of the next big names in fashion. Evie Harris, of London, has just finished at Milan Fashion Week, where she walked for at least five designers including Boss, Etro and Alberta Ferretti. She has also been named a 'rising star' by the British fashion bible, which noted the 'angelic-looking' teenager has had a 'fairytale' introduction to the industry. For Evie, who spent lockdown with her family at their family home in London, only made her catwalk debut only 12 months ago, when she walked for JW Anderson at London Fashion Week spring/summer 2020. The Italian dream: Evie Harris, of London, has just finished at Milan Fashion Week, where she walked for at least five designers including Boss, Etro (pictured) and Alberta Ferretti Big name designers: Evie walking for Alberta Ferretti (left) and Sportmax (right) in Milan The moment catapulted Evie into the consciousness of international agents and her career went from '0 to 100' in a matter of hours. 'It literally changed everything,' she said. 'Modelling suddenly became a viable route to take.' She continued: I got a phone call from my agent saying that the same casting director wanted me to go to Paris and do Loewe. 'It went from me never having had a job in modelling, to suddenly travelling to do Paris Fashion Week. As my first catwalk, I couldnt really have had anything better.' She's the boss: The British teenager storming the catwalk for Boss in Milan over the weekend Whirlwind journey: Evie, pictured in Instagram snaps, only walked her first runway last year Humble: Despite her early success, Evie remains gracious on Instagram and frequently thanks designers and their teams for casting her in their shows. Pictured, at Fendi last week Months later Evie was in New York, Paris and back in London, where she ticked off everyone from Chanel to Victoria Beckham. She also bagged campaigns for Valentino and Fendi that appeared in print. The model is now represented by agencies in the UK, France, Italy and the US. However Evie has also had plenty on her mind away from the catwalk. Like teenagers everywhere, she was left in limbo when her school was closed due to Covid-19 and her A-level exams later cancelled. Showstopper: Evie was chosen to close the show for Sportmax at Milan Fashion Week, above Although Evie received the grades she wanted and is keeping the option of university open in the future, for now she is focusing on her fashion career. It is clear she still feels excited about every opportunity that comes her way, with her Instagram captions full of thanks and appreciation for the designers who have cast her in their shows. In one gracious caption shared over the weekend, she wrote: 'Was a pleasure to be a part of this show. Thanks for letting me wear a beautiful look.' He seemed like a nice guy those first few days in Singapore. Jessica Larson had gone out for dinner with another young woman from her hostel. They were having a good time, chatting with locals, when an attractive, tattooed guy offered to show the 24-year-old Hamilton woman around. He told her lots of things in those first 24 hours: that he was wealthy, was getting a PhD in psychology and worked as a teaching assistant at a local university. He also told her he was American claiming his dad was Cuban and he was born in Miami and that, after his dads death, he inherited a leadership position in the motorcycle gang Hells Angels. He says he was paid to protect the hostel where she was staying from unruly tourists. None of this was true, she believes now, but Larson didnt know anything about bikers and wasnt one to question. I thought, OK, youre just another guy with a cool story, she says. Hamilton's Jessica Larson was an experienced solo traveller when she took a trip to Singapore. While staying at a hostel she met a man who would manipulate and abuse her, it wasn't until she was back in Canada that her family would concoct a plan to free her. Barry Gray He was so committed to his lies that he had Larson meet a woman in his university program, he had an American flag tattoo on his chest, and when he first met Larsons mom over FaceTime he put on a strange southern U.S. accent, changing his voice from how he spoke in front of Larson. She says she would later hear him on the phone seemingly threatening to have people killed, she doesnt know if this was part of the act or if there was someone on the other end of the call. Those first few days in Singapore in February 2019 were the very beginning of what was supposed to be a four-month solo trip around Asia for Larson. She was an experienced traveller, having backpacked alone more than once. She was working online as an English teacher and was saving up to get her own place when she came back home in June. She would end up spending those four months travelling Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bali ... but not on her own. She was held captive. Her captor controlled her every move, her credit cards, passport and social media. He told her what to eat and how to style her hair. He punched her, repeatedly pinched her on her arms and more than once held a knife to her. He threatened to kill her and to kill her family back home if she upset him or tried to leave. She couldnt even go to the bathroom with the door closed, she says. Jessica Larson in Malacca, Malaysia, on Feb. 12, 2019. This was the beginning of her journey to escape from an abusive man who held her captive. This was just before he began threatening her and before he began telling her what to wear and eat. This was the first place they travelled together after meeting in Singapore. Submitted photo The Spectator has agreed not to name the man because Larson is attempting to have him charged in Singapore and doesnt want him to know shes speaking out. This story is Larsons recollection of what happened to her. That she is free to tell her story is not because of luck or because she was rescued overseas. Larson escaped using her own smarts, biding her time until she could persuade her abuser they should go to Canada. Once in Hamilton, her family who a day before had no idea what she was going through devised a plan to save her by calling Hamilton police to swiftly step in. Now safe, Larson wants to share her story, not as a warning against travel, rather, a warning against the insidious luring she fell prey to and the perils of domestic abuse that can affect any woman, anywhere. I was the first person to say that wouldnt happen to me, she says. But it did. Jessica Larson was born and raised in Hamilton, along with her two sisters. She went to school in Stoney Creek. Now 26, she says she was raised to be very independent and to never depend on anyone, especially a man. She was bullied in elementary school and thinks that had something to with why she was so keen to get out there and travel. She studied social work at Mohawk College and worked at a group home for some time. But when she was denied a leave of absence, she quit to travel. Her first solo trip was to Cuba at an all-inclusive resort. She was supposed to go with a friend, but the friend cancelled last minute. Larson decided to go anyway and loved it. Travelling on her own was great because she never had to answer to anyone. She could go wherever she wanted. I could change my plans in an instant and I wouldnt have to check with anyone, she says. She backpacked around Europe. In 2018, she spent two months in Thailand, where she loved the friendly people. In 2019, she picked Singapore on a whim because it was the cheapest flight. When she arrived that February it was Chinese New Year and she spent the day sightseeing, before returning to her hostel the cheapest backpacker-friendly location where she stayed in an all-female dorm. It was this night that she went out for dinner with a fellow traveller and they met the man. He offered to take them to a local discount store. From there, he spun his web of lies. About six days later she was supposed to be flying to Vietnam. But the night before she was scheduled to leave he took her to a food cart. He didnt eat anything from there. She got severe food poisoning. Larson wonders if he took her to a bad food cart on purpose, or put something in her food, or maybe it was just bad luck. She was so sick that she had to cancel her flight. But instead of rebooking to Vietnam, the man convinced her to go with him to Malaysia, she says. When they landed everything changed. Jessica Larson at Singapore Botanical Gardens a few weeks before coming home. She is wearing her abuser's pants and says she is smiling because he told her he was sending the picture to her family who didn't yet know about her ordeal. Submitted photo Malaysia is where he snapped, Larson says. The first indication of trouble came soon after they checked into a hotel and went to a convenience store for supplies. When they got back to the room, he accused her of misplacing her wallet. She hadnt it was on the bed but he insisted she wasnt responsible enough to hold her own passport or credit card. He began carrying all her documents. That first night he yelled at her, she texted her girlfriend that she was afraid. He saw the text and threatened her life, she says. He told her he could have Toronto Hells Angels shoot up her parents house. Her sister was pregnant he threatened she would never see her unborn niece. Larson says in those moments she knew immediately she had to find a way to safety. But she didnt want to run, because he had her address and documentation. What if he really could get to her family at home? So she stayed. After this, they rarely stayed at the same hostel or short-term rental for more than a night or two. She was paying for everything. I was expected to ask permission for anything, she says. This included buying water, which the man thought was a waste of money. He would buy himself pop and allow her two or three sips. He wanted her to lose weight and restricted her food to two mostly-vegetarian meals a day. He took her to the gym. He made her dye her hair blond and insisted it be worn in a low ponytail. The first month she was still working her online tutoring job. He would take her to public places where there was free Wi-Fi. But he became restless waiting for hours and she started missing appointments. Eventually he told her she wasnt responsible enough to use her own laptop and she could no longer work. They would waste away the days, staying up until 4 a.m., sleeping until noon, walking around the same malls and getting cheap food. Larson still doesnt know what his goal was, other than controlling her. They would move back and forth between Singapore and other countries. He took her to his parents place in Singapore. He would beat her in the next room, but his parents never intervened. They would ask if she was OK, but always in front of their son. Larson recalls his mom asking her a few times: My son is nice, hes not hitting you is he? His father once told her that if his son was beating her, she could report him at the police station downstairs. But he was always at her side and she didnt know how deep his connections ran. Over those months, several strangers asked her if she was OK or if she needed help a guy at the gym or a stranger in the mall. But Larson says she always made an excuse because she feared retaliation if she left or told on him. She lied to customs officials re-entering Singapore, claiming he was her fiance. I said what I had to, just to stick with him, until I can get back to Canada, she says. Now safe, Jessica Larson wants to share her story, not as a warning against travel, rather, a warning against the insidious luring she fell pray to and the perils of domestic abuse that can affect any woman, anywhere. Barry Gray Larson bit her tongue and tried to do as she was told. But sometimes she would talk back and take the hit. She tried to convince him they were not a good match. When that didnt work, she shifted her tactic. All along she had told him she needed to go back to Canada in June. With her visa in Singapore running out, she convinced him that they would get married. I had a ring and everything, she says. He didnt want to come to Canada and they didnt have money for tickets, so Larson asked her mom to pay for them to come home. He thought it was a temporary visit and made her promise not to leave his side. When they arrived at Toronto Pearson Airport her mom picked them up, but Larson didnt tell her mom what was going on right away. Exhausted, they went home and slept. The next day one of her sisters visited and she snuck aside for a moment to quickly share what was going on. That sister came up with a plan if one of them says the code word shoes they would find an excuse to talk privately. Later, when Larson and the man returned from the gym, they found her whole family parents, sisters and their partners on the front lawn of her parents home. They struck up a casual conversation and her sister mentioned she wanted to show Larson some new shoes. All the women went into the house and her mom locked the door. Outside, her brothers-in-law occupied the man with small talk. Inside the house, her family told her they were calling the police. Larson panicked. I broke out in tears, she said. No, hes going to have you killed, she remembers saying. There has to be a different way. But her family calmed her down and Hamilton police rolled up. He was arrested right outside her parents home on June 8, 2019. She didnt dare look, but family told her that he tried to resist. Larson says he never hit her during the 36 hours they were together in Canada, so there were no grounds to lay assault charges here. He was charged with criminal harassment, The Spectator confirmed. He pleaded guilty 11 days after his arrest. He remained in custody until he was deported back to Singapore in July 2019. He was also sentenced to three years probation. Larson has not laid eyes on him since walking past him, into her parents house. Larsons aunt, Sandy Sable, says she recalls everyone talking about how Jess had met this great guy, was travelling with him and she was so happy. Jessica Larson's abuser made her dye her hair blond and insisted it be worn in a low ponytail. Submitted photo She later learned that her nieces abuser had commandeered her Facebook account and was posting fake messages. When Larson finally returned home, we didnt even recognize her. Larson had lost more than 40 pounds, her hair was blond and she looked like a different person. Sable and the rest of the family were horrified to learn what she had been going through. If it hadnt been for her smarts, convincing him she would marry him, no one knows where she would have been, her aunt says. But once physically free, its not always so easy to be psychologically free. After her escape, Larson tried to bury what she had gone through. She got a job at the Tim Hortons on Cannon Street East and Sanford Avenue. She happened to be working when there was a shooting outside the restaurant Sept. 23, 2019. Bullets pierced the wall outside. The shooting shook Larson. She wondered: could this be her abuser making good on his threats? It wasnt. The shooting had nothing to do with Larson. But her reaction showed her that she needed to talk to someone about how she was feeling. Larson connected with support through Hamilton police victim services, who she says were amazing. They connected her with counselling. She got an office job she liked and has already paid back the credit card debt her abuser racked up on their travels. She was laid off amid the COVID-19 pandemic and is back living in her parents basement, but she knows shes working her way back to her goal of getting her own place. She still has anxiety, but counselling has helped her control panic attacks. She says shes focused on personal development doing yoga and starting a podcast (Larson Loving Life). She still thinks about doing a travel blog one day. She dreams about leading retreats for women who have faced trauma. You never know, it can happen in your backyard or across the world, she says. She hopes to use her story to learn and maybe help others. You can crumble or survive, she says. It comes down to a conscious choice. Larson isnt done travelling. I still have my goal to travel the world, I still have not seen enough. (Photo : (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)) CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 18: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gestures to his wife Melania after she delivered a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicks off on July 18. (Photo : (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)) WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 24: U.S. President Donald Trump (L) wears a face mask while he pays his respects as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose under the Portico at the top of the front steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building on September 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. Ginsburg, who was appointed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton served on the high court from 1993, until her death on September 18, 2020. The United States' leader and President, Donald J. Trump, recently tested positive for SARS-CoV 2 virus, also known as COVID-19, shortly after announcing senior counselor, Hope Hicks' case on Twitter. Now, the President of the United States (POTUS) was transported via the Marine One chopper to Walter Reed Hospital for quarantine and office, then given the experimental drug 'Regeneron.' President Donald J. Trump, together with the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump, tests positive for the Novel Coronavirus. The public is now suspecting that Hope Hicks was the infection source, several days after the recently concluded controversial Presidential #Debates2020, in Cleveland, Ohio. Hicks was known to accompany POTUS Trump in the said Presidential Debate, facing off with several other politicians with the likes of Joe Biden. President Trump also announced on Twitter that he will start his COVID 14-day quarantine at Walter Reed medical center and remain there for office. The president, 74, and first lady, 50, was brought there via the Marine One, and was given the experimental antibody cocktail, 'Regeneron,' according to Donald Trump's attending physician, Sean Conley, DO, FACEP. Conley is the official Physician to the President and Commander at the US Navy. Currently, the president was said to be fatigued, primarily due to COVID-19, but can still walk around the hospital grounds and, according to the White House press release, is in 'good spirits.' The President is also currently resting within Walter Reed after being immediately flown for quarantine and medical care. ALSO READ: Real Housewives or Presidential Debate? Check out #Debates2020 Funniest Memes as narrated by Twitter Users! President Trump's COVID Case The news came as a shock to the country as just days ago, the president was going toe-to-toe against the democrat candidate, Joe Biden, at Case Western Reserve University, the venue for the Presidential Debates 2020 in Cleveland. Shortly after announcing on Twitter that political advisor and senior counselor, Hope Hicks, tests positive for COVID-19, the President too has confirmation. President Trump was known to only use masks when necessary and when he prefers. Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020 According to President Trump's recently posted video on Twitter, he and the first lady are doing well and are optimistic that things will work itself out. POTUS Trump posted this on his Twitter account shortly after landing in Walter Reed, at 6:31 p.m. ET. The president's daughter and son-in-law Ivanka Trump and Jared Kusher tested negative for the COVID-19 virus after several steps. Both are known to be working closely with the POTUS and are senior White House advisers. Experimental Drug: 'Regeneron' for Boosting the Antibodies According to the White House and President's attending physician, Sean Conley, POTUS Trump and probably the first lady were given the polyclonal experimental antibody cocktail, known as 'Regeneron.' The biotechnology company's experimental REGN-2 drug was said to be reducing the viral levels of the deadly COVID-19 virus. The American biotechnology company proudly shares its breakthrough and works with the White House, recently administered to the United States president, Donald Trump. The non-hospitalized COVID patients who received this drug were reported to have their symptoms improved after receiving REGN-2. Together with the first lady, POTUS Trump will be continuing their quarantine on Walter Reed medical center, depending on the physician's advice. Temporarily, Trump would be taking office there and continue serving as the President of the United States. ALSO READ: Amazon Reveals Nearly 20,000 Cases of COVID-19 in Workforce Amid Pressure-But Lower than Expected This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Isaiah Alonzo 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. US President Donald Trump has been given an experimental antibody drug manufactured by biopharma company Regeneron. Last month Regeneron announced it is to create an additional 400 jobs in Limerick to allow it to maximise manufacturing capacity at its New York facility for its Covid-19 antibody drug combination REGN-COV2. Last night the White House confirmed that President Trump, who has contracted Covid-19 received a single 8 gram dose of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail before he was flown to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre in Maryland. While treatment is undergoing clinical trials and has not received any form of regulatory approval, it is regarded as one of the most promising approaches to preventing serious illness from Covid-19. Regeneron said it had agreed to supply a single dose, administered intravenously, for Mr Trump at the request of his physician under compassionate use provisions. The new drug is in late-stage testing and its safety and effectiveness are not yet known. Tanzania's polls commission on Friday announced it was suspending the campaign of opposition leader Tundu Lissu for seven days over "seditious language", as the race heats up ahead of general elections this month. Lissu, who recently returned from three years in Belgium recovering from a 2017 assassination attempt in which he was shot 16 times, is the main challenger to President John Magufuli and has been drawing massive crowds to his rallies. The election body said in a statement that its ethics committee had found Lissu had made seditious statements and spread lies while campaigning, after he accused Magufuli of planning to rig the election. "The committee agreed that Lissu violated the ethics by using seditious language and issued unconfirmed accusations which are both against the election laws," read the statement. "We therefore suspend Tundu Lissu from campaigning for seven days starting October 3, 2020. He will not be allowed to campaign until after the punishment." The committee said it wrote a letter to the opposition Chadema party summoning Lissu after the claims but the party had demanded the letter be sent directly to Lissu. Lissu himself denied being given an opportunity to defend himself and vowed to continue campaigning. "I never was served with any ethics charges nor afforded the opportunity to submit written defence to the charges," Lissu posted on Twitter. "This orchestrated 'rough justice' is yet another proof of a discredited NEC (national electoral commission) and a compromised electoral system. The NEC's decision is totally unacceptable. I'll not be intimidated or silenced. The campaign will continue on Sunday as scheduled." The opposition argues that the election comission, whose members are appointed by the president, is not independent and have repeatedly called for reforms. Magufuli was elected in 2015 as a no-nonsense, corruption-busting, man-of-the-people, however has been accused of sliding into authoritarianism and brooking no dissent. During his first term, numerous newspapers and radios have been shut down, journalists have been arrested for insulting the president, and opposition leaders have been killed and arrested. Earlier this year the United States accused Tanzania of seeking to "stifle democratic norms" ahead of the election. On Monday police fired teargas at a convoy carrying Lissu, when he tried to stop and address people on an unscheduled campaign stop. Bahrain's Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) held a key meeting to discuss the implementation of the National Frequency Plan. The National Frequency Plan allocates land, air, and maritime satellite spectrums locally in line with radio regulations issued by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). It supports modern technologies and applications, meeting the requirements of the Bahrains telecommunications sector, including government, security, and private organizations, as well as individuals. The kingdom was among the first Arab countries to adopt the Plan, which reflects the outcome of the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2019. The plan was reissued following the conclusion of the WRC, a part of the ITU Radiocommunications and is held every four years. Since 2015, the National Frequency Plan has been increasingly flexible, lifting restrictions relating to all frequency spectrums and providing them in a comprehensive way to users. They are distributed as per strategic plans adopted by the government which serve Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector requirements. Mohammed Ali Al Qaed, the iGA CEO chaired the third Spectrum Strategy and Coordination Committee meeting, which was held remotely and attended by representatives of nine government organizations. Al Qaed emphasized that the committee is working to provide for the spectrum requirements of various sectors in support of the Government Action Plan. The updated National Frequency Plan, which is to be issued as a digital booklet, will allow for a more effective use of the spectrum and resources. This, in turn, will help improve the quality of mobile and satellite communications and other radio services. He said the plan served as a technical guide for radiocommunications users in Bahrain, including global manufacturers and developers of communications systems noting that since its plan announcement in July. The digital booklet plan being issued by the kingdom will serve as a reference for other countries, providing important information in a convenient and transparent manner. This may help attract investment by showcasing Bahrain's clear and flexible radiocommunications plans and regulations, said Al Qaed. An outline for the national dissemination of frequencies has been adopted and will be provided via the iGA corporate website and the National Portal, bahrain.bh. The plan will serve a range of sectors in Bahrain, enabling them to access information quickly and easily, he stated. The committee discussed a number of other items, including a report by the Chairman of the Subcommittee for International Planning and the results of an Internet of Things (IoT) study conducted by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), he added. According to him, the National Frequency Plans objectives include the introduction of more efficient technologies for users of the radio spectrum, meeting the requirements of the implemented national communications plan, and supporting the latest mobile and private communications technology advancements. This will help attract investment to the ICT sector, supporting economic growth. The plan also takes into account unified frequencies allocated regionally and globally for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR), which help local and international rescue and emergency teams communicate with each other, he added.-TradeArabia News Service Hyderabad, Oct 3 : The second meeting of the Apex Council on river water disputes between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh scheduled next week is likely to be stormy with the former demanding operational control of the Srisailam reservoir. After making it clear that his government will take both Andhra Pradesh and the Centre to task during the October 6 meeting, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao shot off a letter to Union Water Resources Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. He sought transfer of operational control of Srisailam reservoir from Andhra Pradesh to Telangana to stop the neighbouring state from expanding the Pothireddypadu Head Regulator and constructing the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme (RLIS) on the Krishna river. In his 4-page letter, the Telangana chief minister requested the Centre to immediately direct the Andhra Pradesh government to stop work on expansion of Pothireddypadu Head Regulator and construction of RLIS. Terming the projects illegal, he said they affect the interests and rights of Telangana. Analysts say Andhra Pradesh is sure to oppose the demand of Telangana as Srisailam reservoir comes under its territorial jurisdiction. Andhra Pradesh government has already defended RLIS saying it was not using more than its allocated share of water in Krishna river. It even launched a counter attack, raising objections to seven projects taken up by Telangana across Godavari river. KCR, as Rao is popularly known, wrote that Telangana had struggled for six decades to get a fair and an equitable share of water and already lost seven long and valuable years after its formation due to the inaction of the Centre. "Every State of the Indian Union has a constitutional right to get a fair and equitable allocation of river waters. However, even after seven years of its formation, Telangana state is still waiting to know its legitimate share of waters." He urged the central minister to include the allocation of water issues raised in this letter as agenda items in the second Apex Council meeting. He said that the ineffective supervision of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and issues related to Section 89 of the AP Reorganisation Act 2014 should be discussed during the meeting. "Instead of prolonging the meaningless dispute between the two newly-formed states, the Centre should come up with the terms of reference to the present tribunal for the allocation of a fair and equitable share of Krishna water," he wrote. He highlighted the consistent failures of KRMB as a regulatory body. "Though the matter of Pothireddypadu Regulator and RLIS was first brought to the notice of KRMB as early as in February, 2020, they have failed to take any action to stop Andhra Pradesh government from calling for tenders relating to out-of-basin transfer from Krishna Basin. KRMB has remained a mute spectator to the large scale drawal of waters from Pothireddypadu Regulator in spite of our repeated complaints," KCR wrote. The chief minister pointed out that the struggle for the formation of a separate Telangana state was the injustice in allocation of water in united Andhra Pradesh. According to him, the gross injustices included scrapping of Upper Krishna Project with utilisation of 54.4 tmc, Bhima project with utilisation of 100.7 tmc and Tungabhadra left bank canal with utilisation of 19.2 tmc. Even, Nagarjunasagar Dam was shifted from Yelleshwaram to Nandikonda, to the disadvantage of Telangana. Referring to Andhra Pradesh's objections to seven new projects by Telangana in Godavari basin, KCR said these allegations are a complete farce as all the seven projects were contemplated, designed, and grounded by the government of the combined Andhra Pradesh state itself, well before bifurcation took place in 2014. "It now appears that the Andhra Pradesh is objecting about the Kaleshwaram Project with the sole purpose of diverting attention from their own unauthorised and illegal activities at Pothireddypadu Regulator and Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme," reads the letter. Citing the 53 years of Central Water Commission's (CWC) gauge records at the last gauging station on Godavari river, he pointed out that at least 3,000 tmc ft of water empties into the Bay of Bengal. He also brought to the Union minister's notice that in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, Telangana region was allocated 65.13 per cent of the Godavari water. "Based on the total water requirement for irrigation, industry, and drinking, Telangana will use 1,950 tmc ft water per year in comparison to the present allocation of 967.15 tmc ft. This additional water is needed to meet the requirements of more than one crore population of the mega city of Hyderabad which also has 30 to 40 lakh migrant workers. The city needs more water due to the expansion of IT and pharma industries and the growth of its urban agglomerations," he added. Deshmukh had in the past defended the Mumbai Police's investigation, who was also probing the suicide angle, saying the force conducted the probe in a 'professional manner' Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Saturday said the CBI should soon make public its inquiry report into Sushant Singh Rajput's death so that people know whether it was a case of suicide or murder. Talking to reporters in Mumbai, the minister said the Maharashtra government was waiting for the CBI probe report in the case. Replying to a question about reports which said that Rajput's death was a case of suicide and not murder, Deshmukh said, "We have not received any official information regarding that. It won't be appropriate to comment on it until we get official information." "We will give a statement as and when we receive any official information about it," he said. "We want that the CBI inquiry report into the case should soon come before public so that they get to know whether it was a suicide or murder," he said. Earlier this week, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had said that it has not reached any conclusion in Rajput's death case and that all aspects were under investigation. Rajput was found hanging in his Bandra apartment on 14 June. The Mumbai Police had earlier registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR) and launched an investigation. However, the CBI took over the probe into the high-profile case in August following the Supreme Court's nod. Rajput's father KK Singh had on 25 July lodged a complaint with the Bihar police against his son's rumoured girlfriend and actress Rhea Chakraborty and her family members accusing them of abetting the late actor's suicide. Deshmukh had in the past defended the Mumbai Police's investigation into the case, saying the force conducted the probe in a "professional manner". Executive Director for Danquah Institute (DI), a public policy analysis and research centre, Richard Ahiagbah has accused the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of masterminding the secessionist attacks in the Volta Region. A separatist group carried out series of attacks in the Volta Region days ago in protest against the Government of Ghana. On Friday, September 25, the group blocked some principal streets in the Region impeding vehicular and human movements and further attacked some Police stations. They further carried out an arson attack on the State Transport Corporation (STC) in Ho, setting the company's buses on fire. The group is calling on the government to grant them independence to become their own country. Some political figures and government officials as well as socio-economic commentators have condemned the group and called on the government to stop the perpetrators. Addressing the issue on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', the DI Executive Director described the group's demands and actions as ''illegal, illegitimate and has no basis in terms of moral and the will of the people''. But in his view, the attacks are a calculated attempt to make the government unpopular in the eyes of Ghanaians and cause them to vote against the Akufo-Addo government in the December 7 general elections. He blamed the NDC for the group's actions stressing he finds it difficult to believe it's not the opposition party that's behind the separatists. ''I'm willing to be convinced that it's not the NDC that's behind this secessionism but their behaviour and utterances make it difficult to understand they're not the masterminds...I suspect that the NDC is complacent in this matter.'' To him, the only way he will be convinced the NDC has nothing to do with the revolt in the Region is when the party releases an official statement condemning the group outright. ''The extent to which the NDC can bring its strength to bare on this matter, to end it once and for all, is to make a statement openly condemning this thing and asking to work with government that we should all have a common strategy to solve this problem because this doesn't affect just the NPP and NDC. It's affecting Ghana...Like they formed a COVID Committee to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, why can't they form a Committee to deal with this thing?'', he said. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A frenzy of protests over a troika of contentious central farm laws and break-up of the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance has dramatically reshaped Punjabs political landscape. Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh lost no time to seize on a potentially game-changing developments to raise his stock, and that of his party, with the Sikh peasantry and arhtiyas, predominantly Hindus, and outwit the opposition - all with an eye firmly on the next assembly elections in early 2022. At 78, the erstwhile Patiala royals razor-sharp political instinct is now increasingly on display as he navigates the dual hotspots of an unrelenting farmers fury, and of the coronavirus that has made Punjab one of the seven worst-hit states. In an hour-long interview with Executive Editor Ramesh Vinayak on Friday at his sprawling, lush farm house, Mohinder Bagh, named after his mother, in the Shivalik foothills near Chandigarh, the Captain candidly spoke on a range of issues. Edited excerpts: Punjab is the epicentre of protests against three farm laws. What is the main issue? Is it minimum support price (MSP), or loss of market fees/taxes, or federalism? Of course, it is all three. It is a total assault on federalism. They (the Centre) have taken away our taxation, water and agriculture. What is left with the state? The farmer is concerned. Take the case of paddy. Till 1966 when the Green Revolution came to Punjab, nobody grew this crop. Only when farmers saw money in it, did they start rice cultivation. Every farmer in Punjab grows paddy and wheat besides cotton in the south western districts. Now, a farmer wont know how much he will get for his crop. How is he going to survive? 75% of our farmers are under five acres; half of them under two acres. These poor fellows dont even know where their livelihood will come from. WATCH | Farmers protest: Punjab CM meets farm unions; rail roko enters 6th day What is the way forward to break the logjam? I dont know. This (the enactment of farm laws) is based on the Shanta Kumar Committee report that said the Food Corporation of India is a waste of money and so is the MSP. How Mr Shanta Kumar reached this conclusion is his business. But once it comes down to the Government of India, they should look into it. What do they have the NITI Aayog for? It is their business to look into this and see whether it is correct or not. Youve got Madhya Pradesh and other river basin states growing wheat, the Centre is not dependent so much on Punjab. So you are now turning a back on Punjab that fed this country for 60 years. Also Read: Our priority is farmers benefit, for earlier govt it was election: PM Modi at Solang public rally Has the framework on federalism come under more strain since the Covid-19 outbreak? Thats evident even in the goods and services tax (GST) which is a constitutional guarantee by Parliament that the state will get its dues every quarter. Ive not had any money since March. Its the seventh month. How do I run the government? The reason I vouched for reopening liquor vends despite the pandemic was that there was no other source of revenue than excise duty. The Narendra Modi government doesnt understand the implications. They didnt think this reaction to farm laws will come from Punjab. The protests are not happening in other states because they happen to be BJP-ruled. But farmers all over are feeling the same way. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union agriculture minister have repeatedly assured that MSP will stay. The Centre has even declared the MSP for Rabi crops earlier than schedule. Why do you doubt them? If they were serious about it, why didnt they put it in the Act? They could have said that MSP is going to stay and that FCI or whatever agency it is, is going to do the buying. They did not do it. This is only the Prime Minister and the agriculture minister saying so. Tomorrow, if Mr Modi is not the PM or Mr Narendra Singh Tomar is not holding agriculture, will their commitment hold? Also Read: SADs Sukhbir Singh Badal, Harsimrat Kaur briefly detained over farm laws protest How come the Congress, which when in power in the early 90s had ushered in the defining reforms, is now opposed to farm sector reforms that the BJP government calls long overdue and transformative? What will they transform? The Modi government says the farm laws will open agriculture to the corporate world. Who says this not already open to corporate sector? In Punjab, we have Pepsi and ITC buying potatoes. All my kinnows from Hoshiarpur and Ferozepur are going to Chennai. The system is already open. So, the Centres logic is just a lame excuse. Is the MSP regime not the biggest stumbling block in diversification that Punjab desperately needs? The MSP works only for wheat, paddy and cotton. The Centre declares MSP on many crops but there is no price support agency. The day we discussed the farm bills in the special assembly session last month, the MSP for maize was Rs 1,850 per quintal. But, in Hoshiarpur mandis, it was selling at Rs 600. The ruling BJP says the Congress wants that the MSP be made a legal right which it never did while ruling the country for seven decades? The point is not a legal right. It (MSP) was taken for granted since the 1960s. It has been continuing since and no government, not even the non-Congress ones, ever opposed it. Here, we are not saying that you bring a law. All we are asking for is that make an amendment in the farm laws to ensure that MSP continues the way it has all these years. Also Read: MSP, APMC buzzwords in controversy over bills You said Pakistan may exploit the unrest among farmers. But, your party is also stoking the farmers agitation. Isnt this contradictory? I dont have to tell the people to agitate. They are agitating on their own. When somebody doesnt have food to feed his children, he will be protesting on his own. Look at the drama the Akalis did on Thursday with their protest marches. Because they realised that thats how people on the ground feel. Before that, they had to make a 180-degree turn in their stance, pull this girl (Harsimrat) out and then withdraw from the National Democratic Alliance. All Punjab parties and farmers are in protest mode. But, the Centre has ruled out any re-think on farm laws. Where will all this lead to? That depends on how long the legal system takes to redress the issue. I dont see them (the Centre) relenting on this. I can speak for Punjab. Unfortunately, this Centre doesnt understand agriculture. Something is wrong with the whole system. 65% of India in villages lives on agriculture. The MSP is only in North India. But if prices start crashing in other states, there is going to be a big hue and cry. Some quarters argue why the state cant stand guarantee for the MSP. After all, agriculture is a state subject? We dont have the money. They (the Centre) have taken away everything. Ive got nothing with me. We (the state governments) are really going to be completely just living on central charity. That is what its coming to. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked chief ministers of Congress-ruled states to find the way out to override the farm laws? Can the state legislature pass a Bill to invalidate the central law? This is subject to Presidential assent. This President is not going to approve it. Take the case of the Act we passed on scrapping the interstate water treaties in 2004. The Punjab governor signed it and then forwarded it to the President, who referred it as Presidential reference to the Supreme Court. But, here (in farm laws) even this governor is not going to sign such a Bill passed by the Punjab assembly. If he doesnt do that, it will not go to the President. Then, what are the options on your table? As of now, a legal recourse is the only option. Were going to do this (challenge the farm laws) on grounds of violation of the federal structure. My legal team is on the job. Were going to fight it out. Once they have changed the law, you have to challenge the law. The Centre cant tell us what to do and what not to do. Tomorrow, if I opt for crop diversification, am I going to take the Government of Indias approval? It i s my problem. Why should they interfere in our affairs? There is a suggestion that the Punjab assembly can bypass a part of the central laws by declaring the entire state a principal marketing yard. Is that doable? That has to be legally checked. The only issue again is that even if the assembly passes it, the governor wont pass it. Both the BJP and Akalis insist that the Congress manifestos promised privatisation of mandis on the same lines as the new farm laws. Our 2017 Punjab manifesto said we will increase the mandis by 1,000, which incidentally we had to do in the last paddy season due to Covid-19. We had promised to strengthen the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) without tinkering with the MSP. Our Lok Sabha poll manifesto of 2017 said we will do away with the APMC Act but have farmers markets. We never said we will do with the MSP or privatise it. How will the BJP-SAD break-up change Punjabs political terrain? It will certainly change it. After coming out of the ruling NDA, Akalis are going to lose the ground a great deal. They know that. They felt that they will be totally destroyed if they did not come out of the alliance. But frankly, I dont trust them. One month before the polls, they may join up again. Ihna da koi itbar tan hain nahin (You cant trust them). The Akalis may escalate their agitation to morcha mode? That is their old tactic. Whenever they are in crisis, they raise an outcry of the Panth in crisis. Today, for them, the Panth means Mr and Mrs Badal. Now that Congress in-charge of Punjab affairs Harish Rawat has reached out to your estranged MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu and called him an asset to the party, what role do you see for Sidhu in the government and the party? I dont have any problem with Sidhu or Mr Rawat brokering peace. I have known Sidhu from the age of two. He is a Patiala boy. I have no problem with him. Putting somebody somewhere in a job is always done on the basis of what job that person is good at doing. He didnt like my changing his ministry from local bodies to power. He is welcome to come as power minister, not as local bodies. His job is open. Power is important to me as well as Punjab. What if he doesnt accept this offer? Then, there is nothing I can do about it. I cant change my ministers. They are all doing a good job. Why should I change them to suit somebody else? How open are you to making him Punjab Congress chief? Im very happy with my PCC chief (Sunil Jakhar), who is doing a great job. Why should he make way for somebody? One, you need a PCC chief who understands everybody in the state. Mr Jakhar has lived his whole life in the Congress. Why should somebody who joined the party three years ago become the president? I dont think that is a fair request if he (Sidhu) asked for it. He can ask for other things. Our national party can make use of him. I can make use of him in the ministry on power. What are the chances of burying the hatchet with rebel MPs Partap Singh Bajwa and Shamsher Singh Dullo? I dont have any problem with either. They have their own (problems). Every fourth day, Bajwa puts out a letter he claims to have written to me that I never receive. He claims that I got his job as PCC chief. If the Congress president brought me and removed Bajwa, she must have had considerations to do it. I didnt like only one thing about Dullo. When I was leading the party into the 2017 elections, his son stood as the Aam Aadmi Party candidate. And, Dullo, himself a former PCC chief, was helping his son. That is not on. Both have been strident critics of your government. Are they going to say that Im doing a great job? Obviously not. If you want to demolish somebody, you have to find something to demolish him with. Are you all set to lead the party in the 2022 assembly elections? I think so. Politically, Punjab is in a good shape: There are four Akali Dals, and the BJP is on its own. We are very happy. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Name: In the last book of the Bible, Jesus reveals himself as "the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Present at the world's beginning, Jesus will also be present at its end, when he and his work are finally and fully revealed. When you pray to Christ as the Alpha and the Omega, you are praying to the One who is, who was, and who is to come. He is our all-sufficient Lord, who will not fail to complete the good work he has begun in us. Key Scripture: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Revelation 22:13 In this dynamic passage, God reveals part of His character. It corresponds to another name, Jehovah ("I am") which hints at His eternal nature and unending presence. Here, God confirms the praise of Moses in Psalm 90 that "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." The author Tertullian clarified why God used this specific wording, "...just as alpha rolls on to omega and omega returns again to alpha, so He might show that both the evolution of the beginning to the end is in Him and again the return of the end to the beginning." But Revelation 22:13 is still one of those verses that presents me with a mental challenge. My limited human perception of space and time can make the idea of continuous being hard to wrap my mind around. Do you ever think, like I do, that it's too marvelous to be true? Yet, Scripture calls us to acknowledge this aspect of God, even if we can't fully understand it. "For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God" (Psalm 86:10). Photo credit: Getty Images/Bulat Silvia After Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate both agreed to not demand negative test results from Luxembourgish travellers for short-duration trips, the rest of Germany might follow suit. Luxembourg residents will be allowed to enter the Rhineland-Palatinate for 24 hours at a time, without the need for a negative Covid-19 test, from Saturday on. Malu Dreyer, minister-president of Rhineland-Palatinate, recently conveyed in an interview on German television that the country might adapt the new regulations nationwide. This would mean that a trip shorter than 24 hours would no longer require a negative test result prior to departure. The rule would apply to everyone, not only cross-border employees. Dreyer further emphasised that Germany's border regions would only be plagued with problems each time the situation altered, and explained that there was an urgent necessity for universal measures. A statue of Harry Potter, flying a Nimbus 2000 broom over the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, was unveiled on Wednesday in Londons Leicester Square. The bronze statue, which shows Potter, played by Daniel Radcliffe, is just a few steps from where the film Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone had its world film premiere in November 2001. People take a selfie with a statue of Harry Potter, based on the JK Rowling novels, after it was unveiled at Leicester Square in London, Britain. (REUTERS) Harry Potter is hugely important to literature, theatre and, of course, to film, said Ros Morgan, chief executive at Heart of London Business Alliance. We know there are fans of Harry Potter of all ages all around the world and we look forward to welcoming them to the West End and Leicester Square, whenever that will be. Potter joins other film icons including Laurel & Hardy, Mary Poppins, Mr. Bean and Paddington as part of Scenes in the Square, an interactive film trail in Leicester Square. A statue of Harry Potter, based on the JK Rowling novels, is seen after it was unveiled at Leicester Square in London, Britain. (REUTERS) Some young fans were enthralled. I love Harry Potter and have been posing for photos pretending to play Quidditch with the statue all morning, said Finn Bruce, aged 10. I love coming into London and Im happy Harry is here now too. PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The senior party in the Czech Republics coalition government dominated the countrys regional elections and is ahead in the first round of voting for Parliaments upper house, according to results released Saturday. The Czech Statistics Office said that with ballots from almost 100% of polling stations counted, the ANO (YES) movement led by Prime Minister Andrej Babis won 10 of the 13 regions contested during voting on Friday and Saturday. The result was a sign of a stable support for ANO, which won nine regions in 2016. Its an excellent result, Babis said. ANO also has the most candidates advancing to the runoffs for 27 seats in the 81-seat Senate. The top two finishers in each district will face each other in a head-to-head vote next weekend. With ballots from 99% of stations counted, ANO had nine candidates advancing to the runoffs. The elections were the first held in the Czech Republic during the coronavirus pandemic. Face masks were required at voting places. Quarantined voters had the option of casting ballots from vehicles at temporary polling stations across the country. Those who were unable to use a car or venture out could ask a special electoral committee to send a ballot box to their homes. Before the coronavirus pandemic, quarantined voters were not allowed to cast ballots, although their numbers were relatively low. The Czech Republic is seeing an increase of new confirmed virus cases. The number of cases reported Friday was 3,793. The country has a total of 79,475 confirmed cases, including 709 deaths. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked airlines to hold off furloughing of some 40,000 airline workers and assured them that additional federal aid would be going their way. Pelosi's plea came after thousands of airline workers have received notices of getting furloughed on October 1, after the terms of a $25 billion grant ended on September 30. Airlines have been experiencing a plunge in bookings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which have resulted to billion of losses. The grant was part of the Payroll Support Program (PSP) of the CARES Act approved last March wherein airlines received federal payroll aid by agreeing not to lay off their employees through to September 30. American Airlines received the biggest grant at $5.8 billion, while Delta Airlines got $5.4 billion, about $5 billion went to United and Southwest got nearly $3.3 billion in payroll support. In recent weeks, airlines and unions have been urging Congress to extend their $25 billion grant so they will not have to furlough workers or cut down their workforce until March of 2021. These airline workers include pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers and gate agents, among others. They have been able to stay on their jobs by getting partial pay through the $25 million grant. The Heroes Act 2.0 that Pelosi and the House Democrats passed on Thursday amidst her continuing talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin included provisions for the airline industry. It has provisions of $25 billion to stave off thousands of layoffs at passenger airlines and another $3 billion for airline contractors. Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines which has started to furlough 13,000 workers this week, said that an extension of the grant would also allow them more time to recover without losing any of their employees at least until next year. Following Pelosi's promise of additional payroll support to save jobs of thousands of airline workers, shares of major U.S. carriers rose. American Airlines which has started to furlough 19,000 workers saw its shares go up more than 3 percent after Pelosi's announcement while United Airlines saw its shares up by 2 percent. Not all airline workers though are in danger as Delta and Southwest have no plans of furloughing their employees as of yet as they are compensating via cost-cutting and voluntary agreements with workers. Although passenger air travel has rebounded in late June and early July, there has been no increase in the figures, according to Airlines for America trade group. Passenger volumes are down by 70 percent as of September 20 as compared to last year. Also in the same period, member airlines are operating less than half of the flights they did. With the airline revenues having taken a sharp dive, U.S. airlines are burning through about $5 billion of cash every month. There is hope though for airline workers as airline CEOs have said that they are willing to reverse course should there be an additional federal grant. Check these out: 40,000 Airline Workers in Danger of Losing Jobs if Congress Not Able to Reach a Deal Second Stimulus Checks Possible by October 12 at the earliest if Bipartisan Deal Reached by October 5 Stopgap Spending Bill Signed Into Law Averting Government Shutdown A young man has been critically injured and rushed to hospital after he was pulled from a vehicle and shot on Friday night in western Sydney, NSW Police said. Emergency services arrived at Anderson Lane in Sefton around 11.45pm to find a 19-year-old man suffering multiple gunshot wounds to his chest and leg. Police said the teen was treated at the scene before being taken to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition. A 19-year-old man is in a critical condition following a shooting in Sefton on Friday night. Source: 7News Early investigations suggest the 19-year-old was in the drivers seat of the car with passenger, a 21-year-old male, at the time of the shooting. Police said the 21-year-old suffered a minor injury to his eye due to the smashed glass, but did not require treatment and he is assisting police with their investigation. Police said a number of men approached the vehicle, smashing the window on the passenger side, dragging the driver from the car and shooting him. Soon after, a white hatchback was seen leaving the area. Police are hoping to speak with the driver of the hatchback, or anyone who may have information which could assist the investigation. Anyone who may have been around Anderson Lane, Helen Street, Wellington Road or Sefton Railway Station around 11.45pm on Friday night should contact police at Bankstown Police Station. 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. When an American president is ill, the world holds its breath, and for good reason: No one individual has more global influence, for better or worse, than the leader of the worlds largest economy and strongest military. Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack. Jimmy Carter collapsed while jogging. George H.W. Bush had gastroenteritis, and delivered a regrettable side effect to the lap of the Japanese prime minister during a banquet. In each case, financial markets were unstable and citizens worried until it was clear that the president had regained his health. But the presidency of Donald Trump long ago unsettled the globe in ways more varied and extreme than you might imagine of anybody else in the Oval Office. We havent become immune to Trump-induced anxiety, but the uncertainty he provokes on even his most robust days has become regularized. If a presidential impeachment barely registers an effect on the national psyche, if the daily insults and wild policy fluctuations of the last 1,352 days (but whos counting?) draw from many citizens no more than a shrug, why would what the White House calls mild symptoms of COVID-19 in the president make much of a mark? The news that the president and first lady have become the worlds most prominent COVID-19 patients should prompt us all to wish them a speedy recovery. In the words of Joe Biden, who more than most of us might have cause to hold Trump in low regard, We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family. Thats really all we can do. What the White House can do in this moment, though, is something quite different, though uncharacteristic of this presidency: For the good of the world, it can adopt a posture of transparency and honesty. We are owed that when our president is struck down by an illness that has killed more than 208,000 Americans. Of course, we should expect honest reports of a national leaders health as a matter of course. But this is a president who, as a candidate, dictated a report that was falsely said at the time to be from his personal physician describing his blood pressure as astonishingly excellent and stating unequivocally that Trump surely would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. Since then, even routine reports on his health have struck many as hard to believe; his claimed height and weight in medical reports show Trump, 74, closely matching the physique of professional athletes like Tim Tebow and Mike Trout. Really? Not that Trump is the only contemporary politician to shade the truth of his health. When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson came down with COVID-19 last year, aides said he had a mild case and minor symptoms shortly before he was admitted to an intensive care unit. Johnson has a notoriously fraught history with the truth, British journalist Jon Allsop wrote then. Yesterday, noting Trumps record of prevarication, Allsop cautioned, The urge to speculate is understandable when journalists are unable to trust those in power. Pleading for clarity from this White House may be a fools errand. Trumps track record of truth-telling generally is beyond awful: He has poured out more than 20,000 lies since he took office, The Washington Post reports. But on the coronavirus, the impact of his misstatements has been deadly. Cornell University researchers who reviewed 38 million English-language articles about COVID-19 concluded, in a report released Thursday, that Trump has been the single largest driver of misunderstanding on the disease, responsible for 38 percent of the misinformation conversations about it. The most prevalent of the falsehoods, the research found, involved supposed miracle cures, like his touting of anti-malarial drugs and consuming disinfectant. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Even more damaging, of course, has been the presidents longtime hostility to the simple act of wearing a face mask, which every medical expert says can save lives. In this weeks debate, he was at it again, seeming to denigrate Joe Biden for wearing one in public. Notably, Trump family members at the debate wore no masks. Nor did Trump aide Hope Hicks, who fell ill a day later and self-quarantined Wednesday night on Air Force One while flying back from a rally in Minnesota with Trump. On Thursday night, Trump told Foxs Sean Hannity how she may have gotten sick. But it is very, very hard when you are with people from the military, or from law enforcement, and they come over to you and they want to hug you and kiss you because we really have done a good job for them, he said. You get close, and things happen. Or was he concocting a rationale for his own (then secret) illness? It's hard to imagine that Trump, who has access to rapid testing and extraordinary government-paid medical care, wouldnt have known 24 hours after an aides illness surfaced that he and his wife also were COVID-positive. But Im just speculating here, like those angry people who say Trump isnt really sick at all that this is the October surprise weve all expected aimed at changing the trajectory of this campaign. Clarity and truth-telling can squelch such rumor-mongering. Surely thats what we will get from the White House in the days ahead. North Carolina has played a key role in Democrats hopes to take control of the Senate this year. Republican Thom Tillis is considered an uninspiring figure, while the Democrats seemed to have found a strong challenger in veteran Cal Cunningham. But yesterday the news broke that Cunningham has been carrying on a torrid affair with a political consultant from California. Both Cunningham and the consultant, Arlene Guzman Todd, are married. The affair became public when someone leaked a series of texts between Cunningham and Todd. Here they are; click to enlarge: One wonders: do middle-aged philanderers not realize how ridiculous their lovey-dovey texts will seem to others, once they inevitably become public? Cunninghams dalliance will expose him to moral disapproval, to be sure. But more devastating, I expect, will be the ridicule. This debacle should be enough to put North Carolina in the GOP column, and significantly reduce the Democrats chances of taking the Senate. The two Congress leaders were briefly detained on Thursday on the grounds that there was a ban on public assembly in the area in Hathras New Delhi: A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped, a senior party leader said. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be part of the delegation that will meet the family to hear their grievances and demand justice for them, sources said. "Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year old-daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted and murdered," Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal tweeted. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman. In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul said the behaviour of the Uttar Pradesh government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable to me. No Indian should accept this." The Congress leader asserted that "no power in the world can stop me from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and share their pain". Hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi said the state government is "morally corrupt". "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed - now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test," she said in a tweet in Hindi. "This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family," she said. The party alleged that the woman and her family have been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in their attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on 14 September. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". Arayik Harutyunyan, president of the ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, said earlier he had travelled to join his forces on the front line Nagorno-Karabakh said on Saturday that 51 more servicemen had been killed in the war with Azerbaijan, a sharp rise in the death toll from a week of fierce fighting. Arayik Harutyunyan, president of the ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, said earlier he had travelled to join his forces on the front line. Search Keywords: Short link: YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Serious talk about the peaceful settlement would be possible when terrorists and Turkey leave this region together with their goals. Turkey aims at reinstating the Turkish empire, if that policy succeeds here, Turkey would try to expand towards the territories in continental Europe, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview to France24. Its the continuation by Turkey of the Genocide of Armenians. Its just that Armenians in the South Caucasus are the last obstacle in the way of Turkey and their expansion towards the north, the east, the PM said. Asked whether he thinks that they want to get rid of Armenia, Pashinyan said: Of course. I have no doubt about it. It has been Turkeys historic purpose. Commenting on the reporters observation that Turkey is a NATO member, the Armenian PM said: That member of NATO two months ago, one month ago attacked another member of NATO Greece. Lets look at what Turkey is doing in the Mediterranean Sea, what they are doing in Syria, in Iraq. Today Turkey has a clear objective to reinstate the Turkish empire. And do not be surprised if that policy succeeds here, dont be surprised if they attempt to incorporate in that empire not only the Greek islands, but actually expand further towards the continental Europe and their territories in continental Europe. If Turkey succeeds in this, then wait for them in Vienna. Asked whether he sees no solution to this other than to mobilize as many people as possible and keep fighting, Pashinyan said serous talk of the peaceful resolution will be possible when the terrorists and Turkey leave this region together with their goals. Civilization cannot but prevail, will to live, a people with the right to live cannot but prevail. There is no doubt that the Armenian people, which have been living on the Planet Earth for several thousands of years, have the will to live, the PM added. Pashinyan said there is only one thing he can say to the people of Azerbaijan: Ask yourselves to what extent you know the truth about your own people, about your own government and their wealth, about their transactions and about their objectives. I think that the people of Azerbaijan are hostage to a dictatorial government. Armenians have always been a convenient enemy image for Aliyevs dictatorial rule, for him to be able with this to bypass the problems of democracy, freedoms, human rights, freedom of expression. Reporting by Anna Grigoryan, Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan Vice President Mike Pence On Oct. 1, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19. The following day, after displaying what a White House physician called "mild symptoms" like a low-grade fever, Trump was admitted to the hospital at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As of now, Trump retains all of his powers as the President of the United States, despite his illness. But as he battles the disease, you might be wondering what could happen if at any point he becomes unable to serve. Per the 25th Amendment, the standing president must inform the speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi) and the president pro tempore (Chuck Grassley) in writing of their inability to serve; they must then inform them via another written statement when they are ready to serve again. In the interim, the vice president stands in for the president's duties. This has happened a few times in history: once when George H. W. Bush stood in for Ronald Reagan while he underwent colon cancer surgery under anesthesia in 1985, and twice when Richard B. Cheney stood in for George W. Bush while he underwent separate colonoscopies under sedation - once during his first term in 2002 and once during his second term in 2007. If the president is incapable of declaring their incapacity, the vice president and a majority of Cabinet secretaries must then inform the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the president's inability to carry out their duties. At this point, the vice president steps in as acting president. While there is a protocol in place for this situation, the 25th Amendment also states that the vice president may declare the president unable to carry out their duties with the support of "such other body as Congress may by law provide," which could include an independent review board, according to NPR. The qualifications for such a body are not spelled out clearly in the amendment and this means of transferring power has never been put into effect. Story continues The Presidential Succession Act sets up a line of succession to determine who takes over if the president is unable to serve due to illness, incapacitation, or death. The order has not always been agreed upon, and the law has a long history of changes, with the last taking place in 2006. That year, the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 added the secretary of homeland security to the list. Related: The Representative Who Called For Trump's Impeachment Is Now Receiving Death Threats In Trump's administration, here's the full line of succession: The White House doctor in charge of President Donald Trump's treatment is facing pressure to brief the press on Trump's condition. Dr. Sean Conley released two doctor's notes - first confirming that the president and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus and then detailing Trump's Friday treatment - but hasn't faced questions. On Friday evening, Trump took Marine One from the White House South Lawn to Walter Reed Medical Center for several days of monitoring, the White House said. President Donald Trump's White House doctor is facing pressure to brief the press on the president's medical condition after Trump tested positive for COVID-19 Dr. Sean Conley has served as the Physician to the President since 2018 and wrote two doctor's notes in the last 24 hours Conley was named the acting Physician to the President in March 2018 after Trump surprisingly nominated his predecessor, Dr. Ronny Jackson, to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Conley remained in the position and became the full-time Physician to the President in May 2018, even after Jackson's nomination failed. Now Jackson is poised to represent Texas is the House of Representatives. The doctor made news earlier in the pandemic after Trump told reporters he was taking the drug hydroxychloroquine to prevent contracting COVID-19. 'After numerous discussions he and I had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine ,we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks,' Conley later wrote, confirming that he had green-lit the treatment. Trump did a regimen of hydroxychloroquine after his personal valet tested positive for the virus, as well as Vice President Mike Pence's spokeswoman Katie Miller, who is married to top Trump aide Stephen Miller. Beyond that, Conley isn't as well known as Jackson and the prominent members of the coronavirus taskforce including Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx and, more recently, Dr. Scott Atlas, whose addition to the taskforce was controversial. But it was Conley who - at 1:05 a.m. - signed off on a memo that said the president and first lady had tested positive for the coronavirus. 'The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence,' he wrote. Conley wrote the memo given out to the press in the early hours Friday morning that confirmed the president and first lady had tested positive for the virus Conley gave an early evening update on the president's condition Friday before the White House announced he would be spending several days at Walter Reed 'The White House medical team and I will maintain a vigilant watch, and I appreciate the support provided by some of our countrys greatest medical professionals and institutions,' Conley wrote. 'Rest assured I expect the President to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering, and I will keep you updated on any future developments.' At 4:11 p.m. Friday, Conley sent out an update on the president's treatment and condition. He said as a 'precautionary measure' Trump had received 'a single 8 gram dose of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail.' 'He completed the infusion without incident,' Conley said. 'As of this afternoon the President remains fatigued but in good spirits. Hes being evaluated by a team of experts, and together well be making recommendations to the President and First Lady in regards to next best steps,' the White House doctor added. The NEET 2020 exam was held at 3,843 centres from 2 pm to 5 pm on 13 September. More than 15 lakh candidates had registered The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released the question papers of NEET 2020 on its official website. Those who took NEET 2020 exam on 13 September can download the question papers by visiting ntaneet.nic.in. The code-wise questions papers of NEET 2020 are available in various languages, including English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati and Tamil. National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2020 exam was held at 3,843 centres across the country from 2 pm to 5 pm. More than 15 lakh candidates had registered for NEET 2020. The NTA released the NEET 2020 preliminary answer key on 27 September. The agency gave candidates time till 29 September to raise objections against the answer key. Those who wanted to challenge any answer in the preliminary key were required to pay Rs 1,000 per answer. They also had to provide an explanation for the challenge to any answer key. It means they were required to provide the reason as to why they did not think the answer given in the key was correct. Steps to download NEET 2020 question paper: Step 1: Visit the official website of NTA at ntaneet.nic.in Step 2: Go to the notice section, which is on the top on the homepage Step 3: Links for all the NEET 2020 question papers can be seen Step 4: Click on the link for the question paper which you want to download Step 5: Download and tae printout NEET 2020 results are expected to be announced by 12 October. It will be announced on the official website of the NTA. This year, NEET 2020 got delayed due the coronavirus pandemic. The exam was originally slated to be held on 6 May. However, owing to the COVID-19 situation, the date was first postponed to 26 July and then again to 13 September. The exam was conducted adhering to strict COVID-19 guidelines. A staggered entry and exit of the candidates were planned and arrangements had been made so that students could maintain physical distancing. The agency had issued guidelines before the exam telling students what to do and what not to do. Advertisement A long-delayed flood barrier successfully protected Venice from a high tide for the first time today - seeing off threats the historic city could be submerged. 'Today, everything is dry. We stopped the sea,' city mayor Luigi Brugnaro told reporters after raising a glass in celebration with some of the engineers and officials responsible for the multi-billion euro project known as Mose. 'Lots of bad things have happened here, but now something wonderful has happened,' he said. The barriers of the Mose system, which protects the city of Venice and the Venetian Lagoon from flooding, are emerged out of water, for the first time, in Venice, Italy today Visitors stand on a trestle bridges as they admire St. Mark's Basilica during an expected high water, in Venice, northern Italy today Stacked chairs are seen at St. Mark's Square during high tide as the flood barrier scheme MOSE is used for the first time in Venice, Italy today Pictured: The operation system of the Mose flood barrier The network of 78 bright yellow barriers that guard the entrance to the delicate Venetian lagoon lifted from the sea bed as the tide, driven by strong winds and rain, started to climb. City officials had forecast a tide of 4.27ft, well below the devastating 6.13ft tide that battered Venice last November, but enough to leave low-lying areas deep under water. Expecting the worst, workmen had laid out raised walkways in especially vulnerable places, including the often packed St. Mark's Square. In the event, the tide only amounted to 2.29ft, leaving the city's piazzas and pathways unscathed. 'Today is an important day, an historic day because we should have been full of water by now and instead we are dry,' said Massimo Milanese, manager of the Lavena Cafe in St. Mark's Square. The worst floods in more than 50 years left St Mark's Square submerged under a metre of water last November, underlining the growing environmental threat to one of the world's most famous cultural sites. Engineers had promised that Mose would save the day, but sceptics questioned whether the system, plagued by corruption, cost overruns and prolonged delays, would be up to the task. Venice's floods, 'acqua alta' (high water) in Italian, are caused by a combination of factors exacerbated by climate change - from rising sea levels and unusually high tides to land subsidence that has caused the ground level of the city to sink. Mose is designed to protect Venice from tides of up to 9.84ft, well beyond current records, and Saturday's success raised hopes of a bright future for the city, which has suffered from a calamitous fall in tourism due to COVID-19. 'This is a beautiful day for Venice, which has finally been saved,' the ruling Democratic Party said in a statement. Meanwhile, flooding from record rains in the mountainous region that spans France and Italy has killed two people in Italy and left at least 24 people in the two countries missing. A restaurant now remains open in a location where during high tides it would normally have had to be closed today in Venice, Italy Children stand on a trestle bridges during an expected high tide , in Venice, northern Italy today. Controversial and long-delayed underwater barriers passed their first emergency with flying colours today People walk across elevated walkways past the Doge's Palace by St. Mark's square in Venice today as a high tide 'Alta Acqua' phenomenon is expected, following a peak bad weather and potential intense sirocco winds along the entire Adriatic basin A storm that moved overnight across south-eastern France and then northern Italy caused major flooding on both sides of the border, destroying bridges, blocking roads and isolating communities. In Italy, a firefighter was killed during a rescue operation in the mountainous northern region of Val d'Aosta. Another body was found in Vercelli province, near where a man had been swept away by floodwaters late on Friday. A total of 16 people were reported missing in Italy, all but one travellers in cars on the Col de Tende high mountain pass between France and Italy, according to civil protection authorities. They include two people from Germany driving with their 11-year-old and six-year-old grandchildren, and a pair of brothers returning from France. The spokesman for Italy's firefighters said a search was ongoing for a missing shepherd who was pulled into floodwaters on Col de Tende. A view on damage after heavy rains in Cuneo, Italy today Residents clear mud from the doorway of their home in Cuneo after heavy rains hit northern Italy earlier today Residents clear mud from the doorway of their home near Cuneo, Italy today Residents clear mud from the doorway of their home in Cuneo, Italy today A view of damage after heavy rains battered Cuneo, northern Italy today A view of damage after heavy rains battered Cuneo, northern Italy today His brother managed to grab on to a tree and was saved, while authorities were searching on the French side for the shepherd. Firefighter spokesman Luca Cari said he suspects the other people reported missing in Italy have lost phone contact, but at the moment they are not thought to be in imminent danger. The situation at the tunnel on the high mountain pass is complicated by the fact that French emergency responders cannot access their side due to flood damage, Mr Cari said. Italian firefighters were searching the French side for people who may have been blocked. Unrelenting rainfall overnight hit levels not seen since 1958 in northern Italy's Piedmont region, where as much as 630 millimetres (24.8in) of rain fell in a 24-hour period, according to the Italian civil protection agency. Hundreds of rescue operations were under way. Severe damage was caused in the centre of Limone Piemonte which was isolated when the Vermenagna river flooded the village with waters up to 5ft-high This photo taken today and provided by Italian news agency ANSA shows road damages following bad weather and floods in Limone Piemonte, near Cuneo, Piedmont Two people have died and 24 others are listed as missing today after severe flooding across northern Italy and France, officials said following torrential overnight rain Eleven campers were saved in Vercelli province, where floodwaters hit 20-year highs. And Alpine rescue squads have evacuated by foot seven people who were in houses cut off by flooding at Terme di Valdieri; some had to be carried on stretchers due to the muddy conditions and accumulation of detritus. On the other side of the border, in south-eastern France, almost a year's average rainfall fell in less than 12 hours in the mountainous area surrounding the city of Nice. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi expressed his 'emotion and sympathy' for the families. He said more than 100 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged. Firefighters said several dozen people were evacuated from their homes overnight. French prime minister Jean Castex, who flew over the area in an helicopter, confirmed that at least eight people were missing, including two firefighters whose vehicle was carried away by water when the road collapsed during a rescue operation. Waves hit the shore near the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France yesterday Storm Alex reached the French riviera's coasts, local media said on Saturday morning. Meteo-France placed the Alpes Maritimes department of France on red rain and floods vigilance on Friday morning A video grab taken from footage made yesterday shows the house of two elderly people, who sought refuge on the roof, before being washed away by floods in Roquebilliere, southeastern France, after heavy rains and floodings hit the Alpes-Maritimes department 'I cannot hide our grave concern on the definitive toll,' Mr Castex said. Many worried families had not heard from their relatives due to mobile phone services being cut off in the area. 'As I speak, priority goes to searching for victims, providing supplies and accommodation for the people affected, and restoring communications,' the prime minister said. Rescue efforts included 871 personnel working on the ground, as well as military helicopters and troops helping with emergency assistance, Mr Castex said. French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday expressed gratitude towards rescuers on Twitter. 'Together we will get through this,' he said. France's national weather agency, Meteo France, said that up to 500 millimetres of rain (19.7in) were recorded in some areas, the equivalent of almost one year of average rainfall. Meteo France had issued a danger alert on Friday and all schools in the region had been closed. Local authorities urged people to stay at home. A Dixon man days short of his 20th birthday was sentenced on Friday to 60 years in prison for his role in a drug robbery turned double homicide almost two years ago. Prosecutors said Preston Rossbach followed the lead of Jonathan Whitworth in attempting to rob their drug dealer at a downtown Missoula motel in October 2018 after they had purchased some "bad drugs." When they didn't find the dealer in the motel room, they left, briefly, and then returned. Whitworth, prosecutors said, shot Kaleb Williams, Jason Flink and Megan McLaughlin, killing the latter two victims. Rossbach, prosecutors said, followed up by stabbing Flink and Williams, presumably to not leave any witnesses. The 60-year prison sentence Judge Leslie Halligan handed down Friday means Rossbach will be eligible for parole in about 12 years. Whitworth signed a plea agreement in August to be sentenced to 100 years in prison without the eligibility of parole for the first 30 years. Whitworth's sentencing hearing is set for Oct. 13. Rossbach was convicted by a jury in March on two counts of deliberate homicide, one count of assault with a weapon, one count of tampering with evidence for hiding the knife used in the slayings and another count of intimidation for threatening the two people who went with him and Whitworth to the motel. Much has happened since then. At the time of Rossbach's trial, the country was becoming quickly overrun by the arrival of COVID-19. Friday, nearly seven months later and a day after the nation learned President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, the courtroom setting had transformed with the times: Seating was spaced far apart, everyone wore masks, Judge Leslie Halligan sat within a three-sided Plexiglass box and a plastic sleeve hung on the microphone where witnesses stood to provide statements on Rossbach's sentence. "He had a very strong relationship with Jesus," Eva Cornell said of Flink, her son. "I honestly think if he were still alive he would someday be a pastor at the church." Cornell asked Halligan to give Rossbach a sentence in which he would spend 25 years in prison before he becomes eligible for parole. Logan Gobert, the younger brother of McLaughlin, asked Halligan to dispense two life sentences. Gobert has spoken previously about how his sister had struggled in life after being raised in the foster care system. "We're here to decide if (Rossbach) deserves a second chance or not," Gobert said. "My sister wanted a second chance, and she'll never get a second chance. She'll never have a chance to relive her life, be a better mom to her kids, be a big sister to me." Rossbach's public defense attorney, Greg Rapkoch, spent much time over the course of Rossbach's trial delineating the disadvantages imposed upon Native American communities and how those circumstances led his client, an enrolled member of the Salish and Kootenai tribes, to the hotel room that night. Once in the criminal justice system, Rapkoch pointed out, Rossbach was convicted by an all-white jury, defended and prosecuted by white attorneys, judged by a white judge. Rapkoch also argued with some intensity on Friday, bringing up a youthful death in his own family has a measuring point, that Rossbach's development at barely 18 years old made him susceptible to Whitworth's pressure to carry out the robbery; that following Whitworth's lead wasn't Rossbach's choice. "We can call it 'choice' because that's the word that we have for it, but what's happening in the brain at that point in time is not choice as anyone in this courtroom understands it," Rapkoch said. "The context of decision-making matters." Deputy County Attorney Jordan Kilby said in her final statements that the prosecutors' office did look for implicit bias in this case and sought to uncover where bias had made an impact on the investigation, prosecution and trial, but found none. Rossbach, Kilby said, had been involved in a number of altercations in jail since his arrest, the details of which were not described in court on Friday. Likewise, Rossbach had not participated in services available to him in jail and he was also under investigation for a homicide that took place in Dixon two weeks before the homicides at the Missoula motel. "We as a justice system cannot disagree with Mr. Rapkoch when he writes, in short, 'Preston Rossbach and children like him are being raised in the aftermath of societal conflict.' That's true. But what's not true is that being involved in a crime that end in the death of two innocent victims was Rossbach's fate. "So many kids grow up in circumstances like the defendant. Megan McLaughlin was one of them," Kilby continued. "None of what the defense has offered changed the fact that his actions that night greatly altered the life of so many people." Halligan sentenced Rossbach to 60 years in prison with 10 years suspended on each count of deliberate homicide to run concurrently; as well as 10 years in prison for assault with a weapon, 5 years in prison for tampering with physical evidence and 5 years for each of the two counts of intimidation. She said she believes Whitworth, not Rossbach, was the primary actor, but called the killings "senseless," "violent and irrational." While Rossbach will be just over 30 years old when he is eligible for parole, the parole board takes into consideration an inmate's completion of programs like those assigned during sentencing. "You left the hotel room. We all wish you would have left completely," Halligan told Rossbach, who declined to make a statement to the court on Friday. "Your actions demonstrate individual violence, and my concern is that you will need to engage in effective rehabilitation before the safety of the community can be assured. And even with that, no one but you can take the appropriate actions to ensure that there is safety for other individuals in our communities." Rossbach will be designated a violent offender upon his release from prison. A new charge filed against Rossbach, witness tampering for alleged threats made against two inmates who testified against him at trial, has not yet been resolved. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 2 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The journalist and author Chris Ryder, who previously worked for the Belfast Telegraph, has died at the age of 73. Mr Ryder, who had also worked for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph before retiring, wrote a number of books on security and the Troubles. His wife Genny said he died "peacefully and pain free" on Friday after being looked after with "exemplary care" at the NI Hospice. "Im sad to tell you Chris died last night, peacefully and pain free after a short illness," she said. Mr Ryder lived in Belfast and was the author of books on the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Northern Ireland Prison Service. The Belfast Telegraph's Editor-at-Large Gail Walker said of his death: "NI has lost one of its finest journalists. "Even when ill, Chris wrote important, courageous & sparkling copy for the Belfast Telegraph," she said. Ken Reid, UTV's Political Editor, described Mr Ryder as a "major figure in Irish journalism". Mrs Ryder said her husband will be cremated in private. Lord + Taylor plans to lay off about 150 employees at its soon-to-close stores in Connecticut, the bankrupt department-store chain told state officials this week. The job cuts will include 58 positions at its standalone store in Stamford, 40 at Westfield Trumbull mall, 28 at Danbury Fair mall and 24 at Westfarms mall in Farmington, according to a letter that parent company Le Tote sent to the state Department of Labor. Layoffs are scheduled to occur on Dec. 1 or in the following 14 days. Affected employees are not unionized. Trumbull officials said they would be posting next week on the towns website information for an Oct. 29 virtual Town Hall meeting on job opportunities. Amazon, Image First Health Care Laundry, the towns human resources department and several other organizations are set to participate. Anytime a company especially one as longstanding as Lord + Taylor closes and people lose their jobs, it is very unfortunate, said Trumbull First Selectman Vicki Tesoro. Anticipating these job losses and other COVID-19 job losses, we have been working to get new job opportunities in Trumbull out to the community. Retail staff represent one of the worker groups hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis. In Connecticut, the industry employed about 158,000 in August, up 1 percent from July. But the total trailed by 16,500 the statewide headcount in August 2019, equivalent to a drop of nearly 10 percent. 2 1 of 2 Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 2 H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less In August, Lord + Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy. After initially announcing that it would shutter half of its 38 stores, Lord + Taylor subsequently said it would close all of its locations. Going-out-of-business sales are underway at the stores. Dec. 1 is listed as the closing date for the Connecticut locations on the labor departments website. The demise of a business founded in 1826 did not come as a surprise after reports in recent months that it had been weighing liquidation sales as soon as its stores reopened from temporary closings sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its struggles contributed to Hudsons Bay Co.s decision last year to sell the business to Le Tote, which is a rental-clothing company. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes In January 2019, Lord + Taylor shuttered its flagship store in Manhattan, ending a 104-year run for the midtown establishment. The property was sold for $850 million to co-working firm WeWork and partner Rhone Capital. About a year and half ago, however, Lord + Taylor officials were still optimistic about suburban locations such as Stamford. At this point, we believe that Stamford represents, quite frankly, the bread and butter of who Lord + Taylor is, then-Lord + Taylor President Vanessa LeFebvre said in an interview last year. A freestanding store is where we can have a more intimate relationship with our customers. But COVID-19 dimmed hopes of a turnaround for Lord + Taylor and many other retail companies. Other recent bankruptcies include Brooks Brothers; J. Crew; J.C. Penney; Neiman Marcus; Stage Stores; Tailored Brands, which owns Mens Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank; and Ascena Retail Group, which owns several brands, including Ann Taylor, Justice and Lane Bryant. pschott@stamfordadvocate.com; twitter: @paulschott Five people convicted in a case of disturbance that saw three police officers burnt to death in Dong Tam commune, Hanois outskirt district of My Duc lodged appeals to the Peoples Court of Hanoi, asking for clemency and penalty reduction. Le Dinh Cong at the court (Photo: VNA) They are Le Dinh Cong, Le Dinh Chuc, Le Dinh Doanh, Bui Viet Hieu and Nguyen Quoc Tien. On September 14, the Hanoi Peoples Court sentenced Le Dinh Cong and Le Dinh Chuc to death while Le Dinh Doanh was given life behind bars. Bui Viet Hieu and Nguyen Quoc Tien received sentences of 16 years and 13 years in prison, respectively. All were charged with murder pursuant to Clause 1, Article 123 of the 2015 Penal Code. Besides those people, Nguyen Van Tuyen also got 12-year imprisonment for the same charge. The remaining 23 were given sentences from 15 months probation to six years in prison for resisting on-duty officers pursuant to Clause 2, Article 330 of the 2015 Penal Code. Of whom, 14 received suspended sentences and were freed after the hearing. The first instance conclusion shows that this was an extremely serious case, with the defendants criminal deeds extremely dangerous for society, running counter to the law, disregarding the States principles, infringing upon the State and local authorities right activities, and displaying contempt for the lives and health of others, especially those on duty. Their deeds were extremely brutal and inhumane, using petrol to burn the three policemen when they fell into a pit between Chucs house and his neighbour, making their bodies unidentifiable. The jury said this was a huge loss for the public security force as well as the families of the three policemen. The case caused outrage among people in Hanoi in particular and in Vietnam at large, requiring strict sentences for the defendants. The six defendants accused of murder were the masterminds of the crime and they also led and directly committed criminal acts. They had closely colluded with others who were key members of a so-called group of consensus led by Le Dinh Kinh. Kinh was shot dead while holding a grenade and calling on others to resist on-duty officers. Cong was the leader and often incited others to kill police officers by posting video clips and livestreaming on social networks. He also threatened to bomb power stations and kill 300-500 police officers, assigned tasks to other defendants, and actively performed these acts. He also directed and contributed money to buy petrol and grenades, guided others how to make petrol bombs and tinder, and directly threw petrol bombs and grenades toward on-duty officers. Considering that the consequences of Congs actions are particularly serious, the jury said it is necessary to apply the most severe punishment against him, to ensure the strictness of the law, general deterrence, education, and prevention. On late January 8 and early January 9, when informed of the appearance of on-duty officers in Hoanh village, Le Dinh Chuc and other defendants brought weapons to the rooftop of a neighbouring house. They threw four petrol bombs and one grenade at the police, and used hand-made weapons to attack the officers, causing three of them to fall into a pit near Kinhs house. Chuc and Doanh repeatedly poured petrol into the pit and set it on fire, killing the three policemen. Bui Viet Hieu and Nguyen Van Tuyen, driven by greed for land, incited others to commit crimes. As the death of the policemen was associated with their behaviour, they must be punished strictly, the jury said, adding that there were also mitigating circumstances, as Hieu committed the crime when he was over 70 years old and Tuyen is a person with disabilities. Nguyen Quoc Tien was confirmed to have participated in the case right from the beginning and actively contributed money to buy petrol and grenades. He made petrol bombs and purchased 10 grenades with the aim of killing policemen with his accomplices. Though the grenades he had bought did not explode, he clearly believed they were real and would cause death and severe injuries./.VNA Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai (Photo: chinhphu.vn) Speaking at a Cabinet regular press conference on October 2, Hai said under the governments instruction, ministries and agencies have supported firms in optimising foreign investment opportunities and free trade agreements, seeking solutions to develop markets, and removing barriers to enter new markets. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has stepped up the information work and oriented export services, while intensifying trade promotion through online forums and transactions amidst COVID-19, he continued. Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong said enterprises have received assistance in credit loans and fiscal policies, along with the direct support from the budget. Regarding foreign investment attraction, Phuong said Vietnam has been regarded by international investors as an attractive destination with advantages of political stability, macro economy, geographical location, land and human resources. Since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has organised online trade promotion activities with Asian partners like Japan and Singapore, as well as those from Europe, the official said, noting that investors have shown their interest in Vietnam. Phuong expressed his hope that following the resumption of certain international flights, Vietnam will welcome more many foreign investors at the end of this year, and in 2021. Relating to the resumption of international flights, Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong said priority will be given to countries and territories where the pandemic is well contained like Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan (China), Laos and Cambodia./. President Donald Trump's age and weight put him at higher risk of a severe case of COVID-19, but beyond that his prognosis is hard to gauge, experts say. Trump's doctor, Sean Conley, confirmed in a statement early Friday that the president and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the coronavirus. He said they "are both well at this time." "I expect the President to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering," he added. Trump is 74 years old, and hospitalization rates rise steadily with age. People his age are hospitalized at a rate five times higher than 18-to-29-year-olds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their death rate is 90-fold higher. According to results from his most recent medical exam, Trump is 1.9 meters tall or 6-foot-3 and weighs just under 111 kilos or 244 pounds. That puts his body mass index at the low end of obese. That triples his risk of hospitalization, according to the CDC. "In general, somebody with those demographics you would have to watch very closely," said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "But it doesn't necessarily mean that you are likely to have a severe case," he added. "This virus has a different trajectory in each person," Adalja said. COVID-19 infections run the gamut from asymptomatic to lethal. "We don't know enough about why some people, even if they're in a high-risk group, have a mild illness and others don't." One small study at a nursing home, where residents are at very high risk, found that more than one-third of those who tested positive for the coronavirus never developed symptoms. World leaders testing positive Trump joins several world leaders infected with the coronavirus with a range of results. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, 65, said in July that he had a mild case of COVID-19, which he dismissed as a "little flu." British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 56, said on March 27 that he had "mild symptoms," but was hospitalized 10 days later. Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus. I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the governments response via video-conference as we fight this virus. Together we will beat this. #StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/9Te6aFP0Ri Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 27, 2020 Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, 51, also was briefly hospitalized with COVID-19. Guatemala's president, Alejandro Giammattei, 64, reported a "very mild" case. Alexander Lukashenko, leader of Belarus, 66, said he had an asymptomatic infection. Isolation Trump is experiencing "mild symptoms," White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters Friday. The Trumps "plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence," Conley said. The CDC recommends people isolate themselves for at least 10 days after symptoms first appear, as long as 24 hours have passed without a fever and other symptoms are improving. That would take Trump off the campaign trail for more than a week with just over a month left before the election. Even if his symptoms get no worse and he makes a speedy recovery, he may not be in full health at the end of 10 days. "That's sometimes the case with people, that even if they have mild symptoms, they do take some time to recover to get back to their baseline," Adalja said. at 5 pm. MDS2 KL-VIRUS-PROHIBITORY ORDERS Prohibitory orders to halt COVID-19 spread come into force in Kerala Thiruvananthapuram: With Kerala witnessing massive surge in COVID-19 cases, prohibitory orders came into force across the state as per which not more than five people can assemble at any place, including banks, shops and commercial establishments. MDS4 KL-FARM BILLS-MURALEEDHARAN Union minister slams Cong, Left parties vicious" campaign against Farm bills Thiruvananthapuram: Union minister V Muraleedharan slammed the opposition for its vicious" campaign against the Farm bills and said the Congress and the Left parties were playing with the lives and livelihood of farmers. MES2 KL-FISH-DISCOVERY Scientists discover new family of bony fish in western ghats Kochi: Scientists from India, Germany, United Kingdom and Switzerland have discovered a new family of bony fish from the Western Ghats, and named it Aenigmachannidae. PTI ROH ROH 10031702 NNNN. 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 Like its neighbouring countries, Vietnams economy has been struggling after months of fighting against the pandemic. It is nonetheless still an outlier given its effective response to the COVID-19 outbreak, with impressive growth. Therefore, its economy is expected to witness positive signals soon after the pandemic is brought under control, which is highly unlikely for those countries that are seriously plagued by COVID-19, according to the article. It cited the data as showing that Vietnams GDP growth in the second quarter of 2020 was about 0.4% year on year. Although this was the economys worst performance in 35 years, it was exceptional compared with its neighbours, some suffering from negative growth. The World Bank forecasts that Vietnams GDP growth could reach 2.8% in 2020 and will recover to 6.7% next year, while S&P Global Ratings expects that Vietnam will be the second-best performer among Asian economies this year. The article noted all this indicates that the country is well able to bounce back soon from the crisis. Thus Vietnam should re-emerge quickly in the post-pandemic period, making it one of the best performers in the global economy, as it has been over the past decade. Thanks to its stringent lockdown measures to contain COVID-19s spread months, Vietnam is now gradually becoming one of the most attractive destinations for foreign investment, it said. As noted previously, its efficiency in getting the pandemic under control has turned it into a safe place for international firms to do business during and after the COVID-19 crisis. According to a study released by Hong Kong (China)s Deep Knowledge Group, Vietnam is the ninth-safest place in the Asia-Pacific region amid the pandemic. Also noteworthy, according to a report by Goldman Sachs, for many US firms when asked about top locations for moving out of mainland China, Vietnam and India are the most mentioned destinations. During the COVID-19 crisis, while many countries have been suffering from economic sclerosis, Vietnams economy has continued to take firm steps toward international economic integration. Notably, on June 8, Vietnam ratified a free-trade agreement with the European Union (EVFTA), which took effect from August 1. As well, it has been working closely with other members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with the hope of signing this FTA before 2021. All of these achievements could be considered exceptional under the current situation, which is inimical to global economic activities, and Vietnam is expected to gain enormously from these FTAs. As long as it can maintain the current momentum, Vietnam will be a rising star in the global and regional economy, paving the way to becoming a high-income country in 2045 as it is aiming to do, according to the article. NEW HAVEN For the second time since residential students returned to campus in August, there were no new cases of the coronavirus overnight at the University of Connecticut, according to University Spokesperson Stephanie Reitz. In the schools daily update on the pandemic, Reitz said there are 37 confirmed or suspected cases at UConns Storrs campus. But Friday into Saturday was the second 24-hour period that yielded no new cases since UConn started regular widespread testing in August, when residential students began their two-week quarantine, she said. There have been a total of 201 cases among students living on campus this semester, Reitz said. There have been 72 off-campus since Sept. 13, when the initial phase of testing ended, she said. Seven cases have been reported among faculty, staff and other university affiliates. The on-campus positive rate currently stands at 0.72 percent, Reitz said. As of Sept. 26, that figure stood at 1.38 percent, Reitz said previously and as of Sept. 19, it was at 1.02 percent, Reitz said previously. As of Sept. 11, the rate was at 0.72 percent. UConn continues to test hundreds of students on a regular day as part of ongoing surveillance efforts. This surveillance includes testing for randomly selected students, as well as asymptomatic on- or off-campus Storrs students who request a test as a precaution, said Reitz. UConn also continues testing wastewater from several on-campus spots to assess the presence of COVID-19 virus as a way to predict and limit the potential scope of outbreak. The university has made statistics related to the COVID-19 pandemic publicly available on an online dashboard. There currently are 109 active cases on and off campus at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, including 15 overnight, according to that institution. The positivity rate there stands at 1.44 percent of those tested. At Yale University, 25 people have tested positive since Aug. 1, including seven since Sept. 25; at Trinity College, there were three active cases as of Oct. 1. There is one active case at the University of New Haven, according to that institution. Four cases have been reported at the University of Bridgeport; one active case is going on at Quinnipiac University, according to those institutions. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com Michael B. Jordan is known for playing one of the Marvel Cinematic Universes most fleshed-out villains, Killmonger, as he boasts a backstory and complex three-dimensionality that is somewhat atypical for MCU antagonists. However, his days in the MCU may be coming to an end, as Warner Bros. is reportedly eyeing the Creed and Creed II star for a major hero in the DC Extended Universe. Michael B. Jordan | Pascal Le Segretain / Staff Warner Bros. is reportedly eyeing Michael B. Jordan for Green Lantern Mikey Sutton a well-known Marvel and DC Insider recently launched his scoop site, GeekosityMag, after years behind a successful private Facebook group Geekosity: All Things Pop Culture. He uses the site to share his latest insider scoops, and he recently reported on Jordan and Green Lantern. RELATED: Michael B. Jordan Said These 4 Movie Roles Led Him to Join the Protests: Are Creed and Killmonger Included? Sutton explained that Warner Bros. sees potential in the character if they get it right this time, as the first venture with Ryan Reynolds left much to be desired. Sutton noted that a different iteration of Green Lantern, John Stewart, will likely come forward instead of Hal Jordan. He shared: WB does see the commercial potential in the character; if done well, it could be like a cross between Superman and Star Wars. We are still far from casting as theres no director officially attached although the J.J. Abrams talk persists. When I asked a source who WBs dream choice for Stewart will be, the answer dropped fast: Michael B. Jordan of Black Panther and Creed fame. Jordan had been rumored in the past for Superman when Henry Cavill was considered gone. That has changed now with Cavill returning. Could Jordan end up as Stewart instead? That all depends on how the dominoes fall. GeekosityMag RELATED: Just Mercy: Why Is Warner Bros. Streaming the True Story Legal Drama For Free? If Jordan joins DC, his time in the MCU may come to an end, yet what information exists regarding John Stewarts version of Green Lantern? Who, exactly, would Jordan be portraying if the report turns out to be credible? All About John Stewarts Green Lantern As GreenLantern.Fandom notes, John Stewart was an architect from Detroit, Michigan. The Guardians of the Universe recruited him to serve as Hal Jordans back-up after Guy Gardner dealt with some serious injuries and long-term consequences following a major disaster. Stewart doesnt love authority figures, and he could be a bit combative, but his heart tends to be in the right place. Stewart receives the uniform and the ring and sets out on missions as Green Lantern. Hal Jordan doesnt approve of how he handles some situations, yet their relationship develops and improves across time. Like Jordan, Stewart possesses similar abilities when equipped with the ring; he can build complex constructs with it, and his will exceeds that of which the ring has to offer alone. He also boasts marine training and is a flight combat expert. Normally, after a US presidential debate, comes the analysis, the opinion pieces, maybe some jokes. But all the punditry on the Trump v Biden debate narrowed to one keening lament for the state of the American republic, led by a President who refuses to disavow white supremacy, a man so malicious he insults the son of his opponent on the basis he suffered from a drug addiction. Proud Boys ... Australia is not immune from white-supremacist hatred. Credit:AP There is a consensus in Europe that this is getting out of hand, and this debate is an indicator of the bad shape of the American democracy, a German analyst told The New York Times. A former British diplomat told the paper the country we have looked to for leadership has descended into an ugly brawl. Others talked about the degradation of American democracy and a depressing image of the United States. The Guardian reported a surge in Google searches among Americans for how to move to Canada following the debate, and "come to Australia" was briefly trending on Twitter. Its become impossible to write about Trump with any objectivity because he has snookered the media with its own rules of balance. How to be balanced when discussing a debate in which the President literally did not let his opponent speak, a President who responded this is not going to end well when asked if he would respect the election result? New Zealanders will be able to travel to NSW and the Northern Territory without needing to quarantine in a one-way travel bubble from October 16. But Australians wishing to holiday or visit family in New Zealand will have to wait, with a decision to open up and allow quarantine-free travel from Australia unlikely before the October 17 national election. Kiwi travellers will need to have been in an area of New Zealand with low numbers of COVID-19 cases for at least 14 days before they will be allowed into Australia. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack says New Zealanders will be allowed to fly to NSW and the NT from October 16 without quarantining. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack thanked NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner for opening up to Kiwi tourists. Quad Foreign Ministers to Discuss CCP Virus Pandemic in Japan The Quad alliance made up of foreign ministers from Australia, the United States, India, and Japan will convene a meeting in Japan on Oct. 5-7, a move that has drawn the displeasure of the Chinese Communist Party. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne will fly to Tokyo to meet with counterparts U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, and Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. They will discuss support for regional responses to the pandemic along with vaccines for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, supply chains, and quality infrastructure investment. The CCP virus is commonly known as novel coronavirus. The Quad meeting comes at an important time in the Indo-Pacific, when our shared interests are under unprecedented pressure, including as the region responds to COVID-19, Payne said in a statement on Oct. 3. We are committed to working together, and with all countries in the region, to chart a road to recovery in a way that helps all countries reinforce their sovereignty and resilience. Japans Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi looks on during a joint news conference with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (not pictured) following the eighth Japan-UK Foreign Ministers Strategic Dialogue at Iikura Guest House in Tokyo, Japan, on Feb. 8, 2020. (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images) Toshimitsu Motegi, Japans foreign minister, anticipates the meeting will receive a high degree of attention as it is the first to be held in Japan since the CCP virus pandemic. I believe it is truly timely to have the foreign ministers of the four countries meeting in Tokyo for an in-person exchange of views. We have similar views about responding to various issues that have come about due to the outbreak and spread of the novel coronavirus as well as regional situations, Motegi said at a press conference on Sept. 29. Motegi said he will seek to further deepen cooperation between the participating countries. The Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision is becoming increasingly important for the post-novel coronavirus world, he said. He also aims to have bilateral meetings with each countrys foreign ministers. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Italys Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Rome, Italy, on Sept. 30, 2020. (Guglielmo Mangiapane/Pool/Reuters) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was looking forward to visiting Tokyo for the meetings. Anticipating productive meetings with my counterparts, as well as the Quad Foreign Ministers meeting with Australia, India, and Japan, he wrote on Twitter on Sept. 29. Pompeo has been on a diplomatic tour through parts of Europe which included talking about religious freedom while in Rome, and the risks of the Chinese Communist Party. While briefing the travelling press en route to Ireland on Oct. 2, Pompeo admitted the pandemic had made diplomatic travel a little difficult and blamed the Chinese regime for unleash(ing) a virus on the world. You all are standing here wearing masks because they decided that they were going to let people travel out of Wuhan when they knewand they disappeared doctors, Pompeo said. Beijing has confirmed its displeasure at the meetings via its Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin. Instead of forming exclusive cliques, multilateral and plurilateral cooperation should be open, inclusive, and transparent. Instead of targeting third parties or undermining third parties interests, cooperation should be conducive to mutual understanding and trust between regional countries, Wang said on Sept. 29. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili applied to the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, expressing her willingness to provide a platform in Tbilisi for holding negotiations for the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict at any format, reports TASS. I want to apply to the presidents and authorities of the two countries to resume the dialogue between them as soon as possible, and I call for de-escalation and ceasefire. We are ready to make Tbilisi a place where it will be possible to hold any negotiation. We are ready for anything the parties want, the Georgian President said at a briefing following the Security Council meeting dedicated to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Touching upon the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, the Georgian President said they play a high role in the settlement of the conflict. Salome Zourabichvili asks the EU to intervene in the ongoing evens and assist in ceasing the fire, as the three states of the Caucasus are participants of the Eastern Partnership program. Our stability, the peace in this region is in the interests of the European Union. It should invest its powers for peace and de-escalation of the situation, the Georgian President said. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan While Marie remains no threat to land as it swirls in the open eastern Pacific Ocean, forecasters say it could have indirect impacts to portions of Hawaii, Mexico and the West coast of the United States. Marie became a tropical storm shortly after organizing into a tropical depression on Tuesday, Sept. 29. Marie strengthened into a hurricane the following day, making it the fourth hurricane of the East Pacific's season. On Thursday evening, Marie had rapidly strengthened to a Category 3 major hurricane. A major hurricane has maximum sustained winds of 111 mph or greater. Further strengthening occurred on Friday morning as Marie reached Category 4 hurricane status with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph. Marie has rapidly lost wind intensity since Saturday as it moves through cooler waters, now at tropical storm strength. Marie joined just two other storms in the basin that have achieved Category 4 strength thus far -- Douglas and Genevieve. Douglas tracked just north of the Hawaiian Islands in late July as a Category 1 hurricane by that point in its life cycle. Genevieve generally paralleled the western coast of Mexico during the latter half of August and tracked close enough to Baja California Sur to bring rain and gusty winds. Marie poses no direct threat to Hawaii, Mexico or the United States, according to forecasters. CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP "However, large swells generated by the hurricane will propagate outward from the tropical cyclone, reaching the western coast of Mexico and along the coast of California, mostly from Point Conception northward," AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said. Rough and dangerous surf could also reach the east- and northeast-facing shores of the Hawaiian Islands this week. Shipping interests are encouraged to monitor the progress of Marie and steer clear of the path of the storm to avoid dangerous seas. Marie will transition to a non-tropical low by the latter half of the week. Story continues Moisture from Marie is not expected to reach the West Coast of the U.S., but moisture from a non-tropical storm will be successful late in the week. Elsewhere in the East Pacific, a broad area of disorganized thunderstorm clusters to the west of Central America and south of southwestern Mexico is being monitored for the likelihood of tropical development this week, according to Kottlowski. "There is now a high chance for tropical development in this area," Kottlowski said. Including Marie, there have been 13 tropical storms with four hurricanes and three major hurricanes so far this season, which is on par with average. During a typical season, there are an average of 15.4 tropical storms with 7.6 hurricanes and 3.2 major hurricanes in the basin. Meanwhile, the Atlantic basin has churned out yet another record-setting storm in its historic season -- Gamma. Tropical Storm Gamma will bring flooding rainfall and gusty winds to portions of Mexico into midweek. In addition, a Tropical Storm Delta is being monitored for impacts to the Gulf Coast as a hurricane later this week. Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios. Its already a warm September day and the furnace blasting in glass artist Minna Koistinens studio isnt helping the temperature any. The molten glass inside is set to be poured into graphite moulds, to be shaped into something most Canadian authors dream to one day display at home: the Giller Prize. Its not the one weve become used to seeing, originally designed by Soheil Mosun Limited when the Giller Prize first teamed up with Scotiabank in 2005 the last of those was given out last year. We had to decide whether we wanted more of the same or, especially after the 25th anniversary, to creatively express the award in a different way, said Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Scotiabank Giller Prize and daughter of the late Jack Rabinovitch, the awards founder. After a bit of a search, she said, they found this wonderful Finnish-Canadian artist, Koistinen, whose company Playing With Fire operates out of Artscape Wychwood Barns in Toronto. I was just dumbfounded, says Koistinen about being awarded the commission. She knew of the Giller, at $100,000 the richest books prize in Canada. She met with Elana Rabinovitch and others, and a collaborative process began. The most germane aspect of the prize was books, says Rabinovitch. There were a lot of ideas that couldnt be used with glass because of the nature of the medium. But, ultimately, Minna found an incredibly powerful and beautiful way of expressing that in glass. The design resembles a sort of inukshuk, created from a pile of books. Part of the award will be coloured red, reflecting the Scotiabank connection and the colour of namesake Doris Gillers favourite rose. The symbol of the award is the rose and it still will be as an engraving on the base, Koistinen says. But the award itself will be the stack of books. As with most things, creating the award was all in the preparation. Koistinen made moulds out of graphite, working for two weeks to create three separate parts: two standing piles of books and a base. I was black from head to toe with graphite dust, she laughs. Today, Koistinen is firing the award along with an assistant, Alfred Engerer, my mentor and glass elder she calls him. Shes got three big machines: a furnace that keeps the glass molten 24/7, a kiln she uses when shes blowing glass and an annealer, which shell use today; it allows the poured glass to cool down gradually over a few days to avoid thermal stress and possible cracks or breakage. She and Engerer work out their tag-team process beforehand: first ladling molten glass at a temperature of 2,200 F from the crucible inside the furnace. He practises taking the long-handled ladle to the furnace door, opening it via a pedal on the floor, scooping the glass and, with one smooth motion, moving to pour it into the prepared mould. That looks pretty good to me, Koistinen says. Action. Engerer dips his ladle into the glowing glass. Are you scraping the bottom? she asks. Yes. He swings the ladle around, Koistinen standing by with large scissors to cut off any dripping glass. Done. Engerer swings to the mould and pours in the glass. A bad thing is a glove with a hole, Koistinen says ruefully as she shows a burnt thumb. She sprinkles crystals over the molten glass carefully through a sieve; if she doesnt do it properly, it will float on top creating a rough texture instead of melting into the sculpture. Christmas Red. It was the closest match to the Scotiabank red, she says. Once the glass has lost its glow, the mould is removed and the component is moved to the annealer. A few parts are in there cooling; even now, the creative process being what it is, the final look hasnt been firmly nailed down. During this iteration, Koistinen has created an award with two stacks of books. To make it more sculptural and interesting, theres a little gap in between, so theyre just slightly offset from each other and standing next to each other. (Theres) kind of like a dialogue or duality, she explains. Its heavy with a finished weight of 14 to 15 pounds, or about 6.5 kilos although various redesigns have brought it down from 17 pounds (7.7 kilos). But maybe one stack of books will do the trick. And the Giller administrators are still trying to decide how many theyre going to get made: will this be the award one Canadian author will take home in 10 years? Well find out on Nov. 9 which version they decided on when the award is handed out (the short list will be revealed Monday). Either way, theyre pleased with the outcome. Not only is it gorgeous, but it evokes the spirit of the prize and of the prizes namesake, Doris Giller, says Rabinovitch. (Giller, a books editor at the Star, predeceased her husband Jack Rabinovitch in 1993; Jack died in 2017.) And because each award is handmade, each is also an individual piece of art. A fitting tribute for an award that honours artistry of a different sort. Correction Oct. 5, 2020: The headline was edited to note that cast glass, not blown glass, was used to create the award. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday sent a message of sympathy to President Donald Trump and his wife Melania, wishing they would recover from the COVID-19 illness, state media reported. "He sincerely hoped that they would recover as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it," the Korean Central News Agency reported. "He sent warm greetings to them." Trump said Friday he and his wife had tested positive for the coronavirus, and leaders across the world have sent messages of goodwill to the couple. Kim and Trump once exchanged threats of total destruction and crude insults after North Korea in 2017 carried out a series of high-profile weapons tests aimed at acquiring an ability to launch nuclear strikes on the US mainland. Trump had said he would rain "fire and fury" on North Korea and derided Kim as "little rocket man" on a suicide mission, while Kim responded he would "tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire." But they stopped such rhetoric and instead developed personal relationships after Kim abruptly reached out to Trump in 2018 for talks on the fate of his advancing nuclear arsenal. They met three times, starting with a summit in Singapore in June 2018 that made Trump the first sitting US president to meet a North Korea leader since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. But their meetings made little headway since their second summit in Vietnam ended without any deal following disputes over US-led sanctions on North Korea. Before their nuclear talks entered a stalemate, Trump said that he and Kim "fell in love." Truss declined to give any examples as she warned against states that don't have "Britain's best interests at heart." Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media via Getty UKs international trade secretary Liz Truss has called for the protection of British firms against predatory takeover bids from foreign countries, during a Conservative Party conference speech, as the four-day event kicks off. While Truss didnt give any examples, she said: "We need to make sure that, particularly during coronavirus when a lot of companies are undervalued, that we're not allowing the sort of predatory bids from states that don't necessarily have Britain's best interests at heart." Meanwhile, cabinet office minister Michael Gove has said he wants to move government departments outside the capital in a bid to support prime minister Boris Johnsons levelling-up agenda. In a conversation at the conference with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, Gove said: Far too many Government jobs tend to be in the Westminster and Whitehall village. I think we need some of the big Government departments and the big decision makers not in London but closer to where the action is in the north west, the West Midlands, Teesside and Tyneside. Gove argued that remote working during the coronavirus pandemic proves that upheaval can work, he also said it was inevitable that there would be some churn in the labour market due to the COVID-19 crisis. He also spoke on the delivery of free ports, HS2 and the PMs lifetime skills training guarantee, saying that those would help create opportunities across the country. Previously, Johnson pledged to do more to create opportunities outside London, following his landslide election win in December which saw traditionally Labour-voting areas across parts of north England, the Midlands and northern Wales vote Tory for the first time. READ MORE: Boris Johnson vows to create 'Generation Buy' to put young on property ladder The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, also discussed the possibility of a Brexit trade deal with the European Union. I suspect there will be one or two ups and downs along the way, but I am optimistic that we will get a deal. But if we dont, we have been making extensive preparations to be ready for anything, Gove said. Story continues On Saturday, during a video conference call, Johnson and European Commission (EC) president Ursula von der Leyen agreed to intensify Brexit trade talks, and to speak on a regular basis. While the pair acknowledged that significant gaps remained between the UK and EU in areas such fisheries and governance, they appeared upbeat that chief negotiators, David Frost and Michel Barnier could agree a deal before the Brexit transition period. The virtual conference, which opened on Saturday, started with an announcement from co-party chairman Amanda Milling that the party plans to open a second headquarters in Leeds in an effort to show Tory commitment to the blue wall seats. Milling said that the headquarters could open as soon as next year. Since the resumption of classes over the past few weeks, Irish third-level institutes have been told to operate under Level Three restrictions of the Governments Living with Covid plan. The updated guidelines instruct colleges to conduct as many classes online as possible to avoid high numbers of students being required to attend on-campus classes at any one time. While the majority of classes in institutions around the country are now being held remotely, some practical classes are still being held on-campus, depending on the area of study. However, due to travel restrictions, many international students studying in Ireland have been forced to remain overseas, taking all their classes remotely. Despite not being able to attend any physical classes or avail of on-campus services, international students will pay full fees for this academic term. Advertisement Fees for non-EU students vary depending on the area of study, the level of study and the institute being attended. International students contribute an estimated 2.1 billion to the Irish economy annually. Many of these students pay thousands of euros to attend Irish colleges. An undergraduate course in Business, Engineering, Science and Technology or Arts and Humanities can cost anywhere in the region of 9,850 to 25,500 a year, while Medicine and Health Sciences carry a much higher price tag of between 39,500 to 55,000 per year. Brian Hearne of the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS) says some international students feel disappointed with the current situation. For too long the higher education system has been over reliant on international student fees, as a means of propping up the system which is completely under-funded. International students contribute an estimated 2.1 billion to the Irish economy annually. Many of these students pay thousands of euros to attend Irish colleges and unfortunately, due to the Covid restrictions many of them feel a bit aggrieved that they are not getting the full value for money for what they paid for, said Mr Hearne. Were aware of a number of campaigns going on of students trying to generate support for a refund or some kind of concession for the fees that they have paid. "In fairness to the third level institutions, most of them do have the infrastructure in place to deliver quality online classes, but unfortunately from the perspective of an international student, taking into account the money that they pay, they just dont feel like online classes really live up to their expectations, Mr Hearne added. Students from overseas are also facing the added financial pressure brought about by a change to the health insurance requirement for obtaining a visa to study here. Previously, international students from outside the EU were only required to pay 150 for health insurance but this amount is now set to increase. As of yesterday, non-EU students will have to purchase community-rated insurance, costing in excess of 600 per year. The decision was made as the Health Insurance Authority determined that international students are ordinarily resident in the country, meaning they require a different type of cover to what was previously permitted. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 08:07:33|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani military said Friday night that two terrorists were killed in the country's northwest tribal district of North Waziristan. An army statement said that the security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation on a terrorist hideout in Boya area of the district. The statement from the army's media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations said that two terrorists including a specialist of improvised explosive devices were killed while one terrorist was apprehended. These terrorists were involved in the killing of innocent locals, and planning and executing terrorist attacks on security forces, the statement said. Pakistani military had conducted a series of operations against terrorist groups in North Waziristan. Although the area has mostly been pacified, remnants of terrorist groups still manage to launch attacks on the security forces sporadically. Enditem Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images A veil of solemnity descends upon the land at times like this, when elected officials or public figures get sick or die. Related: Donald and Melania Trump showing 'mild' Covid symptoms as US election upended live We wish them speedy recovery, or extend sympathies, as we should. We ignore their faults and failings, as we would want our own ignored. These are the norms of politics and public life. Established norms, like behaving with dignity and self-restraint in a presidential debate, or condemning racist terrorists and murderers. For the record, we should all wish Donald and Melania Trump a full and speedy recovery. But that does not answer the fundamental question this president will leave behind when he leaves office. What norms survive a man who takes pleasure in destroying norms? First, lets place the current norms in context. Concern for a persons health or respect for their death should not suppress an honest discussion about their own conduct. You cant ignore a smokers choices as you lament their lung cancer. And we cant ignore the presidents choices in a pandemic, even as we wish for his recovery from Covid-19. From the beginning, Trump has been wrong about almost everything to do with the coronavirus. Even as he knew about the pandemics dangers, his policy choices were recklessly, dumbfoundingly, disastrously wrong. At every turn. The pandemic didnt disappear like a miracle, or with the summer. It couldnt be treated with an injection of disinfectant or bright light. It wasnt halted by banning some air passengers (but not all) from China. Testing, tracing and mask-wearing has never been established on a national basis to stop the national spread of the disease. For months, Trump claimed that cases were only rising because testing was rising. So now he knows, as he has all along, that his own case exists regardless of testing. Which brings us to the most damaging impact of all, beyond the physical damage to the body of a 74-year-old man who makes mysterious trips to hospital. Story continues Trumps infection with Covid-19 destroys whats left of his credibility as someone who can lead a nation through the pandemic. If he cant protect himself, how on earth can he protect American citizens? This is essentially the same question that destroyed what was left of George W Bushs credibility when Hurricane Katrina submerged New Orleans. If you cant protect an American city, how can you protect American forces in Iraq or the American people against terrorists? Looking back at what may well be the first and last presidential debate in this election, its hard to see Trumps argument about mask-wearing as anything but suicidal both personally and politically. I put a mask on when I think I need it, said our now-infected president. Tonight, as an example, everybodys had a test and youve had social distancing and all of the things that you have to. But I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks. I dont wear a mask like him. Every time you see him, hes got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me and he shows up with the biggest mask Ive ever seen. Trump was speaking in a room that included his family who, naturally, were not wearing masks, despite the entreaties of a physician from the Cleveland Clinic. Theres a chance he was already infected at the time he was explaining why he didnt need to wear a mask. Masks make a big difference, said Biden. His own head of the CDC said if we just wore masks between now, if everybody wore a mask and social distanced between now and January, wed probably save up to 100,000 lives. It matters. It matters. One of those lives may, or may not, include his debate opponent, who disputed that idea on Tuesday. Theyve also said the opposite, Trump heckled. No serious person has said the opposite, replied Biden. No serious person. Trump could emerge as a changed man. Pigs could also grow wings and begin service from New York to London Trump is not a serious person. Not for the last four years, and especially not now. His entire re-election campaign hinged on his promise that he could rebuild the economy his economy, he claims. But his own infection means that promise looks even less serious than it did before his Covid test. When asked why voters should trust him to handle the pandemic at Tuesdays debate, Trump blamed China, attacked Biden, and said: Weve done a great job. Quite possibly a heckuvajob. There are moments in almost every presidential cycle when you know the die is cast: a point of no return where the momentum pushes the contest beyond anything the candidates or external events can influence in time for the election. In 2008 it was the combination of the financial crisis and the first debate, when the McCain campaign self-immolated and Barack Obama sailed through his final test unscathed. In 2016, it was a final weekend bookended by James Comeys unprecedented opening and closing of an email investigation into Hillary Clinton. This 2020 contest was already mostly baked. Early voting has begun across the nation. Trumps disastrous first debate served to dig a deeper hole for a president who has lagged far behind Biden all year. The most recent polling averages give Biden an eight-point lead nationally, and similar leads in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania three states that Trump narrowly won to give him an electoral college majority four years ago. Now, with Trumps infection, you can stick a fork in it. There are unlikely to be any more presidential debates, even if the veep candidates meet next week. There are no more Trump rallies worthy of the name. Nothing to change the dynamic of a blowout Trump defeat. Trump himself could emerge from his bout of Covid as a changed man, ready to take the pandemic seriously and scientifically. Pigs could also grow wings and begin passenger service from New York to London. Alternatively, he could emerge as an entirely unchanged man, dismissing it as a case of the sniffles. Thats if he can escape the intensive care experience that his young friend Boris Johnson suffered. With so many septuagenarian and octogenarian members of Congress within a hugs distance of a White House official, its entirely possible that Capitol Hill shuts down for the remainder of this election. Related: Scramble under way in Washington to trace spread of Covid among US leadership Despite Mitch McConnells insistence, Trumps Covid infection could effectively suspend his own supreme court nomination. McConnell will then be forced to make this confirmation a life or death issue for those who say they support the right to life. For a political party that has proudly undermined any reasonable policy response to the pandemic, this turn of events is as ironic as it is irresponsible. In the words of the classic bumper sticker, their karma has finally run over their dogma. Islamabad: Pakistan government has announced that the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib Corridor on its side has been reopened as COVID-19 situation in the country has improved. As per the notification issued by Pakistan Ministry of religious affairs on Friday, Indian visitors are allowed to come daily from dawn to dusk as per the bilateral agreement made in 2019 between India and Pakistan, The News reported. Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, a 4.7-kilometre-long passage that connects Dera Baba Nanak Sahib in India`s Gurdaspur and Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan`s Kartarpur. It was inaugurated last year. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kartarpur Corridor was shut down by the Indian government in March.Pakistan`s government had also imposed a ban on Pakistani nationals from travelling via the Kartarpur corridor. It was reopened briefly in June to commemorate Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s death anniversary, with India rejecting Pakistan`s offer and refusing to open the corridor on its side. The chronicle of a life split between urban Manhattan and rural Montana. Far North Queensland residents have been ordered to flee from their homes as a "large, dangerous and uncontrolled" bushfire rages. The blaze, burning near Cooktown, about 170 kilometres north of Cairns, was not of concern at 11.45am on Saturday, but a few hours later, an emergency situation was declared. Cooktown residents should evacuate if it is safe to do so. If not, they should seek shelter. Credit:File image: QFES Media The evacuation order came at 2.20pm, and in a later update, the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service said firefighters may soon be unable to stop the flames from advancing. "There is a bushfire travelling on both sides of Oaky Creek Road in Cooktown. Leaving immediately is the safest option as it will soon be too dangerous to drive," the QFES said in a statement. The 45th presidents refusal to outright condemn white supremacy in Tuesdays debate is serving as a call to action to Black voters DETROIT (AP) When President Donald Trump refused to outright condemn white nationalists in this weeks presidential debate and urged his supporters to monitor polling sites, Portia Roberson was reminded of earlier eras when Black Americans were intimidated at the polls to deter them from voting. Roberson, a 51-year-old Black woman who lives in Detroit, found the comments chilling but also felt a renewed resolve to vote. For many Black Americans and other people of color, Trumps comments in his debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden were a harsh reminder that the nation has yet to fully grapple with systemic racism laid bare this year by protests against police killings of Black people, the coronavirus pandemic, and the resulting economic fallout. In this Oct. 1, 2020, file photo, people cast their vote early in Chicago. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times via AP) But they were also a call to action. I hope that we take some of that frustration, anger and sadness that weve all been feeling for the better part of 2020, and use it to motivate ourselves to go to the polls and make sure we vote and vote for candidates who really reflect what Black folks need in this country, said Roberson, CEO of the Detroit nonprofit Focus: Hope. Trump tried to walk back his debate comments on Wednesday, but the moment when he told one far-right group to stand back and stand by had already been cemented in the minds of many Americans, experts and activists say. A day after the debate, the president said he didnt know the group but that it should let law enforcement do their work. During the debate, he also urged his supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because thats what has to happen. READ MORE: Californians to vote on racial, gender preference programs Eric Sheffield, a Black real estate developer in Atlanta whose parents hail from the Deep South, said Trumps comments reminded him of the Jim Crow era. Story continues I hear the ghost of voter suppressionists past, said Sheffield, 52. Its the same soup. Its just warmed over now. Its not just Black Americans who took notice and umbrage at the presidents debate comments. Similar concerns are also reverberating among Americans from other backgrounds, said Anna Mach, a biracial Filipino American woman who is a masters student at the University of Denver. Im disgusted and angry and terrified by those comments, Mach, 22, said. But Im not surprised. Since the coronavirus, which first flared in China, spread to the United States, Mach said shes seen a surge in hate directed toward Asian Americans. Trump himself has been criticized for referring to COVID-19 as the Chinese virus. Im worried there will be more hate crimes from white supremacists, she said. In this Oct. 1, 2020, file photo, hundreds of people wait in line to early vote in Chicago. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File) On Thursday, when asked for a definitive statement on whether the president denounces white supremacism, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Trump had said the day before: I have always denounced any form of that. Some organizations are working to transform the fears elicited by Trumps comments into votes. The New Georgia Project has identified about 600,000, Black, Latino, Asian American and young voters that it wanted to encourage to vote in November, said CEO Nse Ufot. She said that doesnt include an additional 90,000 Black voters who live in Georgias rural Black belt who didnt vote in 2016 and who theyre also trying to reach. The debate was not about communicating his (Trumps) vision for America, Ufot said. It was about making it super unpleasant and awful and distasteful and to encourage people to withdraw from the process, and we wont let that happen. Dr. Elvin Geng, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis helped establish Asian Americans Against Trump, which has been funding digital and print ads in Asian-language media outlets in battleground states. READ MORE: Trump threatens to send law enforcement to polling places on Election Day Geng hopes younger Asian Americans who dont support Trump will talk to their relatives who do about their thinking and maybe change some minds. In many realms immigrants do look to their kids for what they think, how to think about whats happening in America, Geng said. While Trumps comments and his record on race may have unsettled many Americans, for some Black people they evoke a particularly dark history. The rhetoric conjured up memories of Southern segregationists and voter intimidation tactics for the Rev. Wendell H. Paris, 75, who was involved in voting rights work in the 1960s including registration drives in Alabama and the Selma-to-Montgomery march. In this June 25, 2016, file photo, the Rev. Wendell H. Paris sits in Woodworth Chapel on the campus of Tougaloo College, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) Whenever you hear him say, law and order, thats coded language, said Paris. We have reverted back to the racial situation of the 1950s and the 1960s. Even after the Voting Rights Act in 1965 offered greater protections, Paris recalled the way white deputies in uniform would show up at voting precincts in mostly Black areas to watch over voters which had the effect of intimidating them given the history of racist mistreatment. Because of that history, University of Michigan political science professor Vincent Hutchings said he believes Trumps comments are stirring legitimate concerns that overzealous supporters will cause trouble at polling sites, particularly in Black communities. What sorts of things would represent violations or fraud? Hutchings asked. Its very murky and so, as a consequence, people have to exercise their own discretion, and when that happens, all bets are off, so it is certainly dangerous in that regard. Chicago resident Cynthia Bell, who said the debate broke my heart, has decided to vote early out of concern over potential intimidation at the polls. How is this possible in this day and age? asked Bell, who manages a senior center in her mostly Black community. What have we gotten ourselves into? ___ Reeves reported from Birmingham, Alabama, and Fernando from East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Associated Press writers Aaron Morrison in New York, Terry Tang in Phoenix and Tammy Webber in Oak Park, Illinois, also contributed. Stafford, Reeves, Fernando, Morrison and Tang are members of The Associated Press Race and Ethnicity team. Have you subscribed to theGrios podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now! The post Trump debate comment pushes Black Americans, others to vote appeared first on TheGrio. The peace agreement represents a decisive step towards establishing comprehensive peace throughout Sudan, the Egyptian cabinet said in a statement Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Saturday that the peace deal signed between Sudan's transitional government and rebel groups reflects "the rational African will" that aspires for stability, justice, and democracy, adding that it also ushers in a new era of hope and prosperity for Sudan. Earlier today, an Egyptian delegation headed by the prime minister arrived in the South Sudanese capital Juba to witness the breakthrough deal that is meant to put an end to decades-long regional conflicts that have left millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead. Sudanese paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo best known by his nickname "Hemeti" signed the deal on behalf of Khartoum. The deal was also signed by the Sudan Revolutionary Front, which comprises rebel groups from the war-ravaged western Darfur region, as well as the southern states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. Representing Egypt, Madbouly signed the deal as a guarantor. The deal was also signed by Chad, Qatar, the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN), who also put their names to the agreement as guarantors. The Egyptian PM said in a speech during the event that "Egypt appreciates the serious and good efforts exerted by Sudan since the launch of the Juba negotiating platform, which has culminated with the inking of the final agreement." Egypt has supported this platform since the beginning, Madbouly said, noting that it participated in its establishment by inviting the Sudanese armed movements to sort out their affairs and demonstrate their intention to achieve peace during the conference Egypt hosted in Ain Al-Sokna city in 2019. Madbouly stressed that "the enforcement of the deal is more important than signing it." He added that political, economic, developmental, security, and social responsibilities oblige all signatories and regional and international parties to support post-peace entitlements. He assured that today's gathering affirms the potential for surmounting every dispute and building cooperative relations based on the common interests of all African leaders to achieve prosperity on the continent. Madbouly expressed Egypt's keenness to continue working with Sudan to boost the various aspects of the partnership between both countries. The summit was attended by Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, head of the Transitional Sovereign Council General Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir. Also in attendance were several foreign officials including the US Special Envoy for Sudan Donald Booth, African Union Chairman Moussa Faki, and the heads of state of Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Uganda and Chad. Egypt hails mediation by South Sudan The Egyptian cabinet said in a statement on Saturday that Egypt welcomes the final signing of the peace agreement and praises the sincere and tireless mediation efforts by South Sudan. The signing of the peace agreement represents a decisive step in the efforts exerted over many decades to establish comprehensive peace throughout Sudan, the Egyptian cabinet statement said. Egypt also affirmed that it stands by Sudan and asserts its full solidarity with the brotherly country during this defining stage in its history, the Egyptian cabinet said. Within the framework of the unified destiny and the bonds of brotherhood and solidarity that have brought the two countries together since ancient times, Egypt will spare no effort to work to support stability, prosperity and development throughout Sudan, in order to meet the legitimate aspirations of the brotherly Sudanese people for a better tomorrow, the statement said. Search Keywords: Short link: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday expressed confidence after meeting Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic that European countries will act to prevent China from acquiring their citizens private data through its 5G networks. I am confident that many more European countries now, frankly because of just sharing information with them, they are going to make their own sovereign decision that says no, Pompeo was quoted as saying by Sputnik. We dont want our citizens data in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, Pompeo said. I think every European country now understands this and is increasingly aware of it. And youll see them take actions consistent with that, including Croatia. The US Secretary of State is on a week-long tour of Europes Eastern Mediterranean region. Superb trip to beautiful Croatia. I am proud of our shared commitment to enhancing our security cooperation, and appreciate Croatias role in advancing European energy independence, Pompeo wrote on Twitter. Washington has signed declarations on 5G security with several European countries, including the Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia. Earlier, the US had announced sanctions on 5G communication giant Huawei, alleging corporate espionage and national security threats. Beijing has, however, denied all the accusation being levied by the US. Last month, Canadas Conservative party leader Erin OToole had said their government will ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from the development of the countrys 5G network. Unlike (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau, I do not take entities of the Chinese regime at their word. If I am (Prime Minister) Huawei will be banned from 5G, OToole had said in a tweet. The transformation of an old building into a coffee shop is percolating in Liverpool. The Roush family bought the building on Front Street in 2019. We started working later that summer to shore it up, said Debra Roush. The building was in desperate need of repair and modernization to make it a coffee shop, with a kitchen and bathrooms meeting handicap accessibility requirements. A huge task was repairing the floor which was bowing badly. The initial walk-through was scary because you didnt know if things were going to fall in, said Hope Coombs, Roushs daughter who will help manage the new restaurant, called Shine Coffee Co. She loves watching the process of a historic building being restored from a dilapidated state. The brick building has a spacious first floor with high ceilings and bay windows up front to let in the early morning sun rising over the river and mountains. Its a classic 1800s storefront. Thats what it was in the later half of the 19th century. Samuel Morris Shuler ran a general store out of the building 140 years ago. Someone gave the Roushes a photograph from 1881 of Shuler and his two sons in front of their store at the same location. The Roushes plan to hang the photo at the coffee shop when its complete. Samuel Shuler (center) with two of his sons outside their store at 204 N. Front St., Liverpool, circa about 1881. The Roush and Coombs families of Liverpool are renovating the building to be a coffee shop. (Submitted photo) In its heyday, Shulers store was not just important for wares and groceries, but also as a social, business and civic meeting place in its upstairs room. The Roushes are going to restore that aspect of the building at 204 N. Front St. by renting out the upstairs room complete with its own bathroom, serving counter and a gas fireplace for private events. The coffee shop will also have large-screen televisions capable of being used for event presentations and wifi access for mobile internet access. The Roushes are finishing the upstairs space to be part of their coffee shop, complete with a gas fireplace. The upstairs space will be available for events. (Jim T. Ryan photo) Downstairs, the main coffeehouse will have a kitchen in the back to serve a menu of breakfast and lunch items alongside coffee, tea, smoothies, ice cream and baked goods, Deb Roush said. Initially, they want to start small to get the shop off and running. But there will be the capability to expand those menus. Were putting a full kitchen in with fryers and griddles, said Jans Roush, Debs husband. He, Deb, Hope, son Jeremy Roush, and grandson Austin, all have been working on renovating the building. In many cases, there are still original aesthetic aspects, such as the oak window frames, the bay windows and original doors, and some nice shelving. Other aspects are fully 21st century. A hole was punched in the southern brick wall for a doorway to the modern bathrooms built off the back of 200 and 202 North Front. The Roushes own those locations also historic buildings and plan to renovate them for lease. They did significant work on the electric and plumbing, too. Everything is brand-new, said Jans. Theres not a single old wire or pipe. They are also building a patio next to the kitchen and behind the annex to serve as an outdoor dining area. HALLS O JAVA Renovations of a historic building on Front Street in Liverpool are close to transforming it into Shine Coffee Co., a new coffee shop run by local families. Here can be seen the first floor with the kitchen in the back. (Jim T. Ryan photos) But none of that was easy during the pandemic. From November 2019 to March of this year, the Roushes were planning their renovations and submitting plans. Work would be delayed. The week everything shut down was the week we got our approval, Jans said. The Roushes, now close to finishing the coffee shop, plan to open by late November. People have told the Roushes they are looking forward to a new, local business in town. I dont think weve had anything in the middle of town in a while, Deb said. Renovating the building has been fun because people shared their memories of how the building was important to them in the past. One woman even told the Roushes she met her husband at the store. Its cool to think of the stories from the past, Coombs said, and that its going to have more stories in the future. The coffee shop has its own Facebook page so people can follow its progress. The federal government will work on getting women back into jobs in a plan to ensure the economic fallout from the pandemic doesn't further damage women financially. Minister for Women Marise Payne said the government would release a new 2020 Women's Economic Security Statement following the federal budget that would add to the program introduced two years ago in a bid to improve women's workforce participation, earning potential and economic independence. Minister for Women Marise Payne. Credit:AAP/Mick Tsikas This government recognises that women have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and it is critical that we focus on rebuilding their economic security as a priority, Senator Payne said in a statement. The new plan will refresh the 2018 Women's Economic Security Statement and significantly expands on the earlier commitments. Donald Trump; Joe Biden; Presidential Debate Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks during the first presidential debate against U.S. President Donald Trump at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the first of three planned debates between the two candidates in the lead up to the election on November 3. Morry Gash-Pool/Getty Images The first presidential debate was as horrific as we feared it would be. We were barely able to hear a word from Joe Biden or moderator Chris Wallace thanks to Trump's incessant interruptions and nonstop insults. Here are the six most revealing moments: 1.Trump refused to disavow white supremacy. He reiterated his baseless claims that anti-fascist groups and left-wing organizers were the ones causing violence a narrative contradicted by multiple studies and his own national security officials. The violence Trump claims is the greatest threat facing our country does not exist. The latest draft of the Department of Homeland Security's threat assessment report characterizes white supremacy as the "most persistent and lethal threat" to national security. 2.Both Biden and Trump showed us who they really are. One of Biden's most powerful moments was when he talked about his deceased son, Beau. I was struck by Biden's raw humanity in this moment. And how did Trump respond? By interrupting him and launching nonsensical attacks on Biden's other son, Hunter. Trump revealed the core of who he is a cruel narcissist who has no feelings for anybody but himself. And Biden revealed who he is: a decent human being who understands the plight of loss at a time when Americans everywhere are losing their loved ones. 3.Trump kept dodging questions about his tax returns. For four years, Trump has been promising to release his tax returns but has never followed through. Tonight was no different. He dodged Chris Wallace's questions about the bombshell New York Times report that found he paid only $750 in federal taxes in 2016. And when Biden challenged him to release his tax returns so the American people could see for themselves, Trump said "You'll see it as soon as it's finished." Hello? It's been four years. If Trump wants to refute the New York Times story, all he has to do is voluntarily release his returns. But he refuses to do so. We know exactly why. Story continues 4.Trump touted his record on judiciary nominations. But he left out some important details. When asked about their respective records, the bulk of Trump's response was hyperbole and nonsense. But one aspect he made sure to highlight was his takeover of the courts: He's appointed 202 federal judges so far. And he didn't miss an opportunity to go after Biden, either: Trump turned his own takeover of the courts into an attack on Biden and Obama's inability to confirm judges. What he failed to mention was that Mitch McConnell refused to confirm any of Obama's judicial nominees (most notably his Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland), and then, once Trump was elected, changed the confirmation rules so that the Republican-held Senate could ram through every single one of Trump's picks as he's now trying to do with Amy Coney Barrett. 5.Yet again, Trump refused to accept responsibility for our staggering COVID-19 death toll. Trump compared his response to COVID-19 to the Obama-Biden administration's response to swine flu. But the 2009 swine flu pandemic killed approximately 12,500 Americans, compared to the more than 200,000 Americans who have died, so far, from COVID-19 on Trump's watch. Trump also floated yet another insane conspiracy theory, this time claiming that Democratic governors and mayors were keeping things shut down until after the election just to sabotage Trump. While Trump has said that the virus affects "virtually nobody," Biden made a point to empathize with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost loved ones to Covid. 6. Trump ramped up his false conspiracies about voting by mail.Trump rehashed practically every one of his conspiracy theories about the previous administration. And he doubled down on his lies about mail-in voting. Here's the truth: The right-wing Heritage Foundation examined a 36-year time frame and found only 1,285 cases of voter fraud involving mail-in ballots out of nearly two billion votes cast a rate of .0000007 percent. And Trump himself along with nearly two dozen other senior administration officials have all voted by mail before. Trump knows he can't win through our normal democratic process. That's why he's sowing distrust about mail-in voting and railing about "fraud" so he can lay the groundwork to contest the election and claim it's illegitimate if he loses. Biden's response? Telling people to vote.What we saw last night was not a debate. It wasn't an argument about issues. It was a confrontation between a decent human being and a lying sociopath who refuses to commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses. https://youtu.be/05pwqZ40pzE Related Articles OnScene TV A Harris County Sheriff's Office pursuit ended early Saturday when the fleeing vehicle collided with a sedan, ripping the car in half and sending the innocent driver to the hospital with a head injury, officials said. Deputies were chasing a speeding white Dodge eastbound on the Sam Houston Tollway feeder road around 12:45 a.m. when the Dodge crashed into a vehicle at Veterans Memorial Drive, said Capt. John Shannon. There is a lot of luck good and bad involved in politics. Not only that, timing is everything. We know Andrew Cuomo is ambitious. We know he loved his father and that, on some psychological level, he competes with Mario. We know that Mario almost made it to the tippy top of the political heap. We know that things broke Andrews way when Donald Trump, who is, after all, a demon, looked like he would succeed in corrupting American politics as no one ever imagined it could be corrupted. When The New York Times and CNN finally got around to doing what they had to do in calling out Trump, Andrew looked like a big winner. CNN could not figure out what to do about Trump. He was getting so much mandatory airtime and they were under the gun from so many people, they clearly figured that Andrew was the antidote. Andrew, brother of CNNs Chris Cuomo, was given air time almost every morning. He was just one of many U.S. governors, but CNN appointed him to be the unofficial spokesperson for the non-Trump rest of us. Everywhere I went, people told me how much they loved Andrew. I often would hear that they used to dislike him but now think he is terrific. This was almost universal. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. But then, something changed. First, the cable people made it clear that they would not play every Trump briefing. They actually started to tell the truth. As Trump rallies disappeared, so, gradually, did Andrew. The man who was ubiquitous started receding into the shadows. Thats where the timing of it reared its ugly head. Andrew was the beneficiary of Trump the bully being given so much time. Appropriately, he got credit for conquering the COVID-19 threat in New York state, which once was at the top of the list for COVID infections and deaths. Now we face the resurgence of COVID. People want to eat out and drink in bars. Some religious denominations want to congregate where they have always congregated. At the beginning, people were asking me, Why cant he be president? Thats where the luck came into it. Joe Biden got the nomination by being a Cuomo-type moderate, thank heaven. Being the year of the woman and the year of Black Lives Matter, Kamala Harris was appropriately chosen to be the veep candidate. Whats more, if Joe makes it, Kamala will be given a second term as veep, and if Joe doesnt, Kamala will be the 47th president, assuming the Biden ticket wins the upcoming election. So you can see that Andrew is out of luck, at least for now. He is certainly not going to primary a black woman. So Andrew is writing another book. This, again, is where timing comes in. Had he published that book when he was everyones hero, he would have sold a lot of copies. His first book did not do well, although he got a lot of money from his publisher for writing it. We dont know how much he got this time, but I assume it was generous. But money is not what the book thing is all about. It has become expected that every presidential candidate will have written a book. While it does not look like Andrew will be running for president, one never knows how things will break. For example, if Trump wins this election, Andrew may be next up. The polls that I am seeing dont have Trump winning, but well have to see if the totalitarian putsch many see coming is actually going to happen. Andrew is always thinking. We know that he wants to be president, and if Trump wins, you had better believe that Andrew will be the first man on the barricades. Sunday Freeman columnist Alan Chartock is a professor emeritus at the State University of New York, publisher of the Legislative Gazette and CEO of the WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network. Readers can email him at alan@wamc.org. The most unusual claim about this week's federal budget may turn out to be true for some young Australians who take up new incentives to work on farms. The big promise of the past week, that you can find the "love of your life" on the harvest trail, is being backed by a few young couples who found love among banana trees and paw paw groves. Isabelle Devine and Jack Murday run a chilli and paw paw farm in Mossman, far north Queensland. Credit:Brian Cassey Critics of the new budget incentives, to be revealed on Tuesday night, believe the payments will fail like an earlier scheme that only encouraged 201 unemployed workers to go bush. Isabelle Devine and Jack Murday, who met on a farm near Cairns, said willing workers would not look back if they tried life on the farm even if only for a few months. Yes, alert me for offers and important updates To provide you informations of offers and other benefits. To send your invoices, and other billing info. We Will Use Your Email For : Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque. Amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate ut. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque vitae. Elit at imperdiet dui accumsan. Nisl condimentum id venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien pellentesque. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Malesuada fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod. Suscipit tellus mauris a diam maecenas sed enim. Potenti nullam ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam. Sit amet purus gravida quis blandit. Nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna. Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor at auctor urna. Orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui. Ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi. Pharetra et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod. Pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam ac tortor vitae. Morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed. At consectetur lorem donec massa sapien faucibus et. Nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl rhoncus. Duis at tellus at urna condimentum mattis pellentesque. Vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum varius duis at. Justo donec enim diam vulputate ut. Blandit libero volutpat sed cras ornare arcu. Ac felis donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo. Convallis a cras semper auctor neque. Tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus. Tortor consequat id porta nibh. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque. Amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate ut. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque vitae. Elit at imperdiet dui accumsan. Nisl condimentum id venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien pellentesque. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Malesuada fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod. Suscipit tellus mauris a diam maecenas sed enim. Potenti nullam ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam. Sit amet purus gravida quis blandit. Nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna. Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor at auctor urna. Orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui. Ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi. Pharetra et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod. Pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam ac tortor vitae. Morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed. At consectetur lorem donec massa sapien faucibus et. Nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl rhoncus. Duis at tellus at urna condimentum mattis pellentesque. Vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum varius duis at. Justo donec enim diam vulputate ut. Blandit libero volutpat sed cras ornare arcu. Ac felis donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo. Convallis a cras semper auctor neque. Tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus. Tortor consequat id porta nibh. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque. Amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate ut. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque vitae. Elit at imperdiet dui accumsan. Nisl condimentum id venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien pellentesque. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Malesuada fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod. Suscipit tellus mauris a diam maecenas sed enim. Potenti nullam ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam. Sit amet purus gravida quis blandit. Nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna. Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor at auctor urna. Orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui. Ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi. Pharetra et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod. Pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam ac tortor vitae. Morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed. At consectetur lorem donec massa sapien faucibus et. Nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl rhoncus. Duis at tellus at urna condimentum mattis pellentesque. Vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum varius duis at. Justo donec enim diam vulputate ut. Blandit libero volutpat sed cras ornare arcu. Ac felis donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo. Convallis a cras semper auctor neque. Tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus. Tortor consequat id porta nibh. Mexico on Friday ordered the military to deploy along its southern border to block a migrant caravan that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador suggested was linked to the US election. Thousands of mostly Honduran migrants were traveling through Guatemala, heading for the United States via Mexico, just weeks before a tense US presidential vote in which immigration is a key issue. "It seems very strange to us. It's very strange that this caravan leaves on the eve of the election in the United States," Lopez Obrador told reporters. "It has to do with the election in the United States. I don't have all the elements but I think there are indications that it was put together for this purpose," he added. The migrants, mostly young men, surged across the border from Honduras into Guatemala on Thursday despite restrictions linked to the coronavirus pandemic. Many were not wearing masks to protect against the spread of infection. Some returned to their country after the Guatemalan government ordered them to be detained and deported. Mexico will deploy hundreds of military and immigration personnel to its border to prevent the caravan entering the country, a senior government official said. "They're not going to cross," Francisco Garduno, the head of the Mexican migration authority, told reporters. Garduno said the migrants must "respect the immigration law." Lopez Obrador, however, said that Mexico wanted to avoid a confrontation with the caravan. In recent years, thousands of Central American migrants traveling in large groups have crossed into Mexico, with the aim of reaching the US border. US President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term in the November 3 election, has threatened Mexico with steep tariffs if it does not do more to stop a surge of undocumented migrants. Lopez Obrador has deployed some 26,000 troops to the country's borders in response. The left-wing populist has sought to maintain good relations with Trump despite the US leader's anti-Mexico rhetoric, and chose the United States for his first foreign visit after taking office. Story continues He said Mexico had "made every effort" not to become embroiled in the campaign for the White House. "However, they don't stop trying to inject the issue into the debate," he said. Trump's administration on Thursday announced the US will admit a record low of 15,000 refugees in the coming year. His Democratic rival in the November 3 election, Joe Biden, has pledged to raise the refugee cap to 125,000, saying that welcoming the persecuted is in line with US values. jla-str-dr/mdl [FinCEN Files] No fewer than 15 Nigerian companies dealing in mobile phones and accessories, computer software and hardware, and operating in the countrys most popular computer market Lagos Computer Village have been named in leaked suspicious activity reports (SAR) filed with the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The transactions, which totals $27, 308, 531, amounts to N1,161, 382, 241 based on the official exchange rate of N379 to a dollar as of September 30, 2020. These companies include Point Technologies Limited, Zenco Properties Ltd, Emcel Link Nigeria Limited, Zenco Communications Limited, Zenco Logistics Limited, Domtonia International Company Limited, Prolink Communications Ltd, Real Point Global Resources Limited, and Equitoni International Limited. Others are Preferred Network Nig, Cosmanuel Communication, Global Digital Links, Liberty Devices, Spectrum Innovation Technologies Limited, and Lovesac Creation Limited. These companies are part of a network of business concerns that had financial dealings with a China-based firm, Hdsee Technology Ltd, which account is suspected as a pass-through vehicle to transfer funds. The FinCEN files say the source and purpose of the transactions were in doubt and the account was reported to the Joint Financial Intelligence Unit (JFIU) for possible closure. The discovery is part of a global investigation, otherwise known as #FinCENFiles, by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, BuzzFeed, and 108 other media partners, including PREMIUM TIMES, which operate in 88 countries of the world. The leaked FinCEN files are a large volume of confidential financial reports relating to the transaction activities of world leaders, terrorists, drug dealers and money launderers and filed by banks and other financial institutions to the government of the United States of America (USA) as required by the Bank Secrecy Act. This investigation, which spanned 16 months, is a collaborative work involving more than 400 journalists, including those from PREMIUM TIMES. About Hdsee Technology Limited This company, which is otherwise known as Adsee Technology Limited or Hosee Technology Limited, and located on RM 705 7 F Sunbeam Plaza 55 Canton Rd, Mongkok Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, is said to engage in the trading of telecommunications equipment and parts. Owned by the duo of Jian Zhang and Lin Qin, the company received 400 transactions, amounting to $29,521,264.45, between November 1, 2012 and April 5, 2013. According to the SAR filed by the New York Branch of Standard Chartered Bank, Hdsee Technology Limited used its Standard Chartered Bank HK Limited account 31910729666 to receive the funds. Other accounts purportedly used by the company include 32910729666 at Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong, which in turn utilised Standard Chartered Bank HK account 3582088658001 and account 112389085838 at Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corp to receive the funds. The New York branch of the Standard Chartered Bank, which acted as correspondent bank, flagged the transactions as suspicious on April 15, 2013. Reasons for suspicion According to Standard Chartered Bank, a money laundering SAR was filed on Hdsee Technology Limited with case reference number C20120101872, as part of the branchs ongoing anti-money laundering compliance efforts. It said the review of the alerts generated by automated detection scenarios against the companys accounts and transactions and together with an expanded wire transfer search performed on August 4, 2013, covering November 1, 2012 and April 5, 2013, revealed negative risk management response (RM Response), and round dollar amounts remittances, which is described as a known as one of the antics used for money laundering. The bank, according to the FinCEN files, further stated that; Transactions involved unidentified entities or individuals located in or banking in high risk jurisdictions relative to money laundering such as Nigeria. Transactions involving Nigerian companies According to the case file, Point Technologies Limited with its given address as 14B, Pepple Street, Computer Village, Ikeja remitted 61 transactions totalling $5,204,475.00, which amounted to 18 per cent of the total suspected transactions involving Hdsee Technologies Limited. The transactions, which occurred between November 1, 2012 and April 5, 2013, were carried out utilising Fidelity Bank Plc with accounts 5090278907 and 5090441745. Fidelity Bank utilised a US correspondent Deutsche Bank Trust Co Americas located on 16th Floor, Bankers Trust Plaza, New York, to remit the funds. The purpose of the transactions, as stated in the Remittance Reference, are Pymt for goods and Payment for goods B/O: Point Tech Ltd. Zenco Properties Ltd, located on 4 Otigba Street, Computer Village, remitted 37 transactions totalling $3,699,075.00, which amounted to 13 percent of the total transactions. The transactions occurred from November 1, 2012 through March 27, 2013 utilising account 5090409451 at Fidelity Bank Plc, which in turn utilised a US correspondent Deutsche Bank Trust Co Americas. Advertisements Similarly, Emcel Link Nigeria Limited, with its address as 6 Otigba Street, Computer Village, through its Standard Chartered Bank account 0001022748, engaged in 39 transactions totalling $3,148,470.00, amounting to 11 percent of the total transaction. The transactions were occurred between November 7, 2012 and April 2, 2013. The company also used another account, 5090318238 with Fidelity Bank Plc, which in turn utilised USA correspondent Deutsche Bank Trust Co Americas. The purpose of the transactions as stated in the Remittance Reference is /RFB/GOODS BOUGHT. Meanwhile, Zenco Communications Limited, located on 6 Ola Ayeni Street Ikeja, Lagos, made 28 transactions totalling $2,799,300.00, and amounting to nine percent of the total funds received by the beneficiary, that is, Hdsee Technology Limited. Zenco Communications Limited used its Fidelity Bank Account 5090279636 to wire the funds between November 7, 2012 and March 28, 2013. Between August 11, 2012 and March 28, 2013, Zenco Logistics Limited, with address at 4 Otigba Street, Computer Village, Lagos, remitted 25 transactions totalling $2,499,375.00 and amounting to eight percent of the total funds received by the beneficiary. The company, the FinCEN files indicated, used its Fidelity Bank Account 5090332137 to remit the funds. Also, Domtonia International Company Limited, with address at 7 Otigba Street Computer Village, Ikeja, remitted 29 transactions totalling $2,230,025.00 or eight percent of the total remittances which occurred between August 11, 2012 and April 5, 2013, utilising Fidelity Bank account 5090357071. The purpose of the transactions as stated in the Remittance Reference is Pymt for Goods B/O: Samtex and Payment For Goods B/O: Domtonia. The Prolink Communications Ltd, which is located on 28 Otigba Street, Computer Village, Lagos, remitted 61 transactions totalling $1,902,681.00 which represents six per cent of the total remittances to Hdsee Technology Limited. Prolink Communications Ltd carried out the transactions between November 5, 2012 and April 5, 2013, utilising its Guarantee Trust Banks (GTB) account 257223388210. The GTB utilised its Guaranty Trust Bank UK Limited, on 62 Margaret Street, London, United Kingdom, which in turn utilised USA correspondent bank Citibank N A, 111 Wall Street, New York to remit the funds. Real Point Global Resources Limited on 14B Pepple Street, Ikeja, Lagos, remitted 22 transactions totalling $1,660,450.00 which represents six per cent of the total deposits, and which occurred from November 19, 2012 to April 4, 2013, utilising a Fidelity Bank account 5090437362. On the part of Equitoni International Limited, which is located on 15, Adepele Street, Computer Village, Ikeja, made 18 remittances totalling $1,164,485.00 representing four per cent of the total transactions. The transactions, the bank claimed, occurred from November 1, 2012 to April 4, 2013. The Nigerian firm utilised its Standard Chartered Bank account 0000740089. Lovesac Creation Ltd, which trades in babies and kiddies products, made nine remittances totalling $809,775.00 representing three per cent of the total transactions which occurred from January 22, 2013 to April 5, 2013 utilising its Fidelity Bank account 5090475036. According to the FinCEN files, there were additional 71 transactions totalling $4,403,153.45 representing 15 of the total transactions received by Hdsee Technology Limited within the same period under investigation. The transactions, the New York branch of Standard Chartered Bank reported, involved 18 counterparties. These counterparties include Preferred Network Nigeria which transacted $650,150.00; Cosmanuel Communication that transacted $499,875.00; Emcel Oil and Gas which transacted $412,730.00 and Global Digital Links, which moved $349,790.00. Others are Liberty Devices that remitted $149,950.00 and Spectrum Innovation Technologies Limited that transferred $124,925 to Hdsee Technology Limited. Companies claim ignorance Officials of some of the companies PREMIUM TIMES contacted either claimed ignorance of the transactions or declined comment. During different telephone calls to some telephone lines provided on the website of Emcel Link Nigeria Limited, two individuals who identified themselves simply as Isioma and Angela, said they no longer work with the company. Angela promised to send the contact of an officer with the company, who she identified simply as Ijeoma. However, more than 24 hours after, she is yet to keep her promise. An official of Lovesac Creation Limited, who refused to identify herself, said the description of the company is correct but the details of the transaction is strange to her. Maybe it is another company, she said. We are unaware of what you are saying. Similarly, a woman associated with Spectrum Innovations Technology Limited, who was identified by as Spectrum Madam also confirmed the identity of the company but denied any dirty deals. She requested details of the investigations, which were shared with her via WhatsApp. She promised to revert but is yet to do so as of the time of filing this report. Some of the companies could not be traced as their addresses seem to have changed. There are also no websites or telephone numbers provided for them in the FinCEN Files. I felt like I was struck by a lightning bolt. Although I am usually expressive, I could no longer speak. This was the beginning of my unrequited feelings. I daydreamed about this guy for a few years afterwards. When my mom and I traveled to tour a couple of college campuses, I was hoping to run into Zack at the school he attended. Why couldn't Zack's grandmother, a dear friend of the family, bake some cookies to send with us so that we could see him? At last! Sunday, May 31, of that year, I was at our neighborhood's pool. Zack and his brother walked in and sat one lounge chair away from me. When my crush looked over at me, I felt like a popsicle melting in the hot summer sun. He spoke to me first. I told him that I was going to be driving up to Duke the next day to coordinate the performance of five international choreographers. In 2016, Michael Anton, a former national security official in the Trump administration, wrote a now famous essay, "The Flight 93 Election." In it, he argued that voting for Trump was the last chance Americans had to preserve a constitutional America. Anton's back with an entire book discussing what will happen if the Democrats gain control of the White House and Congress in the upcoming election. Real Clear Politics has an excerpt from the book, and it sounds like another warning bell for people who cherish an America run on liberty-centered values rather than socialism. It turns out that Anton and I have something in common: we're both California natives who remember a time when the state was a beautiful, affordable tribute to the best that America could be. Indeed, because I'm slightly older than he is, my memories are both better (I still have a vague memory of ladies wearing gloves and hats to go downtown) and worse (because I saw the damage that the hippies, the forebears of today's leftists, could do to a community). Recently, Regnery published Anton's book, The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return. In it, he spells out exactly what to expect if the Democrats gain complete control over America. It will truly be the election to end all elections should they win. In previous elections, Americans have always revolved around different interpretations of shared constitutional principles and cultural values. Even with the Civil War, while Americans fought to the death over state's rights and slavery, they still shared cultural values. In many ways, our nation is already more divided than during the lead-up to the Civil War. In this election, the Democrats propose the most radical departure ever from America's past. They are not sliding gently to the left or the right. Theirs is a socialist revolution and, like all socialist revolutions, the first thing the Democrats plan to do is lock in their power. To that end, Democrats have been open about ending the filibuster. With that accomplished, they can add two leftist states (Puerto Rico and D.C.) and pack the courts. This will be their version of Erdogan's Islamist takeover in Turkey and Putin's dictatorship in Russia: use the election to gain power, then jettison the system so no one else can do the same. Real Clear Politics has excerpted Chapter One from Anton's book. In it, he looks to California to describe what we can expect once the Democrats achieve their dream of one-party rule over the nation. After all, they already have one-party rule over the state. The quoted material resonated strongly with me because he describes the golden state I remember from my younger years and the decaying state I finally left behind. Here is a passage from the quoted material: My parents' and grandparents' California the California of my own youth is long gone. That California was the greatest middle-class paradise in the history of mankind. Its promise which it mostly delivered was nothing less than the American dream writ large, but better: freer, wealthier, sunnier, happier, more advanced, more future-oriented. In barely one generation, that California was swept away and transformed into a left-liberal one-party state, the most economically unequal and socially divided in the country, ostensibly run by a cadre of would-be Solons in Sacramento and in the courts, but really by oligarchic power concentrated in a handful of industries, above all Big Tech and Big Hollywood. The middle class what's left of them continue to flee high taxes, higher costs, cratering standards of living, declining services, deteriorating infrastructure, worsening quality of life, and an elite that openly despises them and pushes policies to despoil and dispossess them. [snip] According to the public presentation of this vision the marketing brochure copy the New California formula provides everything, with no downsides: economic growth and job security; equitable distribution of inherently scarce goods and environmental protection; fantastic innovation alongside regulation that protects against every contingency; endless energy without drilling or carbon emissions; social reengineering with no erosion of the habits necessary for a strong economy or stable society all gain, no pain, all the time. There's an underside to this vision, though: rising inequality and neo-feudalism, a yawning and widening gap between the wealth and political power of the haves and have-nots, demonization and persecution not merely of overt dissent but of passive refusal to celebrate the new order. These aspects the elites don't talk about but quietly also push. "California is booming" but only for them. When they say they want the rest of the nation to look more like California, the state's dystopian, oppressive features are a big part perhaps the biggest of what they mean. Anton's book sounds well worth reading. If you're one of those voters still struggling with the fact that Trump can be a boor, please read this book before you cast your vote. I'd much rather have a pro-American, pro-liberty boor in the White House, with a Congress willing to work with him, than a political party bent on turning the United States into another California. Reliance Industries today announced that global investment firm GIC will invest 5,512.5 crore into its retail arm Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) and also and also another investment firm TPG will invest 1,837.5. Reliance Industries said in a regulatory filing that both GIC and TPG investment will translate 1.22% equity stake and a 0.41% equity stake in RRVL respectively on a fully diluted basis. With these, Reliance Industries has sold 7.28% stake in the retail unit since September 9 for a total of 32,297.50 crore. The investment will add fire to Ambani's battle for dominance in the retail market that is also being eyed by Jeff Bezos' Amazon.com and Walmart Inc's Flipkart. Reliance Industries Limited (Reliance Industries) and Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) announced today that GIC will invest 5,512.5 crore into RRVL, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. This investment values RRVL at a pre-money equity value of 4.285 lakh crore. GICs investment will translate into a 1.22% equity stakein RRVL on a fully diluted basis. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said, It gives me great pleasure to welcome GIC to the Reliance Retail family. I am delighted that GIC, with its track record of close to four decades of successful long-term value investing across the world, is partnering with Reliance Retail in its mission to transform the Indian retail landscape. GICs global network and track record of long-term partnerships will be invaluable to the transformation story of Indian Retail. This investment is a strong endorsement of our strategy and Indias potential. Lim Chow Kiat, Chief Executive Officer, GIC, said: GIC is pleased to partner with Reliance through this new investment, which will enable the company to position Reliance Retail for the strong secular growth in Indias retail market. We believe Reliance Retail will continue to use its extensive supply chain and store networks, as well as strong logistics and data infrastructure, to add value to its customers and shareholders." Reliance Industries Limited and RelianceRetail Ventures Limited (RRVL) announced today that global investment firm TPG will invest 1,837.5 crore into RRVL, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. This investment values It will be the second investment by TPG in a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, following a 4,546.8 crore investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year. Reliance Retail Limited, a subsidiary of RRVL, operates India's largest, fastest growing and most profitable retail business serving close to 640 million footfalls across its ~12,000 stores nationwide. Reliance Retails vision is to galvanize the Indian retail sector through an inclusive strategy serving millions of customers by empowering millions of farmers and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and working closely with global and domestic companies as a preferred partner, to deliver immense benefits to Indian society, while protecting and generating employment for millions of Indians. Reliance Retail, through its New Commerce strategy, has started a transformational digitalization of small andunorganised merchants and is committed to expanding the network to over 20 million of these merchants. This will enable the merchants to use technology tools and an efficient supply chain infrastructure to deliver a superior value proposition to their own customers. TPG is a leading global alternative asset firm founded in 1992 with more than $83 billion of assets under management across a wide range of asset classes, including private equity, growth equity, real estate and public equity. Over TPGs nearly 30-year history, the firm has built an ecosystem made up of hundreds of portfolio companies and a value-added network of professionals, executives, and advisors around the world. By offering institutional support and global resources, TPG enables these companies to reach their full potential and unlock greater possibilities. TPG is making the investment from its TPG Capital Asia fund. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said, I am pleased to welcome TPG as valued investors in Reliance Retail Ventures mission of growing and transforming the Indian Retail ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. TPG has a proven track record of being a valuable partner to global technology businesses and industry leaders and we look forward to their guidance and support in our journey." The transaction is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals. Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Retail and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP acted as financial advisor to TPG and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. acted as legal counsel to TPG. Jim Coulter, Co-CEO, TPG, said, Regulatory changes, consumer demographics and technological disruption are creating seismic shifts across the entire retail value chain inIndia. In the midst of this transformation, Reliance Industries has utilized technology and scale to position Reliance Retail as an incredibly strong, well-organized, and innovative leader. We are excited to join with them as they seek to create a more inclusive retail industry that allows Kiranas and Indian consumers to benefit from the connectivity, efficiency, and accessibility of the Reliance Retail omnichannel platform." Isha Ambani, Director of Reliance Retail, said, We are delighted to welcome TPG to the Reliance Retail family in our journey of revolutionizing the Indian Retail landscape and improving the economic prospects of millions of merchants and enhancing consumer experience. TPGs rich experience will be invaluable to the Reliance Retail mission." Puneet Bhatia, Co-Managing Partner and Country Head, India of TPG Capital Asia, said, There is a significant opportunity to transform the Indian retail ecosystem for the better. Through their New Commerce initiative, Reliance Retail continues to lead the industry by creating a retail platform that meets the demands of a new generation of Indian consumers. We are excited to work with Reliance Industries as they reimagine the retail experience across the value chain." US private equity firm Silver Lake has made two investments totalling 9,375 crore for a 2.13% stake in Reliance Retail, while General Atlantic has picked up 0.84% stake for 3,675 crore, and KKR put in 5,550 crore for a 1.28% stake. Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co invested 6,247.5 crore for a 1.4 per cent stake. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics Hong Kong: 4 COVID-19 cases recorded (To watch the full press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.) The Centre for Health Protection today said it is investigating four new COVID-19 cases, one of which is locally transmitted. The local case, with an unknown source of infection, involves a 22-year-old male student who lives in Sha Tin and last attended the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Lee Wai Lee) on September 29. At a press briefing this afternoon, the centres Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said the patient went to a bar in Tsim Sha Tsui on September 23. We identified one high-risk activity during the incubation period in which he visited a bar with a few friends. So far, we have not identified any confirmed cases from this activity and among his friends, but we are still investigating. Dr Chuang added that the patients school in Tseung Kwan O will close for 14 days. If there is a patient of a case who had visited the school during the communicable period, usually we would advise the school to close for two weeks and carry out disinfection as well as testing for all the students and teachers. We identified two close contacts who had shared a meal together with the patient during the communicable period. Well distribute specimen collection bottles to the residents of the place where the patient lives. The three other cases are imported and came from the Philippines, India and the UK. For information and health advice on COVID-19, visit the Governments dedicated webpage. This story has been published on: 2020-10-03. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. On election day this November, a referendum will be held in Washington State to either sanction or repeal a portion of the states public school curriculum. Earlier in the year, Democrats in the state legislature passed a law mandating that sex education be taught in public schools across the state. The bill allows for school districts to decide upon their own curriculum for sex-ed, and for parents to opt their children out of the lessons if they so desire. Still, the measures have been met with serious opposition from conservatives. A pressure group called Parents For Safe Schools has forced a referendum on the law by gathering 264,000 signatures more than double the number required. As soon as the battle-lines were drawn, familiar faces on either side of the aisle began to get involved in the referendum campaign. Around half of the $1.1 million raised by the pro-curriculum side has come from Planned Parenthood affiliates. Most of the oppositions $245,000 war chest, meanwhile, has been supplied by the Reagan Fund, a political action committee affiliated with House Republican Leadership. The bills only major alteration to the current though not, as yet, universally mandated sex-ed standards across the state is the addition of lessons on sexual consent to the curriculum. Students would learn about affirmative consent and recognizing and responding safely and effectively when violence, or a risk of violence, is or may be present with strategies that include bystander training. Its unsurprising that consent-codes are coming to play a bigger role in sex education than they have before. Ever since the moral mores that once regulated sexual behavior in our society were dismantled in the 1960s, progressives have been groping around in dark (no pun intended) for a new sexual morality. They seem to have settled on consent as the only and ultimate ethical standard in this area. Its a rather flimsy and inadequate standard for regulating something as fragile, volatile, and indispensable to human civilization as sexual behavior: Many victims of sexual assault, finding themselves trapped in a tragic courtroom game of he-said-she-said, have come to understand this to their cost. Whats more, the ethics of sola consentia also fail to provide us with the moral grammar necessary to confront unconscionable sexual behavior with the requisite fury and indignation. Story continues These are just some of the reasons why conservative religious parents dont want their children to learn sexual ethics from secular government schools. Sex is not like mathematics. Ask a priest and a pimp what the answer to 1+1 is and you are likely to get the same answer. Ask them about the nature and purpose of sexual intercourse and you will begin to wonder if they are members of the same species. Sex is simply one of the most value-laden and widely disagreed-upon subjects in American public life. Whether Democratic legislators in Washington mean to or not, it remains the case that any sex-ed curriculum will communicate implicit assumptions and expectations about sexual morality to students. Lessons in the rituals of consent are liable to give the impression that consent is all that must be obtained in order for a sexual encounter to be morally permissible, when many conservatives believe that its only one among many other necessary ethical conditions. Sex education, as it appears in the Washington bill, amounts to more than lessons in mere anatomy. It clearly involves some element of moral instruction. This is not to accuse the architects of the bill of indoctrination or propaganda, but merely to observe that disentangling sex and morality is all but impossible. Its not for nothing that two thirds of the signatures on the Parents For Safe Schools petition came from church sites. Christianity has its own theology of sexuality and the body that has been thought-through and developed over the course of two thousand years. Its eminently understandable that Christian parents are reluctant to expose their children, who are apostolic heirs to this tradition, to a poorly formulated, slapdash alternative ethic thats about five minutes old. The culture war over sex is not, however, the most notable feature of this conflict, important though it is. The really interesting political innovation here is the notion of local democratic control over school curricula. This is the first time in the states history that a particular curriculum will appear in a direct up-or-down referendum on a ballot. There should really be a lot more of this sort of thing, and not just for sex-ed. The formulation and adoption of public school curricula is one of the most etatist, technocratic, nigh-on Bonapartist areas of American government. The selection of what American children are taught is made almost exclusively by local school boards. These school boards are, in turn, staffed by men and women who are more than happy take the burdens of self-government off the hands of American parents when it comes to educating their children. Parents pay shockingly little attention to how the sausage is made when it comes to the school curricula being drilled into their childrens heads five days a week. This parental dereliction of duty is partly to blame for the presence of ahistorical and unscientific curricula in American schools. Public school curricula has been largely removed from the democratic process in the United States. While particularly active and motivated parents can exert some level of influence over local school boards, decisions about school curricula are not constantly foisted upon the wider electorate the way that decisions about health care or taxation are. Forcing the electorate to think through the substance of school curricula during election cycles would be one of the best possible things for civic engagement in the United States right now. Knock-down, drag-out fights at City Hall between parents who have to decide how their children are going to be taught about the American Revolution would be infinitely preferable to our current political fights. My colleague Ramesh Ponnuru has argued persuasively in several fora that the Republican Party should look to make itself into a parents party rather than a workers party. A good first-step toward that end would be to make the public school curriculum political. This would serve as a democratic check on activist teachers and administrators, and encourage more civic participation among parents. This is, in fact, precisely whats happening in Washington State. Even apart from the merits of the particular curriculum in question, this skirmish in the Pacific Northwest should serve as a model for the better, more substantive, and more local political arguments over education that Americans should look to have in the future. Voters pay for government schools. Voters should decide what goes on in them. More from National Review Advertisement Thousands of sunseeekers eager for a taste of summer after months of coronavirus restrictions have flocked to the sand at beaches across the country - as temperatures soar to kick-off the long weekend in many states. But beachgoers have been warned to follow social distancing guidelines in their states or risk being shutout from the sand. The mercury climbed towards 30C in Melbourne on Saturday - leading crowds to head to the water at St Kilda only to be met with an increased police presence after rowdy beach partygoers on Friday were slammed by Victoria's Premier and Chief Health Officer. Daniel Andrews hinted on Saturday morning that Victoria's beaches could be plunged back into lockdown if crowds continued to ignore precautions such as face masks and social distancing. He said while beach closures were the responsibility of police, authorities were 'well aware' of gatherings after Melburnians hit the coast to let off steam after weeks of strict Stage Four lockdowns were slightly eased. Victoria Police patrol at St Kilda beach on Saturday (pictured). Coronavirus restrictions eased slightly across Melbourne from Monday 28 September as Victoria enters into its second step in the government's roadmap to reopening. The overnight curfew no longer applies. Up to five people from no more than two households are able to gather outside In Sydney, temperatures in the high 20s after a few days of mild weather sent hundreds flocking to the city's eastern suburbs - with Waverley Council, which includes Bondi (pictured), Coogee, and Tamarama beaches, warning crowds that the COVID-19 pandemic remains a threat People gathering at St Kilda beach on Friday in Melbourne, Australia. Coronavirus restrictions eased slightly across Melbourne from Monday 28 September as Victoria enters into its second step in the government's roadmap to reopening In Sydney, temperatures in the high 20s after a few days of mild weather sent hundreds flocking to the city's eastern suburbs - with Waverley Council, which includes Bondi, Coogee, and Tamarama beaches, warning crowds that the COVID-19 pandemic remains a threat. There are no restrictions on going to the beach in New South Wale, but there is a 20-person limit to group sizes, and residents have been encouraged to social distance and wear face masks while in crowded areas. Waverley Council, which includes Sydney's Bondi Beach, issued a warning to beachgoers ahead of the long weekend urging crowds to maintain COVID-19 precautions. Darwin hit 34C, while Adelaide and Brisbane also experienced scorchers on Saturday with temperatures of 28C and 27C respectively causing people to head to the water in droves - with Adelaide's Glenelg, Brisbane's Southbank, and the Gold and Sunshine Coasts seeing large crowds. New South Wales, South Austraila, and the Australian Capital Territory have a three day weekend with Labour Day on Monday, while Queensland also has Monday off to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. The other state's will be watching how Victoria in particular deals with crowds eager to get back outside to beaches after weeks of heavy Stage Four lockdowns were enforced to halt a second wave of COVID-19. Victoria's St Kilda was packed with large groups on Friday afternoon, many of whom seemed unconcerned with physical distancing, leading Premier Daniel Andrews to float the idea of closing beaches. Footage from Friday showed crowds standing shoulder-to-shoulder and not wearing masks - with one Seven Network reporter being grabbed and kissed in the commotion. Hundreds of people keen for a breather after the city's strict Stage Four lockdowns hit St Kilda beach on Friday (pictured) Victoria's St Kilda was packed with large groups on Friday afternoon, some of whom seemed unconcerned with physical distancing, leading Premier Daniel Andrews to float the idea of closing beaches Mr Andrews said closing beaches would be a decision Victoria Police would make as the summer months approached but would not say whether he thought officers should have broken apart Friday's crowds. Speaking on Saturday, he did add that police were 'aware' of the beach gatherings and maintained a 'steely determination to make sure people are following the rules'. 'There is a substantial additional police presence out there making sure that these coronavirus rules are enforced,' Mr Andrews said. 'It was very disappointing, and I'm sure the cause of much anger across the community about what happened there last night,' he said. 'It was not just there, however, there were reports of similar activity and other beaches and in other places. But let's not detract from the fact that the vast majority of Victorians are doing quite an amazing job.' Bondi Beach (pictured) in Sydney packed with sunseekers enjoying the warmer weather has led to a warning being issued about crowds by Waverley Council Footage from St Kilda on Friday showed crowds standing shoulder-to-shoulder and not wearing masks - with one Seven Network reporter being grabbed and kissed in the commotion Police were out in force at St Kilda on Saturday after rowdy crowds the previous day were slammed by the Premier Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton had earlier issued plea for Melburnians not 'risk everything' by gathering in large numbers on beaches over the next few weeks. 'Don't risk everything. What we can hold back now means a truly normal summer. Please - Hold. The. Line,' Prof Sutton tweeted on Saturday. After two months of tough lockdown, many Melbourne residents rushed to get out and party in the sun as temperatures climbed towards 30 degrees on Friday. They packed Williamstown, St Kilda and Port Melbourne beaches for their two hours of exercise time. Professor Sutton retweeted footage from 7NEWS Melbourne along with his warning. Reporter Paul Dowsley broadcast disturbing footage from St Kilda Beach of hundreds of young people cavorting without masks, shouting for joy and not respecting social distancing rules. Some unmasked revellers swarmed him as he did his live cross., with one woman squealing in delight, ran up and kissed the camera, planting lip gloss on the lens. A young man without a mask ran up and grabbed the reporters shoulder, kissed the side of his neck twice, then patted the top of his head and kissed the back of it, too. People thronged to St Kilda beach at sunset on Friday, ignoring coronavirus restrictions Crowds in St Kilda were more subdued on Saturday as police were visible patrolling the area A beachgoer jumps on a 7News reporter after a live cross, while others cheer around him, as several mask-free people flock to St. Kilda's beach on Friday Authorities fear the coronavirus will once again break out unless people stick to the social distancing rules under Step Two of the roadmap out of coronavirus lockdown. Victoria has recorded eight new coronavirus cases and three deaths after a top health expert issued a warning to partygoers. The new figures reported on Saturday pushed the 14-day rolling average of coronavirus cases in Melbourne down to 12 and 0.1 in regional Victoria. There were also just 11 coronavirus cases from an unknown source, down from 14 on Friday. With temperatures warming up as the country heads into the summer , the states and territories will be looking closely at how well Melbourne handles the increased public crowds. A possible third-wave of the virus could send Victorians into an extended lockdown and risk exporting cases to other states who will be dealing with their own summer crowds. Sydney is expected to hit 27C on Sunday and 29C on Monday, with residents keen to make the most of their three-day weekend. Waverely Council released a warning for prospective beachgoers. 'If you're planning on heading down to the beach to cool off as the weather warms up this long weekend, make sure you stay COVID safe by social distancing and limiting gatherings to 20 people or less,' the council said. Victoria has so far been on track in beating the coronavirus thanks to the strict lockdown. Experts fear the partying beachgoers (St Kilda pictured) could reverse this progress Authorities in Sydney are worried beaches will reach capacity due to the scorching conditions - with the October Long Weekend already heating up. Pictured: A sign at Bondi Beach reminds visitors to social distance Brisbane will reach a maximum of 27C over the three-day break, while Adelaide is expected to hit 29C on Saturday before dropping to the high teens for the remainder of the break. Darwin will be hot with a max of 34C and Hobart's temperature ranges between 15C and 20C for the weekend. The forecast in Perth will hover around the 20C mark. Victoria has so far been on track and ahead of schedule in beating the coronavirus as the strict lockdowns worked to control the spread. For restrictions to ease to Step Three, Melbourne's 14-day average must fall below five, with less than five mystery cases for a fortnight. Under current Step Two rules, people are only able to gather in maximum groups of five, from two households. They need to be keeping to the 1.5m social distancing rule, and wearing the compulsory facemasks. Premier Daniel Andrews increased fines for those who flout the restrictions on gatherings from $1652 to $4957 as the Stage Two easings came into effect on Monday. Beachgoers are seen enjoying warmer weather at Curl Curl beach on Saturday 2020 in Sydney Melbourne residents couldn't contain their joy on Friday at the slight easing of restrictions and the warm weather. They have been on tough Stage Four lockdown since August 2 Victoria Police patrol at St Kilda beach on October 03, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. Coronavirus restrictions eased slightly across Melbourne from Monday 28 September as Victoria enters into its second step in the government's roadmap to reopening Fines for those who flout the restrictions on gatherings have been increased to $4957 (Melbourne's busy St Kilda beach pictured on Friday) President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden speak during the first presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, September 29, 2020. Morry Gash-Pool/Getty Images President Trump tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday. People who have COVID-19 are generally most infectious the day they start showing symptoms and the day prior. So if Trump started showing symptoms before Friday, that means he might have been highly infectious when he debated Joe Biden on Tuesday. Biden tested negative on Friday, but experts say he should be re-tested frequently since the coronavirus' average incubation period is five days and could be longer. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. President Donald Trump's announcement that he'd tested positive for the coronavirus raised an immediate question among health experts, the public, and members of Joe Biden's campaign: When did his symptoms start? "The highest infectious period the period at which you're spewing the most virus is your onset of symptoms and possibly the day before," Monica Gandhi, an infectious-disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, told Business Insider. She added, "it really is at that point where you're shedding more virus from nose and mouth that can be given to other people." Trump tweeted about his diagnosis early Friday morning. Earlier this week, he debated former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday; attended a private fundraiser and a 3,000-person rally in Duluth, Minnesota, on Wednesday; then met around 100 people for another fundraiser in Bedminster, New Jersey on Thursday. All those contacts are at risk, experts say, but knowing the more precise timeline of Trump's infection would reveal who among them was near him when the president was at his most infectious. "It's a lot of exposure here. This is a contact tracing nightmare," Gandhi said. Bloomberg News reported that a few aides think Trump might have been exhibiting symptoms on Wednesday. If that's true, it would mean Trump may have taken the debate stage at the time when he had the highest chances of transmitting the virus to Biden. Story continues Biden and his wife, Jill, tested negative for the coronavirus on Friday. But the virus' average incubation period the time between when a person gets infected and when they start showing symptoms or test positive is four or five days. So if Biden was exposed at the debate, he may not get a positive test result or experience symptoms until Saturday or Sunday. When viral load is highest A person's infectiousness is linked to their viral load: how many viral particles they're carrying and shedding into their environment. "It's usually around the time right before the symptom onset and around the very first days of symptoms is when the viral load is generally the highest," Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, told Business Insider. President Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota, on September 30, 2020. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images Indeed, several studies have shown that COVID-19 patients can easily spread the virus before they know they're sick that's known as pre-symptomatic transmission. Based on that research, Adalja said, Trump was infectious "probably about a day before symptoms started." Trump's campaign sent all attendees of the Thursday New Jersey fundraiser an email on Friday urging them to contact a medical provider if they develop COVID-19 symptoms. Experts say Biden needs to get tested again and should not be campaigning President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden participate in the first presidential debate. Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images If Trump was infectious at the debate, the setting may have been ideal for the virus to spread. Although Biden and Trump stood about 10 feet apart onstage, the event was held inside, neither man wore a mask, and both spoke vigorously. Studies have shown that talking loudly and forcefully exhaling can lead a person to spew viral droplets and aerosols farther than 6 feet. Transmission is also more likely in poorly ventilated indoor spaces. Given that, Gandhi said, it's reasonable to worry about Biden's exposure. "There were no masks. It was indoors. And the concerning part is that Trump yelled straight for 90 minutes," she said. "And the louder volume, the constant talking can be kind of like singing. It's loud it's a forceful exhalation." Joe Biden stops in front of his childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on July 9, 2020. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend a 14-day quarantine for anyone with known exposure, since that's the maximum amount of time it takes for the coronavirus to incubate. The Minnesota State Department of Health recommends that people get tested five to seven days after an event where they might have been exposed. A test before that point isn't considered reliable, since an infection might not show up right away. Even if that first test comes back negative, the Minneapolis department adds, people should get tested again at the 12-day mark. That likely applies to Biden, even though he and Trump weren't standing within 6 feet of one another. However, the former vice president announced after his negative test that he'd resume cross-country campaigning. "You can't test yourself out of self quarantine," Gandhi said, adding that Biden "shouldn't be campaigning." Morgan McFall-Johnsen contributed reporting to this story. Read the original article on Business Insider We shall have killed off Covid in six months, or at least learned to live with it. Maybe it will take much longer than six months. But well do it eventually. That doesnt mean it will be vanquished for ever: weve yet to kill the flu, let alone the common cold. But we have learned to live with them. We always do. Except for one. There is another sickness out there that has been with us since humans first walked the earth: mental illness. It has gone through various stages over the millennia. Long ago, people who behaved differently from everyone else were laughed at, or locked away or put to death. There is another sickness out there that has been with us since humans first walked the earth: mental illness [File photo] Their demons were exorcised. Their skulls had holes drilled in them to release evil spirits. They were strapped into straitjackets. They suffered unimaginable horrors. Then, very slowly, science began to assert itself. Such people were no longer seen as lunatics to be shunned, locked up and written off. They were mentally ill and needed treatment. Eighty-four years ago, the first lobotomy was performed in the United States. The man who invented it was awarded the Nobel Prize. Countless thousands of operations were performed. But it was not the miracle cure it was claimed to be. Quite the opposite. The eminent neurosurgeon Henry Marsh summed it up: If you saw the patient after the operation theyd seem alright, theyd walk and talk and say thank you, doctor. The fact they were totally ruined as social human beings probably didnt count. Its many years since a lobotomy was last carried out, but we all remember One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. The film touched a collective nerve. When Public Health England carried out a survey five years ago, it found that the stigma attached to people with mental health problems remained. Only half of us, for instance, would associate with someone suffering from schizophrenia. But a lot has changed since then. No longer do we talk of mental health in hushed tones. Quite the opposite. Now, we talk constantly about mental health issues, as though they are the inevitable result of whatever difficulties we may find ourselves in at any given time. When children could no longer go to school back in June, we were solemnly warned that they would probably face mental health issues. No longer do we talk of mental health in hushed tones. Quite the opposite. Now, we talk constantly about mental health issues, as though they are the inevitable result of whatever difficulties we may find ourselves in at any given time [File photo] On a radio arts programme this week, an interviewee reeled off a list of concerns facing set designers since the theatres had closed. One of them was mental health issues. Similarly, when students were told they might not be able to get rip-roaringly drunk in their first week at university, we were warned they might face mental health issues. Can that really be true? Its not the home-based children, but their parents who might well have been driven bonkers. The set designers may well find themselves out of a job and worry about how to pay the rent. The students may well be bored rigid. All of this is regrettable. But, surely, these are not mental health issues. They are what we would once have called worries and now have to call stress. And there are many reasons why this should concern us. To characterise any and every difficulty in terms of mental health is to belittle the real distress of a truly hideous illness that can destroy lives. Literally. People with clinical depression often regard themselves as worthless and their lives as pointless. The number of deaths from suicide mostly men and boys has been increasing over the past 20 years. Last year, it stood at almost 5,700 in England and Wales. Many who suffer from serious mental illness need more help than they are getting. So what are we to make of a report by the Centre for Mental Health charity this week which warned that up to ten million people in England could need mental health support as a result of the Covid disaster? Yes, you read that figure correctly. Thats one in six of us. They will, we are told, mostly need help for depression and anxiety. Lets remember that we are talking about a virus which vast numbers simply shrug off or may not even know they have had. A virus that leaves children and young people relatively unscathed. Of course, there are those who really do need help. Top of my own list might be those old people who have been locked away in their rooms in care homes, allegedly shielded from those who might infect them. Many will die without having held the hand of someone they love. This is something that should shame us all. Yet instead of worrying ourselves sick about the real victims in our society, there seems, too often, to be a search for victims of what we must now call stress. The latest bizarre scheme to alleviate stress is to take police officers and other emergency service workers surfing. Its already happening on the beaches of Devon, Dorset and Cornwall, paid for by grants of more than 120,000 and apparently based on cold water therapy which has been shown to improve levels of overall wellbeing. Perhaps I sound callous, but if you sign up to work in an emergency service, dont you accept that the job will entail a certain amount of stress? Of course, some people have been hit very hard by Covid. They may very well need help as they recover. Some will have lost loved ones. They, too, may need support to cope with their grief. But the vast majority of those who have died have been very old or were already suffering from illnesses. And the number of deaths overall is still a fraction of those who have died in the same period from flu and pneumonia. So where, in heavens name, does the Centre for Mental Healths figure of ten million come from? The answer lies in the increasingly fashionable assumption that anyone who experiences any sort of setback that has left them depressed or anxious must be suffering from mental health issues. But if we accept that assumption, we should all be included. Every last one of us. And that is bunkum. Put aside the absurd notion that our desperately struggling NHS could begin to cope with even a minuscule proportion of that ten million. Ask instead whether we are happy to accept a society in which the phrase mental health issues is applied whenever anyone faces problems that make demands of them. The latest bizarre scheme to alleviate stress is to take police officers and other emergency service workers surfing. Its already happening on the beaches of Devon, Dorset and Cornwall, paid for by grants of more than 120,000 and apparently based on cold water therapy which has been shown to improve levels of overall wellbeing That would absolve us of any individual responsibility to try to find our own way through the crisis. Or cope with a job that may make great demands of us. Or lead any life that is not endlessly rewarding. I was married to a wonderful woman who worked as a nurse on a new unit that specialised in babies born with spina bifida. So little was known about the disease that the babies with the most extreme symptoms were simply left to die. It broke her heart and she would sometimes weep when she told me about the latest death. But she would have scoffed at the notion that she had mental health issues. Many years later, she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Our daughter gave up her job, her career and her home in London and moved to Wales to care for her night and day until the inevitable end. And I thought about her and her mother on Monday when I read Dominic Lawsons moving description in these pages of having a baby 25 years ago with Downs syndrome. A child who many profoundly ignorant people said should never have been born. In todays world, all three (my daughter, her mother and Dominic) would probably have been offered help for the mental health issues brought about by the stress from which they would surely have been deemed to be suffering. Well meaning, perhaps, but profoundly mistaken. The assumption underlying this disturbing new philosophy is that we are nothing but machines that must be regularly serviced and repaired when something goes wrong. We are not. I know what gave my daughter and her mother the strength to do what they did and Im pretty sure I know what motivated Dominic and his wife. Its called love. That is not a mental health issue. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have told friends they are 'not ready' to head back to the UK for a Christmas family reunion, a source has claimed. The Duke, 36, and Duchess of Sussex, 39, reportedly have no plans of returning to the UK to spend December 25 with the Queen and the rest of the royal family - marking the second year they will have been absent for Christmas. The couple, who last year reportedly spent the festive season with the duchess' mother Doria Ragland and their son Archie in Canada, previously spent every Christmas since their 2017 engagement at the Queen's Sandringham Estate. 'At this stage they are really enjoying their new life in California and their new home,' a well-placed source told Vanity Fair's Katie Nicholl. 'There are currently no plans for them to return to the U.K. for Christmas.' Prince Harry, 36, and Meghan Markle, 39, have told friends they are 'not ready' to head back to the UK for a Christmas family reunion, a source has claimed. Pictured, making a special appearance during the TIME 100 special The Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex, 39, reportedly have no plans of returning to the UK to spend December 25 with the Queen and the rest of the royal family - marking the second year they were absent for Christmas. Pictured, the royals arriving to attend the Christmas Day morning church service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, Norfolk However, friends of the royal couple believe they won't be returning to the UK for the festive season because a family reunion would be tense after the reported fallout of the 'Fab Four.' 'Let's just say that while things are better between Harry and his brother, it's not what it was, and I don't think anyone is ready for a cozy family Christmas right now,' the source added. It comes as historian and royal biographer Robert Lacey is set to release a book called Battle Of Brothers, which picks apart in uncompromising detail the feud between Prince William and Prince Harry. Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said: 'When I started to look into this supposed feud between the two princes, I didnt believe it. Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and their baby son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation during their royal tour of South Africa on September 25, 2019 in Cape Town 'I thought it was newspapers stirring up something that wasnt there. I didnt want to believe it, in truth. None of us does. Yet it most definitely exists. Actually, its worse than anyone thinks.' He continued: Some say, Oh, it doesnt matter. It will blow over. But thats not what historians will be saying in ten years time. 'If this breach between the brothers is not healed in some way it will come to stand with the Abdication crisis and the death of Diana as one of the traumas that changed the monarchy. 'There is time to change things in a positive direction, but at the moment the Palace is not working in that direction. India on Saturday said a decision to re-open the would be taken in accordance with the protocols relating COVID-19 and easing of restrictions. The comments by spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivastava came in the wake of Pakistan's proposal to reopen the corridor which was shut in March in view of the pandemic. In November last year, the two countries threw open the corridor linking Dera Baba Sahib in Gurdaspur in India and Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, in a historic people-to-people initiative. "As you are aware, movement was suspended in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak. We remain in touch with all concerned authorities including ministries of home affairs and health and family welfare," Srivastava said, responding to a media query on the issue. "A decision on re-opening of the corridor would be taken in accordance with the COVID-19 protocols and easing of restrictions," he said. Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara is located in Pakistan's Narowal district across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. It is the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev, who had spent the last 18 years of his life in Kartarpur. In his comments, Srivastava also said that Pakistan is yet to construct a bridge at Budhi Ravi channel as promised last year. "At the time of opening of the last year and in the bilateral agreement signed in October 2019, it was decided that both sides shall establish requisite infrastructure including construction of a bridge at Budhi Ravi channel at the earliest for safe and hassle-free movement of pilgrims," he said. "One year hence, Pakistan is yet to construct the bridge while it is ready at our end. A technical meeting with Pakistan was also facilitated and two teams met on August 27. There is, however, no progress on part of Pakistan," the spokesperson said. The was thrown open in the midst of heightened tension between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir issue. The relations between the two countries nosedived after India scrapped Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5, 2019 and bifurcated it into two union territories. (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.) Home Secretary Priti Patel, pictured, plans to set out the new legislation at the Conservative Party conference this weekend Only one in 70 migrants who crossed the Channel since April have been deported, Home Office figures have revealed as Priti Patel vows to fix the 'broken' asylum system. The Home Secretary plans to make the announcement at the Conservative Party conference, starting today as a virtual event. She is understood to be setting out a 'fair border bill', which will make people put forward all their reasons for refugee status at the start of their asylum application in the hope of deterring them from extending the process, and will come into place after the Brexit transition period. It follows the Home Office revealing that only 76 of the 5,330 migrants who made the crossing in the last five months have been deported from Britain. Speaking on the plans, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told The Times: 'Of course we scope a whole range of things, including how we use our international partners or otherwise to deal with that. 'That happens all the time. We wont be doing our job if we didnt know all options whether its to rule them in or out.' He suggested Ms Patel would present changes to the law, adding that the cabinet will stay united in stopping abuse while sticking to the UK's 'best traditions of being a haven for those who flee persecution'. The past week has seen several reports emerge describing extraordinary measures being mooted by the Home Office to get to grips with migration. One claimed that Ms Patel had instructed her department to weigh up the logistics of shipping migrants to islands and far-flung overseas territories for processing, including Ascension Island, 4,000 miles away in the south Atlantic. Others revealed proposals for a wave machine in the Channel to push back boats trying to make the crossing, and a plan to house those who do reach British waters on disused ferries. A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover, Kent, by Border Force on Tuesday following a small boat incident in the English Channel A further 13 migrants arrived in Dover by dinghy on Tuesday after crossing the Channel in the dark on Monday night. Around 40 people are understood to have been detained The briefings have infuriated the upper echelons of the Home Office, with Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft confirming an inquiry into the leaks. Nicola Sturgeon waded into the row yesterday, saying: 'They can rest assured that any proposal to treat human beings like cattle in a holding pen will be met with the strongest possible opposition from me.' Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds added: 'The Tories are lurching from one inhumane and impractical idea to another. 'The idea of sending people to Ascension Island, creating waves in the English Channel to wash boats back and buying ferries and oil rigs to process asylum claims shows the Government has lost control and all sense of compassion.' Discarded clothes and and shoes were spotted strewn across the beach on Tuesday morning Up to forty migrants arriving by dinghy are brought into the harbour on Tuesday morning The latest migrant crossing came as it was revealed that asylum seekers who are being housed in an army barracks in Kent are being crammed into rooms of 20 people It came as a plane chartered by the Home Office flew a single Channel migrant out of the country earlier this week after last-minute legal challenges blocked 29 other removals. Dozens of migrants made it across the Channel in small boats on Tuesday for the first time in a week, with around 40 people understood to have been detained. One boat with 13 people - 11 men and two teenage boys - landed on Shakespeare's Beach at Dover in Kent with a second thought to have landed further down the coast at Kingsdown near Deal. The latest migrant crossing came as it was revealed that asylum seekers who are being housed in an army barracks in Kent are being crammed into rooms of 20 people. Refugees who are staying at the Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, said that 20 people are being forced to share two toilets and two showers between them, amid the coronavirus pandemic. Disappointed with the slow pace of work in various fronts, Navi Mumbai municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar has given directives to all the health department officers and staff that no delay will, henceforth, be tolerated with any health-related work. Most delays relate to buying of medicines, medical equipment and other purchases important to fight the pandemic. Mahendra Konde, Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) PRO, said, The commissioner insisted that the health department has to work in sync with engineering department. When a Covid facility is made ready by engineering department, the health department, too, has to be ready with all the supplies required there and for that a proper coordination is needed. Bangar said that a very close attention is required to be given to all medical facilities, especially the stock of medicines. He insisted that no comprises should be made for making the purchase of required goods. He also added that anyone found providing medical equipment and other medical goods of low grade quality, should be immediately black listed and, if required, a case be registered. Every purchase should be compared with market value. Bangar added that after he noticed a few delays in work, he took a review meeting with the health department to convey the same. I noticed a few delays. For instance, after the first tendering call, if we dont get response, a second call needs to be made. The second call can be made within four working days. But in some cases, two weeks have been taken, which delays the work. I noticed a sense of lack of urgency during the Covid times, which was addressed. The main intention was to give the message that they are being watched and no compromise in any facility or material would be tolerated, he said. A health officer from NMMC said, The commissioner was upset due to some backlogs. We are also working under high pressure for many months. Hence, sometimes some work gets delayed. We are trying our best to cope up. Readers hoping to buy Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock is about to trade ex-dividend. You will need to purchase shares before the 8th of October to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 2nd of November. Verizon Communications's next dividend payment will be US$0.63 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$2.46 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Verizon Communications has a trailing yield of approximately 4.2% on its current stock price of $59.24. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. So we need to investigate whether Verizon Communications can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow. Check out our latest analysis for Verizon Communications Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. Verizon Communications paid out 53% of its earnings to investors last year, a normal payout level for most businesses. Yet cash flow is typically more important than profit for assessing dividend sustainability, so we should always check if the company generated enough cash to afford its dividend. It distributed 48% of its free cash flow as dividends, a comfortable payout level for most companies. It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Stocks in companies that generate sustainable earnings growth often make the best dividend prospects, as it is easier to lift the dividend when earnings are rising. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. For this reason, we're glad to see Verizon Communications's earnings per share have risen 14% per annum over the last five years. Verizon Communications has an average payout ratio which suggests a balance between growing earnings and rewarding shareholders. Given the quick rate of earnings per share growth and current level of payout, there may be a chance of further dividend increases in the future. Story continues Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. In the past 10 years, Verizon Communications has increased its dividend at approximately 2.6% a year on average. It's good to see both earnings and the dividend have improved - although the former has been rising much quicker than the latter, possibly due to the company reinvesting more of its profits in growth. The Bottom Line Should investors buy Verizon Communications for the upcoming dividend? Verizon Communications's growing earnings per share and conservative payout ratios make for a decent combination. We also like that it paid out a lower percentage of its cash flow. Overall we think this is an attractive combination and worthy of further research. While it's tempting to invest in Verizon Communications for the dividends alone, you should always be mindful of the risks involved. For example - Verizon Communications has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of. A common investment mistake is buying the first interesting stock you see. Here you can find a list of promising dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com. White House Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows said Friday U.S. President Donald Trump is experiencing mild effects of the coronavirus after he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19. The president does have mild symptoms and as we look to try to make sure that not only his health and safety and welfare is good, we continue to look at that for all of the American people, Meadows said as he spoke to reporters at the White House. Trump's chief of staff said the president is not only in good spirits, but very energetic and remains committed to working very hard on behalf of the American people. In the early morning hours on Friday (04:54 UTC), Trump tweeted: Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020 Minutes later, the White House released a memorandum from the 74-year-old presidents physician, Dr. Sean Conley, confirming the positive tests for the Trumps. The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence, Conley said. He added that he expects the president to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering, and I will keep you posted on any future developments. Melania Trump later tweeted, As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together. Thank you for the love you are sending our way. I have mild symptoms but overall feeling good. I am looking forward to a speedy recovery. Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) October 2, 2020 All of Trumps political events for the near future were quickly ordered canceled, according to a White House official. The news immediately caused U.S. stock futures to plunge and potentially puts Trumps presidential campaign into hiatus, barely a month before the election against former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads in the national polls. Trump, who for months has played down the seriousness of the coronavirus, on Thursday evening confirmed during a telephone interview on the Fox News Channel that he and the first lady had been tested after one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks, was confirmed to be infected. Hope Hicks, (L), an advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, White House special assistant Nicholas Luna (2nd L), President Trump's senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and White House staffers depart Washington. Hicks, counselor to the president, traveled with Trump to Pennsylvania for a campaign rally on Saturday, then to Cleveland for the presidential debate on Tuesday and to Minnesota for campaign events the following day. Hicks was showing symptoms at a political rally Wednesday evening in Duluth, Minnesota, and tested positive Thursday morning, according to officials who spoke on condition of not being named. Trump on Thursday, however, along with some top officials, flew to New Jersey for a political fundraising event where he was in close contact with dozens of other people. During the telephone interview with Fox News show host Sean Hannity, the president suggested Hicks could have contracted the virus from members of the military or law enforcement. It is very, very hard when you are with people from the military, or from law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them, said Trump. You get close, and things happen. I was surprised to hear with Hope, but she is a very warm person with them. She knows theres a risk, but she is young. The president, however, in the eighth decade of his life, is in a high-risk category for the coronavirus, but is otherwise believed to be in good health. Age, Weight Factor into Trump's COVID Prognosis The president is at higher risk of a severe case of COVID-19, but his prognosis is hard to predict Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, tested negative for COVID-19 early Friday, according to spokesman Devin OMalley. The spokesman said Pence remains in good health and wishes the Trumps well in their recovery. As has been routine for months, Vice President Pence is tested for COVID-19 every day. This morning, Vice President Pence and the Second Lady tested negative for COVID-19. Vice President Pence remains in good health and wishes the Trumps well in their recovery. Devin OMalley (@VPPressSec) October 2, 2020 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday he and his wife, Susan Pompeo, also tested negative. Pompeo said he and his wife were examined on an airplane 20 minutes before landing in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The countrys top diplomat told reporters upon arrival that he last saw Trump on September 15 at the White House and said, We are praying for the president and First Lady that theyll have a speedy recovery. An unnamed senior White House official told Reuters that Trump, Pence and their staffs will work in separate facilities to safeguard the vice president if he is forced to assume presidential responsibilities if Trumps condition deteriorates. What we have done out of an abundance of caution, we have separated the VP and the president we separated the staffs, in case something happens, the official said. Also Friday, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah tweeted that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and will remain isolated for the next 10 days. Nearly 7.3 million people in the United States have been infected with COVID-19 and more than 208,000 have died the most reported by any country, according to Johns Hopkins University. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. President Donald Trump took to social media Friday evening to thank supporters before being transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support, Trump said. I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out. The president walked onto Marine One a little after 6:15 p.m. before the helicopter took him to Walter Reed in Bethesda, Maryland. The president announced early Friday morning that he and first lady Melania Trump both tested positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19). Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19, Trump wrote in a tweet. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! In a memorandum, the presidents physician said that Trump and the first lady, who is 50, are both well at this time and plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence. Rest assured I expect the President to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering, he added. The presidents condition had apparently worsened before being transported to Walter Reed. The positive test came hours after Trump confirmed that Hope Hicks, one his closest aides, had tested positive for the virus, according to multiple reports. Visakhapatnam, Oct 3 : The Visakhapatnam civic body officials on Saturday demolished a part of former MP and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Sabbam Hari's home due to alleged encroachment of a park, drawing protest from the opposition party. "Demolition was taken up with the help of police and encroached land taken in possession by Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC). A fence was put up around the said land," said a civic body official. According to officials, Hari had allegedly encroached 212 square yards and even failed to respond to a notice on Friday to remove the encroachment. "Since the security did not allow us inside to serve the notice and the building owner refused to accept it, the notice was pasted on the wall of the building and recorded accordingly," said the official. The unauthorised structure was built on the western side of APSEB park, for which Hari obtained permission to construct a residential building with ground and first floor. Incidentally, residents of APSEB colony had lodged a complaint with the civic body on September 5, saying that a part of the park was encroached by a private person using his power and influence. However, the demolition happened within a day of serving the notice. TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu questioned the demolition. "I protest the demolition of TDP leader Sabbam Hari's home. What was the need to demolish it during the night," said Naidu. He said that if a former MP faced a situation like this, what would be the fate of the common man. The race for Harris County District Attorney likely will come down to two things: party and voters definitions of law and order. Incumbent Kim Ogg has the edge in the former, running as a Democratic officeholder in the most populous blue county in Texas. Republican Mary Nan Huffman hopes the latter will give her the advantage in what political observers say is an uphill battle. Its the only (race) where the Republicans have even a ghost of a chance of winning in the cycle, said Mark Jones, a professor at Rice Universitys Department of Political Science. She still is an extreme long shot. While Ogg frequently is the target of criticism by Huffmans employer, the Houston Police Officers Union, the incumbent insists she has not veered to the far left on policing issues, adding she tries to walk the line between demands for public safety and criminal justice reform. Ogg, 60, touts her indictments against multiple police officers in the fallout of a botched narcotics raid on Harding Street that left two residents dead, as well as her program to divert misdemeanor marijuana possession cases from the court system. She also repeatedly has requested more prosecutors for her office and opposed a landmark settlement over the countys use of cash bail for poor defendants, saying it did not do enough to protect the public from violent criminals. Ogg was a longtime prosecutor before becoming the gang czar for Houston Mayor Bob Lanier. She subsequently served as executive director of Crimestoppers of Houston for six years before moving into private legal practice. She was elected district attorney on her second attempt in 2016. Huffman, who brands herself as not a politician on her campaign website, is a former prosecutor in Montgomery County, where she was the felony chief in the Child Exploitation Division and the Internet Crimes Against Children Division. The 37-year-old now is now an attorney for the Houston Police Officers Union, which has endorsed her and long been a staunch critic of Ogg. Huffman said Harris County has not remained a safe place under Oggs leadership, whom she views as a progressive. On Twitter, she frequently shares stories about defendants who are released on bond and are accused of more crimes. In interviews, she often mentions streets being flooded with criminals let out on sweetheart deal after sweetheart deal. Harris County isnt safer than it was four years ago weve seen crime rise throughout Harris County, she said. Public safety should be the one thing that the government provides for its people. More Information Harris County District Attorney's race Democrat Kim Ogg, 60, incumbent v Republican Mary Nan Huffman,37, legal counsel for the Houston Police Officers' Union See More Collapse TEXAS TAKE: Catch the political news you need every weekday at HoustonChronicle.com. Houston saw an uptick in violent crime for the first half of the year, with murders, aggravated assaults, robberies and sexual assaults up 6 percent in the first six months of 2020 over the same period in 2019. Aggravated assaults increased 21 percent overall from the first half of 2019. Robberies and sexual assaults were down. Whether Huffmans rhetoric about rising crime rates will tilt voters in her favor remains to be seen, said Jeronimo Cortina, associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. Perception is key, he said, and people are more likely to vote for Huffman if they agree that crime is as bad as she says. Its not very clear to me that such an argument can sway a lot of voters, Cortina said. If you go out and you dont see it, you dont see people being mugged in the street or robbing a liquor store, a voter is going to create cognitive dissonance. Ogg and Huffman agree that the district attorneys office needs to do its part to alleviate mounting caseloads in the district courts, especially the more than 1,300 murder and capital murder cases awaiting resolution. The similarities mostly stop there, however. Ogg said she wants a better flow of evidence from police to attorneys at the start of prosecutions; Huffman said major problems stem from inexperienced prosecutors in Oggs intake division. Ogg still wants more staff to handle the increasing caseloads. Huffman said she wants to return to at least a staffing level that makes up for prosecutors that Ogg lost during her first term, one of her major criticisms of the incumbent. Huffman also has accused Ogg of being unethical in choosing which cases to prosecute, such as a failed environmental crimes prosecution against Houston Ship Channel chemical plant Arkema. After finding that prosecutors did not prove their case, Judge Belinda Hill last week issued a directed verdict acquitting three defendants in the trial. Another two defendants had already been dismissed. She also pointed to several people who left the prosecutors office, saying Ogg cared more about prosecutorial wins than obtaining justice. She picks and chooses what cases to prosecute based on a political agenda and not facts and evidence, and that should scare everyone, Huffman said. We need a DA who does the right thing every single time. Ogg denied the accusations. She chalked up some employees dissatisfaction with the office to a changing of the old guard. And she questioned whether Harris County residents would be receptive to a law-and-order district attorney after four years of progressive change. It would be a setback to have somebody who is single-mindedly pro-police, Ogg said. Huffman said she still plans to hold officers accountable when they take advantage of Harris County residents. On HoustonChronicle.com: Emails show independent investigator hired to assist Harris County DA Kim Ogg has been sidelined I do support law enforcement but I support good law enforcement, Huffman said. Nobody likes a bad cop. Huffman has said she would recuse the office from the Harding Street investigations to avoid conflict of interest perceptions, but Ogg said voters should consider whether they want the county to turn over a police corruption case to be tried in a surrounding county that may be friendlier to police. Oggs 2016 election was part of a Democratic sweep of every countywide office. She garnered support for her promises of criminal justice reform, but some of those early supporters have drifted, instead backing two of her primary opponents who branded themselves as more progressive than Ogg. Jones said Oggs centrist position is likely what will help her in November. Kim Ogg doesnt leave much space in the center that Huffman could move over and occupy and win in Harris County, Jones said. The only way for Huffman to win is to convince a significant number of voters going Democrat up and down the ballot to vote for her rather than Kim Ogg. Cortina anticipates voters will remain polarized along party lines, even though Ogg faces some dissatisfaction within her own party. Ogg's struggles with some Democrats are unlikely to make a big difference, because it was not effective in the primary, he said. The attacks that she had in the primary from the left didnt work very well because she won the nomination, Cortina said. For her part, the incumbent maintains her position as a reformer and promotes her misdemeanor marijuana program, police prosecutions and exoneration of previously incarcerated defendants as examples of a progressive agenda. Weve only just begun the massive changes that I foresee happening in criminal justice across the country, she said. At least, weve begun here in pretty significant approaches and results. Huffman is running as a Republican, but said her candidacy is not about political party. If Kim Ogg had done a good job, I wouldnt have run against her, Huffman said. Im running for the people of Harris County. I think it has nothing to do with her being a Democrat. samantha.ketterer@chron.com Technavio has been monitoring the canned food market and it is poised to grow by USD 19.52 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 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/20201002005031/en/ Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Canned Food Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire) 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=IRTNTR44324 This Report Addresses: The market size from 2020-2024 Expected market growth until 2024 Forecast of how market drivers, restraints, and future opportunities will affect the market dynamics Segments and regions that will drive or lead market growth and why Comprehensive mapping of the competitive landscape In-depth analysis of key sustainability strategies adopted by market players 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 product, which is the leading segment in the market? Canned fish and seafood is expected to be the leading segment based on product in the global market during the forecast period. What are the major trends in the market? Rising need for convenience in terms of food consumption is one of the major trends in the market. At what rate is the market projected to grow? Growing at a CAGR of almost 4%, the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be USD 19.52 billion. Who are the top players in the market? Bolton Group Srl, Campbell Soup Co., Conagra Brands Inc., Del Monte Pacific Ltd., General Mills Inc., Nestle SA, Princes Ltd., The Hain Celestial Group Inc., The J.M. Smucker Co., and The Kraft Heinz Co. are some of the major market participants. What are the key market drivers and challenges? New product launches is one of the major factors driving the market. However, product recalls will restrain market growth. How big is the North America market? The North America region will contribute 32% of market growth. The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Bolton Group Srl, Campbell Soup Co., Conagra Brands Inc., Del Monte Pacific Ltd., General Mills Inc., Nestle SA, Princes Ltd., The Hain Celestial Group Inc., The J.M. Smucker Co., and The Kraft Heinz Co. are some of the major market participants. The new product launches 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. Canned Food Market 2020-2024: Segmentation Canned Food Market is segmented as below: Product Canned Fish and Seafood Canned Vegetables Canned Meat Canned Ready Meals Others Geography Europe North America APAC MEA South America Distribution channel Offline Online Canned Food 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 canned food market report covers the following areas: Canned Food Market Size Canned Food Market Trends Canned Food Market Analysis This study identifies rising need for convenience in terms of food consumption as one of the prime reasons driving the canned food 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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Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform Canned Food Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024 Detailed information on factors that will assist canned food market growth during the next five years Estimation of the canned food market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the canned food market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of canned food 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 Product Market segments Comparison by Product Canned fish and seafood Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Canned vegetables Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Canned meat Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Canned ready meals Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Others Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Market opportunity by Product Market Segmentation by Distribution channel Market segments Comparison by Distribution channel Offline Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Online Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Market opportunity by Distribution channel Customer landscape Geographic Landscape Geographic segmentation Geographic comparison Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024 North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024 APAC 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 Market drivers Market challenges Market trends Vendor Landscape Overview Vendor landscape Landscape disruption Vendor Analysis Vendors covered Market positioning of vendors Bolton Group Srl Campbell Soup Co. Conagra Brands Inc. Del Monte Pacific Ltd. General Mills Inc. Nestle SA Princes Ltd. The Hain Celestial Group Inc. The J.M. Smucker Co. The Kraft Heinz Co. 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/20201002005031/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/ A recent Telegraph political cartoon (Sept. 29) is appallingly offensive to the millions of Americans of faith who defend a womans right to choose. The first frame Justice is Blind is a blindfolded justice. The next Bigotry Isnt shows the Left, ugly faces screaming Christian! Bible Thumper! Believer! at a frightened Judge Barrett. The cartoon twists a difference of principle and not just on the left into a bias against religion. A majority of Americans support Roe vs. Wade, the constitutional defense of a womans right to an abortion. Judge Amy Barretts Catholic faith and past statements indicate that, as a Supreme Court justice, she may not support that right. Disagreeing does not make one anti-Catholic, anti-Christian or anti-faith of any sort. A Uyghur farmer seized at night from his home by police three years ago and sent to internment camps with his wife died ten days after being taken into custody, with his body later dumped by authorities in the courtyard of his home, RFA has learned. Tursunjan Sawut and his wife Gulbehrem, residents of No. 2 Village in Ghulja countys Dongmazar township, were arrested at night in early 2017 when more than 30 police cars, all with their lights turned off, surrounded the couples home, RFAs Uyghur Service was told in a tip only recently received from a source in exile. Around 10 police officers dressed in black then scaled the wall of their house, pulled hoods over their heads, and drove them away, RFAs source said, adding, Ten days later, more police cars arrived in the village, this time with [Tursunjans] body wrapped in white cloth. Tursunjans body was then left in the courtyard of his familys home for several hours with its face covered before being taken by police to a nearby cemetery, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Tursunjan was around 40 years of age and was reportedly in good health at the time of his arrest and brief incarceration, sources said. Gulbehrems relatives and neighbors have meanwhile received no word of her present whereabouts or condition. Gulbehrem, who was sent to an internment camp separate from her husbands, was not allowed to attend Tursunjans burial, and it is unclear whether she is even aware that her husband had died. The couple reportedly have three children and a number of close family members still living. A police officer working in Dongmazar and familiar with the couples case confirmed Tursunjans and Gulbehrems arrest, saying the pair had been taken away for engaging in improper studiesa phrase likely indicating involvement in Islamic prayer or other religious practices. They did pray, but I dont know much else about them, he said. Declining to say whether he had been part of the team that took the couple away, the officer did admit to working with officers in other villages on similar cases. Because we have different districts were responsible for overseeing, we have to take care of matters in our own villages when they arise. But sometimes we team up with other groups working on other cases, he said. The officer said that Gulbehrem is now being held for re-education in an undisclosed internment camp. She still hasnt gotten out, he said. More camps being built China has built 380 internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since 2017, and is still constructing facilities, despite claims by Chinese authorities that the re-education program is wrapping up and the trainees have graduated and returned to society, an Australian think tank has found. The latest findings by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute come amid rising international scrutiny of Beijings sprawling network of camps in the XUAR, and follow moves in Washington including sanctions on Xinjiang officials, blacklists of companies suspected of exporting goods made with Uyghur forced labor, and debate on genocide charges. Beginning in October 2018, China acknowledged the existence of the camps, but described them as voluntary vocational centers set up to combat radical Islamic terrorism. But RFAs Uyghur Service has found that detainees are mostly held against their will and forced to endure inhumane treatment and political indoctrination. Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Richard Finney. Government Briefs UK Members of Parliament The Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and the Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia held a virtual meeting with members of the All Party Group on Gibraltar yesterday, which included Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords with Group Chair Sir Bob Neil MP. The meeting included a broad cross spectrum of Members from the Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and the Democratic Unionist Party The purpose of the meeting was to provide an update to those present on the ongoing negotiations for a future relationship between Gibraltar and the European Union. The Chief Minister explained the objectives of the Gibraltar Government which were for an agreement on the future which does not cross Gibraltars red lines on sovereignty, jurisdiction and control. The Deputy Chief Minister provided an update on the plans for leaving the transition at the end of the year without an agreement. There was a keen interest on the part of MPs and Peers in the situation here, which was reflected in many questions, and they expressed their continued support for Gibraltar going forward. A little more than two days before she reported testing positive for the coronavirus, first lady Melania Trump - as well as the president's sons, daughters and several guests - violated safety protocols at the first presidential debate by taking off their masks after being seated in a live studio audience in Cleveland. Several in the president's entourage continued without masks after an official from the Cleveland Clinic, which co-hosted the debate, offered them masks in case they didn't have any, according to debate moderator Chris Wallace. "They waved them away," Wallace said on Fox News on Friday morning. It was a violation of rules that both campaigns agreed to, Frank Fahrenkopf, head of the Commission on Presidential Debates, said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The first family came in wearing masks, but they took them off. The rules said you had to wear a mask," Fahrenkopf said. "Everyone in that hall was supposed to keep the mask on, other than the president, Biden and Chris Wallace." In a statement, the Cleveland Clinic, the health adviser to the debate commission, confirmed that some unidentified members of the audience did not follow the rules during the 90-minute debate. "Individuals entering the debate hall were masked and in some cases removed their masks once seated," the statement said. "A Cleveland Clinic physician did offer audience members masks, but some did not adhere to the requirement." The confluence of the two major party candidates, their staffs and guests - all indoors in the same room for an extended period of time - has put a spotlight on the president's disregard for virus precautions two days before he, his wife and close aide Hope Hicks would test positive. All three attended the debate. Former vice president Joe Biden and his wife underwent testing Friday morning and reported the tests were negative. The Cleveland Clinic said Friday that it believes the risk for transmission at the event was low, but the clinic has begun reaching out to all attendees to offer testing. Democrats on Friday raised questions about the coronavirus safety protocols around the debate and even whether the debate should have been allowed to begin while audience members openly flouted safety protocols. Some said future debates, if they go on, will need even stricter guidelines and enforcement. On Tuesday, there were essentially twosets of protocols for debate attendees - one for campaigns and their guests, and one for everyone else. University officials, journalists and others in the roughly 80-member audience were required to arrive early and submit to nasal swab testing before the debate. A Post reporter credentialed for the debate arrived Monday, submitted to a test and was told to return to her hotel and await results. Within four hours, she and other reporters were notified by email or text. They were then fitted with bracelets showing they were negative, which granted them access to a press building blocks away from the debate venue. By contrast, campaigns were responsible for testing candidates and their guests, the Cleveland Clinic confirmed in a statement Friday. "Individuals traveling with both candidates, including the candidates themselves, had been tested and tested negative by their respective campaigns," the statement said. The clinic added that it believes there was "low risk of exposure to our guests" during the debate due to safety protocols, which also included social distancing, hand sanitizing and temperature checks. The president and his guests at the debate received rapid coronavirus tests on Tuesday, White House officials said. Rapid tests differ from the PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, tests that are considered the gold standard for diagnosis of acute coronavirus infection. The White House in March began using rapid tests made by Abbott Laboratories. The tests produce results in five to 13 minutes, but in a study earlier this year they missed a third of the positive samples identified by another brand. Some more recent academic studies have said Abbott's tests miss infections 20 to 30% of the time. The company says they perform far more accurately than that when used as intended. Fahrenkopf said the debate commission was told of no positive tests in advance of the event. According to White House officials, neither the president, nor Hicks nor other aides wore masks on the trip to Cleveland. At the debate hall Tuesday, roughly 80 chairs were spaced apart with anti-bacterial wipes set on each, and signs were posted reminding guests to social distance, according to dispatches filed by Anita Kumar, a Politico reporter who was the designated pool reporter for the White House Correspondents' Association and was allowed to enter the venue ahead of most guests. The campaigns had each been allotted 15 tickets, and Kumar found most of those on Trump's side had chairs reserved by name: first lady Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Phoebe Meadows and Blake Meadows. Filling in a seat behind Guilfoyle was UFC fighter Colby Covington, and behind Ivanka Trump was Alice Johnson, a criminal justice reform advocate. By the time Melania Trump entered, minutes before the debate began, all of the Trump guests had taken off their masks. The Cleveland Clinic health safety official, wearing a white lab coat, soon approached the Trump group, according to Wallace. The official "offered them masks in case they didn't have them, and they were waved away," Wallace, a Fox News anchor, said Friday morning in an interview on the network. "And people in the hall noticed." "That actually violated the rules of the Cleveland Clinic," Wallace said. Wallace's account echoed that of NBC reporter Marianna Sotomayor, who tweeted: "I witnessed a Cleveland Clinic doctor remind Trump's guests to wear a mask, even offering them surgical ones on the off chance they didn't have one. None of them put on a mask. The doctor looked frustrated as she stepped away, prompting a staffer to say, 'That's all you can do.' " In Cleveland, wearing a mask in nonresidential indoor spaces is required under an ordinance that has been in place since July. The event was held inside a pavilion on the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic is advising the Commission on Presidential Debates about health safety at all of this year's presidential debates. "Debate precautions will be aligned with county, state and CDC guidelines for health, safety and physical distancing," it says on its website. Even before the news that Trump contracted the coronavirus, the Biden campaign had been pressing the Commission on Presidential Debates to change the format of the vice-presidential exchange and require the candidates to stand about 12 feet apart - as Biden and Trump did - rather than be seated about seven feet apart, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Biden's team believes the news about Trump will prompt the commission to agree, said the person, who is not authorized to publicly discuss internal campaign deliberations: "The pressure is on the commission to err on the side of safety right now." Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, was in the debate hall on Tuesday night, and on Friday morning went to get tested for the coronavirus. "I started my morning off with a cup of coffee, Maria Bartiromo, and then a Q-Tip down my nose," he said. He expressed anger at the Trump family for not wearing masks during the debate, as they were instructed to do. "The rules don't apply to them," he said. - - - The Washington Post's Anne Gearan, Annie Linskey and Pauline Villegas contributed to this report. The coronavirus outbreak in Wisconsin is currently one of the worst in the United States, with more than 2,500 new cases being reported each day in the last week. More than 17,000 people in Wisconsin tested positive in the last week. On Friday, the state reported the third highest daily total in the country with 2,745 new cases. Five deaths were recorded with more than 25,000 active cases. With the rise in infections, hospitals in northern Wisconsin are being inundated by coronavirus cases. A child receives a COVID-19 test [Credit: Envato] Matthew Heywood, president and CEO of Aspirus HealthCare in Wausau, a city of 40,000 in central Wisconsin, told the Associated Press (AP), The problem is, how do we care for you when you have an accident when we have an overflow of COVID patients? Theres only so much you can do before you start to overwhelm the system. Heywood also said Aspirus is placing patients on waiting lists and has seen a 30 percent increase of COVID-19 patients over the course of the last five days. If its growing the way that it has for the past week or so, were going to be in a dire situation in two, three, four weeks, Michael Hooker, vice president and chief medical officer for acute care at ThedaCare, a hospital chain in the Fox Valley, explained to the AP. Yes, we saw this coming but didnt expect it to be quite so rapid. While the reopening of schools and universities drove the spread of the disease among young people earlier in September, officials are reporting that infections are now growing among other age groups as well. Dane County, the location of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reports 45 percent of COVID-19 cases are found among 18- to 22-year-olds. However, the county has seen a 28 percent rise in cases among other age groups in recent weeks. Green Bay public schools shut buildings to all teachers and staff who had been using the buildings to teach virtually. The areas private Catholic schools will be closed to students beginning next week and online instruction begins Tuesday. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and those in intensive care units more than doubled over the last month. On Thursday, 669 coronavirus patients were hospitalized, and 208 were in an intensive care unit. On September 1, 295 were hospitalized and 100 in intensive care. Amid the rapid spread of the virus in the state and dire warnings from health officials, Republican leaders appeared in court this week to support a lawsuit from the right-wing Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty against Democratic Governor Tony Evers statewide mask mandate. The states Republican-dominated Supreme Court struck down statewide social distancing restrictions in May. The explosion of the pandemic in the state is beginning to impact the entire Midwest region. Near the border with Wisconsin, in northern Illinois, 26 of 42 Rockford public schools are reporting cases, along with all the area colleges. Significant numbers of workers commute from state to state in the region for work, driving from Wisconsin into Illinois or from Illinois into Missouri to work in the large manufacturing plants in the region, including FCA Belvidere, not far from Beloit, and GM Wentzville. As the regional infection rates climb, factories with thousands of workers in close proximity represent a major risk for spreading the pandemic. Amazon has announced that more than 19,000 of its workers in the US have been infected with COVID-19. In Missouri on Friday, officials reported 1,942 new cases and 29 deaths, bringing the states total to 133,439 confirmed cases and 2,268 deaths. The rising number of infections is currently being driven by rural counties, according to the state health department. New Madrid County, which has a population of about 17,000, reported a positivity rate of 49.5 percent on Friday. Pemiscot County reported a positivity rate of 41 percent. Both areas are located in the southeastern-most portion of the state bordering Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee. The City of St. Louis Department of Health has called for those who attended the BikeFest in September, an annual motorcycle event outside the Lake of the Ozarks that draws over 100,000 people to the region, to get tested for COVID-19. Cases have been steadily rising in St. Charles County, covering the northwestern outer suburbs of St. Louis, with 8,142 positive cases and 129 deaths as of October 1 in a county of 402,000. Last week, businesses in the Main Street district of the city of St. Charles ended live music at 11:00 p.m. and imposed capacity limits after wide condemnation over images of packed crowds spread across social media. Jefferson County south of St. Louis remains in the red zone, reporting 64 new cases on Friday. The Jefferson County Health Department has called for more restrictions to be placed on the county which has met resistance from local political leaders and some members of the public. Jefferson County Health Director Kelley Vollmar has said that COVID-19 hospitalizations have gone up 90 percent in the last 30 days. Students have begun to return to in-person instruction in public schools in St. Louis County for at least two days a week. Rockwood School District had children through second grade return September 30. Mehlville School District plans to return third through eighth grade students on a hybrid model by October 8. Affton School District will follow the same plan beginning October 13. Lindbergh School District will have children returning starting October 5. Unbelievably, the Lindbergh school district admits on its website that though there are cleaning and social distancing plans in place: It is important to understand that these precautions will not necessarily eliminate COVID-19 from our learning environments. Worry from parents has forced the school districts to allow parents the option to continue having their students study all-online. About 40 percent of parents in the Affton School District are choosing to have their children remain at home. St. Louis County Executive Dan Page announced on September 23 that there will be a rollback of restrictions on youth sports. Before this announcement, St. Louis County-based Incarnate Word Academy held its girls softball games in neighboring St. Charles County. Republican Governor Mike Parson and First Lady Teresa Parson have both reportedly tested positive for the virus, and after just one week of quarantine the governor announced he would be returning to his usual schedule. The personal infection of the Missouri ruling elite will not stop them from doing all in their power to have the economy functioning normally at the expense of thousands of workers lives. As with the entire nation, the pandemic is deeply affecting Missouris economy. Restaurant chain P.F. Changs announced it will lay off 150 workers throughout the state, and 208 workers are to be laid off from the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in the Central West End district of St. Louis City. Three of the state-run Missouri visitors centers will close. Missouri Amtrak employees will be part of the 2,000 total employees nationwide that will be furloughed from the passenger rail company due to low ridership. Maritz, a marketing firm based in Fenton, will lay off a total of 475 employees and temporarily furlough an additional 49. It is estimated that 40 percent of US adults are suffering from mental distress due to the effects of the pandemic. Children are not being given the resources by schools to cope with the increased stress of isolation from friends and worry over getting themselves, their parents and siblings sick. Many school districts have only one licensed counselor per grade, making it impossible for counselors to address the mental health needs of vulnerable students. The inability to make ends meet coupled with continued police brutality has also led to a surge in protests in the state. On the evening of September 24, protesters shut down a section of Interstate 64 in the St. Louis area. They continued to march on the interstate before dispersing at 8:00 p.m. Multiple protests were held throughout the St. Louis and Kansas City metro areas after the announcement that the police who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky would not be charged for her death. Governor Parson signed an executive order in the wake of the announcement activating the state National Guard as a precaution to quell unrest. Students at University of Missouri-Columbia have protested over inadequate coronavirus safety measures. Signs had slogans including, We wont die for your dollars and [Chancellor Mun] Choi = liar. As of Friday, the university had 76 reported active student cases. The University of Missouri has never done mass testing of students. In total there have been 1,546 student cases since August 19. Among the students demands is that all students receive free and rapid COVID-19 testing. Appeals to the representatives of the two big business parties to impose life-saving restrictions will fall on deaf ears. Workers in the Midwest and across the country must take the initiative and form rank-and-file committees in their workplaces, schools and neighborhoods. This network of rank-and-file committees will lead the upcoming struggles of the working class against the deadly back-to-work and back-to-school plans of the ruling class. All who are interested in forming these committees should contact the WSWS for assistance. Cattle rancher Dave Daley and his dog, Newt, prepare to search for family cattle lost in the North Complex fire in the national forests above Butte County, Calif. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Dave Daley stood recently on the edge of a barren ridge and bellowed out a guttural cry meant to call his cows home if any remained alive after the North Complex wildfire decimated this national forest. It was a long, mellifluous chant that sounded like "Come Boss," taught to him by his own father and, he thinks, maybe originating with the genus of the species he hoped to find, Bos taurus, domesticated cattle. When the sound finished bouncing off the far hills, miles across a plunging valley where the Feather River meandered into Lake Oroville, he waited in a silence so deep it can be made only by absence of animals in underbrush, of leaves for wind to rustle, of life hoping to hear the clanking of the bells each of his animals wears. But the silence held. "You can replace a house," he said, his voice hoarse and sorrow crinkling the sun-baked lines around his eyes, their color a pale green-brown that mirrored the scorched pine needles nearby. "You can't replace this." Three weeks ago, a windy night turned the Bear fire into another California catastrophe, pulling embers off the ground and into the air, across the river, through treetops and down these mountains to the towns of Feather Falls and Berry Creek, where at least 15 people died. Here, in dense woods, Daley's 400 head of cows, many with calves in tow, ranged free in summer, as they had done for the six generations his family has ranched on this land. Dave Daley and his dog, Newt, stand in the North Complex West Fire burn area in the Plumas National Forest in Butte County. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times) In about 1882, Daley's family started running cows up into this high country, back before there was a National Forest system, and their brand has grandfathered access though some environmentalists believe cattle have no place on public lands. Now, only a bitter smell and ravens circling overhead could signal where many of their burned carcasses lay, blending into a dismal palette of ash and charcoaled timber. Though Daley and his family search every day for survivors, only about 130 have turned up alive some so badly injured, with udders, hooves and even legs seared off, that they have to be put down. An additional 100 have been found dead. Story continues Consumed by guilt that he couldn't save them, and fear that some may still be suffering, he's scouring what's left of trails and tracks with names such as Lava Top and Bear Wallow that he probably knows better than any person alive, having roamed them since he was a boy. Friday was Day 22. "The live ones are live and the dead ones are dead," he said with cowboy pragmatism. "But the injured ones are missing." Daley's fury and frustration is growing as the full brunt of the loss sets in. A firefighter puts out hot spots in the town of Berry Creek, which was devastated by the North Complex fire. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) This fire, he believes, and the dozens of others eating across the state could have been prevented if it weren't for the divisive politics that for decades have pitted agriculture against environmentalism, climate change against forest management, "enviros" against ranchers. If nothing else comes of telling his story, he wants this: Compromise a return to centrist politics lost in the current uproar. "I am again angry at everyone and no one," Daley wrote a few days after the fire, in a message his daughter Kate put on Facebook and which quickly went viral. "I am absolutely tired of politicians and politics, from both the left and the right. Shut up. You use tragedies to fuel agendas and raise money to feed egos. I am sick of it. And it plays out on social media and cable news with (distortion) and half-truths. ON BOTH SIDES. Washington, DC is 3000 miles away and is filled with lobbyists, consultants and regulators who wouldnt know a sugar pine from a fir. Sacramento is 100 miles south and feels even more distant than DC." Though the majority of Californians agree that wildfires have worsened in recent years, they remain in political camps when it comes to why. Nine in 10 Democrats believe climate change is a major factor, according to a recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. Only 19% of Republicans believe the same, and 46% don't think it plays any part. In Daley's world of ranchers, climate change is largely viewed as nonsense, he said, though he's had enough of that position. When an email screed against climate science popped up on his phone, he refused to read it. But he also is exasperated by ranchers being demonized, as he sees it, and forests subject to litigation and inaction until they are dangerously overgrown. "Just maybe its both horrible forest management and climate change," he said, driving his Ford F350 on closed roads where hot spots still sent smoke curling upward and logs occasionally had to be chain-sawed away. A dirty straw cowboy hat was pulled low on his forehead. "The fringe is leading the discussion, and we are unwilling to take it back from either side." A Republican who is contemplating switching to no party preference he hopes he will be less marginalized in a state dominated by Democrats Daley sees himself and others who make a living off livestock as part of the solution for managing wildlands, people with real-world experience. A professor emeritus of animal science at Cal State Chico, he has a doctorate to back it up but still feels under attack in a dark blue state. He doesn't like everything President Trump says, but he appreciates his bent toward farmers, he said. He isn't fond of everything Gov. Gavin Newsom does, either, but he's raised money for him in the past. Both, he said, can be "idiots." Dave Daley grabs a cow bell off of the carcass of a cow as he searches for cattle that were lost in the North Complex fire. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) He's made himself a political player, serving in leadership posts in the California Cattlemens Assn., the California Cattle Council and the National Cattlemens Beef Assn. Such positions take him, with his bushy horseshoe mustache and gruff courtesies, to the halls of the state Legislature, as well as Congress. "I can disagree with both sides, but if I'm not in the room, who cares?" he said. "I've had to work really hard to learn to be not ... inflammatory and not angry, and it's a constant effort." After all these decades of bringing Daley cows to this forest, he is heavy-hearted that his 3-month-old granddaughter Juniper Juni for short will never see it as he did. He fears that her father, his son Kyle, is inheriting a family tragedy instead of a tradition. He is grieving that his daughter Kate, a veterinarian, had to euthanize an injured cow, only to see its calf kicking inside her, unable to cut it out in time to save it. "This is a legacy and a history and really very personal," he said. Once, about 6,500 cattle roamed this area, before it was federal land, along with 5,000 sheep, all herded on horseback. "Was it overgrazed?" Probably, Daley said. "Were there mega-fires? No." Those family ranches, with a few hundred cows each, are gone now, except for his. "We ended up with the whole range," he said. His family holds a permit for 400 pairs of cows and calves that roam over 90,000 acres of the Plumas National Forest and private lands owned by a timber company. Daley says he is not giving up. But it won't be the same. The cows won't know the range, won't know to come when he calls and, for decades to come, won't wander nearly impenetrable thickets and meadows canopied by conifers. Spring will bring grasses to graze already ferns and shoots are pushing up, but winter rains may bring mudslides and Daley is uncertain if the fire will change his government permit. The herd wasn't insured, and though there is a federal program that could pay for part of it, he doesn't want handouts. But money is always an issue. The sound of the two cowbells in the hand of Dave Daley ring out through the eerily quiet forest as the rancher searches for cattle that were lost in the North Complex fire. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Friday, Daley found more dead cows, a half dozen that had sought false safety near a creek. He collected their trapezoidal bells, as he has done each time he finds a carcass. Some of the bells go back generations, the biggest ones reserved for special "ladies," as Daley calls them, the old-hand cows who knew their way around this range after years of wandering. But he hasn't found living cows in days, and the only sound in the forest was the hollow knock of metal on metal from the bells he held. The time to end the search was nearing, the scope of the ruin settling in so that he sometimes wakes at night, mad at himself for sticking with this unsparing endeavor, for passing it on to his kids. But in daylight, it's clear this is the only place for the Daleys. Here is where Dave's grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse down the road. Here is where he bumped along in the back of his grandfather's pickup on cold fall mornings, hot chocolate his reward for taking part in the roundup. Here is where his children played in spring-fed meadows, when the grass was an electric yellow-green and the calves still stood on wobbly legs. "This is a hard country to know," he said. "Thirty years from now, Juni will be riding down a trail and probably find a bell." Dave Daley searches for cattle that were lost in the North Complex fire in the Plumas National Forest. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. RJD leader and former deputy chief minister of Bihar Tejashwi Prasad Yadav is leading from Raghopur constituency against the BJPs Satish Kumar. Bihar's opposition Grand Alliance has hammered a seat-sharing deal for the upcoming assembly elections in the state and a formal announcement on the allotment of seats among the partners is expected to be made here on Saturday evening, sources said. The seat-sharing exercise gained pace after RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's emissary Bhola Yadav returned to Patna from Ranchi on Thursday with his message on the distribution of seats among different partners, they said. "Seat-sharing has been finalised and an announcement will be made in all likelihood today evening," RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari told PTI. Apart from the RJD, which is spearheading the opposition coalition, the Congress, Left parties CPI-ML, CPI and the CPI(M), the Vikasheel Insan Party (VIP) and Jharkhand's ruling party JMM will unitedly fight the Bihar elections scheduled in October-November. The Congress has been offered 58-60 seats, CPI-ML 13- 15, CPI and CPI(M) altogether 8-10, Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahni's VIP 8-10 and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha two, while the remaining seats in the 243-strong assembly will be contested by Lalu Prasad's party, sources said. RJD chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav is expected to make public the seat-sharing deal here at a press conference in the presence of leaders of the coalition, they said. Sources in Congress, however, said they are not happy with the seat-sharing pact and no senior leader of the party is expected at the presser. Congress general secretary and Bihar in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil has returned to Delhi on Friday night. The party's state unit chief Madan Mohan Jha and CLP leader Sadanand Singh are also expected to reach the national capital by evening. Sources in the Congress said the grand old party is not happy with the distribution of the seats because besides being offered a lesser number of seats, it is being given constituencies where the party has never won. The CPI-ML, which has three MLAs in the assembly and had earlier issued a list of 30 seats for the first phase of polling on October 28 without waiting for a formal announcement, has reached an understanding after a meeting of its top leader Deepankar Bhattacharya with Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday night and confirmed it will be a part of the Mahagathbandhan, sources said. "Our party leader will be present at the press conference where the seat-sharing will be formally announced," CPI-ML secretary Kunal told PTI. No leader of the JMM is expected to be present at the press meet. "We will comment only after a formal announcement of seats is made in the Grand Alliance," JMM national general secretary and spokesperson Vinod Pandey told Diane Kruger is having a red carpet moment. On Friday, the 44-year-old actress was back to work amid the pandemic, filming for her upcoming series Swimming With Sharks, where she was dressed to the nines for a mock red carpet scene. The Quibi x Lionsgate dramatic series, which is an adaptation of the 1994 George Huang film by the same name, also stars Kiernan Shipka and Donald Sutherland. Spotlight: Diane Kruger, 44, is 'excited and grateful' to be back to work on new show Swimming With Sharks as she and Kiernan Shipka, 20, are spotted filming a fake red carpet scene at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Friday evening The German-born actress could be seen in a long black sequin gown as she walked the red carpet surrounded by crew and extras wearing face masks. The Bridge actress had her blonde locks tied back in a low glamorous bun and she sported a pair of black pumps. Keeping her accessories to a minimum, Diane's character, Joyce, a female Hollywood studio head, wore a pair of drop earrings. Historic Hollywood: Diane posted a selfie from within TCL Chinese Theatre, a Hollywood fixture of premiere life along the Walk of Fame Taking to Instagram to share her enthusiasm and good fortune to be back at work, Kruger posted a selfie as she waited for her scene in the Hollywood fixture, TCL Chinese Theatre. Staying in line with COVID-19 filming protocol, Diane sat far from her cast and crew and wore a mask as she snapped a a quick pic between scenes. She got heartfelt with her caption as she wrote, 'Im excited and grateful to be back at work, to still have a job, to be healthy and now more than ever Im so appreciative of the wonderful crew and cast that make me feel safe so we all get to do what we love.' Also spotted having her moment in the spotlight was 20-year-old Kiernan who plays the role of Lou, a poised assistant to Kruger's character who is determined to get ahead, in the upcoming show. Golden girl: Kiernan was seen standing on the Walk of Fame rocking a plunging gold mini dress as she waited for her scene. The Mad Men actress' character plays the assistant to Kruger, in the 1994 series adaptation of the film Filming on the Hollywood walk of fame outside the theatre, the Mad Men actress put her legs on display in a sequined gold mini dress. The plunging dress showed off Kiernan's decolletage as she stood in a pair of matching gold metallic heels, with a pop of red lipstick for drama. For the scene Kiernan's character had her blonde tresses tied back, as she made sure to keep herself protected with a pink face mask that she wore around her chin. Earlier in the evening, the budding starlet was filming another scene where she strutted down Hollywood Boulevard in an edgier display. On a mission: Kiernan looked every bit as precocious as her character, Lou, as she strutted down Hollywood boulevard with a look of intent The platinum beauty she rocked a black floral dress under a leather jacket, capping off the look with a pair of strappy silver mary jane heels. She kept her hair down and sported the same red lip as a camera crew on a dolly slowly followed behind her. Kiernan looked every bit as precocious as her character as she strutted down the boulevard with a look of witty intent. The short-form Quibi show will be under ten minutes an episode, and puts a female spin on the 1994 film that starred Frank Whaley and Kevin Spacey. This is the first major television role for Kruger since The Bridge, with Kiernan who shot to fame in Mad Men, currently playing the reprisal role of Sabrina in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina which is a darker take on Sabrina The Teenage Witch. Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star via Getty Images A 35-year-old Arkansas shot two people last year after they arrived at his home with the wrong fast food order, KTHV reported. Andra Crockett, Blytheville, Arkansas resident, shot 37-year-old Priscilla Aldridge and his own brother Kevin Thomas for the incorrect food order on March 5, 2019, Newsweek reported. According to FOX13, a neighbor heard Crocket say, "B----, you know I don't like mayonnaise on my hamburger." Crockett is facing up to 130 years in prison for the shooting. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. A 35-year-old Arkansas man was sentenced to more than 100 years for fatally shooting a woman and wounding his brother over a fast-food order last year, KTHV reported. Related: Man tried to cash in lottery ticket at store it was stolen According to Newsweek, the incident occurred at Andra Crockett's residence in Blytheville, Arkansas on March 5, 2019. When 37-year-old Priscilla Aldridge and Crockett's brother, Kevin Thomas, arrived at his home with the incorrect fast food order, a heated verbal exchange ensued resulting in the shooting, according to Newsweek. According to FOX13, a neighbor heard Crocket say, "B----, you know I don't like mayonnaise on my hamburger," when he received his meal order. According to the local news outlet, Crockett struck Aldrige once and Thomas three. Crockett turned himself in to police custody days after the shooting, according to the report. FOX13 reported that a jury found Crockett guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree battery. Circuit Judge Ralph Wilson sentenced Crocket to up to 130 years in prison, due to his multiple counts including 75 years for first-degree murder, 40 years for first-degree battery, and an additional 15 years for possession of a firearm as a felon, the report said. "I appreciate the hard work and dedication of lead Blytheville Police Department detective Jason Simpkins and deputy prosecutors Gina Knight and Curtis Walker in obtaining a conviction for this senseless murder over a botched fast food order and putting this dangerous criminal in prison for a long while," Second Judicial District Scott Ellington said, according to FOX13. Read the original article on Insider Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 02:17:23|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close A doctor wearing a protective suit works at a university hospital in Essen, Germany, April 9, 2020. (Photo by Ulrich Hufnagel/Xinhua) "Trials on vaccine candidates in humans are a significant step in the direction of authorizing safe and efficacious vaccines against COVID-19." BERLIN, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Germany's Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (PEI), approved the third clinical trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine on Friday. The vaccine candidate was developed by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the pharmaceutical company IDT Biologika. During the Phase-1 trial, 30 healthy adult volunteers between 18 and 55 years would receive two vaccinations at a four-week interval, according to PEI. "Trials on vaccine candidates in humans are a significant step in the direction of authorizing safe and efficacious vaccines against COVID-19," PEI noted. The candidate is a vector vaccine for which the genetic information for a surface protein of SARS-CoV-2 is built into a smallpox virus, according to PEI. The vaccine against the smallpox virus had already been developed more than 30 years ago at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU). The vector could not replicate in the body of the vaccinated person, but the genetic information introduced could simulate an infection and trigger the production of COVID-19 antibodies and immune cells, according to PEI. The German government launched a special funding program to accelerate research and development of a COVID-19 vaccine, with up to 750 million euros (878 million U.S. dollars). The clinical trial of the vaccine candidate by IDT Biologika and DZIF is one of three trials currently conducted by German companies in the fight against COVID-19. The pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and CureVac are already conducting studies in advanced phases in trials on humans. The SDN and NFV is picking up noticeable quality because of the developing mechanical progressions in systems administration and server farm union. SDN is a momentous systems administration design, which is ready to totally alter the current systems administration and server farm foundation. 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Global SDN NFV Market report includes different applications such as Software Controller and Application Software. This report aims to estimate the Global SDN NFV Market for 2018 and to project the expected demand of the same by 2023. This market research study provides a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Global SDN NFV Market. It provides a comprehensive review of major drivers and restraints of the market. Major companies such as Brocade Communications, Ciena, HPE, Huawei, Juniper Networks, etc. are profiled in this report. Get Complete TOC with Tables and Figures @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/6332 Global SDN NFV Market is also segmented into major application and geographies. Various secondary sources, such as encyclopedia, directories, and databases to identify and collect information useful for this extensive commercial study of Global SDN NFV Market has been used. The primary sources, experts from related industries and suppliers, have been interviewed to obtain and verify critical information as well as to assess the future prospects of Global SDN NFV Market. Global SDN NFV Market has grown significantly during the last few years, and it is expected to grow at a rapid pace in the next five years, mainly driven by a growing consumption in the North America region. Global SDN NFV Market is expected to grow at 20% CAGR till 2023. <<< Get COVID-19 Report Analysis >>> https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/6332 SCHENECTADY - The retirement of three experienced prosecutors, who accepted buyout packages offered by the county, has led to several promotions and new hires within Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney's office. After 30 plus years, those calling it quits are: Raymond DeMatteo, Jr., who according to the District Attorney's Office is probably the longest-serving prosecutor in the office's history. He came on board in 1981 and stayed on as a part-time assistant district attorney in the Rotterdam Court. Chief Assistant District Attorney Edward Moynihan, who has been with the office since 1986. For the last four years, Moynihan was the top assistant district attorney who managed the office's felony caseload. Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney William Sanderson who began in 1985 as an investigator before earning his law degree and becoming a prosecutor. In his role as deputy chief assistant district attorney, Sanderson led the Grand Jury Bureau. Not far behind those three in terms of tenure is Investigator James Catuccio, who transferred to Carney's Office in the late 1990s, primarily assisting in the grand jury bureau. He previously worked as an investigator with the county Department of Social Services. With these retirements, the county loses some of the core prosecutorial expertise that has shaped our work for many years," Carney said in a statement. "We will miss them, but they have done much to mentor younger prosecutors who are now ready and able to step forward and take more active leadership roles within the office. Promotions Jennifer Assini, who joined the district attorney's office in 1991, will assume the No. 2 spot succeeding Moynihan. Over 29 years, she's served as a sex crimes prosecutor, created the offices forfeiture program, and the bureau hief of Intelligence and Investigations. Christina Tremante-Pelham, who has been with the office since 2006, has been appointed the new Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney. She's served as the Bureau Chief of the Special Victims Unit and the Homicide Bureau and handled many high profile murder cases. Jessica Lorusso will take over as the new Bureau Chief of the Grand Jury Bureau. The 18-year veteran has held positions in the office, including those of Motor Vehicle Theft and Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, Special Victims Prosecutor, and a member of the Grand Jury Bureau. Nominate your favorite people and places now Its the 25th anniversary of our Best of the Capital Region readers survey. Nominate your favorite people, places and businesses between Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. Brian Gray, a county prosecutor since 2010, has been named the new Bureau Chief of the County Court Bureau. His resume includes stints prosecuting motor vehicle crimes and multiple homicides. We are fortunate to have these talented and experienced prosecutors to take over important positions with management authority," Carney said. "I am also pleased to announce that for the first time 2 of the 3 top management positions in the office are held by women who earned these positions by virtue of their accomplishments and leadership skills." Rounding out the management team is Peter Willis, a prosecutor for 14 years, who has served as Counsel to the District Attorney for the last two years. New prosecutors Two Albany Law School graduates, Leah Nelson and Daniel Lennon, have been hired as assistant district attorneys. The president and the first lady have both tested positive for coronavirus, and those who have recently attended Trump campaign rallies are encouraged to take precautionary measures. The Pennsylvania Department of Health has released guidance to anyone who attended President Donald Trumps rally on Saturday at Harrisburg International Airport after it was revealed the president tested positive for the coronavirus. Sharad Malhotra, who is currently seen in Ekta Kapoor's supernatural show Naagin 5, has tested positive for Coronavirus. The actor apparently developed mild symptoms while shooting for the show. After doctor advised him to get tested for COVID-19, he got himself tested, and unfortunately, the result was positive. His wife Ripci Bhatia, on the other hand, has tested negative for the virus. Sharad was quoted by TOI as saying, "They say if you stay positive, good things and people will be drawn to you. Well, I think, I took this line, too seriously (smiles). Unfortunately, I have tested COVID-19 positive. I have mild symptoms and have quarantined myself at home." The actor further added, "Thankfully, my wife Ripci has tested negative and she continues to follow all precautionary measures. I am resting at home under strict medical supervision, and I would urge my viewers to keep me in their prayers, so that I can bounce back sooner and stronger." Fans have also expressed concern about his Naagin 5 co-star Surbhi Chandna, who wrote on her Instagram story, "Thankyou for the concern pouring in! Shall update as and when i get my test results." She also shared another picture snapped with Sharad and wrote, "I want this face and vibe back uncle @sharadmalhotra009 #wearegood #prayers ." A source revealed to the leading daily that as per the standard protocol, the shooting of the show has been stalled for three days and all cast and crew members are being tested. While those who test negative will resume shoot, and the actor, who has contracted the virus, will join the shoot only after 15 days. For the uninitiated, Sharad plays the negative role Veer Singhania in Naagin 5. The actor has impressed viewers as his character has different shades. Initially, the show focused on naagin Bani and naag Jay (played by Mohit Seghal), but now the focus has shifted to Veer and Bani. In fact, viewers are loving Sharad and Surbhi's sizzling chemistry in the show. Fans have even nicknamed the couple as VAni. Also Read: Ishqbaaz Actress Navina Bole Tests Positive For COVID-19; Says She Is In Isolation & Recovering Also Read: Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai's Priyanka Kalantri And Husband Vikaas Kalantri Test COVID-19 Positive This article was published originally in Manitoba History (now Prairie History) in 1992 by the Manitoba Historical Society. We make it available free to the Winnipeg Free Press in celebration of the Provinces 150 birthday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This article was published originally in Manitoba History (now Prairie History) in 1992 by the Manitoba Historical Society. We make it available free to the Winnipeg Free Press in celebration of the Provinces 150 birthday. In 1918, Canadian troops in Europe were preparing to come home after a war that was supposed to have lasted four months but lasted four years. The Canadians had joined to fight a glorious war for the empire. Instead of glory they found themselves bogged down in trenches fighting for a few feet of land over the bodies of comrade and foe alike. Ironically, as the war in Europe drew to a close, another world war was just beginning. The battle this time was not against other men but rather against an invisible foe, the Spanish influenza. The isolation Canada had enjoyed in Europe was not possible in this battle; the virus came to Canada on the very ships that carried the troops home. The Spanish influenza had appeared on the battlefields of Europe earlier and was one of the factors that caused the war to end when it did because many of the German troops were too sick to fight. Government officials in Manitoba were aware of the influenza as it made its way west from Newfoundland where the first cases in Canada were reported. In Manitoba, which was thousands of miles away from any major port or battlefield, there was a sense of immunity from the conflicts and troubles of the outside world. News from the front was in the newspapers and in the morning the newspaper boys would call out the headlines on street corners. Lists of the dead and missing were placed on lamp posts and anxious parents read these lists praying that their sons name would not appear. Manitobas isolation from the flu virus came to a dramatic end on Sept. 30, 1918, when a train carrying returning troops brought three soldiers with the virus. Although the sick were immediately taken to an isolated convalescent home, the precaution was in vain. On Oct. 3, two of the soldiers died and the first civilian death from the flu was reported in Manitoba. On Oct. 12, several cases of the flu were reported. Schools and universities were closed and public meetings of over six people were banned. People serving the public were ordered to wear gauze masks in the hope of preventing the spread of the disease. The Spanish influenza had gained a foothold in the province and was spreading at a rapid rate. By January 1919, there were 12,863 reported cases of the flu in Winnipeg alone. Of that total, 824 people had already succumbed to the virus. It is said that during the height of the influenza, the fear was so palpable that even a child could feel it. In the winter 1919, there were echoes of the Middle Ages in Brandon, as men with horses and carts made their way through the town collecting the bodies of those who died during the night, to await mass burial in the spring. A.E. McGavin was one of four doctors in Carman in 1918. He was unique in that of the four, he was the only one that did not contract the flu. With the shortage of doctors due to the war and the epidemic, Dr. McGavin became the only active doctor within a 40-mile radius of Carman. His son, Percy, was only a seven-year-old boy in 1918, but he still has vivid memories of how the flu affected his family. "Dad worked almost around the clock trying to reach the sick and dying in the isolated farmhouses. He drove the rounds in the fall (by auto) but in the winter he was reduced to a horse and cutter. He used to wear a heavy buffalo coat as protection from the cold Prairie winter. What perhaps differentiated dad from the other doctors was that he was meticulous about not becoming a carrier of the infection and would always wear robes when he called upon a patient and a gauze mask and he would disinfect everything before coming home. He carried a bottle of rubbing alcohol in his breast pocket which he used to disinfect any equipment that came in contact with the patient." He never did take that epidemic home with him. None of his five children contracted the disease, nor did his wife. Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Harold Avrills family had homesteaded near the town of Togo, Sask., arriving at the homestead in 1909 from the United States. Avrills mother was born the year previous to the move and was 10 years old the winter that the Spanish influenza arrived at Togo. The town was hit very hard by the epidemic and many families lost several members. Mrs. Avrill remembers the epidemic very clearly and told her story to her son Harold. "The whole family got the flu except for me. Although I was somewhat sick, I was nowhere near as sick as the rest of the family. Father was able to sit up and offer some assistance. The others were all flat out in bed, not able to keep anything they ate down. The flu hit suddenly. We got no assistance from the town doctor. My brother got so sick we thought he was going to die. We sent for the doctor, he refused to come. Thinking back, he may have been afraid to come for fear of the flu. The only help that we received was from a bachelor neighbour who did not contract the flu. He went into town to get lemons for us. That was the cure, hot lemon juice. The winter of 1918-19 was terrible, and digging graves through the heavy ice and snow was not possible. The bodies were stored in an empty silo till spring when there was one long funeral procession. The influenza ended as quickly as it began. My family was very fortunate in that nobody died. The one brother who came close to death was never physically strong after that terrible winter of 1918-1919." By the end of 1919 a total of 60,000 Canadians had died from the flu. One in six Canadians had contracted the infection. The United States was even harder hit, because between December 1918 and March 1919, 500,000 Americans died of the influenza, or from complications such as pneumonia. Nobody is certain what causes epidemics of this scale that appear out of nowhere and then become dormant for years. It was not the miracle of medicine or the power of the vaccinations of the time that caused the flu to end. Rather the influenza simply ran its course. Today with the wonders of modern medicine we have isolated the type A virus which caused the Spanish influenza. However, every winter the flu appears once again in a slightly mutated form. Approximately 5,000 elderly or already incapacitated people die every year from the flu, which leads one to wonder if maybe in the future the flu lies in wait for an opportune time of war and famine to strike huge numbers of people again. For more information or to become a member of the Manitoba Historical Society, call 204-947-0559 or email: info@mhs.mb.ca. The MHS is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as manitoba-history. A group of alumni from UC San Diego has created an early stage venture capital fund that will target startup companies created by university students, faculty and graduates. The modest, roughly $8 million Triton Technology Fund unveiled late Wednesday expects to provide capital to entrepreneurs looking to commercialize technology developed at the university. Our hope is this will help pump up the deal flow and the number of people trying out entrepreneurism so we can benefit the region by helping it to have more entrepreneurs and more startups, said Albert Pisano, dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Triton Technology Fund is part of the larger $40 million technology venture fund, Vertical Venture Partners. Both are run by UC San Diego alumnus David Schwab, a longtime partner with Sierra Ventures. Advertisement Vertical Venture Partners has received $1 million from the UC San Diego Foundation. Schwab is in the process of raising additional capital from limited partners but he said the fund is open for business and looking at potential investments. Other universities, including UC San Francisco, have venture capital funds to support businesses that spin out of the schools. Whats unusual about the Triton Technology Fund is it is professionally managed and owned by a venture capitalist outside of the university, said Sujit Dey, faculty director of the schools von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center. Investment committee advisers to Schwab include UCSD alumni Steve Hart, co-founder and chief technology officer of ViaSat, and Paul Conley, managing partner of Paladin Capital. Through a service agreement, the von Liebig Center will help find and mentor university students, faculty and alumni interested in seeking funding from the Triton Technology Fund. UC San Diego is the top-ranked campus in the University of California system for U.S. patents on its technology, Dey said. But many university-developed technologies need refinement before theyre ready to come to market. These days, however, venture capitalists are investing mostly in companies that already have customers and revenue. The Triton Technology Fund will bridge the gap for early stage companies linked to the university. It will focus on software, communications, electronics, materials, medical devices and instruments. All UC San Diego-owned intellectual property transactions will go through the campus Technology Transfer Office, which is standard practice. We see a lot of innovative ideas, Dey said. We already have a strong platform for grooming university entrepreneurs. What the fund will do is let those efforts go to the next step. Schwab, who has been a long-time member of the advisory committee for the Jacobs School of Engineering, said the structure of the fund could serve as a model for other universities to commercialize technology. UC San Diego ranks fifth among the top U.S. universities in federal research and development dollars, with over $1 billion in expenditures in fiscal year 2012, he said. I am excited about the prospect of working to match UC San Diego-related technologies with specific needs in targeted vertical markets. GOVERNMENT has disowned a circular circulating on social media platforms directing recently-qualified doctors to enrol as soldiers under the Defence ministry if they are to be allowed to practise anywhere in Zimbabwe. The circular, purportedly prepared by the Health Service Board, has irked doctors and the general public who felt that it tantamounted to militarising the health sector. Masvingo Senator Tichinani Mavetera (MDC Alliance) on Thursday asked Health deputy minister John Mangwiro during Senate's question-and-answer session to explain how they came up with the circular to militarise the medical profession and the latter professed ignorance over the conscription order. "We heard that of the current 230 medical students that are graduating this year, the Ministry of Health is not going to recruit them, and that they will be recruited by the Ministry of Defence. What arrangements is the Health ministry going to put in place to ensure that we are not going to have a gap where junior doctors are deployed to the Defence ministry and there are no doctors at rural clinics? We are also forcing all junior doctors to join the army whether they like it or not," Mavetera said. He added: "We also heard that some graduate student doctors have been prohibited from visiting State or government hospitals after they were expelled and yet they are central to the health delivery in this country and trainee doctors provide more than 60% of the workforce." Mangwiro responded: "I do not know anything about the circular you are purporting came from the Ministry of Health. I spoke to the Health Service Board because they are the ones that are supposed to be giving out such a circular and we are going to get more details from them. "As of now, we spoke to the Health ministry secretary (Jasper Chimedza) and he was oblivious of where that letter came from. So we will get a detailed and clarified position from him because the Ministry of Health is not the one that deploys those cadres, it is the Health Service Board that does so." He said student doctors were under the Ministry of Higher Education, which he said was the one that could adequately give an explanation on their situation. Newsday A U.S. cargo mission will wait a couple of extra days for weather to clear before launching to resupply the International Space Station this week. Meanwhile, the Expedition 63 crew has resumed standard operations following a leak test over the weekend. Scattered thunderstorms and rain are predicted at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia where Northrop Grumman's Cygnus resupply ship was originally targeted for liftoff Tuesday night. Mission managers rescheduled Cygnus' launch for Thursday at 9:38 p.m. EDT setting its arrival and robotic capture at the station for Sunday at 5:20 a.m. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonaut Ivan Vagner practiced their robotics skills on a computer today to get ready to capture Cygnus with the Canadarm2 robotic arm on Sunday morning. Cassidy will lead the capture activities while Vagner monitors the U.S. spacecraft's approach and rendezvous. NASA TV will broadcast live the launch and capture activities of the Cygnus space freighter. It will arrive at the station packed with nearly 8,000 pounds supplies and gear including an advanced space toilet and brand-new science experiments. Veteran cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin once again opened up the Combustion Integrated Rack and replaced fuel bottles to support fuel and flames studies inside the research device. He then spent the rest of the day servicing laptop computers and life support systems. The three-member crew exited their isolation in the Russian segment on Monday morning after a weekend of leak tests and resumed normal operations. Ground teams will analyze the leak test data in their ongoing work to determine the source of the increased leak rate at the station. On-Orbit Status Report Payloads Combustion Integrated Rack/Advanced Combustion via Microgravity Experiments (CIR/ACME)/BRE-2: The crew exchanged a GC (gas chromatograph) argon bottle and opened the valve on the 40% O2/60% N2 bottle on manifold 2. This was performed in support of the continuing BRE part 2 (Burning Rate Emulator) investigation, which is one of the ACME suite of five gas combustion experiments. The BRE experiment runs are focused on spacecraft fire prevention. More specifically, BRE's objective is to improve our fundamental understanding of materials flammability and to assess the relevance of existing flammability test methods for low and partial-gravity environments. EarthKAM/Node 2 setup: EarthKAM (Sally Ride Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle Schools): The crew performed the setup and activation of the EarthKam hardware in Node 2. As of this report, 223 schools representing 19,822 students and 33 countries have signed up to request images. This includes one Russian school with 150 students participating. EarthKAM allows thousands of students to photograph and examine Earth from a space crew's perspective. Using the Internet, the students control a special digital camera mounted on-board the ISS. This enables them to photograph the Earth's coastlines, mountain ranges and other geographic items of interest from the unique vantage point of space. The EarthKAM team then posts these photographs on the Internet for viewing by the public and participating classrooms around the world. Systems Cygnus On-board Training: Today, the crewmembers scheduled to capture Northrop Grumman (NG)-14 performed a Robotics Onboard Trainer (ROBoT) session. ROBoT is an on-orbit version of the ground-based Dynamics Skills Trainer (DST) that simulates robotics operations with graphical feedback. NG-14 (Cygnus) is currently scheduled to launch on October 1st and be berthed to ISS on October 4th. Northrop Grumman (NG)-14 Arrival Preparations: In preparation for Cygnus arrival, currently planned for October 4th, the crew installed the Centerline Berthing Camera System (CBCS) in Node 1 Nadir hatch window and performed a video system checkout with the ground. The CBCS supports Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) mating alignment operations necessary to berth the Cygnus NG-14 capsule (S.S. Kalpana Chawla) to Node 1. ISS Leak Isolation Operations: The crew ingressed the USOS segment today after spending the weekend in the Russian Segment to allow ground teams to monitor module pressures. The crew closed several module hatches on GMT 269 as part of a leak isolation test. Following USOS ingress, the crew reactivated the Waste & Hygiene Compartment (WHC) for operations and restowed items that were transferred to the Russian segment during the USOS isolation period. Completed Task List Activities: Acoustic Monitor Static Deploy for PMD operations USOS Isolation Restow Extravehicular (EVA) Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Hardware Gather Weekly Cleaning Starboard Crew Quarters (CQ) Clear Station Support Computer (SSC) 8 Swap Columbus K-Bar Gather PMM1O2 Cleanup Part 3 Today's Ground Activities: All activities are complete unless otherwise noted. N1 CBCS Video Support ATS PPL Update OGA Activation Shell Heater Cmding for EPS Max Power Test Equinox Max Power Testing USOS Module Re-Ingress Ground Support Lab MCA Zero Calibration Look Ahead Plan Tuesday, 9/29 (GMT 273) Payloads: Astrobee On Radi-N2 Retrieve Systems: MAX CEVIS UPA Brine Filter Gather Recycle Tank Drain/Fill OBT Cygnus ROBoT SS WHC Pump Separator R&R Wednesday, 9/30 (GMT 274) Payloads: HXP2 Safing Ops Robo-Pro Rehearsal 2 Systems: OBT Cygnus Offset Grapple Thursday, 10/1 (GMT 275) Payloads: Avatar-x setup Astrobee Off Systems: EMU Loop Scrub HMS PHS Exam EMU Swap Today's Planned Activities: All activities are complete unless otherwise noted. Joining of ROS and USOS volumes USOS Ingress DC1+Progress #444 Volume Opening ABOUT GAGARIN FROM SPACE. HAM pass with the students of the International Aerospace School in Blagoveshchensk Performing of MRM1 hatches opening Galley Reactivation Waste & Hygiene Compartment (WHC) Reactivation Combustion Integrated Rack Rack Doors Open/Close USOS Item Transfer Combustion Integrated Rack Valve Cover Photo USOS Isolation Restow Combustion Integrated Rack GC Bottle Replacement PILLE dosimeters readings taking. Memory card replacement Combustion Integrated Rack Photo Assist Combustion Integrated Rack Bottle Valve Open JEM Camera Robot Preparation for Robo-Pro Challenge Final Round N1 Nadir Hatch to Unlatch Hardstop Centerline Berthing Camera System (CBCS) and Vestibule Outfitting Equipment Gather Centerline Berthing Camera System (CBCS) Installation and Checkout ISS RS Window Glass Inspection and Photography - [1], [2] in MRM2 and [1] in DC1 Regular Maintenance of Broadband Comm System () MDM Vent Screens and [] Equipment Fan Onboard Training (OBT) Robotics On-board Trainer (ROBoT) Setup EarthKAM Node 2 Setup and Activation-Russian Auxiliary Laptop Computer System Virus Definition File Update Test activation of Atmosphere Purification System Emergency Vacuum Valve [ ] using spares On-board Training (OBT) Cygnus Robotics Onboard Trainer (ROBoT) Session 1 Astrobee Stowage Clear VZAIMODEISTVIYE-2. Experiment Ops Preparation for Antivirus Scanning on [] Laptops Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. MILAN - Italys right-wing leader, Matteo Salvini, appeared Saturday before a court in Sicily that will decide whether he will face trial for blocking 131 migrants for several days on a coast guard ship in 2019 when he was interior minister. The hearing was adjourned until Nov. 20, when Premier Giuseppe Conte has been summoned as a witness. The court also has called Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, who was vice-premier at the time of the standoff, as well as the current interior minister and the former defence and transport ministers. Salvini, who has largely faded from the public spotlight since being ousted as a minister, has turned the preliminary hearing into a political rally of sorts, staging days of events in a piazza in Catania to rail against Contes government. The Senate voted in February to lift Salvinis parliamentary immunity, paving the way for a possible trial on charges of kidnapping and abuse of power. The Gregoretti was stuck at sea for days in July 2019 until a judge approved its landing in Augusta, Sicily. The Senate also has lifted his immunity in a second case, in which he is accused of refusing to allow 164 migrants off a rescue ship in Sicily. A preliminary hearing in that case is pending. During his 14 months as interior minister, Salvini repeatedly denied ships carrying rescued migrants access to ports. The policy resulted in numerous standoffs, leaving migrants stuck at sea for many weeks before European countries could identify a willing port or courts intervened. Salvini says he wants to face charges in both cases to clear his name. Yet he fought to maintain immunity in a third case that was brought while he was still minister, winning protection from prosecution for not allowing 190 migrants off another coast guard ship in August 2018. Salvini remains the head of Italys most popular party, even if it has shed about 10 percentage points in opinion polls since the 2018 elections. The slide began when he lost his Cabinet post in a failed bid to topple the Italian government in August 2019. Instead, the 5-Star Movement formed a new coalition with the centre-left Democratic Party, pushing Salvinis League into opposition. The Delhi Police on Saturday claimed to have averted a possible terror strike in the national Capital by arresting four men, who are residents of Kashmir, from ITO in central Delhi. Police said they have recovered 120 bullets and four sophisticated pistols from the four men, who had travelled to Delhi from Kashmir in a Baleno car bearing Jammu and Kashmirs registration number. Deputy commissioner of police (special cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said the radicalised Kashmiri youths were camping in Delhi for the past few days on the directions of their handler and the current chief of Ansar Ghazwat-ul Hind. The group was planning a terror strike, including in Delhi after collecting huge cache of arms and ammunition. The timely arrest of the four men has averted a possible terror strike, DCP Kushwah said. The police, however, did not specify details of the planned strike. Kolkata: Kolkata will get an underground metro station after 25 years on Sunday as the East-West line will be extended till Phoolbagan, an official said. The Phoolbagan metro station is the first underground one to be opened on the line that will connect Sector V to Howrah Maidan, he said. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal will flag off the first train from Phoolbagan through a video link, the official said on Saturday. Services of the East-West Metro began earlier this year between Sector V and Salt Lake Stadium in the first phase. Commercial services between Phoolbagan and Sector V will commence from Monday, the official said. Owing to the COVID-19 situation, there will be no formal function at the venue. The underground MG Road metro station on the North-South line was opened in September 1995. All metro stations opened after that are either elevated or at grade-level. The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) granted authorisation for extension of services from Salt Lake Stadium to Phoolbagan station in June. Local TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhyay and MLAs Sashi Panja and Sadhan Pande, both ministers in the state government, will not participate in the programme, sources in their party said, claiming that the state government has been kept in the dark about the event. According to the Metro Railway, Bandopadhyay and the two local MLAs have been requested to join the virtual event of the inauguration. Bandopadhyay said he was unhappy with the way the Railway Ministry had tried to "bypass" the state government. "I am happy about the project, but why the state government was bypassed? Why did they not inform or invite the chief minister, who is also the former railway minister? She had extended all sorts of help to the East-West metro project. I am unhappy with the attitude of the authority," he told PTI. Bandopadhyay said he was out of Kolkata and could not join the event. He also said that during Banerjee's tenure as the railway minister, she used to invite the state transport minister despite having political differences with the then Left Front government. Panja, however, said she is yet to receive an invitation or letter from the Metro Railway. Metro Railway said that as the programme is being held online and no inauguration ceremony was being held, the local MLAs and MP were requested to join the event. "There is no proper inauguration ceremony. Everything is happening through video conference. So there is no invitation of any sort. The local MP and the MLAs have been requested to participate in the video conference," a senior Metro official said. On February 13, the 4.88-km-long first phase of the East-West Metro got functional. The public representatives of the TMC gave that eventa miss as well, protesting against the absence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's name from the invitation card for the programme. Senior TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Fire Services Minister Sujit Bose and Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation Mayor Krishna Chakraborty were invited but had stayed away in protest. According to a senior Metro official, completion of the East-West corridor is likely to be delayed by up to one year due to an accident caused by an aquifer burst in the Bowbazar area during drilling operations in August 2019. The 16.6-km-long rapid transit system, connecting the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah, may be completed by mid-2022. . Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSE:TD) is about to go ex-dividend in just 4 days. If you purchase the stock on or after the 8th of October, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 31st of October. Toronto-Dominion Bank's next dividend payment will be CA$0.79 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed CA$3.16 to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Toronto-Dominion Bank has a trailing yield of 5.1% on the current share price of CA$62.5. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to investigate whether Toronto-Dominion Bank can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow. Check out our latest analysis for Toronto-Dominion Bank Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Toronto-Dominion Bank paid out 59% of its earnings to investors last year, a normal payout level for most businesses. Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. This is why it's a relief to see Toronto-Dominion Bank earnings per share are up 4.5% per annum over the last five years. The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the past 10 years, Toronto-Dominion Bank has increased its dividend at approximately 10.0% a year on average. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders. Story continues The Bottom Line From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid Toronto-Dominion Bank? Toronto-Dominion Bank has been generating some growth in earnings per share while paying out more than half of its earnings to shareholders in the form of dividends. We think there are likely better opportunities out there. Ever wonder what the future holds for Toronto-Dominion Bank? See what the 10 analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow If you're in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Days after Health Canada approved rapid COVID-19 tests for sale from Abbott Laboratories, the provincial and federal governments are in a standoff over who manages the supply. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Days after Health Canada approved rapid COVID-19 tests for sale from Abbott Laboratories, the provincial and federal governments are in a standoff over who manages the supply. Central Services Minister and Brandon West Progressive Conservative MLA Reg Helwer held a Friday morning media conference to announce that Manitobas attempt to purchase some of the tests were blocked by the federal government. "Our government took the proactive step of contacting Abbott shortly after the federal government approved their ID NOW rapid test for use in Canada," Helwer said. "In response to our attempt to place a significant order for these rapid tests for use here in Manitoba, we were advised that the Government of Canada had blocked the direct sale of these rapid tests to provinces and territories. This is a completely unacceptable action by the federal government." These tests, Helwer said, are to supplement the existing tests but not replace them. The rapid tests are quicker, but they are less accurate than the regular tests. According to Helwer, the issue was raised by Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister during an interprovincial call between premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday evening. Additionally, Pallister has written a letter to Trudeau expressing the provinces disappointment with the move and calling for an end to the blockage. The minister also criticized the federal government for getting the United States government to seize an order of two-million N95 masks worth $12 million made by Manitoba earlier in the pandemic and redirect them to Ottawa. He said Manitoba has only received a fraction of the masks it had ordered but did not provide a specific figure. He later said the province would order as many as they could get. He also criticized Ottawa for cancelling $55 million of funding earlier this year that would have gone toward improving fibre-optic internet access in northern Manitoba. Asked by reporters to specify how many of the rapid tests had been ordered, Helwer said Manitoba had not even gotten to the point of discussing figures when they were informed of the blockage. In response to a follow-up question asking how many tests Manitoba wants to order, Helwer said the province doesnt know. In an email to the Sun Friday afternoon, a representative of federal health Minister Patty Hajdu disputed the provinces assertions. "We have not blocked any provinces or territories from making their own orders independently of the federal government. ... This week, we announced the purchase of 7.9 million Abbott ID NOW rapid point-of-care tests. These tests will be distributed to provinces and territories in the coming weeks using the same agreed to approach we have used since the beginning of the pandemic, while working to ensure that tests are going where they are needed the most. We have been working on bulk purchases with provinces and territories throughout the pandemic and will continue to do so." The Sun was also told that the federal governments contract with Abbott does not prevent provinces from purchasing the rapid tests. Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Friday, federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Ottawas approach will ensure all provinces get the number of tests they need. "Our objective is not to block provinces from accessing supplies," LeBlanc said. "It would, in fact, be to work collaboratively with provinces and territories to ensure that all Canadians and all orders of government have the necessary supplies to keep Canadians safe." LeBlanc said the federal government will follow up on Manitobas concerns, but did not commit to any specific action. Late Friday afternoon, a spokesperson from Helwers office reiterated in an email that the province was told they could not purchase any of the tests because of the federal procurement policy. "As the Premier stated in his letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, we urge the federal government to enable Manitoba to purchase these tests directly," they wrote. "We look forward to formal confirmation that the federal government has reversed their policy and that Manitoba will be permitted to place an order with Abbott." Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont sent out an emailed statement on Friday once again saying Pallisters government is trying to deflect blame for its own management of health care by blaming the federal government. "The Pallister PCs are complaining they cant yet buy a test that was only approved by Health Canada 24 hours ago," he wrote. "This is a deliberate attempt to once again blame the federal government for their inaction and lack of proper pandemic planning as COVID testing line ups continue to get longer. Helwer already has a track record of blowing money on unapproved health products, including spending $1.2-million on bootleg hand-sanitizer made from fuel-grade ethanol that was recalled as a health hazard. Brian Pallister and the PCs keep saying the federal government shouldnt meddle in health because it is provincial, then demand federal funding and dont spend it. " cslark@brandonsun.com, with files from the Canadian Press Twitter: @ColinSlark MIDDLETOWN City election officials primed to handle a torrent of absentee ballot applications between now and Nov. 3 are pleased the governor is allowing them four extra days to validate the returns. The use of these ballots are significantly on the rise, according to Town Clerk Ashley Flynn-Natale, since Americans are now permitted to cast their votes by mail or in secure, local dropboxes due to the pandemic. Lamont this summer signed a bill granting all registered voters the ability to vote in the general election using absentee ballots. Flynn-Natales office has received an astronomical amount of applications, the first batch of which were mailed Friday, as required by state statute. Voters should expect them to arrive sometime next week, depending on the mail. In order to keep abreast of the flow of applications, as well as process absentee ballots, the clerks office reduced its public hours by half up until Election Day. It will close at noon weekdays, though all services are available from 8:30 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday. So far, 5,000 absentee ballots have been sent out in Middletown. Its a challenge between the town clerk and registrars office but theyre doing a phenomenal job getting applications processed and election sites set up, Mayor Ben Florsheim said. This is a heavy-duty operation happening for the first time, and its happening with a handful of people having to work around the clock to get it done, he said. The city has gotten some state funds to pay for help. One student working at the town clerks office told Florsheim that he worked all day on a pile of absentee ballots, and it felt like were barely making a dent. But it is getting done. As of Thursday night, there were 28,962 active voters in Middletown, Democratic Town Registrar Lisa Santangelo reported. Thats up significantly since the Aug. 11 primary, when the office recorded about 27,000. Many are young people who have never registered before, and those who moved to the city and never got around to changing their addresses, Santangelo said. Presidential elections always see the most turnout in Middletown, and municipal elections the least, she said. Lamont signed legislation Friday that will provide municipal election officials the option of having more time to begin the process of verifying absentee ballots. It allows them to open the outer envelope, and certify the legitimacy of the inner envelope, beginning Oct. 30 at 5 p.m., rather than 6 a.m. on Election Day. The inner envelope, which contains a voters ballot, still cannot be opened or the ballot counted until the day of the election, the governors office said. Middletown has two ballot dropboxes in the back of City Hall at 245 deKoven Drive. In Connecticut, people can register to vote up until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Many Middletown election moderators have been volunteering for years, and are mostly older, retired people with more free time, Santangelo said. Theyre in the category with underlying health issues, so they should not be out meeting a lot of people. Fortunately, more people are now stepping up to work at the polls than ever before. All will be outfitted with face masks, sanitizer, gloves and other safety measures on Election Day, Santangelo said. The primary was a valuable dry run. It gave us a practice session on what went well and what we need to work on, the registrar said. The mayor doesnt expect local fallout in connection with President Donald Trumps statement to his supporters during Tuesday nights debate with former vice president Joe Biden, encouraging them to go into the polls and watch very carefully. State law prohibits anyone other than elections officers and registered voters to enter polling stations, with limited exceptions. You cant just show up, say, were here to stay and watch, Santangelo said. There used to be a local practice in which campaign volunteers would sit with moderators and observe voters at the polls, which, Florsheim said, is not the best use of their time. When he was running for mayor, his aides would call the registrars office every hour to get voter turnout. People who are there to serve as self-appointed moderators or election integrity protectors is not something that is allowed, he said. For instructions on how to vote absentee, visit bit.ly/2Sn7jTX. For local information, go to the town clerks page on middletownct.gov or call 860-638-4910. The Morrison government has laid out its road map to reform Australia's workplace laws after unions and business groups failed to find consensus on changes to spur job growth during months of confidential talks. Attorney-General and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said he planned to put the government's overhaul in an omnibus bill, which will make it harder for Labor to block just the elements it opposes. Attorney-General Christian Porter will push ahead with industrial reform after talks among interest groups failed to find consensus. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen A fix to the vague definition of a "casual worker" will be in the planned legislation to relieve fears among businesses that employees will be able to double-dip on entitlements and pay, as will changes to overtime rules for part-timers. Measures to encourage enterprise agreements and simplify awards will be included too. "I think they're all very complementary and they work together as a group," Mr Porter said. Curve Connect Launches to Afford a Virtual Home to the Intimates Community Establishing a virtual space for the lingerie and intimate-apparel category, events producer Comexposium Group USA launched its Curve Connect event through a partnership with event-software provider Grip for an online trade exposition that was held Sept. 1325. While the Curve brand has enjoyed onsite shows in the United States, with events in New York, Las Vegas and an inaugural Los Angeles edition launched in February, its organizers began planning digital alternatives early on in the first months of stateside COVID-19. With 21 webinars produced since April, Curve has enjoyed a lot of preparation to introduce Curve Connect as its new virtual offering, allowing the intimates-event brand to expand its reach to other regions including Japan, Brazil, Kenya and Australia. The platform we used is more suited for matchmaking and networking. We were allowing the brand reps to contact the buyers on the platform, Curve Chief Executive Officer Raphael Camp said. They have access to the buyers directory and can reach out to them and request meetings or chat with them. That is what was different. Its what I bet on, and it was successful. As a software solution that focuses on matchmaking powered through artificial intelligence, the London-based Grip focuses on building relationshipsa facet of industry events that different groups within the apparel business have been trying to reclaim through their virtual events. This platform allowed us to broadcast a lot of content. We produced almost 20 hours of original content ourselves, from roundtables to panels and webinars, Camp said. We offered workshops for retailers as well, to survive and do business during these difficult times. Different types of content curated for retail, for marketing, Instagram, and of course we had content about lingeriefamous influencers and trendsetters on the next-year and three-years-from-now trends. Some of these segments included Sourcing and Sustainability: Redefining Values, Return to Sexy! and Lingerie Shopping in the Era of Black Lives Matter: How to Update Your Brand or Boutique for the Time. During this time of social distancing and safe-shopping guidelines, the event also afforded opportunities for attendees to learn how to fit bras during this new atmosphere of selling lingerie by featuring Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Bra-Fitting Business for 2020?, The Virtual Fit School: How to Survive and Thrive in This New Time and A Lingerie Fitters Guide to Addressing Breast Surgeries. Another big moment off the virtual-trade-show floor was the presentation of the NPD & Curve Excellence Awards, which highlighted the outstanding work of the industrys veteran retailers, beloved brand representatives and innovative labels with the intimates-event brand and market-research company collaborating to celebrate changemakers within the category. We organized the first-ever Curve Excellence Awards in partnership with The NPD Group, which awarded the best brands, and on the Curve side we awarded the retailers who did some charity projects and gave back to the community and essential workers in the area, Camp said. One of the top retailers, Danny Koch of Town Shop in New York City, received the lifetime achievement award. He got his retail store from his parents, who got it from their parents, so its a family history of lingerie. A retailer who has attended Curves shows over the course of her businesss 14-year history, Yvonne Khakzadi-Alicea, founder of Granite Bay, Calif.s Yves Lingerie, thought the show afforded opportunities to bring together the intimates community. She emphasized that exhibitors must make the virtual-show process easy by making certain their line sheets, pictures, pricing and other pertinent information are available through the platform. Khakzadi-Alicea, who specializes in larger cup sizes, was approaching trends cautiously as she placed orders, needing to fill in and search for Fall and Holiday. I got together with Chantelle and Aubade. She sent me some samples. Dita Von Teese is sending samples so I can look at the line, she said. I am not taking a lot of risk right now. I dont think anybody is. I went through 2008, the last time the market fell. We have to be cautious. Loungewear, sleepwear, but something that is special and is okay in the mid-price point. You want to offer a good product, but I dont see someone spending $500 on a top. Khakzadi-Alicea advised her peers to remain authentic to their clientele with pieces that reflect their core customer base. While she doesnt feel that taking risks is wise at the moment, investing in a single special piece to see if it resonates with customers is a better choice to freshen up inventory, yet she felt there is a special part of selling intimates that cannot be ignored. On the exhibitor side, Eveden Senior Vice President of North America Laurel Nash saw trends in skin tones, pinksparticularly a bright version of the huewarm blues and rose. She saw customers ordering their bestsellers in new colors, allowing them to remain with tried-and-trusted products while refreshing their offerings safely. In general, our customers are buying our bestsellers in new colors. The fit process is very different than it has been before, so customers trust the styles that they generally know fit, and they are very interested in new colors, Nash said. Ilonia is our strongest-selling brand, and we have a bra called Matilda that has beautiful dot detailing on the top cup. For this season we introduced hearts instead of dots, so there were some nice, whimsical details there. Noting the seamless manner in which Curve expanded on its educational webinar offerings by providing panels throughout the Curve Connect show, Nash recognized the importance of members of the industry coming together to learn from their peers. She felt that the show was true to its name by connecting people within the industry during this challenging time. Just what the name says, Curve Connect, Nash said. It has helped connect the lingerie community. Even if were not connecting physically on the platform, its helped people realize that life is going to go on and we can look forward together and were in this together. With one edition of Curve Connect on the books, Camp revealed that the virtual platform would be open until late November. While he foresees potential for the virtual component to grow, remaining part of the brand, he is also planning for next trade-show season beginning with a Los Angeles edition of the onsite version of Curve, with a tentative event schedule planned for the first weekend in March 2021. Source : apparelnews The government has distributed two sets of uniform to 14.83 lakh pre-school children in the state on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. As per the Women and Child Development Department, these uniforms have been distributed as per the colour composition (blue colour pants and pink colour shirts) in 61,040 Anganwadi centres under the state government's "Malati Devi Prak Vidyalaya Paridhan Yojana" as many as 1,344 Self Help Groups (SHGs) across the state were engaged in the uniforms' stitching and supply. The department has stated that the provision of two sets of uniforms for pre-school children under "Malati Devi Prak Vidyalaya Paridhan Yojana" is an important initiative of the state government. Pre-school children also look forward to getting new uniforms that keep them interested to attend Anganwadi Centers (AWCs) to avail a host of other Anganwadi Services including Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) and Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE). (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.) Billionaire retailer Solomon Lew appears to be gearing up for another attempt to topple Myer's management after requesting the embattled department store's shareholder register to contact minority investors for their support. Mr Lew's retailing company Premier Investments, which holds an 11 per cent stake in Myer, formally demanded that the company provide it with a copy of the register, which lists names and addresses of all investors. "Premier has requested these registers in order to consider writing to Myers members in relation to any resolutions proposed at Myers [annual general meeting] this year," Premier said in a statement to the ASX. Solomon Lew has asked for a copy of Myer's shareholder register. Credit:Eddie Jim Myer's notice of annual general meeting, released last week, lists four resolutions for shareholders to vote on, one of which is a re-election bid for chairman Garry Hounsell. Fear and confusion that played out after midnight at Taylors Louisville home was detailed in 15 hours of audio recordings LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) Police said they knocked and announced themselves for a minute or more before bursting into Breonna Taylors apartment, but her boyfriend said he did not hear officers identify themselves, according to Kentucky grand jury recordings released Friday. In the hail of gunfire that ensued, the 26-year-old Black woman was killed. The dramatic and sometimes conflicting accounts of the March 13 raid are key to a case that has fueled nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism. When police came through the door using a battering ram, Taylors boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired once. He acknowledges that he may not have heard police identify themselves because of where he was in the apartment. If hed heard them, it changes the whole situation because theres nothing for us to be scared of. The fear and confusion that played out after midnight at Taylors Louisville home was detailed in 15 hours of audio recordings made public in a rare release. While the recordings added rich detail about what happened as police fired 32 shots in the last moments of Taylors life, nothing on them appeared to change the fundamental narrative that was previously made public. In this Sept. 25, 2020, file photo, Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, right, listens to a news conference in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) The recordings also do not include any discussion of potential criminal action on the part of the officers who shot Taylor because Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron determined beforehand that they had acted in self-defense. As a result, he did not seek charges against police in her killing a recommendation the grand jury followed. Grand jury proceedings are typically kept secret, but a court ruled that they should be released after the jurys decision last week angered many in Louisville and around the country and set off renewed protests. One of the jurors also sued to make the proceedings public. The material does not include juror deliberations or prosecutor recommendations and statements, none of which were recorded, according to Camerons office. Story continues The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said it will release its own assessment of how the evidence was presented after a review of the recordings. Sherrilyn Ifill, the groups president, said releasing the recordings is a critical first step. READ MORE: Breonna Taylor grand jury indicts former officer Brett Hankison but not directly for her death At Jefferson Square Park, which has been at the center of protests for months, a small group gathered in a mood far more subdued than the outcry that followed the grand jurys decision. On the March night in question, police arrived after midnight at Taylors apartment with a narcotics warrant to search the home. She and her boyfriend were in bed. Within minutes, she had been shot five times. Though police had a no knock warrant that would have allowed them to burst in unannounced, they agreed it was better to give them a chance to answer the door, said Louisville police Lt. Shawn Hoover. Detective Myles Cosgrove said the officers had been told to use our maturity as investigators to get into this house. In this Sept. 23, 2020, file photo, people gather in Jefferson Square awaiting word on charges against police officers, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) In a police interview played for the grand jury, Hoover said the officers announced themselves as police and knocked three times. He estimated they waited 45 seconds to a minute before going through the door. Another officer said they waited as long as two minutes. Walker said he heard knocking but that police did not respond to his and Taylors repeated requests that whoever was at the door identify themselves. He told police that he grabbed his gun, and they both got up and walked toward the door. Shes yelling at the top of her lungs, and I am too at this point. No answer. No response. No nothing, Walker said. Police said they used a battering ram to enter the apartment, hitting the door three times before getting inside. Detective Michael Nobles said officers made so much noise that an upstairs neighbor came outside. Walker, who has said he thought the police were intruders, fired once, hitting Detective Jonathan Mattingly in the leg as soon as he leaned inside the apartment. Mattingly said in testimony, some of which was previously released, that he fired his gun while falling on his backside. In this Sept. 25, 2020, file photo, Black Lives Matter protesters march in Louisville. Hours of material in the grand jury proceedings for Taylors fatal shooting by police have been made public on Friday, Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File) Cosgrove came through the door and saw Mattingly on the ground. In his interview with investigators, he spoke to the confusion of the confrontation. He told investigators that he thought he fired four or fewer shots, but the evidence showed he fired 16 rounds, including the bullet that killed Taylor. Officer Brett Hankison, who has since been fired, told investigators that he saw flashes from a gun coming from inside the apartment and feared his fellow officers were sitting ducks. Hankison said he began shooting, and when gunfire inside the apartment continued, moved to fire through a window. He fired 10 bullets. Hankison was the only officer indicted by the grand jury, which charged him with wanton endangerment for shooting into another home with people inside. He has pleaded not guilty. What I saw at the time was a figure in a shooting stance, and it looked as if he was holding, he or she was holding, an AR-15 or a long gun, a rifle, Hankison said. Walker was, in fact, using a handgun. He said he and Taylor both dropped to the ground when the officers returned fire. READ MORE: Breonna Taylors mother says police, law not made to protect Black women Im scared to death, Walker said, before it dawned on him that it was the police. Walker said he then looked at Taylor, who was bleeding. Seeking help he called his mother, 911 and then Taylors mother. Walker told a 911 dispatcher: Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend. While Walker told police he did not hear officers identify themselves, he also said he doubted he could have, considering the couple was at the opposite end of a long hallway. If we knew who it was, that would have never happened, Walker said. But Hoover, the police lieutenant, said he believed Walker and Taylor ambushed the officers. They knew we were there. I mean, hell, the neighbors knew we were there, he said. In this Sept. 25, 2020, file photo, University of Georgia students lead a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown in memory of Breonna Taylor in Athens, Ga. (Joshua L. Jones/Athens Banner-Herald via AP, File) Police interviews with Taylors neighbors, however, didnt clear up the confusion. Two neighbors said they didnt hear the police knocking. One of them also said he was certain he didnt hear police identify themselves. Another man gave three differing accounts in two of them saying he heard officers identify themselves. After the burst of gunshots, the officers focused on the wounded Mattingly. No one else entered Taylors apartment until a SWAT team arrived even as she lay bleeding. A neighbor, Summer Dickerson, told investigators she was jolted out of bed by the gunshots. Outside the apartment, she said, an officer she recognized told her that some drug-dealing girl shot at the police. Walker initially told police that Taylor was the one who shot at them. He later said he was the one who fired the gun. One law enforcement officer testified that no drugs were found in the apartment but that police ultimately never executed the search warrant. ___ Associated Press writers from around the country contributed to this report. Have you subscribed to theGrios podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now! The post Grand jury audio details raid that killed Breonna Taylor appeared first on TheGrio. SNP's Margaret Ferrier facing fury for flouting coronavirus self-isolation rules Travelled to House of Parliament while suffering symptoms and taking a test Took train 400 miles back to Scotland after testing positive for the disease One person at Commons has been told to self-isolate as contacts are traced Ian Blackford has joined furious calls for SNP's Margaret Ferrier to resign after it was revealed the MP made a 400-mile train trip knowing she had tested positive for Covid-19. Ms Ferrier has admitted travelling to Parliament and speaking in the Commons after developing coronavirus symptoms, and then taking a train back to Scotland after testing positive. ADVERTISEMENT She also visited a gym, shops and a beauty salon on the day she became ill, but is resisting calls to quit despite mounting anger over her 'utterly indefensible' actions. The 60-year-old posted images on her social media showing her out and about in her constituency Rutherglen and Hamilton West on Saturday - the day she was tested for Covid-19. SNP Westminster leader Mr Blackford today blasted Ms Ferrier for what he dubbed a 'tremendous error of judgment', and insisted she must now 'do the right thing for her constituents'. Margaret Ferrier posted images on her social media showing her out and about in her Rutherglen and Hamilton West on Saturday - the day she was tested for Covid-19 He added that Ms Ferrier's SNP whip was withdrawn on Thursday morning when the party learned of her breaches of coronavirus rules. Mr Blackford told BBC Radio Scotland: 'She has to reflect on the circumstances that she is now in. 'I would say to her that her position isn't tenable, given the circumstances that we're in, and she has to accept her own responsibilities of what she must do. I can't force that upon her, she is no longer an SNP MP. Click here to resize this module 'I'm pretty angry at what has happened, it is not acceptable. 'It's important that it is beyond reproach that everybody, absolutely everybody, must obey the rules and we have to think about the signal that gives the public and the sacrifices that people are having to make, and it's in the light of that that Margaret will have to do the right thing.' Scotland Yard confirmed it was looking into Ms Ferrier's admission on Thursday that she travelled 400 miles from Glasgow to London and then back again while suffering with Covid-19 this week. Images on Ms Ferrier's Twitter page showed her in several public places likely to have been busy on a Saturday, including the Vanilla Salon and South Lanarkshire Eastfield Lifestyle leisure centre in Rutherglen (pictured with the MP centre) She travelled by train to London from Scotland last Monday while awaiting the results of a Covid test taken on Saturday, and then travelled back the following day after being told the test was positive. Images on her Twitter page showed her in several public places likely to have been busy on a Saturday, including the Vanilla Salon and South Lanarkshire Eastfield Lifestyle leisure centre in Rutherglen, and Sweet P gift shop in Burnside. ADVERTISEMENT Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle lashed out at her astonishing actions as she faced calls from her own party leader to quit the Commons. Nicola Sturgeon used a series of expletives and said her 'head was in her hands' on being told that her 'friend and colleague' had broken the law, sources told the Times. However, Ms Ferrier is resisting calls to quit and may seek to stay in the Commons as an independent, having referred herself to the parliamentary standards watchdog having been stripped of the party whip. Ian Blackford (pictured) has joined furious calls for SNP's Margaret Ferrier to resign after it was revealed the MP had visited a gym and a beauty salon after contracting Covid-19 Mr Blackford insisted the SNP was unaware Ms Ferrier had taken a Covid-19 test on Saturday before travelling to Westminster to take part in a debate on coronavirus in the House of Commons on Monday. By Ms Ferrier's own account, she tested positive that evening, but she did not make clear whether she received the result before or after she spoke in the House. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP said she took a test after experiencing 'mild symptoms', meaning she should have self-isolated. In a statement, she admitted she travelled home to Glasgow on Tuesday, where she has been self-isolating ever since. She apologised for her actions and said there was 'no excuse'. The Metropolitan Police confirmed last night that it was investigating the journeys along with British Transport Police over potential breaches of the Health Protection Regulations 2020. Ms Ferrier could face a 4,000 fine for a first-time offence of 'recklessly' coming into contact with others when she should have been self-isolating under a law that came into force on the day of her positive test. Astonishingly, the 60-year-old received a positive result on Monday night and still appeared in the Commons chamber (pictured), speaking in a debate on coronavirus and its impact on the economy and jobs Nicola Sturgeon urged Margaret Ferrier to 'do the right thing' as she faced universal condemnation for her 'utterly indefensible' behaviour Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Blackford added Ms Ferrier had broken the law as well as coronavirus rules. ADVERTISEMENT He added: 'She has let herself down, and she has let her constituents, and indeed the country, down as well. 'I am asking her to reflect on her position - but I think it's very clear what I'm doing.' Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick added: 'Margaret Ferrier has accepted that she has broken the law. 'That's now a matter for the police, the authorities who are investigating the matter, and it is really for her to consider what her political future is, and for her party, the SNP.' The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged Margaret Ferrier to 'do the right thing' as she faced universal condemnation for her 'utterly indefensible' behaviour . Ms Sturgeon said she had made it 'crystal clear' to Ms Ferrier that she must resign. 'I've spoken to Margaret Ferrier and made clear my view that she should step down as an MP,' she said. 'I did so with a heavy heart - she is a friend & colleague - but her actions were dangerous & indefensible. I have no power to force an MP to resign but I hope she will do the right thing.' Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross branded Ms Ferrier's decision to travel between London and Glasgow on a train with coronavirus symptoms as 'reckless and dangerous'. Mr Ross himself resigned as a Government minister over his party's refusal to condemn Number 10 aide Dominic Cummings's trip to Durham with his family at the height of lockdown while suffering coronavirus symptoms. He said Ms Ferrier's position is now 'completely untenable'. 'No-one can take what she says with any credibility because she has flouted the rules at every opportunity when she first became aware of the symptoms back on Saturday,' Mr Ross said. Speaker Sir Lindsay told Sky News he learned the 60-year-old had coronavirus while in the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons at around 4pm on Wednesday. He said: 'Obviously this is completely reckless behaviour for a Member of Parliament - to put staff and fellow MPs at risk is not acceptable.' Margaret Ferrier's statement in full 'I apologise unreservedly for breaching Covid-19 restrictions by travelling this week when I shouldn't have. There is no excuse for my actions. 'On Saturday afternoon, after experiencing mild symptoms, I requested a Covid-19 test which I took that day. Feeling much better, I then travelled to London by train on Monday to attend Parliament as planned. This was wrong, and I am very sorry for my mistake. 'On Monday evening I received a positive test result for Covid-19. I travelled home by train on Tuesday morning without seeking advice. This was also wrong and I am sorry. I have been self-isolating at home ever since. 'I have used Test and Protect and I have notified the House of Commons authorities who have spoken with Public Health England. I have also notified the police of my actions. 'Despite feeling well, I should have self-isolated while waiting for my test result, and I deeply regret my actions. I take full responsibility and I would urge everyone not to make the same mistakes that I have, and do all they can to help limit the spread of Covid-19.' He added: 'What made it worse was only being told on Wednesday on something that people knew about on Monday - well the MP themselves knew about it on Monday.' He said the reaction was immediate and 'within 20 minutes we were in full swing on what we needed to do to ensure the safety and security of staff and members'. He also voiced anger than some in the SNP knew of the situation long before he was informed. DUP MP Jim Shannon revealed on Friday that he dined with Ms Ferrier at Parliament on Monday night and was told to self-isolate, but had since tested negative. The Commons said one person who had come into contact with Ms Ferrier had been told to self-isolate, with investigations into who else might be at risk set to continue. Extra cleaning precautions have also been taken - although the damage might already have been done. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP said she took a test on Saturday afternoon after experiencing 'mild symptoms', meaning she should have self-isolated, before travelling by train to London on Monday having felt better. Labour suggested the party covered up knowledge of Margaret Ferrier's actions after it emerged they knew of her diagnosis a day before she disclosed it on Thursday evening. She spoke in the coronavirus debate in the House of Commons on Monday and, by her account, tested positive for Covid-19 that evening. She did not make clear whether she received the result before or after she spoke. In a statement, she said she travelled home to Glasgow on Tuesday, where she has been self-isolating ever since. 'Despite feeling well, I should have self-isolated while waiting for my test result, and I deeply regret my actions,' she said. Ms Sturgeon was repeatedly grilled on the situation at her daily briefing this afternoon. But she swiped back by comparing her response to that of Boris Johnson when his chief aide Dominic Cummings was accused of breaching rules. 'Trust me, it's one of the easiest things in the world in politics to call for tough consequences when one of your opponents breaks the rules, that's not hard for any of us,' she said. 'The litmus test, though, is whether you're prepared to do the same when it's one of your own breaking the rules. Speaker's fury at delay in alerting him to MP's coronavirus status The Commons Speaker today vented fury at the delay in informing him about Margaret Ferrier's 'reckless' actions. Sir Lindsay told Sky News he only learned Ms Ferrier had coronavirus while in the Chair at around 4pm on Wednesday. He said the reaction was immediate and 'within 20 minutes we were in full swing on what we needed to do to ensure the safety and security of staff and members'. He said: 'Obviously this is completely reckless behaviour for a Member of Parliament to put staff and fellow MPs at risk is not acceptable.' He added: 'What made it worse was only being told on Wednesday on something that people knew about on Monday well the MP themselves knew about it on Monday.' 'And in these abnormal times when everybody has been asked to do difficult things, I think that is more important than ever. 'That's why the SNP whip has been withdrawn from Margaret, and that is the most serious sanction a party can impose on an elected representative. 'I've also spoken to her directly and made crystal clear to her that I think she should now resign as an MP.' The DUP issued a statement saying that Strangford MP Jim Shannon was seated at the same dining table as Ms Ferrier on Monday night. 'The room seating arrangements included proper social distancing measures,' the party said. 'On Wednesday evening, the Speaker's Office alerted Mr Shannon that he had been identified as a close contact of an individual who had tested positive for Covid-19. 'Upon receiving this news, Mr Shannon immediately self-isolated and on Thursday afternoon he received a negative Covid-19 test result. 'Mr Shannon sought and at all times has followed the advice of Public Health England and the House of Commons' Covid-19 team in dealing with every element of this incident. 'As a precaution, Mr Shannon is self-isolating at home.' The SNP gained the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat from Labour in the 2019 general election, when Ms Ferrier won with a majority of 5,230. But her colleagues turned on her overnight after it emerged she had flouted the rules. David Linden, the SNP MP for the Glasgow East constituency neighbouring Ms Ferrier's, has called for her to go. He told BBC Question Time her behaviour is 'utterly inexcusable', adding: 'I don't think her position is tenable and she should resign.' The DUP issued a statement saying that Strangford MP Jim Shannon was seated at the same dining table as Ms Ferrier on Monday night, but has since tested negative for Covid The actions of Ms Ferrier are all the more astonishing because earlier this year she was outspoken in criticising the Government for defending No10 advisor Dominic Cummings when he was accused of breaching lockdown Margaret Ferrier With Nicola Sturgeon Margaret Ferrier: Comeback MP who won her old seat off Labour in 2019 - only to be suspended less than a year later for Covid-19 train journey Margaret Ferrier, 60, is MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, in central Scotland. As an SNP candidate, she won the seat in 2015 in the party's landslide on the back of the 2014 Independence referendum. She was almost instantly made a party spokesperson on Scotland and was elected to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee. However she was narrowly beaten by Labour in the 2017 General Election. But in last year's poll she retook the seat. Until tonight, she was the SNP's spokesperson on manufacturing. Ms Ferrier was born in Glasgow but lived in Spain for several years when she was a child. In an interview with the Daily Record, she said she had been a member of Scottish Labour in her youth. This has since been echoed by Kirsty Blackman, SNP MP for Aberdeen North, and Stephen Flynn, SNP MP for Aberdeen South. Ms Blackman said that while Ms Ferrier is an 'unparalleled' campaigner for the party, she must resign. 'Margaret's actions cannot be overlooked,' she added in a tweet. Mr Flynn retweeted Ms Blackman's post, writing: 'Impossible to disagree. The public will expect nothing less.' Scottish Conservative leader Mr Ross, who resigned from Boris Johnson's Government over Dominic Cummings' lockdown movements, said 'the public deserve clear answers'. 'We now know that the SNP were informed on Wednesday that Margaret Ferrier had been tested, after she had already travelled back to Scotland from London by public transport while infected with the virus,' he said. 'These actions not only broke the law, they will have put lives at risk. 'We must hear from Nicola Sturgeon and Ian Blackford about exactly when they knew and why they kept this information secret from the public for hours or maybe even days.' Shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray also demanded answers from First Minister Ms Sturgeon and Mr Blackford. The Labour MP tweeted: 'SNP in chaos & appear to be covering up serious breach of public health laws. 'FM & Blackford must hold press conference tomorrow am to answer questions about what they did & didn't know.' An SNP spokeswoman insisted the party did not know until Thursday that Ms Ferrier had taken a test prior to travelling to London. 'Ms Ferrier informed the SNP on Wednesday, when she was in Glasgow, that she had tested positive,' she said. 'The SNP's chief whip immediately informed Parliament authorities. The SNP only became aware on Thursday that Ms Ferrier had been tested prior to travelling to London and had travelled back to Glasgow, knowing that she had a positive result.' On Monday, Ms Ferrier gave a four-minute speech in the Commons from 7.15pm and focused on the 'economic health' of her constituents, calling for greater financial support. A Police Scotland spokesman said officers are liaising with colleagues in the Metropolitan Police. ADVERTISEMENT 'Margaret Ferrier MP contacted Police Scotland earlier today about travelling between London and Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus,' he said. President Trump was airlifted to Walter Reed Medical Center Friday evening after testing positive for COVID-19. According to the extremely limited information released by the White House, he was treated with a cocktail of experimental drugs during the day but had a persistent low-grade fever, a significant factor in the decision to send him to the hospital. There is no sign that Trumps coming down with COVID-19 has evoked any sympathy among broad layers of the American population. Among working people who have lost loved ones or barely survived a debilitating illness themselves, there is no doubt a powerful feeling that Trump is getting his just deserts. Given his role in downplaying the virus and disparaging the use of face masks, he is like an arsonist who has inadvertently set himself on fire. Trumps positive test for coronavirus has dramatically intensified the political crisis in the United States. It has thrown a spanner into the works, at least temporarily, for the fascist forces Trump was seeking to mobilize to spearhead an election coup detat. And it has demonstrated the criminal recklessness of the policy of reopening the schools and forcing workers back to work in the face of the pandemic. Millions of working people are being given an irrefutable demonstration of the real dangers posed by the coronavirus. If the President of the United States, ensconced in the White House, surrounded by an army of aides and Secret Service agents, and with access to the best medical technology, cannot be protected from COVID-19, how can workers in auto and meatpacking plants, or teachers and students in classrooms, be considered safe from this deadly threat? Trumps diagnosis coincides with the admission by Amazon that a staggering 20,000 of its US employees have tested positive for the coronavirus. The fortune of the worlds richest man, Jeff Bezos, like all capitalist wealth, is amassed through the destruction of the health and lives of superexploited workers. The lavish treatment afforded Trump, who is occupying the presidential suite at Walter Reed, attended by a retinue of medical personnel, while he continues to exercise the powers of his office, is in stark contrast to the treatment received by millions of COVID-19 patients whose suffering was exacerbated by the Trump administrations neglect, indifference and incompetence. Trump did not languish for hours in an emergency room before he could get a bed. He will not be attended by nurses wearing garbage bags instead of Personal Protective Equipment. There will be no shortage of ventilators and other specialized equipment and drugs if his case takes a turn for the worse. He will lack for nothing, while millions of working people have already gone two months since the cutoff of federal extended unemployment benefits. The short-term political consequences of this event are highly unpredictable. They depend to a large extent on whether Trump, at age 74 and clinically obese, is able to recover rapidly or at all. It will be several days before it will be known whether Trumps infection is mild or more severe. Patients of Trumps age, weight and gender have a mortality rate from three to 11 percent. If Trump remains hospitalized, the question of handing over day-to-day political authority to Vice President Mike Pence will be raised. A more severe illness, particularly if Trump requires a ventilator, will raise the question of invoking the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which allows the vice president to take the place of the president with the support of a majority of cabinet officers. None of the information being released by the White House can be taken at face value. Questions remain about how long Trump has been ill, how long he has known he was infected, and how many people he may have infected in the White House, Congress, and in his travels to and from campaign rallies. It is likely that he was infectious during the debate with his Democratic opponent Joe Biden Tuesday night in Cleveland. Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris have since tested negative. The day-to-day operations of both the executive and legislative branches will be significantly disrupted by the Trump diagnosis. An undisclosed number of White House aides have tested positive, including Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway, as well as Trumps wife Melania. Republican senators Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, who visited the White House last Saturday for the announcement of the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, have both tested positive. The Trump reelection campaign has announced that all events involving the president or any family members have either been postponed or rescheduled as virtual events. Trumps ability to participate in future debates is in question, with the next one set for October 15 in Miami, Florida. If Trumps illness worsens, there could be attempts to replace him as the Republican candidate, either on the November ballot, or in the Electoral College, whose voters meet December 14 in state capitals across the country. In this crisis, the main role of the Democratic Party has been to downplay the threat of a political coup by Trump around the November 3 election. They seek to shut down any opposition to Trump that might give expression to the deep social anger in the working class. Their greatest fear is that Trumps illness could open the way to a more general collapse of the Republicans, leading to a sweeping victory in the November 3 election that puts Biden in the White House and installs a Democratic majority in the Senate as well as the House of Representatives. The last thing they want is to face popular expectations that a Biden administration will take immediate action to undo the horrific consequences of Trumps right-wing policies over the past four years. Even if it comes to power in Washington as a consequence of this sudden turn of events, the Democratic Party remains a party of Wall Street and the CIA. Nancy Pelosis first media comment after the news broke was that measures to preserve continuity of government were in place. Biden speaks incessantly of his desire to restore normalcy to American capitalism. In other words, the Democrats wish to maintain the American ruling elite in its accustomed position of undisturbed self-enrichment, while excluding the broad mass of working people from any say in the operations of American society. The Trump diagnosis does not alter the fundamental trajectory of the social and political crisis of American capitalism. Even if Trump were to die of the pandemic, he is not the cause of the fascist danger confronting the working class, but merely the instrument. It will disrupt the effort to build a personalist, authoritarian movement if the would-be Mussolini is removed from the political equation. But the American ruling elite will find new instruments unless the working class takes up the political struggle against the capitalist system that is so urgently needed. As the WSWS warned in our Perspective of October 1: The ruling class knows that it confronts mass social anger that will take an explosive and potentially revolutionary form. This is what imparts to Trumps actions their frenzied and reckless character. Terrified of the development of social opposition, he sees in every protest and manifestation of opposition the danger of the radical left and socialism. The growth of working class militancy, already apparent in the wave of strikes, has convinced a substantial section of the ruling class that they have no way out except through violence. With or without Trump, the fundamental class issues remain, and American political life remains poised on a knife-edge. Fascist reaction, having tried to use Trump to smash through the front door and impose dictatorship, may be compelled to push through the back door. Without the intervention of the working class, it will find a political Plan B. The most urgent necessity is for working people and young people to take up a political struggle against the capitalist system and both the parties that defend it. 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. Ayr Strategies, a cannabis company with operations in Massachusetts and Nevada, is moving into Pennsylvania in a big way. The New York-based multistate operator announced in August it was taking control of two marijuana cultivators in the Keystone State. But it had not identified those growers. On Friday, Ayr (OTC: AYRSF) released the targets names and the total price: $75.8 million. One was DocHouse LLC, which has been building a 50,000-square-foot cultivation facility near Pottsville. Its selling its equity interest to Ayr for a total of $20.8 million. The deal includes $16.7 million in cash, $2.1 million in stock, and $2 million in seller notes. DocHouses chief executive, Justin Moriconi of Elkins Park, declined to comment. Though the state Department of Health deemed DocHouse operational in December, it does not appear to have shipped any marijuana products to dispensaries. The other is CannTech PA, which has a growing operation in the Pittsburgh suburbs. It sold for $55 million in a package that also includes permits for five retail marijuana dispensaries. CannTech PA will receive $25 million in cash, $15 million in stock, and $15 million in seller notes. CannTech PA is paired with the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine to conduct research under the states medical marijuana program. Its unclear whether the Department of Health will allow Ayr to hold two permits for growing facilities. A Health Department spokesperson could not be reached for comment. Pennsylvanias medical marijuana program allows for a total of 33 cannabis growers 25 commercial growers and eight operating under the research program. Ayr also announced an agreement to purchase one of Ohios largest growing facilities under construction for $18.2 million but did not identify the facilitys name or location. Ayr is led by Jonathan Sandelman, who once served as president of Bank of America Securities. He later was CEO of the multibillion-dollar hedge fund Sandelman Partners. Our strategy has always been to go deep in the best markets, targeting attractive assets in limited-license states with large populations, where we can build a vertically integrated presence and have a significant edge, Sandelman said in a statement. The acquisitions represent the next step in the disciplined and targeted expansion of our footprint, Sandelman said. But, he added, the firm is just getting started. NZ will only open border to Australians after 28 days of no community spread Queensland will only open border to NSW after 28 days of no community spread Frustrating hopes of Federal, NSW, Coalition Governments for travel bubble New Zealand will not accept Australian travellers without quarantine until there is no community transmission for a month. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Saturday her country was 'not ready' to open up to two-way travel without quarantine until Australia records 28 straight days without community transmission. ADVERTISEMENT Australia has been pushing for a two-way travel bubble with New Zealand, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison announcing on Thursday that New Zealand travellers would be able to visit New South Wales and South Australia. On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said NSW and the Northern Territory would allow New Zealanders to enter without 14 days of hotel quarantine from October 16. Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand will only open to Australian travellers without mandatory quarantine once there is 28 days of no community transmission of coronavirus New Zealand passengers arrive at Sydney's international airport on September 18. The Morrison Government's hopes for a two-way travel bubble have been dashed for the moment Click here to resize this module The Morrison Government has been pushing for open borders to aid the economy as it pursues a suppression strategy for coronavirus. New Zealand, however, is pursuing an elimination strategy and on Saturday Ms Ardern dashed hopes that her country would reciprocate any time soon. 'From our perspective, we're not ready,' Ms Ardern said. 'NSW themselves say they are not confident that community transmission has gone.' New Zealand's beautiful tourist destinations such as Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown (pictured) are off limits for Australian travellers without 14 days of mandatory hotel quarantine CORONAVIRUS CASES IN AUSTRALIA: 27,244 Victoria: 20,269 New South Wales: 4,273 Queensland: 1,161 Western Australia: 692 South Australia: 473 Tasmania: 230 Australian Capital Territory: 113 Northern Territory: 33 TOTAL CASES: 27,244 ESTIMATED ACTIVE CASES: 269 DEATHS: 897 Updated: 5.31 PM, 11 October, 2020 Source: Australian Government Department of Health She said New Zealand's most important criteria for allowing travellers in without quarantine would be that their state or country of origin had no local transmission for a month. 'That's key for us. One of our criteria is 28 days clear,' she said. 'So there's a bit of time here for who we would consider it safe to have a two-way quarantine-free travel arrangement.' Ms Ardern said Queensland had also said they would wait a while before opening up to NSW, giving an indication of the state's coronavirus status. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on Friday that Queensland would only reopen its border with NSW on November 1, provided NSW went 28 days with no community transmission. NSW Health reported no new cases of locally transmitted coronavirus for eight consecutive days on Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT If the state continues to have no locally acquired infections, October 23 would be the first possible day it could comply with New Zealand's rule. Victoria recorded eight new locally acquired cases of coronavirus on Saturday of which six are linked to known outbreaks and two are under investigation. By Mary Ciuffitelli, Sandra McKenzie and Mark Bloomberg We are a spontaneous, impassioned, unofficial citizens brigade determined to Get Out the Vote in North Hudson. An informal network of residents from Weehawken, Union City, North Bergen, West New York, and Hoboken has been writing postcards, training for voter hotlines, phone banking, and signing up as poll workers and ballot counters. At first, our No. 1 goal was to register voters, but when we hit the streets, we quickly grasped that our main mission had to be informing voters on the new rules of our Nov. 3 election. Spurred by COVID and 2016 election meddling, there are a lot of new rules. Even savvy and experienced voters are confused. If you think youre going to walk into your normal polling place on Election Day to cast your vote, think again. It may even be closed. Here are some things you must know to vote in Hudson County: Register to vote. If you havent registered before, you can now do so online. Go to nj.gov/state/elections/vote.shtml to register or confirm your voter status. (For a fast and simple tool, you could also go to iwillvote.com .) Online deadline is midnight Oct. 13. If youre mailing in a paper form, it must be postmarked by this date. If youve moved, changed your name, or completed a sentence of incarceration, you must re-register. Even if youre on parole or probation, you can vote. Mail-in Ballot. Every registered voter in New Jersey will receive a mail-in ballot automatically. You do not have to request one. When it comes in the mail, dont confuse it with a sample ballot. It is the precious real thing. Fill out your ballot carefully and follow instructions to the T. Take your time. Sign everywhere it asks. If your ballot has mistakes or omissions, it could be rejected. If the Hudson County Board of Elections is unable to contact you to correct it, your vote wont count. You can vote as soon as you receive your ballot. Several ways to submit your ballot: Mail it . Mail it as early as possible. It must be postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by the county Board of Elections by Nov. 10. Ballot drop box . There will be at least one drop box in front of every Town Hall in Hudson County. Some towns may have more. These secure drop boxes are monitored 24 hours/day and ballots are picked up every day. You can drop your ballot into any box in Hudson County up until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Locations are listed on the 2020 New Jersey Voter Information Portal at . There will be at leastone drop box in front of every Town Hall in Hudson County. Some towns may have more. These secure drop boxes are monitored 24 hours/day and ballots are picked up every day. You can drop your ballot into any box in Hudson County up until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Locations are listed on the 2020 New Jersey Voter Information Portal at nj.gov/state/elections/vote.shtml At the polls on Election Day. A voting machine will be available only for voters with disabilities who need assistance. Your regular polling location may be closed, so plan ahead. There will be at least one open in each town. You can bring your completed mail-in ballot to the polls. If you lost your ballot, did not receive one, or made a mistake on the one you received in the mail, you will be given a provisional paper ballot to fill out on the spot. Track your ballot. You can track your ballot by setting up an account on the 2020 New Jersey Voter Information Portal or by calling the office of the Hudson County Clerk at 201-369-3470. For the next few weeks, well be popping up around town, with our clipboards, chalk and homemade signs. You can help, too: Help to register 18-year-olds, newly minted U.S. citizens, and other first-time voters. Remind your new neighbor that they need to re-register with their current address. When people move to assisted living or nursing homes, there is so much to think about that re-registering to vote is often overlooked. If you work in a care facility, or have access, help residents check their voter status and re-register if necessary. Most people dont realize that anyone who has completed a sentence of incarceration can now vote in New Jersey, even on probation or parole. But they must re-register. The scarcity of election information from official sources, prompted our citizens group to educate ourselves and others -- taking a lesson from the pandemic, that in an emergency, when there are no masks, you just start sewing. Mary Ciuffitelli and Sandra McKenzie are residents of Weehawken. Mark Bloomberg is a resident of West New York. Send letters to the editor and guest columns for The Jersey Journal to jjletters@jjournal.com. The coronavirus pandemic has posed daunting challenges for houses of worship across the U.S., often entailing large financial losses and suspension of in-person services. It also has sparked moments of gratitude, wonder and inspiration. In the Chicago suburb of Cary, Lutheran pastor Sarah Wilson recorded a sermon aboard a small plane piloted by a congregation member. The video that went online showed a high-up view of idyllic landscapes. It was very spiritual, Wilson said. In New York, Episcopal priest Steven Paulikas heard from someone in France who watched a service via Facebook. I loved your sermon, was the message. Its a new experience for me, said Paulikas, of All Saints Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. People Ive never met before, from different states and countries, are joining us online. Such positive experiences are not uncommon. Clerics nationwide say they and their congregations responded to the pandemic and resulting lockdowns with creativity, resiliency and invigorated community spirit. Financially, theres no simple summary of how houses of worship have fared through six months of pandemic. Revenue at Wilsons church, St. Barnabas, has been stable even as it resorted to drive-in parking lot services. Paulikas says giving is up 19% at All Saints. But in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, offerings fell more than 75% early in the pandemic and remain down 25%, according to chief operating officer Betsy Bohlen, resulting in layoffs, furloughs and some asset sales. Social service outreach remains vigorous, however. Bohlen said $25 million has been raised for a COVID-19 emergency fund. The archdiocese, with over 2 million parishioners, has resumed in-person services with attendance limited to 20% capacity. There are similar challenges in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where in-person attendance is roughly a quarter of pre-pandemic levels and offertory revenue is down about 10% after plunging 30% early in the outbreak. Its vicar general, the Rev. Daniel Carson, said there have been personnel cuts and departments been asked to trim budgets by 10%. Live-streaming services has been successful, even attracting some non-Catholics, Carson said, but he hopes parishioners still yearn for in-person worship and Holy Communion. At Friendship Baptist Church, a mostly African American congregation in Baltimore, pastor Alvin Gwynn Sr. has held in-person services throughout the pandemic, but attendance hasnt risen much above 80 people a small fraction of normal. Giving by congregation members is about 60% of normal, enough to keep food-pantry programs running. Ryan Radke, digital outreach co-ordinator for the Southeastern District of the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod, said the financial picture has been mixed for the districts 215 congregations from Pennsylvania to South Carolina. Some churches are closing, but those were already threatened before the coronavirus, Radke said. Others are sharing resources as COVID-19 strains their ministries. Some smaller churches have attracted large, far-flung online audiences one drew over 1,000 to a recent virtual service, Radke said. A United Methodist church in College Station, Texas, home to Texas A&M University, launched online services for students after they left campus. Soon relatives of students were tuning in from as far away as Utah and Michigan, regional Bishop Scott Jones said, with some even joining the church. Similarly, online services by Valley Beth Shalom, a synagogue in Encino, California, have attracted new members from Israel, England and Brazil. We cant gather the same way anymore, not in homes, not in schools and especially not in temples, Rabbi Noah Farkas said via email. Our community is gathering, just in very different ways. We are evolving rapidly from the past into the future. The Southern Baptist Convention is the nations largest Protestant denomination with roughly 47,000 churches. Executive committee president Ronnie Floyd said offerings fell more than 20% at some churches early on, but finances are now stabilizing. In September the committee reported that annual payments from SBC churches to fund missions, seminaries and administration were down less than 3% from last year, less than some leaders had feared, Though there are no overall attendance figures, some SBC churches have fared well, such as Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky. Its Sunday attendance rose from about 320 in June to over 470 in September. New pastor Jonathan Bonar took charge in July and rankled some worshippers by asking everyone to wear masks at services. He defused the friction by organizing a best-mask competition for congregants. In the United Methodist Churchs Mountain Sky region, covering Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Montana, many pastors serve towns without reliable internet service, according to Bishop Karen Oliveto. One in Columbia Falls, Montana, kept in touch with older congregants by sending them handwritten notes. This is the churchs moment, Oliveto said. Its pushed the church to leave the building theyre coming alive in their communities. What lies ahead? Scott Jones, UMC bishop for 58 counties in eastern Texas, said one short-term challenge is avoiding singing as in-person services resume. Methodists love to sing hymns, but were being taught that its one of the most dangerous ways to spread the virus, he said. Thats a real loss. Longer-term, Jones sees a possibility of profound changes in how pastors approach their ministries and wonders how the now-large online cohort will respond when in-church worship is fully restored. People have gotten used to watching services from their home in their pyjamas with a cup of coffee, he said. Some are asking, Why do I need to go back to church? But there also are a lot of people eager to see their Christian friends and be in a holy place again. The Rev. Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, is raising similar questions, such as whether people who converted to a faith after tuning in to online services will stick by their decisions. Citing a recent survey, Kim said some evangelical online worshippers are sticking firmly with their pre-pandemic churches, others are church shopping after seeing alternatives and still others have stopped participating altogether. Collectively, pastors characterized the pandemic as both a source of anguish and a motive for hopefulness. This pandemic isnt going away anytime soon, pastor Wilson said in her mid-flight sermon. This is life here and now, a gift from God. ___ Associated Press writer Gary Fields contributed. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content. ___ Mumbai, Oct 3 : The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has barred an IIFL employee, Santosh Brijraj Singh, along with five others from any transactions in the securities market for front running the trades of six funds managed by India Infoline Wealth (IIFL Wealth) using 'mule' accounts. The SEBI order said that its alert system had generated front running alerts for the months of December, 2019 and March, 2020 against Virendra Pratap Singh and Neha Virendra Singh, suspected to be front running the trades of India Infoline Asset Management Ltd, part of India Infoline Wealth. Front running refers to buying or selling securities ahead of a major transaction so as to benefit from the subsequent price move. This denotes persons dealing in the market, knowing that a large transaction will take place in the near future and that parties are likely to move in their favour. The SEBI probe found that IIFL Wealth houses the management of all the mutual fund schemes, portfolio management services and alternative investment funds offered by the IIFL Group and it serves, among others, high net worth individuals and institutional clients through a range of services. The market regulator conducted a preliminary examination for the period of December 1, 2019 to August 10, 2020. The probe found that IIFL Asset Management Limited, IIFL Select Series II, IIFL Multi-Strategy Fund, IIFL Long Term Growth Fund I, IIFL Focused Equity Strategies Fund - Capmetrics Investment Adviser and IIFL Special Opportunities Fund Series 5 were placing orders through the IIFL employee or dealer, Santosh Brijraj Singh. Singh was found to be connected with certain entities, who were prima facie observed to have traded depending on the impending orders of the concerned funds. "Subsequently, these entities squared off their positions when the orders of the big clients (the six funds) were placed in the market. Thus, they were able to generate substantial proceeds for themselves by placing orders in anticipation of the price movement of scrips on account of large buy/sell orders of the big clients," the order said. The proceeds of the 'front run' trades were, on a regular basis, withdrawn from the linked bank accounts in cash, via ATMs, by entities who, prima facie, were not the holders of the said bank accounts. The order said that from the material available on record, Adil Gulam Suthar, who is an ex-sub broker of a major broking house, was in constant communication with Santosh Singh during the concerned period. Virendra Pratap Singh, Neha Virendra Singh, Gulammohammed Gulamabbas Shaikh and Mohammedidrish A. Shaikh were registered owners of the 'mule' account set. "The aforesaid entities are restrained from buying, selling or dealing in the securities market or associating themselves with the securities market, either directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever till further directions," the interim order said. The prima facie proceeds found to be generated from the front running was Rs 58.10 lakh. Adil Gulam Suthar and Santosh Singh have been directed to open an escrow account with a nationalised bank, jointly or severally, and deposit the amount within 15 days from the date of service of the order. The 2020 election is both very different and very familiar when it comes to the politics of global warming and the stakes of the outcome. What's new: Democratic voters are more concerned than in prior presidential cycles, polling shows. It became one of the top priorities for the base of one of our two parties, said Anthony Leiserowitz, a Yale analyst of public views on climate. For the first time, there was a real climate vote in the primaries. In addition, the devastating West Coast wildfires are putting fresh focus on global warming's contribution to extreme weather as the race enters the homestretch. Why it matters: The policy gap has never been wider. Joe Biden's platform is more aggressive than Hillary Clinton's four years ago, and goes far beyond anything floated or implemented under former President Obama. President Trump rejects consensus climate science and is unwinding Obama-era policies. Yes, but: Here's the familiar part. Polling shows an extremely durable partisan divide. For instance, Pew Research Center polling this year showed that 78% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said climate should be a top government priority, up from 46% in 2015. "In contrast, only 21% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said this year that climate change should be a top priority a virtually identical share as in 2015 (19%)," they note. The intrigue: Contrary to conventional wisdom that candidates run toward the center in the general election, Biden's platform has moved closer to what left activists want since he won the nomination. This indicates that one of Biden's key priorities is motivating his base voters, not just appealing to a vanishing pool of undecideds, Leiserowitz said. He knows how important it is to mobilize and motivate young voters, Latino voters, suburban women voters all of whom have identified climate change as one of their top priorities," he said. Still, Biden's plan doesn't attack fossil fuels as much as some activists have called for. He recently emphasized in Pennsylvania, a big gas producing state, that he's not proposing a fracking ban. What we're watching: Whether the fires and other extreme weather prompt lots of questions about climate in the upcoming debates. If so, it would be a break from past cycles. The bottom line: Climate change is never close to the biggest political focus in presidential campaigns, and that's still true. But its profile is rising as the stakes get higher. EUCLID, Ohio -- Police are investigating after a 31-year-old Cleveland man was shot and killed Friday. Ortez R. Littlejohn died in the shooting on Tyronne Avenue near East 200th Street, Euclid police Capt. Mitch Houser said. Houser did not say when the shooting happened, nor where Littlejohn was shot or how many shots he suffered from. Paramedics took Littlejohn to Cleveland Clinic-Euclid Hospital where he was pronounced dead in the emergency room, according to police and the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office. Houser said police have not made any arrests, adding that no other information is available at this time. Read more crime stories on cleveland.com: U.S. Marshals capture man accused of dragging police officer with car in Portage County Warrensville Heights man shot and killed in parking lot of apartment building, police say Ohio police officer accused of recording nude 10-year-old girl Woman shot in stomach during break-in at Akron apartment Officials identify two men shot dead in Painesville at recording of music video The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Gombe Zonal office, has arrested an Ile-Ife, Osun state Apostolic Church Pastor Gbenga Moses Adesoju, in connection with a N12.7m Yahoo Yahoo fraud. Adesoju was arrested with one Adebayo Olawale of Fashina Road, also in Ile-Ife for defrauding one Umar Hayatu of Lafiya quarters, Dukku Local Government Area of Gombe State. The duo were apprehended in Ile Ife following a petition jointly written by the relatives of Umar Hayatu. The petitioners alleged that the suspects conspired and defrauded the victim via social media platforms and phone calls under the pretence that he won a car, some expensive phones and offer of employment into a juicy position. Adebayo, the prime suspect, contacted the victim using fake Facebook account names; Williams Angellina and Omolola Adebayo. He deceived the victim into believing that his Adebayo parents have a Company abroad and will make Hayatu the Nigerian Manager of the Company in Lagos. The suspect further sent the victim various fake pictures of houses and cars that would be given to him as fringe benefits as soon as the company commences operation. He also promised him 30,000 US Dollars and expensive gifts such as iPhone and Jewelleries. Preliminary Investigation revealed that N12, 798, 387.00, proceeds of the fraud, were traced to the suspects account in a new generation bank. Pastor Gbenga, his alleged accomplice received a car (BMW), a plot of land and various sums of money from the proceeds of crime for his spiritual intervention. Both suspects have volunteered useful information and would be charged to court as soon as investigation is concluded. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates Sushant Singh Rajputs death was a suicide, and not murder, Dr Sudhir Gupta, who led the AIIMS panel re-evaluating the actors post-mortem report, has said. Many, including Sushants family, had been urging the Central Bureau of Investigation to initiate a murder probe in the case. Sushant was found dead in his apartment on June 14. His family has accused Rhea Chakraborty of abetting his suicide and misappropriating his funds. Rhea is currently in jail, on drugs-related charges pertaining to the case. Sushant death is a case of suicide. Murder completely ruled out, the doctor said, according to India Today. The AIIMS doctors had submitted their findings to the CBI on September 29. He told ANI, There were no injuries on the body other than of hanging. There were no marks of struggle/scuffle on the body and clothes of the deceased." He added, The presence of any seductive material was not detected by Bombay FSL and AIIMS toxicology lab. The complete examination of ligature mark over the neck was consistent with hanging. Sushants death was originally ruled a suicide by the Mumbai Police, before the case was taken over by the CBI. The CBI is likely to continue its probe into abetment to suicide, NDTV reported. So far, no evidence has come up to prove it to be a case of murder. If during the course of investigation, we get any evidence, murder charge will be added. For now, abetment to suicide and other charges in the FIR are being probed, the report quoted a source as saying. Vikas Singh, the lawyer representing Sushants father, had previously claimed that an AIIMS doctor had told him that the ligature marks on Sushants neck were consistent with strangulation. AIIMS doctor told me that Sushants death was by strangulation, he had said in a press conference. Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs family is feeling helpless at death investigation being sidetracked: lawyer Vikas Singh Dr Gupta had refuted these claims. He told Times Now, No conclusion or conclusion opinion of homicide or suicide could be made by seeing ligature marks and scene of occurrence. Its difficult for doctors and next to impossible for general people, needed solely internal link discretion and forensic interpretation. Satish Maneshinde, the lawyer representing Rhea, has said that he will await the CBIs official report. Truth cannot be changed, we await the official report of the CBI, he said, according to CNN-News18. If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918 Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Leonard Sekyonda Leonard is a serial entrepreneur, managing several hats on his head successfully being a vlogger, author, millennial thought leader and so much more. Leonard is a serial entrepreneur, managing several hats on his head successfully being a vlogger, author, millennial thought leader and so much more. London, England , Oct. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sometimes our life's journeys take us from one place to another, intending to teach us so many important lessons in life and to help us grow not only as professionals in our careers but most importantly, as individuals. Every person has a different journey; some may find the motivation along the way, some are self-motivated, while some others give up half-way owing to lack of inspiration in their lives. To come to the rescue of all such people and help in transforming their lives completely by making them realize their dreams and getting them nearer to their definition of success is a young serial entrepreneur named Leonard Sekyonda. Leonard is one of those rare gems in the entrepreneurial world who at a very young age manages several hats on his head as a high-performing entrepreneur, who is the founder and CEO of the global entrepreneurial networking community called MYCOMEUP. For all his endeavours in the business world, Leonard has strived to inspire other budding and fellow entrepreneurs of the world for creating the successful lifestyle they have dreamt. Just like any successful story today, where entrepreneurs and personalities of the world have worked their way relentlessly to the top, Leonard too had to face his share of ups and downs in life, where he came from a low-income family background in South London and lost his father quite early in life. Even in his academic career, Leonard struggled at school and dropped out of university. All these life challenges put him amidst much negativity of life where he was told he would fail; but instead of getting affected by all these things, Leonard made the strong decision to punch back all the problems in life and rise again with his firm determination and strong will to prove the world wrong. Story continues Hence, to start something of his own at 18 years, he set up his first business 'Key Move Relocations', an estate agency. The success of this endeavour of his led to another and at 20 years he initiated IC Graduate, recruiting Filipino nurses to the UK, which turned into his first multi-million-pound business. As he grew his businesses and started tasting success, Leonard thought of documenting his journey on YouTube and this, in many ways, changed his life. Since then, this young entrepreneurial phenomenon has never looked back. Many aspiring entrepreneurs began following him on YouTube, and this upped Leonard's confidence to originate his passion project in the form of MYCOMEUP along with Deji Okunde. This started their journey of inspiring other young minds and fellow entrepreneurs. Their video series MYCOMEUP WORDS OF WISDOM doubled its popularity. They showcased archive interviews of iconic personalities like P.Diddy, Jay Z and many others and even gained the attention and support of business leaders like Sir Alan Sugar, 50 Cent, and many more. Their video channel today stands strong with a massive 33 million views across the globe and still counting. What started as only a blog was later converted into MYCOMEUP WORLD in 2014, which has so far served 128,000 users and over 32,000 premium users. The successes Leonard has been earning at such a young age has also given him the confidence and motivation to expand his business, where recently, he launched MYCOMEUP STUDIO, a human-centred film production studio, created to inspire people all around the world with visionary and impactful content. He is also all pumped up with energy to launch his new program, The Sales Agency Accelerator, which would guide business owners and entrepreneurs in starting a lucrative sales agency with the same business model that Leonard used for his multi-million-pound business. As a best-selling author, philanthropist, business strategist, CEO and entrepreneur, Leonard with his motivational business content, online platforms and personal development advice has been impacting millions of lives of people across the globe for nearly two decades now. On a parting note, this successful serial entrepreneur says, "Know your worth, and turn your frustration into fuel to create a future of your dreams". To know more, visit his website - https://www.leonardsekyonda.com/. Hello@leonardsekyonda.com T: 0203 286 6291 Attachment The spectre of a no-deal Brexit has come a step closer after Boris Johnson ended one-on-one talks with the president of the European Commission without any breakthrough in the search for a free trade agreement. The prime minister and Ursula von der Leyen have instructed chief negotiators David Frost and Michel Barnier to work intensively to bridge significant remaining differences on fisheries, governance and the level playing field on standards demanded by Brussels. But a joint statement released after the phone discussion appeared to signal awareness on both sides that a deal may not be achievable, saying that they regard it as important to get an agreement if at all possible. Lord Frost said that new talks will take place next week, with more believed to be planned in Brussels the week after amid expectations that Mr Johnsons self-imposed deadline of 15 October will be missed. Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Show all 15 1 /15 Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Nigel Farage has spent his political career campaigning for the UK to leave the EU. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Boris Johnson's support for Brexit took many by surprise before the EU referendum. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises The UK and EU are yet to agree on a withdrawal deal. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises This was taken from a 2012 speech delivered by Mr Davis. He does not currently support a second Brexit referendum. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Boris Johnson now supports a hard Brexit and resigned from the cabinet in 2018 over Theresa May's strategy. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises The US recently issued trade negotiation objectives for future talks with the UK. The country made clear that it expects access to the UK's agriculture industry, reviving the debate about chlorinated chicken. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Nigel Farage does not support the current campaign for a second Brexit referendum. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Despite this quote, in February 2019 Boris Johnson said a no deal Brexit "may yet be the best option for the UK". Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises The UK and EU are yet to begin negotiating a deal regarding their future relationship. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Theresa May announced that the UK would be leaving the Single Market in her Lancaster House speech in January 2017. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Theresa May triggered Article 50 on 29 March 2017. Her withdrawal deal is yet to be passed. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises A classic from the 2015 general election campaign. David Cameron resigned on 24 June 2016, following the EU referendum result. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises David Davis resigned from his post as Brexit secretary in July 2018 after disagreeing with Theresa May's negotiation strategy. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Michael Gove was one of the most influential Leave voices during the EU referendum campaign. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent backbencher, does not support a second Brexit referendum. He has called the use of this quote "fundamentally dishonest" as it was taken from a 2011 speech discussing the option of referendum before David Cameron entered negotiations with the EU. Such a vote was never held. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Failure to achieve a breakthrough in what was scheduled to be the final round of talks in Brussels last week has raised questions over whether enough time remains to negotiate a free trade deal and get it endorsed by the European Parliament before the end of the UKs transition out of the EU at 11pm on 31 December. If no deal is reached by that time, the UK will be forced to trade with its nearest neighbours on World Trade Organisation terms with tariffs on many goods. The prime minister refers to this as an Australian-style arrangement, as Australia has no deal with the EU. He today restated his willingness to accept no-deal, breaking into a Crocodile Dundee accent as he told the Daily Telegraph: Australia holds no terrors for us mate, we say good on yer, no worries, no wukkas. The joint statement said: The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, spoke today about the state of play in the negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and the EU. They agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future. They endorsed the assessment of both chief negotiators that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained, notably but not only in the areas of fisheries, the level playing field, and governance. They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps. They agreed to speak on a regular basis on this issue. In a tweet, Ms von der Leyen said she had had a good phone call with the prime minister. And she added: While progress had been made, significant gaps remain. We agreed that it's important to find an agreement as strong basis for a strategic relationship. Following the completion of the latest round of trade talks on Friday, Ms von der Leyen warned that time is running out and urged London to compromise on areas of contention, saying: Where theres a will theres a way. But Mr Johnson retorted that the onus was on Brussels to give ground, saying: Its up to our friends and partners to be common-sensical. Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesperson Christine Jardine said she understood a deal was being blocked by Tory fears of signing up to climate change commitments. We are just days from the prime minister's arbitrary deadline to secure a deal, and warm words will not be enough to ease the worries of countless businesses and individuals facing uncertain futures, she said. Boris Johnsons cack-handed and frankly illegal approach has only succeeded making things worse and history will judge his actions. Celebrities React to Donald and Melania Trump's COVID-19 Diagnosis The president tweeted that he and the first lady had tested positive for coronavirus early Friday morning. UPDATED: 10/5/2020, 2:52 P.M. After announcing he and wife Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus late Thursday evening, President Trump was transported to Walter Reed Medical Center the next day. His administration assured the public that the move was "out of an abundance of caution," and he would return to quarantine with the First Lady at the White House in a few days. While Trump's team has maintained an optimistic outlook on his condition, contradicting reports have emerged about his health, and to make matters all the more confusing, the president has been actively tweeting from his hospital bed as if nothing is happening. For a timeline of events indicating everything we know so far about Trump's coronavirus diagnosis, scroll below. Trump is reportedly leaving the hospital on Monday evening. Donald Trump tweeted on Monday afternoon that he will be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center at 6:30 P.M. after checking in on Friday. Feeling really good! he said, downplaying the true severity of the virus by telling followers, Dont be afraid of Covid. Dont let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago! I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Dont be afraid of Covid. Dont let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2020 Earlier, Dr. Brian Garibaldi said, "He has been up and around. Our plan today is to have him eat and drink, be up out of bed," adding, "[If] he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is to plan for discharge as early as tomorrow to the White House, where he can continue his treatment course." Story continues Dr. Conley addressed the mixed messages about Trump's condition. After dodging questions about Trump's potential use of supplemental oxygen, Conley revealed that early into his diagnosis, the president had "two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation," in which they administered dexamethasone, a corticosteroid mostly given to patients with severe symptoms. "I didn't want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction and in doing so it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true," Conley said of his confusing messaging, adding that previous reports saying the president's vitals were "very concerning" was in reference to his condition before being admitted to the hospital. Trump tweeted a video message. On Saturday evening, the president gave an update on his health from his hospital suite. While he mentioned that he was feeling "much better" since his initial diagnosis, he did admit that his prognosis won't be clear for a few more days. Trump tweeted that he's feeling better. On Saturday afternoon, Trump took to his platform of choice to reveal that he's "feeling well" after a night in the hospital. "Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!!" he wrote, adding: "Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well!" Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!!Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2020 He followed up with a second tweet, indicating that he's back to business as usual. OUR GREAT USA WANTS & NEEDS STIMULUS. WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE. Thank you! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2020 Trump's condition is said to be "very concerning," according to someone familiar with his health. After a positive television briefing by doctors, a person close to the president gave a very different perspective on his condition. According to The New York Times, this person told a pool of reporters, "The presidents vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care." The anonymous source added, "Were still not on a clear path to a full recovery. NYT also revealed that two people close to the White House said that Trump had trouble breathing and was giving supplemental oxygen to reverse his dropped levels. Doctors say the president's symptoms are improving. Following his first night at Walter Reed, Trump's physician, Dr. Sean Conley stated that the president had been fever-free for 24 hours, and his blood pressure and heart rates were normal. This morning the president is doing very well, Dr. Conley told the public. At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made. He added that Trump was not on oxygen "right now," but declined to answer if he had been previously. His symptoms are mild. At the on-set of his diagnosis, Trump had a low-grade fever and other mild symptoms, including nasal congestion and a cough. It's reported took the experimental drug remdesivir for treatment. Several White House Staffers have reportedly tested positive. Donald Trump that was put at risk after the super-spreader event. CBS has reported that two staff members along with White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. This article has been updated. A blocked public toilet caused two popular Sydney beaches to be evacuated after sewage overflowed into the coastal water on Saturday. Swimmers were ordered out of the water just before 1pm at the Murray Rose Pool at Double Bay's Redleaf Beach in Sydney's east due to sewage contamination. Two hours later, swimmers were told not to swim at the southern end of Bronte Beach, when sewage was detected in the water. Bronte Beach on Saturday. People were in the water meters away from the natural rock pool called the Bogey Hole, popular with small children, closed due to sewage contamination Sydney Water confirmed the incident was due to a blocked toilet (stock image) Sydney Water found the contamination at Bronte's Bogey Hole, a natural rock pool which forms a sheltered swimming area for young children. Security and representatives from Sydney Water were seen ushering people out the water, after a public toilet blockage left the water too dangerous to swim in. Sydney Water said the Redleaf Beach contamination was caused by a blocked toilet. 'A blockage in a public toilet wastewater line operated by Woollahra Municipal Council caused a wastewater overflow this morning in Double Bay,' a Sydney Water spokesperson said. 'It is understood Council rangers closed Redleaf Beach and Murray Rose Pool and barricaded the toilet block.' Woollahra Council has ordered a plumber in to fix the toilet, but was not able to say when the harbour beach would reopen. What's in the sewage pumped out off Bondi and Manly About 80 per cent of Sydney's sewage is pumped out into the ocean off Bondi, Malabar and North Head, near Manly, according to Sydney Water reports. These are Sydney's oldest and largest sewerage systems. They treat the sewage with a primary screen before pumping it out two to four kilometres off Sydney's beaches. The sewage is discharged by multiple deep-water diffusers between 65m and 80m deep, that spread it over 500m to 750m. The NSW Environmental Protection Agency public register website lists the license conditions for the outfalls. WHAT IS IN THE SEWAGE PUMPED OFF BONDI, MANLY AND MALABAR? POLLUTANT BONDI BEACH NORTHERN SUBURBS SOUTHERN SUBURBS (MALABAR) Cadmium 117kg 283kg 301kg Lead 1,616kg 3,568kg 5,615kg Mercury 37kg 60kg 103kg Pesticides and PCBs 62kg 370kg 340kg Chromium 537kg 3,011kg 10,804kg Copper 19,760kg 37,583kg 43,610kg Nitrogen 3,832,500kg 7,957,000kg 13,231,250kg Phosphorous 766,500kg 1,909,680kg 2,646,250kg Volume limit of sewer discharge 1,430 million litres per day 2,800 million litres per day 4,067 million litres per day Source: EPA yearly limits for Sydney Water licenses 1688 (Bondi), 378 (North Head) and 372 (Malabar) Advertisement The Bronte contamination was also caused by an overflowing sewer, although it was not immediately clear if it was related to the same problem on the sewer line. 'A wastewater overflow has caused the southern part of Bronte Beach to be closed to swimmers this afternoon,' a Sydney Water spokesman said. 'Council lifeguards closed the southern section of the beach where the overflow was discharging into the rock pool.' Swimmers enjoying Redleaf Beach (pictured) in front of Woollahra Council Chambers were evacuated on Saturday as the water was 'contaminated with faeces' (stock image) 'Sydney Water takes its responsibility to protect public health and the environment seriously. Investigations are continuing.' Sydney Water officials were seen taking a number of water samples away for testing. The state of Sydney's beaches is of increased concern during the coronavirus pandemic with hot weather on the way. Researchers revealed on Friday that poor water quality in Rose Bay, in Sydney Harbour close to Redleaf Beach, is caused by human and dog excrement. A tweet from Waverley Council (pictured above) stating Bronte Beach would be closed for the rest of Saturday due to a 'sewerage issue' Traces of coronavirus were last month detected in sewage at Bondi and Malabar in the city's south-east for two consecutive weeks on September 6 and 13. The positive samples were detected despite no cases of COVID-19 from an unknown source or any new clusters reported across the state in the past seven days. About 80 per cent of Sydney's sewage is pumped out into the ocean off Bondi, Malabar and North Head, near Manly, according to Sydney Water reports. Bronte Beach pictured on Saturday. Swimmers can be seen in the Bogey Hole in the foreground, which was shut due to contamination from wastewater overflow These are Sydney's oldest and largest sewerage systems and they treat the sewage with a primary screen only before it is pumped out from two to four kilometres off Sydney's beaches. The sewage is pumped out by multiple deep-water diffusers between 65m and 80m deep, that spread it over 500m to 750m. Sydney's primary screening is below the standards adopted by the rest of the developed world according to a draft report by researcher Alexandra Moors in 2015, which found the European Union required at least secondary treatment for all sewage for the nearly 25 years, while New Zealand, Singapore and Japan all required a similar standard. Chief of Army Staff General M M Naravane and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla will travel to Myanmar on a two-day visit beginning Sunday during which they will meet top military and political brass of the country including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Announcing the visit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said it will provide an opportunity to take stock of the existing bilateral ties and strengthen cooperation in areas of mutual interest. Myanmar is one of Indias strategic neighbours and shares a 1,640-km-long border with a number of northeastern states including militancy-hit Nagaland and Manipur. The visit by Gen Naravane and Shringla assumes significance as it comes in the midst of the Indian Armys bitter border standoff with the Chinese military in eastern Ladakh as well restrictions on foreign visits due to the coronavirus pandemic. During their visit, the delegation will call on the State Counsellor of Myanmar, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing," the MEA said in a statement. It said India attaches high priority to its relationship with Myanmar in accordance with its Neighborhood First and Act East policies. In recent times, both sides have strengthened their cooperation in several areas, including connectivity and trade, development projects, energy, capacity building, defence and security and culture and people to people links," the MEA said. India has been concerned over some militant groups from the North-East region taking shelter in Myanmar. The country has been assuring India that it would not allow any insurgent group to use its territory against India. This week, Spains Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government reached a deal with Madrid regional authorities on policies for the working class districts hardest hit by the virus. Promoted as a scientific approach, these extremely limited measures, designed to permit the complete reopening of Spains economy, amount to an endorsement of herd immunity policies by the PSOE and the left populist Podemos party. They will allow the virus to continue spreading massively. Podemos decision to adopt policies indistinguishable from those of countless reactionary capitalist governments is a warning. Its left populist affiliates internationally would all be prepared to implement similarly homicidal policies, whether Jean-Luc Melenchon in France, Germanys Left Party, Syriza in Greece, or Bernie Sanders in America. For the working class, there is no electoral strategy to fight COVID-19, which requires an international turn to class struggle. The pretext for the deal was the catastrophic health crisis in Madrid, where 500 people have died in the past two weeks. Spains Health Ministry has registered 10,372 new cases, 43 percent of them in the Madrid region. Total infections in Spain now stand at a staggering 769,188, while official statistics show over 53,000 have died. With the new rules, Spain will introduce restrictions in areas with over 100,000 population and 14-day cumulative incidence of 500 cases for every 100,000 people, where 10 percent of tests are coming back positive, and where more than 35 percent of ICU beds are taken up by COVID-19 patients. These thresholds are far looser than those recommended by international organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that when over 5 percent of PCR tests come back positive, this can be considered to reflect community transmission. Yet 20 percent of PCR tests come back positive in Madrid, and 11 percent on average in Spain. The Harvard Global Health Institute also recommends issuing shelter-at-home orders when the incidence rate reaches 350 cases per 100,000 people. Madrids figure is twice as high. Under the PSOE-Podemos rules, once an area passes this threshold, such as most areas in Madrid, then entrances and exits will be restricted except for those displacements, adequately justified. However, they make so many exceptions and justifications for displacements that employers and school authorities can require non-essential workers and students to continue going to school. This means they will continue to be exposed to the virus and transmit it. Workers and youth can be required to violate the shelter-at-home order to guarantee compliance with labour, professional, business or legal obligations and attendance at university, teaching and educational centres, including nursery schools. That is, the ruling elites back-to-school and back-to-work campaigns must continue unabated. In a city Madrids size, this is useless. According to a 2018 survey, there are more than 2.2 million journeys a day between the city and the rest of the Madrid regions towns and cities. By a conservative estimate, at least 40 percent of the journeys are done for work or education purposes. Millions of trips will thus continue to take place. In case these measures did not allow the virus to spread enough, the PSOE and Podemos add more exceptions to their restrictions. These include assistance and care for the elderly, minors, dependents, people with disabilities or especially vulnerable people; travel to financial and insurance entities that cannot be postponed; required or urgent actions before the public administration; renewals of permits and official documentation, as well as other administrative procedures that cannot be postponed; and the performance of exams or official tests that cannot be postponed. In fact, restrictions will mostly affect gatherings outside work and school. These gatherings will be limited to six people, childrens parks will be closed and all bars will shut, but only by 10 p.m. At the same time, the ruling class is blaming the resurgence of COVID-19 on Spains family-oriented culture, hugs and kisses, and youth parties. In short, the restrictions aim to lull the population to sleep, arguing that the ruling class is implementing scientific health care policies, when in fact it is implementing a herd immunity policy of allowing the virus to spread in Spain and across Europe. In the UK, there is a 10:00 p.m. curfew for all pubs and restaurants and a banning of gatherings of over six people. On Thursday, French Health Minister Olivier Veran warned that Paris had surpassed the thresholds and entered the maximum alert level, which could mean closing bars and restaurants. After striking the deal with the PSOE-Podemos government on Tuesday, the right-wing regional administration in Madrid suddenly opposed it at the last minute, filing an appeal to Spains High Court. Madrid health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero claimed these measures would cost the economy 8 billion. In truth, the measures differ little from those Madrid already implemented over the past two weeks. The pro-PSOE daily El Pais acknowledged that The appeal ignores the fact, however, that the regional government itself has already implemented the same measures in 45 basic health care areas in the Spanish capital and surrounding areas. A gulf is opening between the entire political establishment on the one hand and the working class on the other. Scientists are alarmed at the criminal policies being pursued. Javier del Aguila, a preventive medicine and public health specialist, told El Pais restrictions of mobility are like discussing whether to act when the fire has already reached the foundations of the building, or a little earlier. He said: Were running late for mild measures such as reducing capacity at bars and restaurants. [R]ight now we are in a situation where you need to ask or force people to stay home. While the scientific evidence and common sense dictate that a shelter-at-home order is required, Podemos is making clear they will not tolerate any measures that cut across the ruling class profit interests, even if this means that the virus will rage on. Precisely for this reason, after endorsing small protests against the Madrid right-wing government, they quickly backed down, calling the protests off once they started to receive a wider audience. They are terrified that protests can erupt into a far larger movement. Nonetheless, spontaneous protests calling for more spending on public health and less for police and the military are continuing each day, especially in working class neighbourhoods. The vast majority of the population demand stricter measures. Even when millions of workers and small businesses endured serious losses under a capitalist lockdown in which their salary and business losses were not covered, nearly 60 percent of respondents in the latest state poll in Spain wanted more demanding isolation measures. Contrary to the myth of popular irresponsibility promoted by the ruling class, more than 84 percent of Spains population wear masks every day. The past nine months have demonstrated that the fight against the pandemic depends upon the independent intervention of the working class. It is urgent for workers across Europe and internationally to organize workplace safety committees independently of the unions and prepare a general strike to halt the rapid resurgence of COVID-19. This struggle can only proceed on an international basis and based on intransigent opposition against the union bureaucracies and allied left populist parties like Podemos. The Victims Commissioner has accused Home Secretary Priti Patel of being in denial over the rising problem of anti-social behaviour in communities. Dame Vera Baird QC has issued a hard-hitting rebuke to the Home Secretary after she failed to offer extra funding to tackle the issue or acknowledge the surge in cases such as rowdy neighbours and drinking in the street. And she has warned that another six months of covid-19 restrictions could see the problem worsen while victims are left to fend for themselves. It comes after The Mail on Sunday reported last month how some areas are experiencing rises of up to 140 per cent in the number of reports of anti-social behaviour. Undated handout file photo issued by Northumbria PCC of Dame Vera Baird QC. Dame Baird has accused Home Secretary Priti Patel of being in denial over the rising problem of anti-social behaviour in communities Local authorities and charities have recorded a surge in cases since the easing of lockdown which is attributed in large part to people spending more time at home. Dame Vera had appealed to Ms Patel to get a handle on the problem by setting up 'Nightingale Taskforces' to clear the backlog of cases and support victims. Instead the Home Secretary wrote that cases of anti-social behaviour were falling based on older March figures and said any rise during lockdown was 'often' related to concerns over breaches of covid-19 regulations. But the victims' tsar has hit back to say that she is 'dismayed' by Ms Patel's response and that it suggests her department does not 'understand the problem'. 'Persistent anti-social behaviour causes untold misery, stress and despair at the best of times, but we must understand that the impact is so much greater under lockdown conditions', she said. A Home Office spokeswoman said: The Government is committed to tackling anti-social behaviour and recognises the devastating impact it can have on victims' 'ASB can have a corrosive effect on public morale and community cohesion at a time when it is so important that we all come together. 'This is why I am so dismayed by the Home Secretarys response. 'There is no recognition of the problem and the fact that with another six months of social restrictions, it is only going to get worse. 'I fear that unless it acts, the government is sleep-walking to disaster, with anti-social behaviour being allowed to escalate and the victims being left to fend for themselves.' Last week police revealed they had recorded a 12 per cent increase in complaints unconnected with covid-19 regulations though Dame Vera said this is likely an understatement. The charity Victim Support, which provides frontline services for victims in more than 30 areas of England and Wales, has seen a 27 per cent increase in those suffering from anti-social behaviour accessing their services since March. And in August they reported a 161 per cent increase in 'hits' about anti-social behaviour on their website. In London police reportedly logged a rise of 56 per cent in cases referred by members of the public in August. While in the North-East one local authority stopped accepting new cases due to the huge backlog which had built up during lockdown. It comes after The Mail on Sunday reported last month how some areas are experiencing rises of up to 140 per cent in the number of reports of anti-social behaviour (file photo) Dame Vera also called on the Home Secretary not to 'simply ignore' Baroness Helen Newlove's 2019 report, Living a Nightmare, which has only seen one of 12 recommendations enacted by the government. A Home Office spokeswoman said: The Government is committed to tackling anti-social behaviour and recognises the devastating impact it can have on victims. We have given the police, local authorities and other agencies a range of powers to quickly and effectively respond to anti-social behaviour and continue to keep them under review. We are carefully considering the Victims Commissioners recommendations. Over half of them are covered by the legislation or the statutory guidance on the Community Trigger, which is an important safety net in ensuring that the voices of victims of persistent anti-social behaviour are heard. Many businesses whether small or titanic in size are on the corporate equivalent of a ventilator. Without government support, theyd be dead. COVID-19 has been just that economically devastating. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Many businesses whether small or titanic in size are on the corporate equivalent of a ventilator. Without government support, theyd be dead. COVID-19 has been just that economically devastating. Not all businesses are foundering though. Some are booming because of the virus. The health-care and pharmaceutical sectors aside, technology has been the biggest winner. Love or hate big techand theres lots to check in both those columns these companies have powered portfolios for the past six months. Heck, theyve been the engine for the last half decade. Doug Griswold / Bay Area News Group Take the FANG (and friends) stocks. The FANGs are Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet). And their friends are Twitter, Microsoft, Apple and few other large technology companies, headquartered in the U.S, China and elsewhere. The NYSE FANG+ Index which largely tracks all these firms has an annualized return of more than 34 per cent since 2014. Thats almost triple the S&P 500s performance. And since the pandemic, the index has more than doubled in value. That said, big tech stocks have taken a step back lately, falling about five to 10 per cent (based on the aforementioned index). But the question remains, if youre not investing in tech, are you missing out? The simple answer is: yes. Youve missed a decade of growth. And you might miss out in the future. Having said that, if you own a broad-based global or U.S. equity fund, you already own some technology. But the pandemic has served to accentuate techs importance (for better and for worse). So allocating 10 to 20 per cent of a portfolio specifically to technology stocks, via individual stocks, mutual funds or exchange-traded funds is worth considering. "This pandemic has caused a significant shift in how people work and interact with each other, and how we entertain ourselves," says Jonathan Mzengeza, equity research analyst with CIBC Asset Management. Mzengeza helps manage CIBCs Global Technology Fund. Through the 1990s (it started in 1995) to the early 2000s, the fund soared. Then, like most tech mutual funds, it became radioactive in the 2000s. Investor money went into tech funds to die slowly, eaten by high management fees. Since about 2015, however, the fund has been a winner, with an annualized return of more than 20 per cent. Its the same for most tech funds. Almost all have been winners, powered by secular trends. These are tailwinds for growth that occur no matter what occurs in other sectors. Of course, you neednt be a technology analyst to understand why tech companies have seen sales grow during the pandemic. Just imagine the COVID-19 world without internet access, video-conferencing, streaming music and video, e-commerce and financial technology. "COVID has been a mess for the entire world," Vitali Mossounov, vice-president, portfolio manager and technology analyst with TD Asset Management. Itd be even worse without technology. Mossounov too helps manage a major technology mutual fund: the TD Science & Technology Fund. Also launched in the mid-90s, $10,000 invested then would be worth $149,000 today. Thats despite the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s that burst, and a management expense ratio of 2.83 per cent. And FANGs have been its high-performance fuel. When it comes to the FANGs, "you cant divorce tech from the performance of those companies," Mossounov says. Their secret sauce is they arent just technology companies. They encroach on profits of retail, finance, and other sectors. Amazon is the most obvious example. It competes with other tech companies like Microsoft in cloud computing and Netflix in media streaming but it also does battle with big retail, like Walmart. Walmart, by the way, knows it must transform to keep up. Thats why it wants a stake in TikTok the Chinese social media company U.S. President Donald Trump wants to ban. Walmart is "trying to acquire small competitors of big tech because thats where the future is, so its willing to pay a huge premium," says Mossounov. Of course its not just big tech. The pandemic has also helped elevate small technology companies like Zoom Video Communications. Its share price was about $67 at the start of 2020. Now Zoom shares are worth almost $500. Even Canada renowned for its bank, energy and mining stocks has its big tech now. E-commerce provider Shopify Inc. is now the largest Canadian company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange by market capitalization (total value of its shares). "Shopifys CEO said it jumped about five years ahead in e-commerce penetration from the pandemic." Mzengeza says its revenue growth surged from the low 40 per cent range annually to 100 per cent since March. But Canadas tech industry is more than just one success story. The recent IPO (initial public offering) of Montreal-based Nuvei Corp. is another example of homegrown market innovation. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "Its a pretty unique company," says Dave Taylor, portfolio manager with BMO Global Asset Management, who helps run the BMO Growth Opportunities Fund. For one, Nuvei had the most successful IPO in Canadian history, now valued at more than $2 billion. Thats due to it being the leading global provider of business to business payments. That includes the lucrative gambling industry. As such its revenues have "double-digit" growth and the company "has a long secular trend ahead of it" to continue its torrid pace, he says. Now, one could argue techs big run-up will end once life returns to normal. Whats more is that tech companies trade at high valuations youre paying a lot of money to own them. "But in a post-COVID world, many of these tech companies will be in an even better position," Taylor argues. Use of their products and services should only deepen because they typically make life easier, Mossounov adds. "So they are likely to come out of this stronger than they were heading into COVID." An Accra Circuit Court presided over by Madam Susana Eduful has entered a plea of not guilty for Nene Kwaku Agblorm II, an Executive member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Western Togoland Restoration Front. Initially, Nene Agblorm II, also known in private life as Joshua Kwaku Agblorm II pleaded guilty with explanation to charges of attending meeting of a prohibited organisation, the Western Togoland Organisation, and participating in a campaign of the Group. He, however, pleaded not guilty to rioting with weapon contrary to section 199 of the Criminal and other offences Act 1960 (Act 29). Nene Agblorm II in his explanation said the NEC met and planned to create awareness to the world about the intimidation that was meted to Ewes, hence the blocking of the roads. He said it was also because of the issues associated with the recent voter registration exercise, where most people could not find their names in the register. We organized because of the removal of most of the names from the voter register, he said. The court upon hearing the explanation from the accused person entered a plea of not guilty for him. Other accused persons including Rapheal Tetevi, Felix Sosa, James Nanewortor, Lena Amegbor, Rev. David Tagbor Dumakor, Seleasi Gbadago, Gilbert Nyadzinyo, Awudza Godwin, Divine Nyadzinyo, Excel Liberty Aheto Kuegbeshika, Lawrence Nyadainyo and Benjamin, pleaded not guilty to all charges. Detective Inspector Simon Apiorsornu, in the brief facts, said Nene Agblorm II was the Principal Elder of Dorsi Clan of Osuwem, while Rapheal was a resident of Dorwenya with the rest being residents of Juapong. He said Nene Agblorm II was also the Chairman of the West Salt Province of the Front. The Prosecution said prior to the September 25, 2020 attacks and disturbance at Juapong, there were meetings between Nene Agblorm II and other senior members of the Organisation now at large. He said in the meeting, Nene Agblorm II, took minutes of their meetings on the line of action and incited the other accused persons, who took to the streets, blocked the Juapong-Accra main road amidst burning lorry tyres and firing gun shots. He said meanwhile investigation was ongoing. Mr Thomas Gelorvu, Lawyer for Seleasi and Benjamin, said his clients were father and son, who were travelling from Akate in Asesewa to visit their relatives in Juapong when they were arrested. He said it was an allegation the accused person knew nothing about. The Counsel quoting Act 19 (2c), which states that a person charged with a criminal offence shall, be presumed to be innocent until he/she is proved or has pleaded guilty. He, therefore, prayed the court to grant the two accused person bail. They are ready and have persons of substance who will be sureties for them and will be available anytime to stand trial, he said. The Prosecution, who opposed the bail, said any attempt to release the accused persons would be dangerous to society. He said the accused persons would endanger the good people and they would also interfere with police investigations. The Court listening to the parties, refused bail for the accused persons. The case is adjourned to October 13. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Tweeting a photograph where Congress Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is seen being manhandled while on her way to meet the family of the Hathras gang-rape victim, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday asked if there were no woman police officers in Uttar Pradesh. Raut raised the question in a tweet by sharing a picture where a male police officer is seen grabbing Priyanka Gandhis kurta near her shoulder. The photograph was from earlier on Saturday when a delegation of Congress leaders comprising Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi left for Hathras village in their second attempt to meet the 19-year-old womans family. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi had announced their plans to visit Hathras to meet the aggrieved family of the Dalit woman, who was gang-raped by four men on September 14. She later succumbed to her injuries two weeks later on Tuesday at a hospital in Delhi. Also read | Will continue to fight till justice is served: Priyanka Gandhi in Hathras After their visit, the Congress leaders said their party stands with the family. Priyanka Gandhi consoled the victims mother and said that they will together stand strong in the face of injustice against the family. The family couldnt see their daughter for the one last time. UP CM Yogi Adityanath should understand his responsibility. Till the time justice is delivered, well continue this fight, she said after meeting the victims family. Rahul Gandhi said that the state government must protect the grieving family. I stand with the family. It is the responsibility of the state government to ensure their safety, he said. The leaders stayed with the family for over an hour after they reached Hathras around 6.45pm following a series of dramatic events, including their brief detention by the UP police on Thursday on grounds of violating Section 144 and the coronavirus pandemic laws. On Saturday, the Congress delegation was stopped on their way at the Delhi-Noida border, triggering a minor altercation between the partys workers and the police officers deployed at the border. Scores of police personnel in riot gear were lined up at the Delhi-Noida Direct flyway to prevent the Congress convoy from moving to Hathras, about 180km away. Also read: Nation wants justice for Indias daughter, tweets Rahul Gandhi hours after visiting Hathras Eventually, as swarms of Congress workers and others jostled with each other amid loud honking, slogan shouting and Congress flags fluttering in the air, the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police finally allowed five people, including Rahul Gandhi, to go to Hathras. Congress workers some who described what happened as brutal repression -- claimed police used batons to disperse the crowd. (With inputs from PTI) This week, we received the same question from a fan in Italy and another in Brazil. But, we are sure the question is shared by even more English learners-so lets answer it! Question: Could I know the different meanings of take and get? Thanks Bruna, Italy. Hello. Good Evening... I would like to know the difference between the words get and take? And how can I use them in a sentence? -Arthur, Brazil. Answer: Dear Bruna and Arthur, Thanks for writing to us. The main difference between these two words concerns who is performing the action. Overall difference Get and take are verbs. Get means to gain possession of something. Another word for get is obtain. The word receive can also sometimes substitute for get. Ellen got the new bike on her birthday. Take means to move or carry something from one place to another. Ellen takes her new bike everywhere she needs to go. Take often suggests to gain possession of something by force, illegally or unfairly. Then it is similar to verbs like seize and capture. The military took control of the country after the soldiers rebelled. Take Take is also often used more idiomatically, as well, in providing directions to a place. For example: Jacks store is on Robbins Road. Take 4th Street for a mile and you will see it. In that case, take means use or follow. Confusingly, take can also be used similar to the verb give, like in this sentence: Michael takes care of Jennifers dog. In that case, the speaker means Michael is the person responsible for meeting the dogs needs. He is the caregiver to the dog. Finally, take is often used in connection with expressions of time. For example: Ellie takes 30 minutes to get ready for work. That sentence has the exact same meaning as Ellie spends 30 minutes to get ready for work. Get Get also is common to idiomatic expressions. It often substitutes for the verbs understand and know. Listen to this sentence: I get that we have to learn math but I do not like it. Sometimes that usage clearly suggests a speakers impatience or frustration. I get it, Mom! I have to clean my room today. Finally, get is a common substitute for verbs feel, become, or start, among others. Here are some examples: Im going to leave for lunch when I get hungry. She gets sad on rainy days. He left the show when the music got loud. There are many more idiomatic uses of get and take. Look for them whenever you get to practice your English! We are sure to take up the subject again. And thats Ask a Teacher for this week. What question do you have about American English? Send us an email at learningenglish@voanews.com Im Jill Robbins. And Im Gregory Stachel. Gregory Stachel and Jill Robbins wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. _________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story literal adj. giving the meaning of each individual word idiomatic adj. an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own Do you have a question for the teacher? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or send us an email at learningenglish@voanews.com. Kangana Ranaut has revived her allegations in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case as a report by AIIMS medical board rule out murder on Saturday, saying it was death by suicide. Kangana, who had claimed that Sushant was ostracised and harassed by Bollywood mafia, again made those allegations. Young and extraordinary individuals dont just wake up one fine day and kill themselves. Sushant said he was being bullied and outcast, he feared for his life, he said movie mafia banned him and harassed him, he was mentally affected by being falsely accused of rape #AIIMS, she tweeted. Young and extraordinary individuals dont just wake up one fine day and kill themselves. Sushant said he was being bullied and outcast, he feared for his life, he said movie mafia banned him and harassed him, he was mentally affected by being falsely accused of rape #AIIMS Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) October 3, 2020 With latest progress we need answers to few questions. 1) SSR repeatedly spoke about big production houses banning him. Who are these people who conspired against him? 2) Why media spread false news about him being a rapist? 3) Why was Mahesh Bhatt doing his psychoanalysis? Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) October 3, 2020 In another tweet, Kangana again brought back her old charges. With latest progress we need answers to few questions. 1) SSR repeatedly spoke about big production houses banning him. Who are these people who conspired against him? 2) Why media spread false news about him being a rapist?3) Why was Mahesh Bhatt doing his psychoanalysis? On Saturday, AIIMS medical board termed Sushants death a case of hanging and death by suicide. In its conclusive medico-legal opinion to the CBI, the six-member team of forensic doctors has dismissed the claims of poisoning and strangling that were levelled by many, including the lawyer of Sushants father, Vikas Singh. It is a case of hanging and death by suicide. We have submitted our conclusive report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Dr Sudhir Gupta, who is also the chairman of the forensic medical board, said. He also said there was no injury on the actors body other than that of hanging. Sushant, 34, was found dead in his apartment in Mumbai on June 14. Mumbai Police, which was investigating the case initially, had called it death by suicide. The CBI had taken over the probe after Sushants father filed an FIR in Patna against Rajputs girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family. After a face-off between the two police departments over jurisdiction, the Supreme Court had asked CBI to take over the investigation. Earlier this week, the central probe agency had said that it has not reached any conclusion in Rajputs death case and that all aspects were under investigation. Kangana has been demanding justice in Sushants case, claiming he was ostracised by Bollywood privilege club like her. She had also reignited the nepotism debate in the industry. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Even teleprompter could not take so many lies: Rahul's dig at PM Modis Davos speech Smriti Irani slams Rahul Gandhi, says his visit is 'not for justice but politics' India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P New Delhi, Oct 03: Ahead of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi paying his visit to Uttar Pradesh's Hathras amid outrage over gang-rape case, Union minister Smriti Irani slammed him saying his visit is for "politics and not for justice to the victim". "People are aware of Congress's tactics. That's why they ensured a historic win for the BJP in 2019 elections. People understand that their visit to Hathras is for their politics and not for justice to the victim," the BJP leader said. 'We need justice, not money,' says Hathras gang-rape victim's kin On Thursday, Rahul and his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were stopped and detained by Uttar Pradesh police in Greater Noida while they were traveling to Hathras to meet the family of the victim. A Congress delegation led by the former party president will again try to visit Hathras this afternoon. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Hathras gangrape case: Not our girl's body says the mother; Demands narco on DM "INC India delegation led by Rahul Gandhi will meet the family members to hear their grievances and demand justice for the victim and her family who have been denied justice and severely traumatised by the BJP Government in UP," tweeted Congress' general secretary KC Venugopal. "Nothing in the world can stop me from going to Hathras to meet this unhappy family to share their pain," Rahul said in a tweet this morning. Meanwhile, security has been heightened and barricades have been put up at the toll plaza on Delhi Noida Direct Flyway in view of Rahul's visit. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 15:02 [IST] Solar energy businesses in British Columbia believe their market is at a tipping point following years of niche status, as costs come down, governments demand greener buildings and residents offset rising utility bills from power-hungry electric cars. Industry leaders also said the Canadian playing field has become more level after Alberta and Ontario ended government rebates on solar energy upgrades. It is coming, you can definitely feel it, said Kol Henrikson, business development manager at Rikur Energy. The leader on the block will be getting solar right now, and then you can feel the interest building around that ... theres definitely a lot more projects coming. Scott Fleenor, principal at Terratek Energy Solutions, said he was doubling his capacity next year, thanks to rising demand. He predicted the industry would likely double in the province over the next few years. Until now, weve been working with early adopters, he said. Now were starting to get into the mass market. There are just 4,261 jobs in solar photovoltaic (PV) across all of Canada, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Recently released figures from the agency show that the solar energy sector has a 3.8-million strong global workforce but most of those jobs, 83 per cent, are in Asia. China dominates the field, with 59 per cent of all solar PV jobs. But other countries such as Japan, the United States, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brazil, Germany and the Philippines also play big roles in solar employment. B.C. has not had a direct government rebate program that might have created a boom in business early on, argued Rob Baxter, principal at Vancouver Renewable Energy. In B.C., there is a provincial sales tax exemption, as well as a commercial incentive for businesses to add panels. In the last few years, the industry has been growing more in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and before that it was Ontario. So a lot of the jobs that were created were in those areas, Baxter said. In Ontario, they had some really good government incentives thats the reason why the market there was growing. In Alberta there were also some incentives, and they also have more expensive and dirtier electricity. Here in B.C., its just that we have relatively low electricity rates. Under the former Ontario Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne, the province offered thousands of dollars in rebates for solar installations and other green upgrades such as smart thermometers. The program was paid for by revenues from the provinces participation in the cap-and-trade carbon market with Quebec and California. The Progressive Conservative government of Premier Doug Ford pulled Ontario out of the cap-and-trade market after it came to power in 2018, and wound down the green rebate program. The former Alberta NDP government of Rachel Notley had also offered rebates on solar power and other green upgrades in that province, which covered up to 30 per cent of a systems initial cost. It, too, was paid for by a provincial carbon tax, and that rebate program and the carbon pricing that funded it was also ended by the United Conservative government of Premier Jason Kenney, after it came to power in 2019. Both Ontario and Alberta are still subject to carbon pricing, except now it is imposed on the provinces by the federal governments minimum national standards regime. Both provinces are fighting the federal system in court. Baxter said the price of solar energy has come down, making the product more attractive to consumers looking to invest. About five years ago we did more business in one year than we did the previous 10 years combined, and then last year it was even higher. So yeah, definitely a growing market here, he said. Another issue is the push toward net-zero buildings in B.C. John Horgan, the BC NDP leader who is currently on the campaign trail, has promised to legislate net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 if re-elected. Henrikson said new tenders coming out at the municipal level are more likely to have solar integrated into the designs now everything from schools to aquatic centres and ice rinks. Sales of electric vehicles in B.C., which does have a provincial incentive program of its own, could help drive solar adoption as well, he said. Solar can help offset the higher electricity costs that come from home car charging. In B.C., residential customers are charged one rate for electricity up to a certain threshold. All electricity consumed beyond that threshold is then charged under a significantly higher rate, or whats known as the Step 2 rate. The higher rate is designed to encourage conservation, says BC Hydro. If you get an electric car, youre basically paying an extra 40 per cent always when youre charging at your house, Henrikson said. If you add, say, 10 solar panels on your roof, you can basically keep out of that Step 2 or, your hydro will never go up, even though youre charging your car. Carl Meyer / Local Journalism Initiative / Canadas National Observer Read more about: File image Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday alleged that the Yogi Adityanath government was threatening the family of the Hathras gang-rape victim and asserted that such behaviour was not acceptable to the country. Hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi said the UP government is "morally corrupt". "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test," she said in a tweet in Hindi. "This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family," she said. Congress MP and senior lawyer Vivek Tankha said he has discussed with party colleague and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal the issue of "confinement" of the Hathras victim's family, alleging that they were not allowed to meet anyone, including lawyer, doctor, media or well-wishers. "Gross violation of their fundamental right to life & liberty. @myogiadityanath advised to lift it otherwise we move court," he said on Twitter. The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". 02.10.2020 LISTEN (An ode to the White Saviour and the modern, willing, Black Slave; a nod to A Lack of Self-Respect; sarcasm; and a general I told [us] so.) A lack of self-respect I feel partially to blame because the thing is, some weeks back I had proposed, in a series of articles titled A Lack of Self-Respect, this [Pop quiz: Picture yourself in a position of powergovernmental power. You find awaiting you a queue, seeking audience with youbusiness initiatives, proposals, they each carry. In this queue of Ghanaian men and women, sits a lone White man. Now, you have one meeting to spareyou have to rush off to a certain meeting as powerful people mostly do. Tell me: who in this long queue of people have you called to your office?] In two consecutive articles I posed this question. Now, I cannot help but feel like the events involving Dryden Wilson Tate Brown and friend, the Veep and co., are a direct response to this question. Because you see, like you, I already knew the answerme writing; you reading, we both intended that question a rhetoric. Back then I cursed myself for not having specific names to name, examples to set, aside those I had felt, encountered constantly on my trips to governmental offices (past and present)to this ministry and that ministry and seeing such and such white man and woman pass us, Ghanaians, byimmediately they enterto see the Honourable(s). And we these, Black folks, these Ghanaians, we werent waiting to see the Minister (oh, no. Not yet at all. We whose ancestors were slavestofiakwa!not yet), but to see the secretarywho would then hand us our postponement dates, appointment dates (appointments which eventually almost always never happened.) We all are Vice President And by heavens, dont I just wish this Black second-class citizen, White first-class person/alien dynamic was felt, communicated at thosesome plush, some ricketygovernment buildings only. Dont we wish! That would be a simpler problem to solve, wouldnt it? Sadly, grotesquely, this is a national shame (I dare say, Black or African shame. But let us not implicate the rest of Black people or Africans in thiswe are the ones who just got caught). And in lieu of shame I am tempted to say stupidity (because really, that is what it is) but I have found insults to be woefully counterproductivealways failing at reforming. And since reformation is what we seek, let us go with shame. And dont I wish that I could blatantly laugh at the Vice President, and all the people, each, both causalities and casualties in the Dryden-charade. Mr. Vice President, I wish I couldright here and now, right here in DG, right under your noselaugh at you without scruples. But, admittedly, that is hard, not because of your office, but because I know that that flaw in you that led this comedic white boy into your motorcade lies in me too. Mental slavery with a dash of Stockholm syndromethat is what secured this comedic White boy a place in that motorcadeand more importantly meetings (the s is capital) with top tier government officials and policymakers. Something you and I (Ghanaians with dreamsbig dreams, can never, NEVER be given on a silver platter in our very own home.) [Side note: My anger is visceral. I am hyperventilatingthis is a tough pill to swallow. I cant even make jokes. I need a break before I proceed.] We get no respect! Silly, isnt it?that as Blacks worldwide are fighting for equality, for respect, for a sense of self-worthworldwide in White majority nations, Blacks are constantly fighting for these basics of life, we here, Blacks in our Black-majority homes cannot even give our own selves these basic human need. In this huge, compact, actually-bigger-than-you-see-on-world-maps, Black-dense continent called Africa, Black folks are constantly treating one another as second-class humans, and White folks, first-class beings. This is, I dare say, stupidisnt it? This puts a huge damper on the Black liberation fight (present and historic), doesnt it? If we, amongst our own selves, cannot give to one another that value, that sense of self-worth, importance being demanded by our kinsfolk in say, USA, UK, who will? Elsewhere I called White supremacy the stupidest of all the worlds follies; I need to revise this statement: Black Inferiority/White Superiority dynamic created and imposed by Black person(s) takes the crown. [Warning: Let no White person read this articleclose your newspapers, shut off your gadgets, dont read thisnot meant for you.] I found my example in a funny gentleman, Dryden Take Mr. Dryden Wilson Tate Brown: a young boy coming from a line of people who built their lives on the backs, bloods, sweats, resources of others; having been taught in school the shenanigans of his ancestors; of the unmatched animalistic oppression his ancestors imposed on peoples worldwide, cutting across continents, nations, racesenslavements of peoples who just wanted to live and let live; Dryden believing, in fact, that these soils his ancestors tortured are still lying there bare and free, needing him and his kind to help transform them into greatness; And, Dryden, in fact, perhaps believing right (I mean, look at the cross-country heralding White peopleeven the most uselessreceive when they set foot here. Isnt Dryden right in believing that his level of importance as a human being receives automatic upgrade upon setting foot in Africa? And wasnt he, in fact, proved right when he came to Ghana?) This Dryden decided to come to Africa; he chose Nigeria. And oh! then Ghana (lucky Ghana), we too were chosen (because Nigeria was unavailable)so Ghana! Hail Mr. Brown, the White man who revolutionized Ghana! (I bet this is exactly how he dreamt it, in his frivolous, new-age colonialist attempt.) Ah! Dryden studied in preparation for the salvation of the continent. This White, green, broke, inexperienced college graduate studied for two or three months (two or three months!that was all the time he needed to prepare for the salvation of Africa). He and his friend read every book we could find on ancient, modern, and future cities, he noted. 3y3 asem ooo. And right there, the expansion of Africa was to begin. Mr. Brown, he and his friendin his own wordsbroke; he, sleeping on his aunties couch; his friend, crashing at his parents; with just $47 in their accounts, having won a tournament the amount trudging up to $2047; this very Dryden (and his friend) were to find themselves riding with Ghanas Vice President in a Presidential Motorcade, heading for Jubilee House where they would sit and brainstorm the elevation of Ghana. Utter nonsense!and Dryden agreed: When we got out of the sedan, we were still processing what had just happened he bragged on Twitter. Investment is a funny word If you have wondered how the most gruesome act in recent historythe slave trade committed upon us, Blacks, happened, and was sustained for so long, wonder no longer. Each day, look around you and see clearly this fact: that the White man can easily go back into their attics, come back to us with the same tricks (not really tricks, if you know what I mean) and the slave trade would happen again, this time bloodier; this time the Black person not left victims, but stupid. [Warning: I said no White person read this article! I dont want you getting ideas.] During the USA Presidential Debate that took place just this Tuesday, Donald Trump was asked to condemn the acts of White Supremacists in his country. He, like many other times before, dodged this [Fact: Daily Guide gives me (and other writers) half a pageI am forced to end here. Didnt I tell you: we get no respect! that doesnt really apply in this situation, does it?] BY YAO AFRA YAO The main purpose of the scenario-builders and the director of the ongoing war is to oust the Russian Federation from the South Caucasus, and, eventually, from the entire Caucasus. One of the options is to syrify the Karabakh issue. Turkeys yearning to enter the negotiation process as a heavyweight and influential actor, compelling to give up the OSCE Minsk Group format. The prime target in President Erdogans almost all speeches is the OSCE Minsk Group, and his vision adapting the Astana process of the Syrian conflict resolution in the South Caucasus. The hint is clear: spheres of influence for the talk process-engaged states Turkey, Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation. Thus, in case of Turkey it is not the efficient activity of the aforementioned forces, but rather their presence, which unwittingly does imply the idea of syrifying the current factors and processes if not in the frameworks of the war, then at least in those of the conflict. If such a scenario is played, then Turkey, irrespective of the war results for Azerbaijan, will be a winning party. Engagement of Syria- and Libya-operating terrorist groups in the Karabakh warfield carries the message of syrifying the developments, i.e., assumes both military and political significance. In essence, the war that broke out on 27 September, 2020, ended in Azerbaijans defeat. As a result, Azerbaijan placed the command of its armed forces under Turkeys control. The ongoing war is between Armenia and Turkey. Turkey and Azerbaijan wish to feature this war as being Armenian-Turkic in nature, thus guaranteeing the Turkic states and nations support. In the given context we can consider the fact that in line with mercenaries from Sultan Murad, Hamza, and Nour al-Din al-Zenki terrorist groups of mixed ethnic composition (including Turkmen-staffed), also militants from the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (i.e., Uyghurs), who had shaped their experience in Syrian actions, have been transported to the war zone on Turkeys initiative; simultaneously the circulation of news that anti-Armenian demonstrations are being staged by Turkic-speaking Azaris in the Islamic Republic of Iran (in Ardabil, Tabriz, Urmia), targeted at closing the RA-IRI border. However, the current war is also Russian-Turkish in its nature. Turkey, by reinforcing its position in the South Caucasus, enlarges its own field of bargain within the frameworks of the Greater Middle East. Moreover, the present logic of the war tends to weaken the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), since it consistently pushes the efficiency of the Turkey-Azerbaijan alliance to the fore (within the frameworks of Two nations, one state and One nation, one army slogans), and the CSTO-engaged allies consolidation to the background. The war does have also psychological and demonstrative significance. Though the Turkish army controls numerous military strongholds and takes cross-border actions in Northern Iraq, Northern Syria and Libya, any kind of military engagement of Turkey in the South Caucasus was unthinkable, owing to the Russian factor, before the war broke out in September, 2020. By crossing the red lines Turkey overcame the psychological barrier against the Russian factor, as well. Moreover, with a view on the Greek-Turkish tensions in the East of the Mediterranean, and the aggravation between France and Turkey, the direct military involvement of Turkey in the South Caucasus (in fact, the war between Armenia and Turkey) is a specific message to Greece and other EU states on the decisiveness of Turkey. The involvement of new actors and factors in the region will be combined with an unpredictable shift in the power balance in the region, which will eventually result in not only reviewing the negotiation format of the Karabakh issue, but also drawing Russia to zugzwang throughout the post-Soviet ethnic, religious and territorial perimeter. If Armenia is to carry out the function of the separating fortress between Turkey and the Turkic world, then Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) is the main anchor for Russia in the South Caucasus. Vahram S. Petrosyan, Doctor of History, Associate Professor David M. Manasyan, Doctor of History Hello Pam, Yes the charge on items sent from overseas is around 50%. What ever insurance you put on there they will add that value to the total. Not worth it. I want to send some items over from Australia. I have to put insurance on there because I seen a few to many packages not turn up living overseas. Congratulations on a new family member. I too am going to Saigon in November, got stuck on the way to China and then in Thailand. I have used an agent, she is honest and works with a lawyer to do a business visa up, the government, charter flight, quarantine and meals for 2 weeks. Not not sure you would arrive in Hanoi or Saigon. I booked mine 8 days ago. The process take 20 to 25 days for the visa to be issued and then 2 weeks quarantine. That's to give you an idea. Money wise, I paid $3450 USD for everything, it's a package. $1200 usd deposit, and If you don't get your visa or documents, your money is returned. I have 2 people from the US lodging there application Monday when they look like they will get here middle of November. The only thing is, you have 7 days notice for the flight. They don't tell you the exact date until 7 days before. Once you get the paperwork they find you a flight and book you a 4 star hotel. There is a flat fee with the package,the government charter the flight. All destinations are different. Hope that helps, you never know... You could be going on a holiday to see you son! Jimmy Barnes has revealed that he 'learned about love' from his wife of 39 years, Jane. In his Story Time podcast this week, the 64-year-old said: 'Jane's family became a template for what a family was. 'My family, we're Scotsmen, we feud, we hold grudges. I've had a fight with my mum and not spoken to her for years. And only spoke to her because Jane insisted. Perfect couple: Jimmy Barnes has revealed that he 'learned about love' from his wife of 39 years, Jane. Both pictured 'Whereas Jane's family, they would have big fights, say horrendous things, get emotional and scream, and then a minute later 'Can I get you a cup of tea, dear?' And I would be like 'What? Are you serious?'' he said. The rocker added: 'From the minute I met Jane and joined he family, they were the way I learnt about love.' Jimmy documented the first time he set eyes on Jane in his memoir, Working Class Man. The Cold Chisel frontman reveals he was dating two other women when the met Thai-born Jane Mahoney in Canberra in 1979. In his Story Time podcast this week, the 64-year-old said: 'Jane's family became a template for what a family was. My family, we're Scotsmen, we feud, we hold grudges.' Pictured in 2001 Jimmy went on: 'Whereas Jane's family, they would have big fights, say horrendous things, get emotional and scream, and then a minute later 'Can I get you a cup of tea, dear?' And I would be like 'What? Are you serious?'' 'I'd met a lot of girls in my life but no one had ever stopped me in my tracks like that girl did. 'She was way out of my class but I loved her from the minute I saw her. Jane would change my life,' he writes. However, at the time Jimmy- then aged 23-was dating his housemate Bernadette, and was also linked to a woman named Jan who he had been 'seeing on and off for a long time'. The rocker added: 'From the minute I met Jane and joined he family, they were the way I learnt about love' Devoted mum: The Cold Chisel frontman met Thai-born Jane Mahoney in Canberra in 1979. They married in 1981. They share four children- son, Jackie, and daughters, Mahalia, Eliza-Jane and Elly-May. Pictured in a throwback photo Despite this, Jane became the musician's girlfriend shortly after, and they promptly moved in together. Jimmy and Jane married in 1981, and had four children - son, Jackie, and daughters, Mahalia, Eliza-Jane and Elly-May. The family lived in France for much of the 1990s, before returning to Australia and taking up residence in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. A 15-year-old girl lunged across a courtroom to attack a 17-year-old man who was being sentenced for killing a teenager in a botched drug deal in an Ohio library bathroom. Bodycam footage from the Cuyahoga Sheriff's Department showed the wild moment when the teenage girl tried to attack Robert Houchens at the Cuyahoga County Court last month. Houchens was sentenced to 14-19 years after he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, aggravated robbery, and felonious assault in connection to the death of 19-year-old Brandon Cutnoe on July 23, 2019. Houchens - who was 16 at the time - shot and killed Cutnoe in the Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland 9 reported. Cutnoe was shot multiple times in the bathroom, and his girlfriend told authorities that he had been there for a marijuana deal. The girl who tried to attack Houchens was related to the victim, according to Fox8. Bodycam footage from the Cuyahoga Sheriff's Department showed the wild moment when the teenage girl lunged at Robert Houchens, 17 Video, obtained by Fox 8, shows several deputies having to rush to the commotion in order to restrain the irate teen. Brandon Cutnoe She reportedly went up to the podium to speak to the judge before lunging at the killer. The group of deputies are eventually able to get a hold of the teen and handcuff her before leading her down a long hallway. Investigators are looking into the attack and will take the case to a juvenile prosecutor to determine whether to charge the girl. This particular courtroom had another attack occur on video, last year, when a man decided to lung at his attorney after he was displeased with his sentencing. He wound up with more charges for the attack. Several deputies rush to the commotion and restrain the irate teen. She reportedly went up to the podium to speak to the judge before lunging at the teen Deputies detained the teen and led her out the courtroom On July 23, 2019, Houchens (right) - who was 16 at the time - shot and killed Cutnoe in the Cleveland Public Library. He was joined by Paul Sender Video from the library on the day of the 2019 attack shows Houchens and then-19-year-old Paul Sender arriving at the library, with Sender holding the door open for a mother as the other teen heads inside. After the attack, Houchens and Sender - who was outside at the time - fled the scene on foot. Houchens was arrested while hiding in his home. Sender was sentenced to four years for his role in the case, having hid the murder weapon. Pelosi Says Significant Disagreement Remains as Stimulus Bill Negotiations Continue House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement to her Democratic colleagues on Friday that while shes hopeful the sides will reach agreement on a CCP virus relief bill as talks continue, there remain key areas of significant disagreement. Pelosi identified five notable areas of concern in which the sides do not see eye-to-eye: unemployment insurance, state and local funding, child care support, money for testing and tracing, and appropriations. She said there are other areas of disagreement but did not provide specifics other than to say that they are part of the discussion as the sides work to hammer out a compromise. The Democrat-controlled House narrowly passed a $2.2 trillion relief bill Thursday night, a move that came after a burst of negotiations between Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on a smaller, potentially bipartisan measure. The Trump administration delivered concessions Wednesday, including raising the overall value of the package and agreeing to a $400 per week pandemic jobless benefit that puts it in same ballpark as Democrats demanding a $600 weekly enhanced benefit. We raised our offer to $1.6 trillion, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Thursday. Its one that she is is not interested in, referring to Pelosi rejecting the offer as insufficient. This isnt half a loaf, this is the heel of the loaf, Pelosi said in an interview Thursday. Mnuchin, in an interview on Fox News Wednesday said that a deal, if reached, will contain another round of stimulus checks to American families similar to $1,200 stimulus checks that were part of the CARES Act. While he did not provide details on areas of agreement, he said both sides want more funds for the popular Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for small businesses, more aid to airlines, funding for schools so they can safely reopen, and money for testing and vaccines. Mnuchin said President Donald Trump instructed him and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to come up significantly from the $1 trillion deal they had been working on, adding that the president would like to do a deal thats a fair deal and something that can help the American public right now. Pelosi, in her letter to Democrat colleagues, said the Republican offer of enhanced unemployment benefits does not measure up to the need that we both recognize, particularly as long-term unemployment rises and families are exhausting their benefits. The U.S. economy added 661,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate fell from 8.4 percent in August to 7.9 percent last month, Fridays Labor Department figures show. Still, while the labor market recovery continues from the lockdown-driven lows of March and April, it is doing so at a slowing pace. Employment growth peaked in June, when payrolls jumped by a record 4.781 million jobs, dropping to 1.761 million jobs added in July, and 1.489 million in August. So far, the economy has recovered around half of the 22 million jobs lost due to lockdowns and other measures. A separate report from the Commerce Department showed that while consumer spending, which accounts for around two thirds of U.S. gross domestic product, rose by 1 percent in August, personal income fell by 2.7 percent, while disposable personal income fell by 3.2 percent, suggesting Americans are increasingly having to rely on savings to meet spending needs. Pelosi also called for more state and local funding, citing Fridays nonfarm payrolls report, which while it showed an overall gain of 661,000 jobs in September, also showed that 280,000 teachers and support staff have lost their jobs, with 49,400 of those lost at the state level and 231,100 lost at the local level. The $2.2 trillion bill Democrats passed in the House backs an aid package to state and local governments to a still-huge $436 billion, and $225 billion to colleges and universities. In her statement, the speaker also said Democrats have allocated $57 billion for Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, while the Republicans are offering $25 billion and Democrats are pushing them to come up to the higher level. She also said the White House is suggesting cutting $44 billion from the Democrat $144 billion proposal in the appropriations section, in which many priorities of the bill are addressed. We continue to work on the text to move quickly to facilitate an agreement, she added. Chief of staff Mark Meadows said Trump wont approve legislation that approaches a $2 trillion threshold. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressed support for the talks and another bill. He has insisted on a liability shield for businesses fearing CCP virus-related lawsuits after they reopen their doors, which Democrats find objectionable. Id like to see another rescue package. Weve been trying for months to get there, McConnell told reporters Thursday. I wish them well. swarnava.ch BHPian Join Date: Jun 2020 Location: Bengaluru Posts: 253 Thanked: 911 Times Re: Tata Motors aims for a top 3 spot in PV sales! Quote: fhdowntheline Originally Posted by I dont know- we are focusing so much on TML, it seems to me that Mahindra, have actually lost the plot a bit in the current market place. It seems Mahindra has lost their Mojo since the BS6 norms kicked in. They have not released a single new / facelift since then. Next Gen XUV500 is getting delayed, TUV 300 BS6 is no where and XUV 300 EV also is missing. The only confirmed news is the Next Gen THOR slated around Festive season. You are absolutely right that this vehicle alone will not get them more than 1500 - 2000 vehicles in addition. Another major problem for them is they dont have many smaller Sub 7Lakhs cars which are popular. Somehow KUV is not to my liking and in today's day and age of Hyundai and Kia beauties, KUV does not ring the bell for most consumers in this segment. They will need to pull up their socks, focus on new launches for BS6 portfolio and then lets take it from there. Also there was initially a debate whether it makes sense to launch new cars now during the pandemic and whether its better to postpone launches to next year. This is tricky and there are no correct answers. While new car sales are almost back to the pre pandemic levels, it remains to be seen what the festive season brings for the car manufacturers. Also delaying new launches has a huge risk, new competition, pricing challenges, out of sight out of mind etc. Let me also list out my points here. Kind of agreeing with you.It seems Mahindra has lost their Mojo since the BS6 norms kicked in. They have not released a single new / facelift since then. Next Gen XUV500 is getting delayed, TUV 300 BS6 is no where and XUV 300 EV also is missing. The only confirmed news is the Next Gen THOR slated around Festive season.You are absolutely right that this vehicle alone will not get them more than 1500 - 2000 vehicles in addition.Another major problem for them is they dont have many smaller Sub 7Lakhs cars which are popular. Somehow KUV is not to my liking and in today's day and age of Hyundai and Kia beauties, KUV does not ring the bell for most consumers in this segment.They will need to pull up their socks, focus on new launches for BS6 portfolio and then lets take it from there.Also there was initially a debate whether it makes sense to launch new cars now during the pandemic and whether its better to postpone launches to next year.This is tricky and there are no correct answers.While new car sales are almost back to the pre pandemic levels, it remains to be seen what the festive season brings for the car manufacturers.Also delaying new launches has a huge risk, new competition, pricing challenges, out of sight out of mind etc. Bear 747, a blubbery beast at Katmai National Park, was voted the winner of this year's Fat Bear Week competition, a celebration of the park's bulging bears as they fatten up before hibernation. The procession with the image of the Lord of Miracles in Lima, Peru, in the "purple month" of October, 2019. In a message on the occasion of the purple month of October in Lima, Pope Francis assured Peruvians that the Lord of Miracles never abandons us. By Robin Gomes As Peru is labouring under the onslaught of Covid-19 pandemic, Pope Francis is encouraging the people to look up to the crucified Christ, saying He never abandons us. The Pope expressed his closeness to the people of the South American nation in a message to Archbishop Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima. The occasion is "mes morado", or the purple month, in Lima, which begins with the traditional procession with the image of Senor de los Milagros, the Lord of Miracles, on the first Saturday of October. Every October, for 332 years, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all walks of life participate in the procession through the streets of the capital, Lima, dressed in purple. Pope Francis said he was joining the local bishops and their faithful in praying to the Crucified One, imploring His mercy to end the pandemic. With over 821,000 cases and more than 32,000 deaths, Peru ranks 6th and 7th respectively worldwide. Among Latin American nations, it ranks 3rd, both in the number of infections and in fatalities. "Emmanuel", God-with-us Evoking the image of the crucified Lord of Miracles, the Pope said, He is fixed and immobile on the cross, not by the force of the nails, but by His infinite love. It is the most beautiful proof of God's love for the beloved Peruvian people, the Pope said, adding, He shows Himself as the "Emmanuel", God-with-us. In silence, He goes out to meet His people to give them life and comfort them with the immutable embrace of His mercy and forgiveness. Because of the pandemic, the purple month this year is not taking to the streets. However, the Pope said, this does not prevent the Lord from performing the miracle of reaching the thousands of hearts who recognize that God continues to walk with His brothers and sisters and shares the uncertainty and suffering of all, especially the poorest, the excluded and the discarded. He does not abandon us The Holy Father expressed his closeness with the many Peruvians who are going through hard times because of the virus, which is affecting not only their health but also their lives, increasing the injustices, suffering, and misunderstandings that strike at their personal dignity, without distinction of religious affiliation. In the face of the dismay and the feeling of helplessness that strikes everyone, with no respect for persons, Pope Francis said, I would like to encourage you to look once again to the Lord". "He does not abandon us; He calls us and embraces us with an infinite love that heals, comforts and saves us, the Pope assured them. With one of the strictest lockdowns in Latin America, the Peruvian government recently extended the current state of emergency through October 31. The 11:00 pm to 4:00 am curfew, as well as restrictions on the use of most vehicles on Sundays, remain in effect in most of Peru. Meanwhile, quarantine and a mandatory daily curfew from 8:00 pm to 4:00 am remain in place in Apurimac (Abancay), Huamanga (Ayacucho) and Huanuco (Huanuco). In addition, the all-day Sunday curfew continues in the regions of Cusco, Puno, Moquegua, and Tacna. (CNN) In his first presidential debate against Joe Biden, Donald Trump made clear who he blames for the coronavirus pandemic. "It's China's fault, it should never have happened," the President said, before referring to the virus as the "China plague." For months now, he has consistently played up initial failures by Beijing in controlling the pandemic to blame China for the global repercussions particularly the catastrophic effects the virus has had in the United States, where it has killed more than 200,000 people and infected upwards of 7.3 million, including the President himself. Trump's rhetoric has angered Beijing, which has in turn highlighted Washington's own mishandling of the virus through state media and in official comments. Many countries closer to China and exposed to the virus earlier have nevertheless handled it far better than the US, and most experts are critical of how Trump has responded to the pandemic. China is currently celebrating "golden week," an eight-day holiday to mark both Chinese national day on October 1, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are expected to travel during this period, evidence of how the country has largely recovered from the virus. Initially, some Chinese commentators crowed about Trump's diagnosis, seeing it as karmic after his repeated scapegoating of China something which has harmed bilateral relations and, at times, put Chinese-Americans at risk. On Weibo, China's tightly censored, Twitter-like platform, the news initially attracted millions of comments, with some joking it was a "gift for China's National Day." On Twitter, Hu Xijin, editor of the state-backed tabloid Global Times, wrote that the President and first lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive, "have paid the price for his gamble to play down COVID-19." Hu, who has close ties to the Chinese leadership, soon deleted that post, though it remains unclear whether that was a personal decision or a directive from above. His comments were reported widely in English-language media before their deletion. Regardless, there is evidence that Beijing is now controlling the internal narrative around Trump's diagnosis. The story is not in a prominent position on most state media websites, even as it dominates news around the world. On Weibo, major Chinese publications -- including state broadcaster CCTV and newspaper People's Daily -- have now turned off comments on posts about Trump, a sure sign of nervousness among censors. Though China's government is largely closed for the holiday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a short statement noting "relevant reports" and wishing "Mr. and Mrs. Trump a speedy recovery." Beijing has good reason to be nervous about Trump's diagnosis. Chinese media and top officials have long complained about the way the country has been, in their words, "scapegoated" for the pandemic's effects in the US, and Beijing is decidedly unhappy with being a major topic in the US election. Yet that seems unlikely to change. Trump could now take an even harder line on China, further leaning into the narrative he has already established that Beijing is ultimately to blame. Some on the US right are already using Trump's diagnosis to do just that. Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler tweeted Friday that "China gave this virus to our President," adding "WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE." Blair Brandt, a Trump campaign fundraiser, claimed the "Chinese Communist Party has biologically attacked our President," while US Rep. Mark Walker, ranking Republican member on the House Subcommittee for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, asked "is it fair to make the assessment that China has now officially interfered with our election?" Prior to Trump's diagnosis, China's ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, tweeted that a sound and stable relationship "is in the interests of both countries, and it is needed for achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." Beijing has always valued stability above all else. However, Trump's diagnosis whatever the outcome threatens that stability, setting the stage for an uneasy golden week for China's top leaders. This story was first published on CNN.com "Trump has repeatedly blamed China for a virus that now threatens his health. This will make Beijing nervous" President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Harrisburg International Airport on Sept. 26 in Middletown, Pa. Read more Republican voters in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania largely shrugged off the news Friday that President Donald Trump had contracted the coronavirus, saying it did little to change their impressions of his leadership or his handling of the pandemic. Im a Trump supporter and will vote for him. I dont think theres anything that could change that, said Rhoderick Mahlon of Fulton County, a deeply Republican area in south-central Pennsylvania where Trump won 84% of the vote in 2016 a higher percentage than any other county in the state I guess he could die or something," Mahlon added. "I wouldnt vote for him then. Mahlon, 74, a retired Sears employee, said hes concerned about the coronavirus because of his age and wears a face mask even though I really dont think they do much good. He said Trump has done his best to manage the pandemic, given what he called shifting advice from the medical community. The medical people contradict what they said in the past, Mahlon said. I guess [Trump] has done what seems to be the best he can. Trump supporters downplayed the seriousness of his condition and its potential impact on the election, likening his diagnosis to the risk anyone faces when they leave their house during a global pandemic. This was totally random. Anybody could have gotten it. This time it was him, said David Graham, a 66-year-old Johnstown Republican and a member of The Inquirers Election 2020 Roundtable of Pennsylvania voters. FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered. Lauren Jessop, of Easton in Northampton County, said its not fair to blame Trump for getting sick. As president, he doesnt have the option of staying locked in his office all day, she said. He needs to be out and about, said Jessop, 62, a Republican and another Election Roundtable member, who voted for Trump in 2016 and plans to do so again. He needs to be out among people. Jessop said she always wears a mask when shes indoors and keeps a safe distance from others. And if shes standing near someone outside who is wearing a mask, she pulls hers up as a courtesy. READ MORE: The election in Pa. is rocked by the uncertainty of a president stricken by coronavirus Jonathan Taylor of Gettysburg said Trump has handled the coronavirus well. The only thing that would change his mind on that, Taylor said, is if the president acted with total disregard for safety precautions. (Trump often eschews mask-wearing and routinely holds large political rallies in defiance of public health guidelines.) Taylor, 62, went to his first Trump rally in 2016 and wouldnt hesitate to go again. The chance of it being transmitted airborne is small, said Taylor, another Roundtable member. Id have no problem being in a rally with a big group of people. READ MORE: Organ-by-organ, see how the coronavirus can attack the body One Republican who opposes Trump said his illness is the direct result of his disdain for masks. Hes a victim of his own mishandling, and now hes paying the price, said James Hill, 71, of Philadelphia. I dont mean that in a malicious way. I do hope Trump and his wife recover. Scott Young, 51, called news of the presidents diagnosis jarring. He was already wearing a mask in public and avoiding crowds, but said he will be even more vigilant about safety precautions going forward. I believe hes done a poor job all along," said Young, who lives in Newtown, Bucks County. "The diagnosis, unfortunately, hammers home that point. If he was unwilling to take basic precautions, including mask wearing and distancing, and he contracts the virus, how can we trust him to make policy decisions that will require others to follow the rules? Ivory Coast's former foreign minister, who is among 40 candidates barred from running in this month's presidential election, said on Friday he believed the vote would lead to a crisis similar to the low-level civil war that erupted in the country in 2011. Tensions are running high in the West African country ahead of the October 31 election, with President Alassane Ouattara set to defy protesters who accuse him of abusing a constitutional limit of two terms in office. "If the elections are held under these conditions, I am afraid that we are heading towards a post-electoral conflict again in Ivory Coast," Marcel Amon-Tanoh told AFP. Violent demonstrations against Ouattara's candidacy have left around 15 people dead, reviving memories of a crisis that claimed more than 3,000 lives after disputed elections a decade ago. Meanwhile, several high-profile figures including former president Henri Konan Bedie and former prime minister Pascal Affi N'Guessan have called for "civil disobedience" in recent weeks. "We must do everything to force Mr Ouattara to sit around a table to discuss, dialogue, negotiate," said Amon-Tanoh, who was a member of Ouattara's inner circle and his chief of staff before becoming foreign minister in 2016. He left the post in March. Marcel Amon-Tanoh has called on the international community to "put pressure" on President Ouattara. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP/File) "This is the only way to resolve the post-election crisis looming on the horizon," he added. Amon-Tanoh and others in the opposition have said the planned election is not "credible", and have called for reforms to the electoral commission and the Constitutional Council, Ivory Coast's top court, as well as an audit of voters' lists. He has also called on the international community to "put pressure" on Ouattara. The Constitutional Council has rejected 40 of 44 applications to contest the election. Those barred include Ouattara's predecessor Laurent Gbagbo and former prime minister Guillaume Soro, both of whom played key roles in the crisis that engulfed the country ten years ago. Both men are living outside the country but retain powerful support at home. 'Imagine what will happen' Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower, is still scarred by the violence which erupted when Gbagbo refused to cede power to Ouattara. "In 2010 before the election, there were no deaths. Now we already have deaths, so you can imagine what will happen in 2020 with the current tensions," Amon-Tanoh said. Re-elected in 2015, Ouattara, 78, announced in March that he would not seek a third term. President Ouattara says a 2016 revision of the constitution reset the term limit. By Ludovic MARIN (AFP/File) But he changed his mind after his preferred successor, prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died of a sudden heart attack in July. Ouattara argued that a 2016 revision of the constitution reset the term limit to zero -- a view backed by the Constitutional Council. The International Crisis Group (ICG) on Tuesday called for the election to be postponed and for ballot preparations to be overhauled. "The chances of this election spawning a serious crisis are high," the independent think tank said. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. A major study of women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) - a breast condition that can become invasive cancer - has shown that surgery to remove the tissue followed by radiotherapy offers better protection compared to surgery alone. The study, presented at the 12th European Breast Cancer Conference, followed patients for up to 27 years. Although it shows that the benefit of radiotherapy and surgery over surgery alone persists, it also suggests that this benefit reduces over time. Researchers say these new findings clarify the long-term risks for women with DCIS and may help women and their doctors to decide which treatment is right for them. DCIS is a condition where cells lining the milk ducts have started to turn into cancer cells but have not spread into other parts of the breast. DCIS is often picked up by breast screening and affects tens of thousands of women in Europe each year. Only a proportion of DCIS cases will progress into invasive cancer and little is known about which cases will progress, so the treatments available to patients are very similar to treatments for invasive breast cancer. The research was presented by Dr Maartje van Seijen from the Netherlands Cancer Institute (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). She said: "Most women who are diagnosed with DCIS are offered surgery to remove the abnormal breast tissue and they are often also offered radiotherapy, even though the majority would not go on to develop invasive breast cancer. We wanted to look at how this group of women get on in the long term, according to which treatment they received." The study included 10,045 women diagnosed with DCIS in The Netherlands between 1989 and 2004. Researchers gathered data on whether the women were treated with breast-sparing surgery to remove the DCIS, or breast-sparing surgery followed by radiotherapy, or mastectomy (removing the whole breast). They collected information on whether the women were subsequently diagnosed with DCIS in the same breast again or with an invasive breast cancer in the same breast. In the first ten years after diagnosis, women who had breast-sparing surgery but not radiotherapy had a risk of 13.0% (130 out of 1000 women) of being diagnosed with DCIS again and their risk of invasive breast cancer was 13.9% (139 out of 1000). Women treated with breast-sparing surgery and radiotherapy had a risk of 4.6% (46 out of 1000 women) of DCIS in the first ten years and 5.2% (52 out of 1000 women) of invasive breast cancer. But although women who had radiotherapy had lower risks in the first ten years, in the following years (ten or more years after diagnosis), their risks were closer to those for women who had surgery alone. After ten years post diagnosis, women who had breast-sparing surgery but not radiotherapy had a risk of 1.2% (12 out of 1000 women) of being diagnosed with DCIS again and their risk of invasive breast cancer was 11.8% (118 out of 1000). In women treated with breast-sparing surgery and radiotherapy these figures were 2.8% (28 out of 1000 women) for DCIS and 13.2% (132 out of 1000 women) for invasive breast cancer. Dr van Seijen said: "The risk of DCIS or invasive cancer recurring in these women will diminish over time, whether they had just the breast-sparing surgery or breast-sparing surgery with radiotherapy. This study shows that, overall, the addition of radiotherapy gives women the best chances. "However, there remains a chance of a new DCIS or invasive cancer developing that is not related to the initial diagnosis and we would expect this risk to be similar between the two types of treatment. In a very small number of women, radiotherapy itself might cause a new breast cancer, often many years after the radiotherapy was given." The study also showed that women who had mastectomy to treat their DCIS had the lowest risks of invasive cancer. Dr van Seijen added: "Although patients who have a mastectomy have the lowest risk of recurrence, it's important to remember that, according to previous research, overall survival in patients who have a mastectomy is the same as in patients who have less aggressive treatments. For the majority of women with DCIS, whose condition will never become invasive, mastectomy would be considered over-treatment." Professor Emiel Rutgers is President of the European Breast Cancer Council, a member of the of 12th European Breast Cancer Conference scientific committee and was not involved in the research. He said: "DCIS is a condition that affects thousands of women and a proportion of them go on to develop invasive breast cancer. Most of these women will have decades of life ahead of them so it's vital that we understand the long-term impact of the treatments we offer. "We still need to know much more about DCIS and, in particular, which women will go on to develop invasive cancer and which will not. In the meantime, studies like this one provide patients and their doctors with more information about the benefits and costs of the different treatments available to them. "Previous research shows that the risk of dying of cancer is only 1-2% in the 20 years following a DCIS diagnosis. So, it's important to remember that whether treated with breast conserving surgery alone or surgery with radiotherapy, the risk of dying from breast cancer in women who had DCIS remains very low." ### New Delhi, Oct 3 : The threshold for Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) against personal guarantors to corporate debtors should be increased, according to the sector experts. The current default threshold for initiation of insolvency proceeding against personal guarantors is Rs 1,000. An article by former SEBI Chairman U.K. Sinha and Delhi-based lawyer Saparya Sood in a recent annual publication by the IBBI, "Insolvency and Bankruptcy Regime in India-A Narrative", suggested several changes measures for the post-pandemic scenario, including raising the threshold for CIRP proceedings against guarantors and flexibility to withdraw cases under IBC after admission. It noted that while the limit for default on debt to initiate CIRP against corporate debtors has been increased from Rs one lakh to Rs one crore, the threshold for default to initiate CIRP against personal guarantor remains unchanged so far. The Central government notified Part III of the IBC which deals with the insolvency and bankruptcy of individuals and partnership firms in so far as it applies to personal guarantors of a debtor with effect from December 1, 2020. "As companies default on their debt obligations, it is only logical that so will the PGs (personal guarantor). The threshold for initiating insolvency proceedings against PGs must also be revised upwards of the current threshold," the article said. Sinha and Sood further noted that currently under the IBC, the Adjudicating Authority may allow the withdrawal of the CIRP on an application made with the approval of 90 per cent voting share of the committee of creditors. They said that prescribing a lower threshold to approve withdrawal post admission of CIRP under section 12A may be considered for a limited period of time -- till the companies are expected to deal with the economic effects of the pandemic. Till December 2019, 135 withdrawals have taken place under Section 12A of the IBC. However, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a need to push more cases of settlement and encourage withdrawal of CIRP under section 12A, they said. They were also of the view that it is extremely important that in these difficult times companies which are viable, and which have not violated any law are assisted in their survival and growth. "This requires that an active mechanism be put in place to resolve cases through timely restructuring and rehabilitation of stressed accounts much before these companies reach the insolvency stage," the article said. Sinha is also the Chairman of the Committee on Group Insolvency set up by IBBI. In route news, Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines set plans to resume many Hawaii routes; new COVID-19 testing options are available from Hawaiian, Alaska, American and JetBlue; JetBlue founders new low-cost domestic airline eyes a spring start; United may return to JFK next year; route news from Delta, United, SAS; Customs preclearance coming to Brussels; San Francisco International starts CBP photo recognition program for arriving passengers; Mineta San Jose speeds Uber pick-ups; Berlins new airport finally opens nine years late; and Denver International debuts a reservations-only TSA screening line. This week we start out with an update on testing for flights to Hawaii and elsewhere. COVID testing and travel is currently in a rapidly changing "Wild West" stage, so our best overall advice right now is this: Try to get your pre-travel COVID-19 test from your health care provider, likely for free, or for a small co-pay. If the type of test or the timing does not work, then resort to the various airline/airport offerings. (More info from Hawaii tourism here.) In less than two weeks, Hawaii is due to reopen to tourists who present a negative COVID-19 test result to avoid the states 14-day quarantine rule, and airlines are preparing to handle the likely pent-up demand. As the Oct. 15 date approaches, carriers will be bringing back many of the mainland routes they have suspended. Hawaiian Airlines this week was the first to announce a big expansion. The airline had already announced it would revive Las Vegas-Honolulu flights on Oct. 2, and now it says it will add Honolulu flights from San Jose, Oakland and Phoenix effective Nov. 1. And thats just the start. By Nov. 18, Hawaiian will be serving 10 West Coast cities, including nonstop flights to Maui from Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and Sacramento. Hawaiian will also increase frequencies on its existing nonstop service between HNL and San Francisco, LAX, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego and Seattle. Hawaiian this week also resumed service between Honolulu and Tokyo Narita. As we reported earlier, Hawaiian is planning to offer drive-through COVID-19 testing sites near San Francisco International and Los Angeles International, and United will make testing available for Hawaii travelers at SFOs International Terminal both for a significant fee. And earlier this week, Oakland International Airport said free COVID testing will be available for Hawaii flyers by appointment only beginning Oct. 15 in a facility at the airports North Field terminal complex at 9070 Earhart Road (it's a ride from airport terminals). Tests must be performed no more than 72 hours before departure. Besides the airport drive-through tests, Hawaiian said this week it will also help its mainland passengers get mail-in testing through a partnership with Vault Health. For a fee of $150, customers can place an online order for the companys saliva test kit, which will be delivered overnight. Users will get on a video call with a Vault Health employee who will "witness" the test, and show them how to collect their sample. That will then be overnighted back to Vault Health, which will send the test result electronically within 24 hours. Alaska Airlines is also preparing to offer COVID-19 testing for its Hawaii travelers, starting Oct. 12 at a pop-up clinic in downtown Seattle operated by Carbon Health. The airline said its customers will get priority testing at the facility, with tests results provided within two hours for a fee of $135. Alaska said it plans to resume twice-daily flights from Seattle to all four of its Hawaii destinations on Oct. 15, followed by a revival of Hawaii service from San Jose, San Diego and Portland, Oregon, Nov. 1 and from Los Angeles and Anchorage, Alaska, Nov. 20. To accommodate travelers on those routes, Carbon Health is planning additional pop-up and full-service clinics for rapid COVID-19 testing in those Lower 48 cities in the coming weeks, Alaska said. Besides getting a COVID test, travelers to Hawaii are also required to create a profile and fill out a health questionnaire on the states Safe Travels page in advance of their flight. American Airlines is also getting on the COVID testing bandwagon. The carrier said that on Oct. 15 it will start a testing program for passengers on its flights from DFW to Honolulu and Maui. AA customers can get an at-home test from a company called LetsGetChecked, observed by a medical professional via virtual visit, with results in 48 hours. They can also opt for in-person testing at urgent care locations operated by CareNow, or on-site rapid tests at DFW Airport, also administered by CareNow. American didnt say how much the testing would cost. Hawaii isnt the only place that requires a pre-travel COVID test, and American said it is working with the governments of Jamaica, the Bahamas and other Caribbean nations to implement testing at its Miami International hub starting next month. JetBlue doesnt fly to Hawaii, but the company said it is working with Vault Health to make at-home saliva tests available to customers planning travel to certain states and countries or in order to avoid certain mandatory quarantines. Vault Health (the same outfit Hawaiian is using) will handle all testing and provide JetBlue customers both discounts on their tests and a dedicated customer support phone line, JetBlue said. We havent heard much lately about Breeze Airways, the new U.S. startup carrier being launched by David Neeleman, the founder of JetBlue and Brazils Azul. But a new report this week says Neeleman now expects the airline to begin domestic service next March although not in the western U.S. In a filing with the Transportation Department, Breeze said it expects to launch passenger service from two airports in the southeastern U.S. to a handful of select cities in the northeast and southern states although it didnt name them. Breeze was created to bring low-cost airline service to mid-sized markets that are unserved or underserved by other carriers. The new airline will reportedly start flying with leased E190/195 planes carrying 108 or 118 passengers, but over the long term it is acquiring 60 Airbus A220-300 aircraft, with the first one due to arrive in August 2021. Breeze United Airlines hasnt flown out of New York JFK since 2015, when it consolidated New York-area operations into its big hub at Newark Liberty International. But CNBC, citing people familiar with the matter, said United plans to put JFK back onto its route map sometime in 2021. The report didnt say where United was likely to fly from JFK, and a return there would require it to obtain takeoff and landing rights at the slot-controlled airport. Before it abandoned the airport five years ago, United was flying in the highly competitive JFK-San Francisco and JFK-Los Angeles markets; it now serves both from Newark. Which one do you prefer? I've personally grown accustomed to Newark since the switch, and prefer it over JFK now. Share your thoughts in the comments, please. Don't miss a shred of important travel news! Sign up for our FREE weekly email alerts. In other route news, Delta is planning to add daily 737-800 Los Angeles-Fort Lauderdale and 757-200 Salt Lake City-Anchorage flights beginning Nov. 20, and to resume Los Angeles-Tokyo Haneda flights Dec. 19 with an A350-900. Uniteds latest winter schedule update indicates it will continue to operate six transborder routes to Canada Oct. 25-Feb. 10, including twice-daily San Francisco-Vancouver flights along with service from Denver to Calgary and Vancouver, Chicago to Toronto, and Washington Dulles to Montreal and Toronto. And Scandinavian Airlines has filed plans to boost its San Francisco-Copenhagen schedule from two flights a week to four starting Dec. 1. The next overseas preclearance location for U.S.-bound travelers will be at Brussels Airport. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said this week it has reached a deal with the Belgian government to set up the facility after the agreement is approved by that countrys Parliament. Theres no word yet on when it might open. Precleared travelers will bypass CBP and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security inspections upon arrival in the United States, saving valuable time as they proceed to connecting flights or their destination, CBP said. And more preclearance stations might be coming in the future: CBP said this week it has started inviting new foreign airports to participate in the program, the first such initiative since 2016. In other CBP news, San Francisco International has become the latest U.S. airport to introduce the agencys Simplified Arrivals facial recognition program for arriving international travelers, which is intended to reduce wait times at inspection checkpoints. Arriving passengers will stop to have a photo taken at the primary inspection location in the Customs facility, and that photo will be electronically matched with the individuals existing passport or visa photo in the governments database. If theres no match, the traveler will be processed manually. U.S. citizens and passengers meeting other criteria may request to opt-out of the new facial comparison process, an airport spokesman said. Travelers who opt-out of the new biometric process will be required to present a valid travel document for manual identity verification by a CBP officer and processed consistent with existing requirements for entry into the United States. At Mineta San Jose Airport, officials say that waiting times for Uber rides have dropped by 40% to 65% thanks to new Uber ExpressMatch technology that was introduced there in September. How does it work? The program anticipates rider demand and requests drivers in advance to briefly wait directly at the airports pickup curb or nearby pickup zone, a spokesperson said. It works by accounting for the amount of available curb space and rider demand at the airport and issues an alert for drivers to proceed to the pickup curb only when theres sufficient curb space available. Riders are then matched directly with a driver to enjoy faster, reliable matching. Berlin Brandenburg Airport Remember Berlin Brandenburg Airport? The newly built airport serving the German capital was originally scheduled to open in 2011 after six years of construction, but that opening never happened due to a variety of technical and administrative mistakes. Nine years later, the airport has finally received an operating license and is now due to make its debut on Oct. 31. It will replace Berlins Tegel Airport, which will close down Nov. 8, and airlines are due to shift operations to Brandenburg (code: BER) in late October and early November. The new airport is adjacent to Schonefeld Airport, which served East Berlin in pre-unification days. Schonefeld's passenger terminal will become Terminal 5 for Brandenburg Airport. Located about 30 minutes south of the city center, BER will be integrated into the Deutsche Bahn rail network, served by up to 14 trains per hour. The airport will have 39 food and beverage outlets, a 100,000-square-foot retail plaza in the main terminal, and an on-site 322-room Steigenberger Airport Hotel. Denver International has become the nations first airport to start using VeriFLY, a faster, more predictable reservations-only TSA security screening line that requires passengers to get a temperature check and to fill out a health questionnaire through the VeriFLY app 24 hours before their flight time. The app is available free at the Apple Store and should be on Google Play soon. Passengers also use the app to make free reservations for the VeriFLY screening checkpoint up to two weeks before their flight, with slots available in 15-minute increments from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. To get through the touchless gate to security screening which includes both a PreCheck and a regular lane users must have a temperature of less than 100.4 degrees and then scan a QR code. Post-screening, VeriFLY users can get from the main terminal to the concourses via a specially reserved car on the airports underground train system, limited to just 12 passengers. Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Don't miss a shred of important travel news by signing up for FREE weekly email updates! SFGATE participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. A 17-year-old Hindu girl committed suicide in Pakistans Sindh province after she was reportedly blackmailed by three men accused of sexually assaulting her, a media report said on Thursday. The girl ended her life by jumping into a deep well in village Dalan-Jo-Tarr in Tharparkar district on Wednesday, Dawn reported. Her body was retrieved by the villagers who rushed her to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead. "The girl was raped by three men in mid-July in 2019 and the accused in the case are on bail," the victim's father and other relatives told reporters. They alleged that the girl committed suicide after she was blackmailed and harassed by the influential suspects who had raped her, according to the paper. According to an FIR registered in 2019, the three men forcibly took the girl to a house where they raped her and filmed the ordeal. The trial in the case was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The trial of the case was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. October 15 has now been fixed as the date when evidence in the case will be submitted, said Mohan Mathrani, the lawyer of the victim's family. No fresh case was immediately registered against the accused after the girl's death. However, one of the three suspects was arrested by the police. Chelhar Station House Office Mushtaq Malik said that the police would register a fresh case if the family lodges a complaint of blackmail or harassment. Several people including rights activists have demanded a stern action against those responsible for the crime. People of the Meghwar community and workers of various parties have warned to stage protests in Thar and other areas against the rising incidents of crimes against women. Prime Minister Imran Khan recently said that rapists should be handed down the most severe punishments to curb the rising sexual violence, such as either hanging them publicly or chemically castrating them. Hindus form the biggest minority community in Pakistan. According to official estimates, 75 lakh Hindus live in Pakistan, mostly in Sindh province. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 22:32:37|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close VALLETTA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) rescued 38 people in distress in Maltese waters and they were disembarked in Malta, a spokesperson from the Home Affairs Ministry said on Saturday. The rescue took place late on Friday after the AFM's attention was drawn to the migrants by Alarm Phone, an emergency hotline NGO which receives SOS messages from migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea. "The authorities are trying to process their asylum claims as swiftly as possible, so those who are found to not qualify for asylum can start the process of being sent back to their country of origin," the spokesperson said. She added that plans to swiftly process the asylum applications are in line with a new migration pact proposed by the European Commission to share responsibility for migrants across member states. The pact seeks to accelerate the repatriation of failed asylum seekers by setting a 12-week time limit to process applications of asylum seekers coming from countries with an acceptance rate lower than 20 percent. Alarm Phone said the vessel was first spotted on Friday and was being closely monitored by a Malta-flagged merchant vessel, Ambra. Its crew said the AFM patrol boat approached the vessels and tried to repair its engine but were not successful, so the migrants were rescued and disembarked in Malta. Enditem Our national election is now only one month away. All the pundits talking and all the pollsters' predictions, the incessant ads and the bickering about absentee ballots will soon be behind us - something we can all look forward to with great appreciation. The partisan divides have become extreme and disheartening. However, as the moment of truth approaches on election day, it is worth reflecting on what voting means in our great country. Consider this quote from Thomas Jefferson: We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate Or this statement from Franklin Roosevelt: Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could this is by not voting. As the late civil rights leader John Lewis said: The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy. The paradox of voting in America is manifested in the quotes just expressed. We as a country and a democracy cherish the right to vote, however we do not adequately exercise that right. For example, in the five presidential elections so far in this century, the highest voter turnout was 57% in 2008. In 2000, it was only 50.3%! It is more than disturbing that nationally over 40% of the eligible voters fail to vote in presidential elections. Iowa, by the way, fares much better with voter turnout in presidential elections averaging above the 70 per cent range, but there's still room for improvement. Dozens of reasons are put forth for the low voter turnout across the land - everything from the quality of candidates, to general apathy, to an aversion to party politics, and a generalized view that one vote doesnt matter. However, what is clear is that lack of participation in the electoral process has led to a mounting alienation and an increase in dark political conspiracies. To state it somewhat more bluntly, altogether too many people believe somehow everything is being rigged by one side or the other. Of course, such thinking only contributes to less and less participation in the electoral process. Compounding all of this are the efforts in some states to limit voter participation by narrowing time frames for absentee balloting, closing polling places and limiting the hours of voting. Throw in the adverse effect of the cuts to the U.S. Postal Service on the eve of mail-in balloting, and it appears that we are limiting opportunities for people to vote rather than expanding those opportunities. By contrast, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds deserves credit for acting where the state Legislature failed to, by taking action to allow convicted felons to vote once they have served their sentence in prison. So what can be done to allow our democratic values on voting to be put into practice? First, we need to educate ourselves, our children and grandchildren that every vote does make a difference. We need to do whatever is necessary to expand access to polling places, absentee balloting and credible information. We need to keep polling places open longer and we need to a declare a national holiday in order to allow more people time off to vote and encourage businesses who do not observe the holiday to allow a specific time off for employees to vote. Furthermore, we need to overcome obstacles that affect people with physical and mental disabilities when they endeavor to exercise their right to vote. Language barriers that prevent many Americans from understanding and exercising their right to vote need to be overcome. I am sure there are technological options that can be advanced to make voting easier for all. I also think it is important to counter the distrust that has arisen about the voting process itself. All the allegations about voter fraud have only amounted to a handful of actual cases across the country. Mistrust only serves to deepen our divide and generate fear among potential legitimate voters. As we enter the final stages of this years electoral process, lets resolve to vote, and to help and encourage others to vote, and to thank all the state officials, county auditors and the countless volunteers who work the polls on election days in these difficult pandemic times. Let me close with a quote from Susan B. Anthony on this 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to our Constitution: Someone struggled for your right to vote. Use it. Next week: Jim Wharton A Sioux City resident, Jim Rixner is the retired executive director of the Siouxland Mental Health Center, is the current board chairman of the Winnebago Comprehensive Healthcare System and is a former member of the Sioux City Council. He and his wife, Bernadette, are the parents of three adult sons and the grandparents of nine. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The issue of the recognition of independence of Artsakh is on Armenias agenda, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview to Al Jazeera. That is an item in the agenda, but the decision will be taken or not taken depending on variety of factors, the PM said. He also stated that Armenia is discussing the possibility of signing a military-political alliance with Artsakh. That alliance de facto exists because we have stated that Armenia is the guarantor of security of Nagorno Karabakh. And we need to think now about its future developments, to have this point in our agenda. Its very important to note that this situation has created a new reality, a new military-political reality in our region. One component, as I said, is that for many years Azerbaijan after developing a military rhetoric has now attacked Nagorno Karabakh, and it has happened with Turkeys obvious support. In the international media there is already a broad discussion of the fact that in the territories that it controls in Syria Turkey is recruiting mercenaries and transporting them to our region, and therefore Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh need to increase our cooperation in the security field, the PM said. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan There are still plenty of underground gambling spots in the GTA, but extreme high rollers will have trouble finding a replacement for a recently busted Markham casino where they were served expensive wine and forbidden delicacies like brazed shark fins by waiters in tuxedos while placing their wagers, police say. This was a high-end operation for high-end clientele, Det. Sgt. Ahmad Salhia of the York Regional Police organized crime bureau said Thursday, after police announced they had shuttered a Markham mansion that had been converted into an illegal luxury casino. A lot of the guys were saying, This was out of a James Bond movie, Salhia said about the July 27 raid on the operation on Decourcy Court near Warden Avenue and Major MacKenzie Drive. At Thursdays press conference, Supt. Mike Slack of York Regional Police said illegal gambling spots had prospered after the province shut down legal casinos over COVID-19 fears. It opened up an opportunity for these more extravagant locations, Slack said on Wednesday. Theres still a lot more for us [to do], Slack added. Theres an extremely large number of them. While most local illegal gambling spots have five to 10 patrons at a time, the Markham mansion could handle hundreds of invitation-only, monied bettors, Slack said. The mansion was surrounded by a high, electronically-controlled metal fence and patrolled by armed guards with large German shepherd dogs. There were also hidden compartments in some of the walls of the 53-room, cut-stone mansion, York polices Salhia said. The 92 tactical officers from the York Region, OPP and Durham forces had to rush the gated property quickly so that evidence wouldnt be destroyed, Salhia added. We try to get them in the act of gambling with money in hand, Salhia said. Swift entry is imperative. The element of surprise was very important. Surveillance from a helicopter high overhead allowed police to plan their entry carefully. The helicopter was essential, Salhia said. It helped that two of the guards were playfighting when they were supposed to be watching for police or attackers from rival gambling organizations or street gangs. Eleven guns were seized in the mansion, police said. No humans or guard dogs were injured in the operation, police said. Salhia said York police have raided almost a half dozen smaller gambling spots since the Decourcy Court raid in July. Illegal gambling spots are run by a variety of crime groups, including old school mobsters and bikers, Slack said. Mob-run places in cafes often feature poker machines, while the Markham luxury casino catered to clients interested in baccarat, mahjong and slot machines. Some gambling operations run out of hotels on invitation-only policies. Now that some legal casinos are reopening, Slack said he thinks some illegal gamblers will take their business to the legal spots. However, high-security illegal casinos like the one in Markham allow organized criminals to make contacts in a comfortable environment, Slack said. Theyve also created an environment for making connections, Slack said. The Markham mansions invitation-only entry policy made it extremely tough for undercover officers to get into the gated facility, Slack said. What theyre trying to prevent absolutely is undercover officers, Slack said. There was $1 million found in a safe at the mansion, where gamblers could risk $20,000 on the spin of a wheel. You can imagine whats going to the house from that, Slack said. He said that police have been in contact with the Canada Revenue Agency, who will do their own separate probe. A spokesperson for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), which regulates legal gambling casinos, declined to comment on whether the limited reopening of some establishments in the province might hurt criminal operations. While we often support law enforcement agencies, we are not able to offer any comment on the implications and how that impacts legal casinos, spokesperson Raymond Kahnert said in an email. With respect to the pandemic-the AGCO has been proactively working with casino operators for some weeks to prepare for reopening so that, when the time is right, casinos can get back to business in a safe and responsible way, Kahnert said. In June, biker Rob Barletta, a former North Toronto Hells Angel from London, Ont., was charged in an illegal gambling bust. Barletta, who has served as president of the London and Niagara Region charters of the outlaw biker club, was also arrested with 30 others at a Platinum Super Bowl party at a Markham banquet hall in February 2013, attended by more than 2,000 gamblers. The party featured door prizes such as jet skis and big-screen TVs. York Region mobsters worked with Hells Angels in a gambling operation called Platinum SportsBook, which was busted in 2013 and used a website based on servers in Costa Rica. Even teleprompter could not take so many lies: Rahul's dig at PM Modis Davos speech Hathras gang rape case: Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi meet victims family after high drama India oi-Briti Roy Barman Lucknow, Oct 03: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who were detained amid high drama on Thursday, along with three others, met the bereaved family of the 19-year-old girl, who was brutally assaulted and murdered. Uttar Pradesh authorities had scuttled an earlier attempt by the two leaders to travel to Hathras, detaining them and several party workers in Greater Noida outside Delhi. On Saturday, the party staged another show of strength at the Delhi-Noida border. The UP Police said they will allow five party party representatives to meet the family in the village in Hathras district. Notably, Priyanka Gandhi on Friday attended a prayer meet at the Maharishi Valmiki temple in Delhi in memory of the victim. Hathras gang-rape case: TMC leaders file complaint against Hathras SDM over 'indecent behaviour' "When I came to know that you all have kept a prayer meeting here, I came so that the family does not feel that they are alone. Every woman in the country should raise their voice, the people from the media are here, they should pressurize the government, we will create political pressure. Her family did not even get a chance to perform the final rites of the girl in dignity. This is inhumanity," said Priyanka. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi's attempt on Thursday to meet the victim's family was blocked by the Uttar Pradesh police who detained and escorted the Congress leaders back to Delhi. Rahul Gandhi was pushed to the ground in the chaos, following which the party held protests in Delhi. Meanwhile, UP CM Yogi Adityanath suspended the Superintendent of Police and four other policemen for alleged dereliction of duty in the events that led to the death of a 19-year-old woman. Hathras SP, 4 other cops suspended; media barred from victim's village till SIT completes probe Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News The state police is accused by the family of forcing the cremation of the woman in the late night. District officials contended that they had consent from the woman's family, but the manner in which the developments took place raised questions over the conduct of the administration and law enforcement. Three days after Australian Defence Force personnel withdrew from their duties screening travellers at the Queensland-New South Wales border, the Defence Minister has confirmed Townsville-based troops have been sent to Western Australia to help guard that state's hotel quarantine system. In response to the development, Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles went on the offensive, attacking Prime Minister Scott Morrison and once again accusing him of using the ADF as "a political bargaining chip". A soldier and police officer patrol Queensland's border with NSW near Hebel in central-southern Queensland. Credit:ADF "I was very disappointed to learn yesterday [Friday] that the Morrison government had deployed 110 Queensland-based ADF troops to WA to assist them with their COVID-related border restrictions and hotel quarantine," Mr Miles said. "No less than three federal government ministers said the troops were being withdrawn from the Queensland border in order to prepare for the disaster season, in order to prepare for natural disasters. Now we learn they lied. Khloe Kardashian has hit back at 'bored and unhappy' trolls after they questioned her 'changing' appearance. The TV star, 36, the shared sizzling selfies to Instagram on Friday after receiving a slew of criticism about her visage in a selection of busty snaps. Addressing the furore, Khloe also shared her thoughts on Twitter as she wrote: 'I'll never understand how bored or unhappy some people can be. Defiant: Khloe Kardashian has hit back at trolls after they questioned her appearance in busty snaps 'I am someone who would never comment something unless it's positive. I believe in uplifting and complimenting one another. Who has the time chiiiillllldddd?! Time is precious boo. Im spending it on happy things.' She added: 'With that being said, I love you guys!! I truly wish you all things beautiful in this world because there still is so much beauty. You just have to look through the BS but its there.' Khloe looked sensational as she shared a series of clips and selfies to Instagram on Friday, showing off her seemingly plumped pout and long locks. The blonde beauty let her tresses cascade over her shoulders as she posed up a storm inside her car. New look? The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star, 36, had earlier shared a selection of busty snaps which sparked fans to say she looked noticeably different Hitting back: Khloe took to Twitter to address some of the furore, saying that she 'believes in uplifting and complimenting one another' Staying positive: She added another tweet wishing her fans 'all things beautiful in the world' She cut a fashionable figure in a high-neck white and grey marble patterned top which also boasted long sleeves. Khloe's clips came after fans questioned her appearance in a selection of snaps shared to her Instagram grid. On Friday, the Keeping Up with the Kardashian star posted the new snaps looking barely recongizable, as she complained about the October heat wave in Los Angeles, California. 'Man this heat wave is intense!! Isn't it October???' The 36-year-old captioned the post, which saw her showing off her incredible figure in a graphic-print corset top, and a pair of skintight latex trousers. Poser: Khloe flaunted her long locks and seemingly plumped up pout in the short clips Glam: Khloe smiled as she posed up a storm in her far for the Instagram videos However, fans were quick to comment about the star's unrecognizable visage, with one user writing underneath the picture: 'She looks different every week!' 'What in the Ariana Grande is this,' another fan wrote, while another said: 'Girl stop that is not you' and 'Where is Khloe?!' It appeared that Khloe was trawling through the comments herself, as she took the time to reply to one fan. After one user wrote 'Money spent well' under the picture, Khloe hit back 'the shade of it all' alongside three crying-laughing emojis. However, many other fans praised the star for looking 'stunning.' Producer Elaine Thomas told the star, 'You are GORGEOUS!' to which she replied, 'awww I love you.' Ready for her close-up: The mother-of-one struck a series of sultry poses earlier in the day which caused people to claim she looked different yet again Changing looks: The TV sensation looked stunning in the slew of new pictures, wearing her hair down and over her shoulders Meanwhile celebrity make-up artist Etienne told Khloe she looked 'Hotttt' alongside a flame emoji. Khloe has previously been accused of using altering apps such as FaceTune in some posts, as Khloe has been seen in similar clothes while looking completely different in scenes from KUWTK. However, she has previously laughed off any criticism, and even joked earlier this year that she had undergone a 'face transplant' in an apparent bid to troll fans. Response: Khloe was quick to respond to a fan comment that claimed she had spent money on her appearance Concern: Some fans expressed worry about her ever changing looks Becoming a thing: Fans commented that they are getting used to seeing her different appearance In a June report by UsWeekly a source told the outlet she's not losing any sleep over the debate either. 'Khloe doesnt care about the backlash she's been getting from fans saying she doesn't look like herself in her recent photos,' an insider revealed. 'She thinks she looks great,' the insider adds. 'And actually [she] does not care what people think as long as she's happy.' Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden urged Americans to take the coronavirus seriously and follow social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines while campaigning in Michigan. We can save 100,00 lives in the next 100 days, according to the head of the CDC, if everyone wears a mask in public, Biden said. Be patriotic. Its not about being a tough guy, its about doing your part. Biden, 77, opened his speech by offering his sympathy to President Donald Trump and the first lady after they tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday night. Biden tested negative for the virus before arriving in Michigan but canceled a second event planned in Grand Rapids Friday afternoon. My wife Jill and I pray that they make a quick and full recovery, Biden said. This is not about politics. Its a bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously. Its not going away automatically. We have to do our part and be responsible. Speaking before a small crowd of reporters and members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union at its Grand Rapids headquarters, Biden called for a national mask mandate, and urged Americans to follow the recommendations of public health officials. A total of 208,485 deaths have been linked to the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University data, with 7.3 million U.S. infections. In Michigan, 6,788 deaths have been recorded, with 126,358 total cases, according to state data. Biden echoed recent statements from CDC Director Robert Redfield, who said maks are the most important public health tool available. He also called for an expansion of testing for front-line workers who are putting themselves at risk during the pandemic. Its not just the folks in the White House or who travel with me who deserve access to regular testing, its folks in the meat packing and food processing plant, grocery store workers, Biden said. Every single American deserves safety and peace of mind. Biden said those who test positive must work with public health officials to trace their recent contacts. The former vice president said transparency is important in tracking the spread of the virus. Many of (Americans) got up this morning to the breakfast table with an empty chair of someone they lost and they loved, Biden said. We understand. READ MORE ON MLIVE: Joe Biden tests negative for coronavirus before events in Grand Rapids Trumps positive COVID-19 test upends final stretch of 2020 presidential race By Maikel Jefriando and Gayatri Suroyo JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia moved a step closer to passing President Joko Widodo's contentious "Job Creation" bill after parliament's legislation committee and government ministers on Saturday approved the latest version for a vote next week. A coalition of fifteen activist groups, including several trade unions, condemned the move in a statement on Sunday, accusing the government and parliamentarians of completing the deliberations in secret during an unusual hearing late at night over a weekend. The coalition called on all workers to join their planned national strike on Oct. 6 to 8 to protest the bill, which organisers had said would involve 5 million workers. The so-called "omnibus" bill, aimed at revising over 70 existing laws in a single vote, is the president's flagship measure to speed up the pace of economic reform and improve the country's investment climate. Global investors have been watching closely to see if the bill gets watered down in parliamentary debates, as Southeast Asia's largest economy tries to compete for manufacturing investment relocating from China. In a hearing on Saturday, which ended a few hours before midnight, representatives from seven out of nine factions in the legislation committee approved the bill to be brought to a parliamentary vote, while two factions rejected. Several ministers led by chief economic minister Airlangga Hartarto also approved the final version of the bill, which contained some changes to the government's original proposal, such as a different scheme for a cut in mandatory severance benefits. "This bill will support de-bureaucratisation and efficiency," Airlangga said in the televised hearing. Workers opposing the bill argued the legislation would be a "red carpet for investors, widening the power of the oligarchy" by not only hurting labour protection, but also taking away lands from farmers and indigenious communities, according to the coalition's statement. Story continues Greenpeace campaigner Arie Rompas, addressing a separate news briefing on Sunday, said his group was reviewing legal actions it could take if parliament passes the bill into law. Green groups have criticised the bill's provisions that relax environmental study requirements for investors, which they said could lead to ecological disasters. Government officials have insisted the bill would not hurt labour protection nor the environment and that it is necessary to attract investment and create jobs. (Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo and Maikel Jefriando; Editing by Christina Fincher & Shri Navaratnam) Google signage. NurPhoto | Getty Images When Google announced last month it was pulling the plug on a lease for a new office space in Dublin, Ireland, it set off alarm bells. Google is a large presence in Dublin's "Silicon Docks," where it holds its European headquarters, a part of the city around the docklands area where a who's who of Big Tech are located, including Facebook, Twitter and Airbnb. But during the coronavirus pandemic and with the need for remote working, questions are being raised about the viability of large office spaces. Google said it remains committed to Dublin where it has over 8,000 workers and has purchased two more buildings that it still plans to fill. The commercial property market in Dublin slumped in the second quarter as the country was in the depths of lockdown, according to real estate firm CBRE, which reported just 15 office leasing transactions in that period. Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Marie Hunt, head of research at CBRE, told CNBC there is likely to be a slowdown in new office deals in the coming months because of Covid-19, but also because "tech occupiers tend to retrench in a presidential year." Government agencies have been unable to carry out site visits and tours to woo companies to invest, and Hunt said this was causing a "weakening in take up." Shane Fleming, a property expert and the founder of Fleming Real Estate, said that this trend is not unique to Dublin but that the Irish capital still has several large office deals signed and in progress, pointing to ongoing expansions by Amazon and LinkedIn. TikTok, according to reports, is seeking a large office space in the capital for up to 5,000 people. Fleming added that housing shortages for workers in the city as well as planning policies around building heights present additional challenges. "If Dublin City Council does not allow for increased heights within parts of the city, Dublin will lose out on future opportunities," he said. The Sorting Office that Google was planning to lease in Dublin, Ireland. Google Dublin Sorting Office Efficiency Simon McEvoy, the Irish boss of shared office provider Knotel, said that it makes no sense for companies to invest in any new spaces until they can bring back a significant number of workers. "It's not always viable to turn on a large facility for 10% of your workforce," he said, adding that workers may experience and use their office space in different ways in the future. "It's not necessarily going to be where you go from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, but they will be going in for various different reasons at different times. How the office is delivered to the end user is where a lot of the change is going to happen." Carol Tallon, chief executive of Property District, which advises clients in the property and construction sectors, told CNBC that office tenants can often be "exceptionally inefficient" in how they use their spaces. There will need to be a significant re-think in how space is utilized, she said. "How we use the office is going to change as a result of this pandemic and I don't think it's fatalistic to say that now," she added. Controlled development? An Easton man who headed a cryptocurrency company has admitted taking $3 million from a company by lying about Bitcoin transactions. Jon Barry Thompson, also known as J. Barry Thompson, was the principal of Volantis, which included a cryptocurrency escrow company called Volantis Escrow Platform LLC and a related company, Volantis Market Making LCC. The 49-year-old Thompson was arrested in July 2019 at his West Burke Street home on College Hill and charged with two counts each of commodities fraud and wire fraud. He has been free on $500,000 bond in the case. On Thursday, Thompson pleaded guilty to one count of commodities fraud in federal court in Manhattan, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a news release. Thompson is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 7; the charge carries a possible maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Prosecutors previously said Thompson stole $7 million from two companies after lying about transactions of the peer-to-peer digital currency Bitcoin -- $3 million from one company and $4 million from a second. Thompson offered minimized settlement default risk in cryptocurrency transactions, and claimed there was no risk of default, prosecutors allege. In June and July 2018, Thompson convinced the first company to send his company Volantis more than $3 million for a Bitcoin purchase, prosecutors allege. Thompson allegedly assured the company he had the Bitcoin in hand and that money could not be lost. Thompson took the money, but never provided the company the promised Bitcoin or returned its money, prosecutors said. Thompson allegedly gave the company a fake account statement showing he had the companys money but in reality sent the more than $3 million to a third-party entity purportedly in exchange for Bitcoin without first receiving any of the Bitcoin in hand. In July 2018, Thompson allegedly convinced a second company to send Volantis more than $4 million for Bitcoin purchases. Again, Thompson is accused of sending a substantial portion of the money to a third party without first receiving any Bitcoin in return, prosecutors allege. Thompson never gave the second company any Bitcoin and did not return its money, prosecutors said. FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Sweeney previously said Thompson used phrases and terminology that the victimized companies didnt understand, and he allegedly preyed on their ignorance of the emerging cryptocurrency. Forbes previously reported Symphony, an Irish investment company that specializes in trading cryptocurrencies, gave Thompson 3.6 million Euros to purchase Bitcoin on its behalf. Symphony never received any Bitcoin and its money was never returned. In that case, the plaintiff withdrew the complaint it had brought in federal court in Pennsylvania and, instead, reportedly reached a private settlement with Thompson. Thompson then breached the agreement by failing to make the first settlement payment, Forbes reported. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed separate civil charges against Thompson. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Azerbaijani Army lost over 3,000 servicemen in Nagorno-Karabakh. US officials have spoken to Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders and urged them to cease hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani Army has lost more than 3,000 servicemen since the eruption of hostilities in conflict-torn Nagorno-Karabakh, the press secretary of the president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh said on Saturday.The intelligence data show that the Azerbaijani losses had already exceeded 3,000 servicemen. Most bodies remain in the neutral zone, and nothing is being done for their transportation, Vagram Pogosyan wrote on his Facebook page. On Sunday morning, an escalation unfolded along the contact line of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority autonomy that proclaimed independence from what then was the Soviet Azerbaijan Republic in 1991. Azerbaijan launched what it described as a counteroffensive, while the Artsakh authorities accused Azerbaijani forces of opening fire against civilians and civilian infrastructure in its capital of Stepanakert.The armed hostilities continue at this point. US officials have spoken to Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders and urged them to cease hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview. Were urging a ceasefire. We want them both to back up. Weve spoken to the leadership in each of the two countries, asking them to do just that, Pompeo told Fox News on Thursday. Pompeo urged third party states to remove themselves from the conflict amid Armenias allegations that Turkey is involved in the hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. ALSO READ: Kim Jong-un wishes Donald Trump a speedy recovery from Covid-19 ALSO READ: World markets dip after Trump tests positive for coronavirus Teachers, school staff, students and parents in the Australian state of Victoria are facing a demand by the state Labor Party government, supported by the trade unions, for an accelerated return to face-to-face teaching. Despite the global resurgence of COVID-19 due to the return to work drive, Premier Daniel Andrews last Sunday declared that the planned resumption of classroom learning must be fast-tracked. This rush to lift restrictions expresses the Labor governments further line-up behind a relentless media and corporate campaign, spearheaded by the federal Liberal-National government, for a rapid end to Victorias lockdown. The governments are relying on the education trade unions to suppress the opposition of educators. On its Facebook page, the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU), which covers school staff, has been telling its members all week: We are continuing discussions with DET [Department of Education] around the details and will be in touch with members with more information soon. In other words, behind the backs of teachers, the union is working closely with the state government to carry out an orderly return to work. AEU Victorian branch president Meredith Peace told the media last Sunday that the faster return to classrooms was a positive sign that the education system was slowly returning to normal. Megan, a primary school teacher in Melbourne, the state capital, told the WSWS: Ive just written my letter of resignation from the union. I dont believe they represent us. They are doing what the government wants without question. They know what is going on, the stress and anxiety. But all they do is toe the line. I think this is happening internationally. I have a friend in California. She said that teachers there are exhausted. The nature of the outbreak is that it will recur. Im nervous about going back because I hear kids saying: Im going to my aunts place. In other words, they might spread the virus. Im nervous for my colleagues, but I am unsurprised by the announcement. There is no consideration for educators. In Melbourne next week, all Year 12, and any Year 11 and 10 students studying a Year 12 subject, must attend the General Achievement Test (GAT). The GAT is a three-hour examination. The following week, from October 12 to 16, senior secondary students (Years 11 and 12), and any Year 10 students studying a Year 11 subject, must return to the classroom. In addition, all primary school students (Prep to Grade 6) will return, with individual schools determining the exact schedule. As yet, no plans have been announced for the return of secondary students in Years 7 to 10, but that is likely to follow soon. All childcare centres were reopened on September 28 in order to facilitate the return to work of 127,000 workers this week. In rural and regional areas of Victoria, all primary school students will return this week, followed by all secondary students, from years 7 to 12, next week. At the governments press conference last Sunday, the state Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng, revealed that 139 teachers and 373 students had so far been infected with the coronavirus in Victoria. This is the first time that the Andrews government has released this data. It shows the risk involved in forcing teachers and students back into classrooms. To justify the reopening of primary schools, Cheng cited a Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI) survey that purportedly showed that young children are at a lower risk of getting and spreading infection. In its report, the MCRI cherry picked international studies of COVID transmission among children that tended to support this contention. As many international studies, however, cast doubt on this claim. One study in the US state of Illinois found that children younger than 5 years of age have high amounts of viral load compared with older children and adults. It concluded that young children can potentially be important drivers of Covid spread in the general population. Moreover, the behaviour habits of young children interacting with each other, both in day-care centres and schools, raised concerns for additional amplification of transmission. Another study, by the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, showed that children carry high viral loads, even with mild symptoms of the disease or no symptoms, and this viral load is independent of age. In May, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made his now infamous claim that social distancing was neither required nor appropriate in schools. He was referring to similarly handpicked and dubious data. At that time, Andrews, responding to the demands of the corporate elite, reversed his previous decision to keep schools closed for all of Term 2, and prematurely reopened them on May 26. This led to an eruption of outbreaks in schools, in tandem with an exponential increase in community transmission. The Labor government initially attempted to suppress this second wave of the epidemic with limited lockdown measures in order to minimise disruption to business. On August 4, as anger grew and the situation spiralled out of control, the Andrews government declared a state of disaster and imposed more stringent measures, including the closure of the school system. Once again, the Andrews government is gambling with the lives of teachers, students and the entire working class by accelerating the relaxation of restrictions while the virus still circulates within the community. As Andrews repeatedly emphasises, his government is pursuing the bipartisan policy of suppression, not eradication of COVID-19 transmission. Outbreaks, sickness and deaths are accepted as the cost of doing business. Far from defending the health and safety of teachers, the AEU bureaucrats are loyally implementing the Andrews government demands. For example, it is reported in a Frequently Asked Questions section of the AEU website that in the event of a confirmed case of coronavirus at a school, the principal will not necessarily inform the school community. Instead, this decision will be made by the government on a case by case basis. As early as late August, the AEUs Peace declared that if the Andrews government were to reopen schools, the AEU would support a staggered return, because that had been effective the previous time. Effective for whom? Certainly not for teachers and students, who suffered infections, more than 150 school closures and the constant fear of entering workplaces with grossly inadequate safety measures in place, and where social distancing is impossible. Across the globe, the forced reopening of schools and the economy has had terrible consequences, with more than a million deaths. The response of the unions to the pandemic, in the face of the concerns of teachers, parents and students, demonstrates that these organisations do not represent the interests of their members. Teachers, school staff and parents need to follow the lead of US and European educators and form rank-and-file safety committees, totally independent of the unions, to fight for their safety and the safety of students. The Committee for Public Education (CFPE) is calling for the establishment of such committees in all schools. We urge teachers, school staff, parents and students to contact the CFPE to discuss the necessary action to protect the lives and safety of students and school communities. Email: cfpe.aus@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/commforpubliceducation Twitter: @CFPE_Australia Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen have paved the way for further intensified trade talks (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The UK and the European Union have agreed to work intensively to resolve the differences in the Brexit trade talks, Downing Street has confirmed. Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen spoke via video conference on Saturday to take stock of progress in the negotiations following the final scheduled round of talks between Brussels and the UK this week. The pair have tasked chief negotiators, Britains Lord Frost and the EUs Michel Barnier, with intensifying the talks after acknowledging that significant gaps remained between the UK and Brussels. They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps Downing Street The Prime Minister has set the deadline of the EU Council meeting on October 15 for securing a deal only 12 days away. A Downing Street spokesman said: They agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future. They endorsed the assessment of both chief negotiators that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained, notably but not only in the areas of fisheries, the level playing field, and governance. They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps. They agreed to speak on a regular basis on this issue. Lord Frost, in a statement issued after his meeting with counterpart Mr Barnier on Friday, expressed concern there is very little time now to resolve the outstanding issues on fishing, state aid and governance before October 15. But, taking to Twitter after the leaders conversation on Saturday, Lord Frost said the work to bridge the gaps between us would begin as soon as we can next week. The agreement between Mr Johnson and Ms von der Leyen to intensify the talks could soon pave the way for what is dubbed the tunnel, where the negotiating teams enter a media and briefing-free blackout in a bid to work out compromises on the outstanding differences. Here is the agreed statement from @BorisJohnson and @vonderleyen after their phone call today. It instructs me and @MichelBarnier to work intensively in order to try to bridge the gaps between us. That work begins as soon as we can next week. https://t.co/aSHoRbLjkn David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) October 3, 2020 The Prime Minister has struck a positive tone about the prospects of securing a trade deal in recent days, along with Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, who is in charge of Britains Brexit preparations. Mr Johnson told reporters on a construction site visit in west London on Saturday morning that there is a good deal to be done with the EU. Vote Leave campaigner Mr Gove, speaking at the Conservative Partys virtual conference, said: I suspect there will be one or two ups and downs along the way but I am optimistic that we will get a deal. Expand Close Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters on Saturday there is a deal to be struck with Brussels (Alberto Pezzali/PA) PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters on Saturday there is a deal to be struck with Brussels (Alberto Pezzali/PA) Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, however, took a tougher approach in his conference speech, telling members the days of being held over a barrel by Brussels are long gone, as he stressed any trade deal must be fair. Mrs von der Leyen on Friday said she believed a deal was still possible but warned time was running out without an intense period of negotiations. She said the most difficult issues including fisheries and state aid rules still had to be resolved if they were to get an agreement in place by the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31. But where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations because it is worth working hard on it, she told a press briefing in the Belgian capital. Scranton, PA (18503) Today Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 14F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 14F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Governor of the Bank of France Francois Villeroy de Galhau attends a news conference at the G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Chantilly, near Paris, France, July 18, 2019. Francois Villeroy de Galhau told France Inter radio station that public spending had reached dangerous levels. Photo: REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol Frances top central banker has said the country needs to get a handle on its spending, as it takes measures to deal with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Francois Villeroy de Galhau told France Inter radio station that public spending had reached dangerous levels. According to a report from Reuters, Frances public spending has grown at a rate of 1% in real terms over the past decade Villeroy de Galhau said: There's a real alert and it is time to regain control (over public spending)." We cant afford everything all the time. Europes third largest economy introduced a 100bn (90.6bn, $117bn) stimulus package last month, a sum equal to 4% of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP). France is ploughing proportionally more public cash into its economy than any other big European country. "There is a justified debt which is the COVID debt, there is a dangerous debt which is the one under which we would live beyond our means for a long time," Villeroy said. READ MORE: Coronavirus: London transport faces 'doomsday scenario' without extra help The UKs public spending has also been brought into question this week, as bills have mounted during the pandemic. Experts recently warned that government officials would have to choose between more austerity and permanently higher spending in the months to come. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said COVID-19 has meant that public spend is likely to rise to the highest share of national income in more than a decade. If it doesnt rise, another bout of austerity is on the cards for public services, it warned. The think tank also said the UK had been through the most prolonged squeeze in public spending on record. Despite this, even on the eve of the pandemic, UK public spend was around 39.8% of national income. These are the same levels seen in 2007-08. Professor Philip Nolan warned cases could grow by the thousands each day if action is not taken to tackle the spread (PA) Ireland could see up to 1,300 new coronavirus cases per day by the end of the month if nothing changes and the spread is allowed to continue, a public health expert has warned. Professor Philip Nolan said the epidemic has been growing exponentially at about 4% per day since late June, and he urged people to reduce their social contacts. The warning comes as 613 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) on Saturday. Ten more people died of the virus bringing the total number of deaths to 1,810. The chairman of NPHET said case numbers grew from 12 on July 1 to 40 on August 1, to 131 on September 1 and then by Friday they had reached 430. He tweeted: We should not ignore or dismiss the rising numbers of SARS-CoV-2 infections. We should not ignore or dismiss the rising numbers of SARS-CoV-2 infections. We monitor hospitalisations, intensive care admissions, and with great sadness, deaths, and we know where these numbers will go if we do not suppress transmission of the virus. 1/9 pic.twitter.com/ys2YirPyLW Professor Philip Nolan (@PhilipNolan_SFI) October 2, 2020 We monitor hospitalisations, intensive care admissions, and with great sadness deaths, and we know where these numbers will go if we do not suppress transmission of the virus. He said restrictions put in place in Kildare, Laois and Offaly worked, and those in Dublin and Donegal may be starting to work, but the virus is spreading at a near-constant rate throughout the rest of the country. He added: We have, collectively, had too many social contacts. The virus is transmitting, and cases and hospitalisations growing. If nothing changes, and cases and hospitalisations grow as they have been for the last few weeks, we could see 1200-1300 cases per day and 400 people in hospital by the end of October. This is not meant to scare people. Its asking us to be honest with ourselves. And its not inevitable. On the contrary, if we redouble our efforts to minimise our social contacts, keep our distance when with others, and stay home if feeling unwell, we can beat this. Expand Close Prof Nolan is chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prof Nolan is chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team (PA) Professor Nolans remarks come after the Government accepted recommendations from NPHET to introduce tighter restrictions on household visits in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. The public health team advised that a maximum of six people from a single household are allowed to go to another house, in all parts of the country and not just Dublin and Donegal. The capital and Donegal are currently subject to level three restrictions under the Governments Covid-19 five-tier response plan, with the rest of the country at level two. Under the current public health guidelines, people living in counties under level two restrictions are allowed to have six visitors from three different households. Of the 613 new cases notified on Saturday, 224 cases are in Dublin, 58 in Donegal, 46 in Cork, 44 in Kildare, 31 in Limerick, 28 in Laois, 21 in Kerry, with the remaining 161 across the remaining counties. Acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said: The numbers being reported today and over the past week represent a significant escalation in the profile of Covid-19 in Ireland. For those aged 70-plus and those who are medically vulnerable to Covid-19, it is strongly recommended that you should limit the number of people you meet to a very small core group of family members, carers or friends, for short periods of time, while remaining physically distant. We need to work together once again to make a significant impact on the number of cases in the community, and ultimately to reduce the number of people getting sick, being admitted to hospital and critical care, while protecting non-Covid healthcare services. I urge people in every county to follow the public health advice to stop the further spread of Covid-19. The National Design & Craft Gallery has introduced age-friendly opening hours this autumn. The initiative is part of the Kilkenny Age Friendly County Strategy 2017 2022 and is designed to provide dedicated times for older people to access public spaces in a protected way. The current exhibition at NDCG is called GENERATION and it tells the stories of craft skills passed down, including families of metal-smiths, furniture-makers and weavers. It also celebrates inspiration of the wild Irish landscape, love of language and driving need to create. GENERATION tells of the invaluable skills, knowledge and ways of looking at the world that are often passed from older members of families to young. Susan Holland, National Design & Craft Gallery Curator stated that the gallery is delighted to extend a special invitation to older members of our community. Our friendly team are happy to share interesting stories of our makers, have a chat, or indeed give you space to reflect. Culture and craft can inspire, comfort and connect us, which are all the more needed in these trying times, she added. The National Design & Craft Gallery is keen to support older members of the community to feel comfortable and welcome at its space . From 10am to 11am every Thursday, the gallery will prioritise visitors aged 70+. They have also partnered with Kilkenny Design Centre to offer a 10% discount on tea or coffee with a scone at the cosy cafe and sunny terrace in Castle Yard. Chief Executive of Kilkenny County Council and Chair of the Kilkenny Age Friendly Alliance Colette Byrne welcomed the initiative. This initiative supports the Kilkenny Age Friendly County Strategy 2017 2022. This initiative is just the latest by local business and organisations which help promote civic participation in our cultural amenities and supports our work in establishing Kilkenny as a great place to grow old for our current and future generations . The gallery is situated through the arches of Kilkenny Design Centre in the Castle Yard and is open Wednesday Sunday with free admission. In light of Covid-19 visitors to the gallery are asked to wear a face mask, sanitise their hands, follow one-way arrows and ensure social distancing. Only 12 people are allowed in the gallery at any one time. For more information on visiting the gallery, our exhibitions and programmes visit: www.ndcg.ie Two Hills will combine later this month when former Spurs player George Hill throws a Halloween party at Hills and Dales. Owner Justin Vitek, who is a close friend of Hill, says the Milwaukee Bucks player came to him with the idea of taking advantage of the holiday falling on a Saturday and the rare occasion of not being in season. The 2019-2020 season, which would have ended in June, was pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat are currently fighting for the first-ever NBA "bubble" championship, which will delay the start of next season until 2021, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told the sports world this week. RELATED: San Antonio staple Bar America is reopening months after shutting down in response to COVID-19 "My guy G Hill said 'I never get to celebrate Halloween because were in season, so I want to throw a party.' I said, 'Say less,'" Vitek shared. There will be a costume contest, awarding $500 to two winners wearing the "sexiest" or "best" outfits. Of course Hill, who last played for the Spurs in 2011, will be in attendance. The UTSA-area bar is encouraging early arrivals due to limited capacity restrictions. Vitek's team is also promising to follow all COVID-19 protocol, including enforcing mask-wearing. He says guests are allowed to dance at their tables with their masks on. "As long as they do not crowd or move away from their table," he said. The bar, along with sister spots Babcock Social Spot and On the Rocks Pub, were some of the first to voluntarily close as COVID-19 cases were beginning to spike in June. At that point, owner Justin Vitek said "Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing." Vitek decided to reopen Aug. 14. Businesses like Hills and Dales, which were originally adult beverage-focused, have been able to use a lifeline from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission extended to the nightlife industry. The July 30 decision allows bars to be reclassified as a restaurant with a food and beverage certificate if their alcohol sales are less than 51 percent of their overall sales. There has been no word on when Abbott will give traditional bars the green light to reopen without the permit, but he said during a Sept. 17 new conference that he is focused on finding a way. Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @maddyskye Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 23:20:07|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Gertrude Mongella, secretary-general of the Fourth World Conference on Women, speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Oct. 2, 2020. (Xinhua) DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- A leading Tanzanian advocate for women's rights has urged the international community to share ideas and continue promoting global cooperation to advance women's rights. In order to eradicate gender inequality, there is an urgent need to change prevailing culture and traditions that marginalize women, as well as a need to promote international cooperation, said Gertrude Mongella, secretary-general of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Chinese capital Beijing in 1995. The conference, which adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, spelled out the actions that should be done to change positions of women in society, Mongella told Xinhua in a recent interview. For the past 25 years, many nations have changed their legal, political and economic systems to appreciate women as equal participants in their development, said Mongella. "We are seeing more and more women taking their rightful places in decision-making and leadership, as talents of women have been clearly identified and utilized," she said. "So looking at what we have achieved, we can say the conference held in Beijing in 1995 was a milestone in the revolution of human relationship between men and women," said Mongella. Mongella said her first visit to China was in 1984, and when she visited Beijing again in 1995 she was very surprised to see development in China over the years. Many women in China had moved from doing household chores to participation in different industries, said Mongella, adding that the most important thing is that as China moves on, great efforts have been made not to leave women behind. The changes which have taken place in the position of women in China is something for other parts of the world to emulate, she said. Chinese women say themselves holding up "half the sky" and I hoped women in China will continue to hold up "half the sky" in the nation's economic development, she added. Globally, women's rights have been recognized but so many obstacles still remain for the realization of gender equality in all societies, she said. Noting some obstacles are deeply rooted in culture, traditions, and political and economic systems, she said it is not easy to remove all of them in a short time. "It is difficult sometimes due to ignorance, a lack of political will and economic requirements", said Mongella. Enditem Several Israeli businessmen, including confidants of PM Netanyahu and a former commander of the navy, are suspects in a graft scandal connected to the purchase of the warships and submarines from German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp After a coronavirus-related delay, Israel's navy is preparing for the long-awaited arrival of its next generation of missile boats, giving it a powerful new tool to defend its strategic natural gas industry from the threat of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The first missile boat of Project Magen'' is scheduled to arrive by early December, with three more of the German-made corvettes scheduled to arrive over the next two years. It's bigger. It's newer. It's faster. It's better,'' said Rear Adm. Eyal Harel, head of Israeli naval operations, during a rare tour of Israel's offshore Leviathan gas field. A massive gas platform stood just a few hundred meters (yards) away. The vessels, commonly known as the Saar 6, will be at the forefront of Israeli efforts to protect its 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The natural gas industry, seen as a national asset, is at the heart of those efforts. Over a decade after finding sizeable reserves off its Mediterranean coast, Israel now generates some 60% of its electricity from natural gas, according to the national electric company, and has begun to export gas to its Arab neighbors Jordan and Egypt. Israel is also pursuing a project with Greece and Cyprus in hopes of creating an Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline to Europe. With so much at stake, Hezbollah has identified Israeli gas installations as high-priority targets. In a 2018 speech, the group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, said he could destroy Israeli gas assets within a few hours if there was a government order to do so. Hezbollah is part of an alliance that dominates Lebanese politics and government. Israel takes such threats seriously. During a monthlong war in 2006, a Hezbollah cruise-missile strike on an Israeli Saar 5 warship killed four soldiers. The conflict is believed to have killed between 1,191 and 1,300 Lebanese people, and 165 Israelis. It severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000500,000 Israelis. Lt. Col. Eitan Paz, a flotilla commander, said the new vessels would bring a welcome upgrade to the aging Saar 5's, which are nearly 30 years old. He said they would be equipped with newer and more powerful radar and other electronic systems, and handle rough seas much better than their predecessors. The 90-meter (295-foot) vessels are equipped with rocket and missile defense systems, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and an upgraded launching pad for Israel's newest attack helicopters. Physically, it's not much bigger than the Saar 5, he said. But it adds all of these systems. He said the first boat, the INS Magen, or Shield,'' was supposed to arrive in August, but delivery was delayed due to the coronavirus. He said it would be deployed immediately and reach full operational capacity within several months after it is outfitted with Israeli weapons systems in several phases. Since the 2006 war, Hezbollah is believed to have greatly beefed up its arsenal with some 150,000 rockets and missiles, according to Israeli estimates. Israel also accuses the group of trying to develop precision-guided missiles, which would make that arsenal far more lethal. Harel said the navy's main concerns are Chinese-made C-802 missiles, like the one that hit the Israeli ship in 2006, and Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles possessed by Hezbollah's ally Syria. But he said the military has learned lessons from that war. We are prepared and we will be even more prepared when we have the new battleships, he said. Israel agreed to buy the vessels in a 2015 deal valued at roughly 430 million euros ($480 million at the time), with the German government covering about one quarter of the cost. Several Israeli businessmen, including confidants of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former commander of the navy, are suspects in a graft scandal connected to the purchase of the warships and submarines from German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp. Netanyahu, who is on trial in three other corruption cases, was not named as a suspect in the scandal and no one active in the Israeli navy has been connected. *This story was edited by Ahram Online. Search Keywords: Short link: Eight days after the semi-naked and decomposing body of a 26-year-old woman was found stuffed in a bed box at a house in Delhis Chhawla, the police on Saturday said they arrested her friend for allegedly murdering her. The arrested man was identified by his first name as Satish. The arrested man is married but was in a relationship with the woman. He suspected her of having an affair with someone else and believed that she had been ignoring him because of that. He killed her in a fit of rage at his rented home, stuffed the body in the bed box, and fled, said deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) Santosh Kumar Meena. Also read: Man kills roommates after tiff over paying rent Police said the woman, who worked with a multinational company in Gurugram, was from Jharkhand. The murder came to light on September 25 when neighbours noticed a foul smell coming from the house and reported the matter to the police. A police officer involved in the probe into the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a forensics team has told them the woman was killed at least two days before the body was recovered. Preliminary inquiry revealed that the house was rented to a 27-year-old man, who also works with a private company in Gurugram. As the man was missing and his mobile phone was switched off, he became the prime suspect. Meena said several teams worked on the case and the suspect was arrested from Assam. Our teams worked on the call detail records, analysed CCTV footage and the suspects contacts, coordinated with different agencies, and finally nabbed him. The arrested man told us that after killing the woman, he sold his mobile phone and fled to Dibrugarh in Assam. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Dehradun : Congress on Sunday released its manifesto for Uttarakhand which focuses on stopping migration from hills, disaster management, infrastructure development and economic empowerment of women. The state will go to polls on February 15. Releasing the manifesto along with in charge of party affairs in the state Ambika Soni, PCC president Kishore Upadhyay and Kumari Shailja, Chief Minister Harish Rawat said it unveils a clear roadmap for the development of the state on indexes like halting migration from hills caused by absence of employment avenues, economic empowerment of women and creation of basic infrastructure. The manifesto also focuses on agriculture by setting a target to make at least 30 per cent of unirrigated land partially or fully irrigated over the next five years, he said. Also read: Uttarakhand Polls: Harish Rawat turns 'Baahubali' in viral video Disaster management mechanism will be further strengthened by appointing five aapda (disaster) mitras in every village. Employment opportunities will be generated in remote hill areas through renewed emphasis on skill development of local youths to stop their exodus in search of work by 2022, the chief minister said. The manifesto also promises creation of new districts, development of infrastructure, boosting connectivity and building a modern Uttarakhand. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East Firefighters in California rescued an orphaned mountain lion cub last month that was burned as a result of the Zogg Wildfire and required medical attention at a local zoo. Captain Cal, named after Cal Fire's mascot, was discovered on September 30 in an area that the fire had blazed through. He is believed to only be four to six weeks old, the Oakland Zoo revealed. The young cub weighed only 3.75lbs and was badly burned on his paws. His whiskers were completely singed off and he had severe irritation to his eyes, Cal Fire captured the cub and contacted the Shasta County Sheriff's Department, who then contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). Captain Cal, an orphaned cub believed to be four to six weeks old, was found on September 30 in an area where the Zogg Wildfire blazed through Vets with the CDFW sought help from veterinarians from the Oakland Zoo, who received the cub on the night of October 1. The CDFW has been working tirelessly to save animals impacted by the wildfires devastating the state. 'We are so grateful for the Oakland Zoo's expertise, world-class facilities and willingness to step up on extremely short notice to help wildlife in need,' said CDFW's senior wildlife veterinarian Dr. Deana Clifford. 'Partnerships like this are absolutely critical to our state's efforts to provide emergency care. California's wildfires are erupting on a scale that we've never seen before, and we expect that we'll have more burn patients than we have the capacity to treat in our own veterinary facility.' 'Unfortunately, a lion this size is too small to be released back into the wild, but we are hopeful that under the Zoo's care, it will get a second chance as an ambassador for its species.' Cal Fire captured the cub and contacted the Shasta County Sheriff's Department, who then contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Flame are visible from the Zogg Fire on Clear Creek Road near Igo, California Vets with the CDFW sought help from veterinarians from the Oakland Zoo, who received the cub on the night of October 1 Dr Lynette Waugh of the Oakland Zoo, along with staff, examined and began treatment for Captain Cal. The cub was given antibiotics, supportive fluids, pain medication and was fed milk formula through a syringe. X-rays conducted by the zoo found that the young cub did not have damage to his lungs from smoke inhalation and bone damage to his paws. As of October 2, the cub was eating on his own. Oakland Zoo's Dr. Lynette Waugh, Oakland Zoo's VP of Animal Care, Colleen Kinzley and Oakland Zoo's Zoological Manager, Ann-Marie Bisagno treat Captain Cal's paws at the hospital The young cub weighed only 3.75lbs and his whiskers were completely singed off. Captain Cal also had severe irritation to his eyes, Captain Cal was given antibiotics, supportive fluids, pain medication and was fed milk formula through a syringe 'We're grateful to be part of this amazing little cub's rescue and rehabilitation. It's an amazing effort between Cal Fire, the Shasta County Sheriff's Department, and of course our partners at the California Department of Fish & Wildlife,' said Dr. Alex Herman, Director of Oakland Zoo's Veterinary Hospital. Captain Cal is named after Cal Fire's mascot Dr Herman added: 'In the past two years, this marks our thirteenth mountain lion cub rescue for Oakland Zoo in partnership with CDFW. We're cautiously optimistic that this cub will now survive and thrive, our dedicated team at Oakland Zoo is fully committed to do everything we can for him and for his beautiful species.' Mountain lions in California face a number of threats beyond wildfires. The predators are often struck by cars and illegal poached, putting them in conflict with humans living in urban areas and development. In the wilds, cubs stay with their mothers until they are around two years of age to learn skills in order to survive. Captain Cal will be housed in a forever home once he leaves the zoo's veterinary hospital, as he is too young to learn survival skills needed for the wild. Six million households face losing 1,000 in benefits next year unless chancellor Rishi Sunak U-turns on universal credit, with the worst pain felt in some of the Red Wall seats which switched from Labour to Conservative at last years election, according to a new report. One in three of all working-age households in Red Wall constituencies across the north of England, West Midlands and Wales are set to lose out, with the proportion rising to almost two-thirds in Blackpool South, and more than two-fifths in Great Grimsby, Bolton North-East, West Bromwich West and Dudley North, said the Resolution Foundation. By comparison, just one-quarter of families in southeast England will lose out. The think tank forecast that the scale of potential losses to newly-won Tory voters will force Mr Sunak to back down on the withdrawal of a 20-a-week temporary boost to universal credit and working tax credits, just as his predecessor George Osborne did with threatened welfare cuts in 2015. The 20 additional payment was introduced in the spring in response to the coronavirus crisis and is due to expire in April 2021. But despite warnings that this would cut the incomes of some of the countrys poorest households at a time when unemployment is expected to be high, Mr Sunak did not reprieve it in his Winter Economy Plan last week. Todays report, entitled Death by 1,000 Cuts, found that the decision will reduce the generosity of unemployment support to its lowest real-terms level in three decades, and leave the poorest fifth of households facing a huge 7-per-cent income loss next year. And the Foundation warned that the move will also take 8bn out of the pockets of families most likely to spend it, at a time when healthy consumer spending will be needed to support the economy. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 21 January 2022 Willesborough Windmill, a white smock mill built in 1869 is bathed in the morning sunshine as the moon sets behind in Ashford, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 January 2022 A jet skier jumps the waves off the coast at Blyth in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 19 January 2022 Britains Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, participate in a therapy session with individuals who have experienced the care system, during a visit to the Foundling Museum in London REUTERS UK news in pictures 18 January 2022 Surfers enter the sea as the sun rises over Tynemouth on the North East coast PA UK news in pictures 17 January 2022 Bonhams Danny McIlwraith holds a Nigerian polycrome carved wood mask during a photocall for the sale of the Jim Lennon Collection at Bonhams in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty The thinktanks chief executive Torsten Bell pointed out that one of the loudest Tory critics of Mr Osbornes plans to cut welfare in 2015 was then-backbench MP Boris Johnson, who called on the chancellor to make sure that hard-working people on low incomes are protected. Exactly five years ago, then-chancellor Osborne arrived at Conservative Party conference riding high off an election victory, but with backbench trouble brewing over his plan to cut the incomes of over three million households by 1,000, said Mr Bell. A month later he U-turned. Today, chancellor Sunak finds himself in a similar situation, but with two important differences. Today the plan to cut household incomes by 1,000 overnight will affect twice as many families. And while the cuts last time were proposed during a period of fast rising employment, it is now increasing unemployment that will provide the backdrop. The 20-a-week boost to universal credit and tax credit this year has been a living standards lifeline for millions of families during the pandemic. But allowing the policy to expire next year would be disaster not just for household incomes but for economic policy too as the chancellor seeks to secure a recovery next year. It would also be a blow aimed squarely at the 'Red Wall, with one-in-three working-age households on course to lose over 1,000 next year. This policy is bad politics, bad economics and bad for living standards too. The chancellor should act swiftly to extend the boost to universal credit and tax credits beyond next spring. Labours shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: It's unbelievable that the government is considering cutting universal credit in the middle of a jobs crisis, in which they themselves admit 4 million jobs could be lost. Families in the North, Midlands and Wales would be hit hard by this cut. We cannot risk condemning parts of the UK back to the dark days of Thatcher, with mass unemployment and families struggling to get by. The government must do all it can to strengthen the safety net to prevent families and individuals from sliding further into hardship not cut it during this crisis. Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Christine Jardine said: "Countless people are facing their lives being turned upside down by this pandemic. The chancellor has a duty to ensure that no-one is left behind, but instead he seems ready to risk mass unemployment. The chancellor must wake and see sense. We need to see an extension of the furlough scheme, protection for excluded groups and new investment to create jobs, especially in the green economy. A Government spokesperson said: Weve invested an extra 9bn in our welfare system to help those most in need through the pandemic, including by increasing Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit by up to 20 a week, as well as introducing income protection schemes, mortgage holidays and additional support for renters. The Government will continue to do all it can to support the lowest paid families while focusing on helping people into work. This includes launching the Kickstart Scheme, a 2bn fund to create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people. As holidaymakers and the travel industry wait to learn the latest additions to the UKs no-go list, todays figures for new infections indicate that Poland could soon be stripped of quarantine exemption. The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is expected to impose a self-isolation requirement for arriving travellers from one or more nations at 5pm on Thursday. At the same time, the Foreign Office will warn against travel to the affected locations. As coronavirus infection rates rise across most European countries, more nations have moved above the UK governments threshold of 20 new infections per 100,000 in a week. Although the UK is now at 64 on that index, the chosen level has not changed meaning that destinations such as Croatia are rated as unacceptably high risk even though their infection rates are less than half the UKs. Poland has had the worst week for new infections since the Covid-19 pandemic began, and now has a score of 24.4. Were the Department for Transport to add it to the no-go list, the impact would be significant for travellers with family links in both Poland and the UK as well as airlines and airports. The number of flights between the two countries, and the passenger loads on them, are much higher than the current average. According to figures compiled by The PC Agency from European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data, both Italy and Greece are at the threshold set by the UK government for self-isolation with rates at 20.1 and 20.5 respectively. But unlike most European countries, the islands in each could make a difference. The governments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland already warn against travel to some Greek islands, while Scotland imposes quarantine on the whole of Greece. One possible outcome is that the mainland could be rated no-go while direct travel to islands such as Corfu, Kos and Rhodes is unaffected. Italy, which is currently open for travel, could be divided into the safe mainland and Sicily, which are below the threshold, while Sardinia has quarantine imposed. Another potential candidate for the no-go list is Estonia. The Baltic republic had originally done outstandingly well at keeping the virus at bay, but since the start of August new cases have been increasing a trend that has accelerated dramatically in the past 10 days. If destinations are put on the no-go list, the change is likely take effect at 4am on Saturday 3 October. Anyone in an affected location who wishes to avoid quarantine must be back in the UK by this time. Two other Mediterranean destinations, Cyprus and Turkey, are well below the UK threshold at 10.8 and 13.4 respectively. Some travel industry figures believe that a more substantial change to the UKs quarantine policy could be made imminently. The threshold was set when new infection rates for Britain and the rest of Europe were much lower than currently. One view is that blanket quarantine could be reimposed. Airlines and the wider travel industry are calling for testing to be included in the control measures, but the government has said existing tests are unreliable. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The disturbing societal decay we are experiencing didn't happen overnight. It has been fomenting for decades. This has always been a fallen world. But the gradual, sometimes imperceptible cultural decline is now staring us squarely in the face. The genesis of our decline can be traced largely to the counter-culture of the '60s. You know, drugs, sex, and a good riot to round out the week. Oddly, many of the miscreants of that era are now in power in academia, Hollywood, and politics. Many in younger generations may not even be aware of the problem. Critical thinking has long disappeared from students at government schools and universities. Its replacement is "relativism." If it feels good, do it...no moral compass required. Instead of weighing the pros and cons of policy issues, opposing views are shut down by "cancel culture" zealots on college campuses often with violence. "Gaslighting" has become a regular tool used by politicians and the corrupt media to shape public opinion. So how do we correct our course and navigate back to America? What's at Stake? Some Perspective We often take our liberty for granted here in America. However, freedom is a rare blessing that should be cherished. It is not the norm. Freedom House has documented that 2018 marks the 13th consecutive year that global freedom has declined. The United States set the standard for the blessing of liberty through the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. We now rank 51 out of 87 Free Countries. Freedom House estimates that in the entire history of mankind, 100110 billion people have populated the planet. Of that number, perhaps 35 billion have enjoyed freedom roughly 4%. Imagine, only 4%! So tyranny, oppression, and slavery have been the rule throughout history. Freedom is a rare and fragile gift passed down from our Founding. Will future historians see our times as an anomaly, or will we pull out from this tailspin? The Pillars of a Constitutional Republic In his Farewell Address, George Washington stated: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness[.] ... And let us with caution indulge in the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education ... reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. As a point of clarification, Washington was not a Deist, as some academics maintain. He was an Episcopalian, as were most of the Founders. Samuel Adams, father of the revolution, wrote to Richard Henry Lee at the close of the war: "I thank God I have lived to see my country independent and free. She may long enjoy her independence and freedom if she will. It depends on her virtue." And Ben Franklin wrote: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." In the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson states that the American people seek "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them[.]" What exactly is Natural Law? The Founders admired the precepts and writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 B.C.) among others. Cicero on Natural Law: It's a code of morality based upon "right reason" gifted to us by our Creator It's eternal and noble It's universally applicable It cannot be transformed or repealed Its timeless...it can't be superseded by a legislator Cicero's architecture for these principles was built on the ability of the human species to reason. "And reason, when it is full grown and perfected, is rightly called wisdom" (ibid.). Interestingly, Cicero was not Jewish, and Christianity was decades into the future. But he was able to independently discern the first two commandments: to love God and love thy neighbor, in that order. He felt that any human being of any race who finds a guide can achieve virtue. During the pre-Revolutionary period, it was widely known that there were two different types of virtue: personal and public. Personal virtue was "The Golden Rule." Public virtue was described as love of country. Many colonists struggled with whether they had the character to become a Republic. But, by the onset of the war, they had developed the confidence in both themselves and their fellow patriots. Learning from History History is not to be judged. History is to be learned from. To paraphrase Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill, if we don't learn from the mistakes of history, we're destined to repeat them. Ben Franklin and other Founders warned that once a political office became a position of profit, corruption would be widespread. As an ambassador to England and France, he witnessed this firsthand throughout the parliaments of Europe. In the United States, it was considered an honor to serve. Depending on the position, sometimes a small stipend was allotted. George Washington refused payment, except for expenses, as commander of the Continental Army. He also declined a $25,000 yearly salary as president, even though Mount Vernon was virtually in a state of ruin after the war. Avarice and ambition (love of power) are among the worst corruptors of human nature. The Constitution was written to offset these frailties with a system of checks and balances. Brilliant! Course Correction Required Vince Lombardi was asked by a reporter how he was able to turn the perennial losers known as the Green Bay Packers into winners so quickly. His response was, "Winning is a mastery of fundamentals." The farther we get from the foundational principles of this country, the more desperate our situation. The building blocks of renewal start with church and family. Education will be challenging but achievable. We need to force schools to stop teaching revisionist history and get back to true civics. Follow the money. Stop funding and grants to any school system that doesn't comply. We all need to get more involved. Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." We need to elect and appoint leaders that model virtue, both personal and public leaders who will uphold law and order for all. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin was waiting his turn to sign the Constitution after months of passionate argument and negotiation. His eyes fell on an intricate carving on the back of the chair that George Washington was sitting in. He was trying to determine if it was a rising sun or a setting sun. The jubilance of the occasion influenced his judgment...definitely a rising sun. On the horizon, there are a new SCOTUS confirmation and a presidential election. While the challenges appear daunting, there's nothing Americans can't accomplish. As the fog begins to lift, we have renewed hope that future generations will witness another rising sun. Oklahoma Oil Hub Bucks National Trend This article was first published on Rigzone here (The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the attributed sources and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rigzone or the author.) The intersection of multiple oil pipelines and the home of extensive oil storage facilities, Cushing, Okla., is the delivery point for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil. As one of Rigzones regular oil market-watchers points out, something happened recently in the oil hub that ran counter to trends elsewhere in the United States. To find out what stood out at Cushing, along with other insights, read on for the latest review of hits and misses in the oil and gas market. Rigzone: What were some market expectations that actually occurred during the past week and which expectations did not? Tom Seng, Director School of Energy Economics, Policy and Commerce, University of Tulsas Collins College of Business: Oil prices are ending the week with a loss as the coronavirus news overtakes a bullish inventory report. The news that President Trump has tested positive for COVID-19 only adds to concerns that the virus is spreading and increasing, both here in the U.S. and globally. The U.S. stock market has moved lower today after the Dow peaked at 28,000 earlier in the week as traders weighed the Presidents news in terms of the upcoming election as well as a sign that this pandemic is far from over. And, a sagging U.S. dollar has done nothing to support crude prices. The U.S. Energy Information Administrations Weekly Petroleum Status Report showed a decline of 2 million barrels last week, the ninth weekly decline out of the last 10 weeks. At 492 million barrels, stored crude is at the lowest level since April. Wall Street Journal analysts had forecasted an 800,000-barrel increase while S&P analysts predicted a gain of 1.9 million barrels. The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a drop of 830,000 barrels on Tuesday. But, inventories of crude are still at 13 percent above the five-year average for this time of year. Story continues Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 700,000 barrels and are now down to about one percent above the five-year average for this time of year. Distillates, which include heating oil, fell by 1.2 million barrels but remain about 21 percent ahead of their five-year average five weeks before the start of the winter heating season. Refinery utilization rebounded a full point to 75.8 percent, which was a surprise. The key Cushing, Okla., hub saw an increase of 1.8 million barrels running counter to the national trend and now stands at about 74 percent of capacity. U.S. oil production held at 10.7 barrels per day (bpd). U.S. crude exports rose to 3.5 million bpd last week, nearing the record of 3.7 million bpd set back in February. Meanwhile, Total is predicting that oil will reach peak demand by 2030. And, while hurricane season is not over, the tropics have been fairly quiet this past week. Take control of your future. Search THOUSANDS of Oil & Gas jobs on Rigzone.com Search Now >> Meanwhile, natural gas sits poised to easily exceed the 4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) level by the start of winter after a reported injection of 76 billion cubic feet (Bcf) last week. Stored natural gas volumes now stand at 3.756 Tcf, with only five weeks remaining in the traditional injection season. If we average just 50 Bcf per week during this period, 4 Tcf is easily achievable and over 4 Tcf is now likely since October is a shoulder demand month. Total stored volumes exceed the five-year average by 12 percent. Tom McNulty, Houston-based Principal and Energy Practice leader with Valuescope, Inc.: WTI traded well down this morning and has been softer all week. This is in line with a market focused on weak demand. These expectations are pessimistic and first-world focused. I think demand will increase, especially in the developing world. Rigzone: What were some market surprises? McNulty: U.S. rig counts have remained steady, with no declines. We have spoken with producers doing completions on their DUC (drilled but uncompleted) wells, but they are not doing any new drilling. Seng: Saudi Arabia has increased its exports as other countries make up for their lack of compliance with previous output cuts. To contact the author, email mveazey@rigzone.com. More From Rigzone.com, The Leading Energy Platform: >> Find the latest oil and gas jobs on Rigzone.com << Dr. Anthony Fauci thinks that drug companies may develop a COVID-19 vaccine before years end. But that doesnt mean the pandemic will be over. Distributing hundreds of millions of vaccine doses will pose an enormous challenge, and our countrys medical supply chain responsible for producing, transporting, and delivering crucial equipment and treatments is already overwhelmed. From shortages of life-saving medical devices to logistical obstacles, the United States is woefully unprepared especially since the flu season will complicate the rollout of any such vaccine. COVID-19 cases started soaring in the United States in mid-March. We havent yet experienced an entire season with influenza and the coronavirus both circulating at full force. A concurrent surge would be a disaster. COVID-19 and the flu cause similar respiratory symptoms. Hospitals experienced shortages of supplies toward the beginning of the pandemic, forcing states to compete for ventilators and respirators. Given that hundreds of thousands of Americans are hospitalized with the flu each year, an influx of more patients with similar needs could create even larger demand for equipment thats in short supply. Stopping this surge will require an adequate number of flu vaccines, more supplies, closely monitored delivery, and more funding all of which the vaccine supply chain already struggles with. Even before COVID-19, there were limited reserves of the medical-grade glass used to make vaccine vials. The glass contains a specific composition of chemicals, which makes it more resistant to temperature changes and helps keep vaccines stable. The syringes used to inject inoculations are also running low. The United States needs an estimated 850 million more syringes to distribute both coronavirus and seasonal influenza vaccines. As of May, it only had 15 million stockpiled. Though the Department of Health and Human Services has contracted with several companies to manufacture 820 million more syringes, only 420 million will be available by the end of the year. There are also shortcomings within the cold chain for vaccines. Vaccines have to be kept at a constant, cool temperature, typically between 35 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit, even when transported across the country. Outside of this range, they lose their potency and must be thrown away. It only takes one trucking leg that isnt temperature-controlled to spoil an entire batch. If theres any hope in preventing vaccine shortages, these issues must be addressed. The U.S. government has entered into contracts with multiple companies, allowing them to expand their manufacturing capacities and make more vials. Fostering more of these partnerships between government and private enterprises would help alleviate roadblocks in the vaccine supply chain. The government could also rethink how it allocates vaccines. Flu vaccines are distributed based on cities and states populations. But this approach doesnt reflect the share of the population that is willing to actually get the vaccine. When the uptake rate in a population is low, unused vaccines accumulate. Officials should take uptake rates into account to prevent surpluses in some regions and shortages in others. These changes wont help without a more streamlined cold chain transportation process. Simple changes like limiting handoff points, consolidating shipments, and monitoring the temperature of shipments in real-time can mitigate damages to scarce vaccine supplies. Developing a COVID-19 vaccine is merely the beginning of the end of this pandemic. To wipe out the virus, lawmakers need to address shortfalls in the supply chain. Purushottam Meena, Ph.D., is an associate professor of operations management in the School of Management at New York Institute of Technology. This piece originally published in Business Insider. It will take me a while to shake off a bit of journalistic rust but Im looking forward to getting a firmer grip on the issues facing communities between Mattawa and West Nipissing. Once things get settled, Id like to explore a regular audio podcast that involves interviewing local characters who have in-depth knowledge and the gift of experience to share. Sometimes, a conversation can be more informative and entertaining than the written word. As an example, I sat down for an hour to chat with my first journalism professor, Don Curry, who has an arm-long list of interesting ventures on his resume. Curry, 73, hasnt slowed down at all and now works as an immigration consultant. We had a wide-ranging discussion, including a bit of fun talking about his last journalistic adventure covering East Ferris and Bonfield as editor of the Near North News in the 1990s. At the same time, Ill be trying my best to keep the news stories flowing. No doubt, Ill be stumbling into the muck a few times along the way. My first story about West Nipissing politics a couple weeks ago was what I call a self-detonated stink bomb. It reminded me to not rush and do the homework before putting pen to paper, so to speak. I still dont understand, however, why theres a 60-day deadline for council to form a plan to fill the vacant seat in Verner. Turns out, theres no ramifications if they remain split on the options. Unless someone bends, it could remain a stalemate. I assumed the province would make the decision for them but an afternoon of emails with a Municipal Affairs media flak in Toronto set me straight: Nothing governmental has to make sense. As for the Bonfield drag strip quagmire, I genuinely feel for the Development Road area neighbours to the facility. Theres been more than a decade of angst over what they call noise pollution making it impossible for them to enjoy their otherwise peaceful paradise. I also understand the position of gear heads and the Bonfield Event Park owners who consider drag racing good clean fun. With no obvious legal battles left to fight, they look at the constant complaints as undue harassment. One person, siding with those who dont enjoy the revving of engines, suggested there are only two options: close the track or reimburse residents for their property values declining and lost joy of life. Another said the whole argument for the facility was economic development, which they argue never materialized. They think the drag strip actually repelled investment in the area. It makes me wonder. Have property values actually declined over the past 10 years (or to be fair, is the increase significantly lower than comparable communities)? And has anyone actually measured the economic development impact of the drag strip over the years? Or will they gauge the benefits going forward while taking into account the Bonfield Event Parks potential under new management? Maybe COVID-19 will solve the issue once and for all. But what then for Bonfield? Hopefully, were not in for another decade of grumbling and toxic relations interrupted by the occasional letter mailed in from left field. Closer to home, I left out a great angle to the ProtectON face shield story this past Friday and it never left my mind all weekend. Don Champagne, owner of North Bay Plastic Molds, was rightfully proud to host all the players involved in the innovative, collaborative product launch. The new facility on Highway 94 in East Ferris is impressive and represents several decades of entrepreneurial spirit. Dyed in Conservative blue and surrounded by mostly PC brethren, he was in his glory as part of a big Made-in-Ontario story. Champagne, who provides engineered plastic parts for clients around the globe, joked about how hes been in business for more than 30 years but suddenly its an overnight success. He then gave tribute to his late wife Jackie, who passed away almost two years ago. Married for 49 years, she was by all accounts and he would quickly agree definitely the better half. He almost choked up for a split second while mentioning her role in building the business but quickly turned the page to the positivity of the gathering. I saw them together in coffee shops pretty well everywhere. The first time was at a nice little diner at Corbeil Corners while he was deputy mayor more than 15 years ago. A Bonfield product of the Menard clan, she had a big smile and eyes that saw through pretense. The political knives were out and sharpened in public at the time. I dont need to rehash old news, but battle lines were definitely drawn across the township. It was an interesting time to be a reporter. But on Friday, as Champagne was giving Rotary Club of Nipissing members a tour of his plant, his love of Jackie was front and centre. He was so proud to describe a decorative tree ornament featured in the front entrance foyer. She loved it at first sight but wouldnt think of spending the asking price on a novelty. Champagne said he had to buy it for her. I thought that was genuinely touching. Champagne has his detractors, some of them well-earned. He has kicked a few people in the shins over the years. But it was good to see his soft side. And I think hes going to do a little something to help the Rotary club help others. Watch for more news on that front. Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has revealed that he feared Boris Johnson might die when the prime minister was hospitalised with coronavirus early in the outbreak. Speaking as US President Donald Trump was admitted to hospital in Washington after himself contracting Covid-19, Mr Raab left no doubt about how serious his worries for Mr Johnsons health were at the time of his illness. Mr Raab stood in for the prime minister for around a month during his time in hospital and his recuperation at Chequers with pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds, who gave birth to their son Wilf shortly after his recovery in April. In a speech recorded for todays virtual Conservative conference, the foreign secretary said: I really worried we might lose him and I was worried for Carrie pregnant with baby Wilf. I hoped and prayed that we as a nation would be equal to it. And he told The Times: Theres a personal side of things. I know the prime minister as a colleague but also I would say as a friend. But I knew that when he woke up the first thing he would ask me is, Have you cracked on with the plans to get us ready to ease out of lockdown? 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. 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Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA UK news in pictures 30 November 2021 Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week PA UK news in pictures 29 November 2021 Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana Getty Mr Johnson himself confirmed after his release from St Thomas Hospital in London that his life had been in danger, saying in a video message that it could have gone either way. Since his Covid scare, the prime minister has encouraged Britons to look after their health by improving their exercise and diet, saying that he was more vulnerable to the virus because he was overweight. He today told the Daily Telegraph that he had reduced his own weight from 17st 6lbs before entering hospital to 15st 8lbs. Mr Johnson said he had not cut out crisps or snacks, but added: "It's basically about taking lots of exercise and not eating so much. That's my top tip. Eat less, move more, weigh less." The prime minister refused to give any clues about the timing of his wedding to Carrie, saying only: You will be the first to know all such details. The Conservative conference is being held online after the planned gathering in Birmingham was cancelled due to the pandemic. When President Donald Trump suspended a raft of visa programs in June, including temporary permits for highly technical foreign workers known as H-1B visas, he portrayed the order as a victory for the American workforce. Further overhauls were in the works, he said weeks later, so that no American worker is replaced ever again. The order is now in front of the courts, after a judge on Thursday blocked the order and ruled that Trump had overstepped his authority. The move will allow some companies, like Microsoft and Exxon Mobil, to bring temporary workers into the United States again. The issue will now go to an appeals court, which may rule in favor of Trumps sweeping order. But the fate of the program still remains in doubt. The Department of Homeland Security has submitted a new regulation for federal review that would toughen H-1B eligibility and impose new obligations on the companies trying to bring in foreign workers. The uncertainty has thrown the plans of major companies in doubt and has already disrupted the lives of thousands of foreign workers, particularly those from India, who claim more than two-thirds of the H-1B visas issued each year. The confusion might all be in vain, however. Experts say restrictions will do little to accomplish their stated goal of encouraging companies to hire Americans instead of workers from abroad. In fact, limits on H-1B visas may have the unintended effect of spurring American companies to shift even more work abroad. Already, Indian outsourcing companies are working to cast the new restrictions as an opportunity to do just that. In America, there is a genius mix of homegrown and transplanted talent. The high level of global competition gives America its tech edge, said Sandeep Kishore, the chief executive officer of Zensar Technologies, an Indian firm that employs more than 9,500 people globally. More than 400 are on work visas in Zensars offices in the United States, he said, but more work could drift to India if companies cannot hire who they want. The United States risks giving up its edge, Kishore said. If we cant bring this talent into the US, well place them in our offices overseas. The pandemic, which has forced millions to work from home, could reinforce the idea that more American jobs can be done remotely. The June suspension did not affect the foreign workers already in the United States on H-1B visas. But it upended the lives of those who were outside the country when the president issued his suspension. Sonal Thakkar, a lead consultant at an Indian information technology firm in San Jose, California, rushed back to India last year to apply for an extension of her visa. In March, her visa interview was canceled after Indias government imposed a nationwide lockdown to stop the coronavirus. Then, Trumps suspension came. This week, Thakkar received an email from the office of the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai, saying her visa application had been refused and sent for mandatory administrative processing. Its a process that could take months and she fears she could still be denied a visa after that. Now, Thakkar is not sure when she can return to the United States and her husband, who is still in San Jose on an H-1B visa. I cant sleep at night, she said. Weve been together for six years. I am losing so many memories and Im unable to create new ones. An executive at Infosys, one of Indias biggest technology companies, said in a LinkedIn post that it arranged a chartered flight to bring back more than 200 workers and their families to India, after their U.S. visas expired. The company declined to comment. Even before Trumps election, limiting the H-1B program had won some bipartisan support. The program allows companies to bring in well-educated or technically skilled workers from abroad temporarily. About 65,000 candidates are selected each year by lottery. The workers can bring their families, but they must apply for green cards separately if they want to remain in the United States once their work ends. Some labor groups say companies use the program to bring in cheap labor. Often, they say, H-1B visa holders are not stars in their fields but hold skills that can be easily found domestically. There are very few people in this world who are truly innovative, and our economy depends on them, said Russell Harrison, the director of government relations for the IEEE-USA, an association representing more than 170,000 technology professionals that supports H-1B restrictions. Sensitive to the criticism, Indian outsourcing companies have long stressed plans to hire in the United States. In early September, Infosys announced it would hire 12,000 more Americans over the next two years. Indian outsourcing companies dominated the H-1B lottery a decade ago, but sponsors now include some of the biggest names in American technology. Seven of the top 10 sponsors last year were American, including Amazon and Google, according to official citizenship data. About 15% of Facebooks employees are H-1B holders. If the government considerably limits the number of H-1B workers they can bring in, companies may send the work overseas instead. The work will go to India more because there is an abundance of high-quality college-educated tech labor in India, said William Lazonick, an economist and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, who has studied the globalization of business. It is obviously an advantage if that higher-quality labor force is less expensive to employ than workers in the companys home country. Research is scant, but at least one study has found that limits on H-1B visas lead to more hiring overseas. The study, by Britta Glennon, an assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, compared periods of tightened H-1B restrictions with hiring by major firms and found greater hiring in places like China and India, which have a large pool of skilled workers, and Canada, which has looser immigration policies. Like industries around the globe, the outsourcing business took a substantial hit during the coronavirus pandemic. The troubles were particularly acute in India, where many workers lack the equipment or the internet connections to work from home. Tech companies struggled to source hundreds of thousands of laptops in the early weeks of the pandemic. They sent desktop computers to workers homes and enabled firewalls to fend off cyberattacks. At Tata Consultancy Services, Indias largest information technology firm with more than 400,000 workers globally, these responsibilities fell on the shoulders of Amit Jain, the global head of IT infrastructure, based in Mumbai. Jain, who worked at the company for 32 years, died in March after suffering a heart attack. He was overworked and extremely exhausted, said his brother, Mukul Jain. He told me he hadnt slept in two to three days because he was helping employees in India, Europe and the U.S. to work from home. TCS declined to comment about Jains death. A public relations firm that represents the company said that about 95% of TCS employees were now working remotely. Now Indias outsourcing companies are seeing their results stabilize. Share prices have risen as investors bet that companies looking to trim costs and reduce head count seek their services. Indeed, companies have resumed looking toward outsourcing companies. In July, Vanguard, the mutual fund company, said it struck a deal with Infosys of India to assume 1,300 back office positions, like record keeping and technology services. Workers would be offered comparable jobs at Infosys, said a spokeswoman for Vanguard, adding that the decision was unrelated to the pandemic or the shifts in the H1-B program. Indias outsourcing companies face long-term challenges. Cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence could eventually take over some of their tasks. The companies themselves are trying to move up the value chain to do more of the innovative technology work done in Silicon Valley and China. Most of the larger Indian IT companies havent expanded in that direction. They havent expanded to semiconductors, e-commerce, gaming and other technologies, said Nitin Soni, a Singapore-based analyst and senior director at Fitch Ratings, a credit rating firm. They have stuck to their core strengths, which are all in the realm of automation of organizational stuff. But companies rethinking the future of the office could offer them new opportunities. If you can get the same or better talent at lower cost, which allows you to do your business 24 hours, then thats a good value proposition, said Ajay Gupta, a Mumbai-based partner at global consulting firm Kearney. Of traditional offices, he added, even companies within India are saying, We dont need this rigid infrastructure. Maria Abi-Habib and Karan Deep Singh c.2020 The New York Times Company A Liberal candidate running in a Greens electorate has been targeted by sexist graffiti which labelled her 'ScoMo's w***e'. Mother-of-two Lauren Day, 38, is the LNP candidate for the Brisbane electoral district of Maiwar, which has been held by the Greens since 2017. The Channel 10 reporter turned politician is campaigning for the Queensland state election on October 31. She revealed on Friday many of her signs have been defaced. Ms Day posted a Facebook video showing two signs that had been graffitied with paint covering her face, one of which also said 'racist' in red paint. LNP candidate Lauren Day (pictured), 38, standing next to a campaign sign that has been graffitied with the word 'racist' in the Brisbane state electorate of Maiwar on Friday Another sign vandal had drawn faeces and male genitalia on Ms Day's face, labelling it 'ScoMo's d**k' and labelling her as 'ScoMo's w***e'. Ms Day has never met Prime Minister Scott Morrison. They had also blacked out her eyes and wrote 'Blind to the truth' and rewrote LNP to read 'PNP: Penis National Party'. In her Facebook video, Ms Day said she was 'really upset and disappointed' that her signs and her supporter's properties had been damaged by the graffiti. 'Fences have now been damaged. This is other people's property. You can see down here for example this beautiful white fence has now got red paint all over it, which we will obviously fix - I don't want this person to be punished,' she said. Ms Day with her son Joseph (left), six, and her daughter Rosie (right), one. 'I'm a mum of two kids and I don't think this is the right example for our children,' she said about the sign graffiti Ms Day said her supporters should not be punished for supporting a certain political party as it is anti-democratic. 'This is not what democracy is. I'm a mum of two kids and I don't think this is the right example for our children,' she said. 'I don't want my children seeing this kind of thing going on in Maiwar. Let's be better than this as an electorate. 'Don't punish people because they believe in a certain opinion.' Ms Day said she has reported the matter to the police. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Day and Queensland police for comment. Ms Day posted a Facebook video showing two signs that had been graffitied with paint covering her face. Another sign vandal drew faeces and male genitalia on Ms Day's face, labelling it 'ScoMo's d**k' and labelling her as 'ScoMo's w***e' The former Channel 10 reporter is married to police officer Matthew Day, with whom she has a daughter Rosie, one, and son Joseph, six. Ms Day is running against Michael Berkman from The Greens, Palani Thevar from the Labor party and Jacob Rush representing United Australia in the Maiwar electorate. Mr Berkman has held the seat since the 2017 state election, which is when Maiwar was formed as a merger of the Indooroopilly and Mount Coot-Tha seats. This is the Greens' first seat in the Queensland Parliament but Ms Day is looking to take it for the LNP at the next election. Ms Day, her daughter Rosie, her son Joseph and her police officer husband Matthew Day. The former Channel 10 reporter said she has reported the graffiti to the police Ms Berkman said his supporters were not responsible for the graffiti and said his own signs had been graffitied with 'homophobic slurs'. 'I'm confident none of our team would be involved in such horrible personal attacks, especially these gendered slurs,' he told The Courier Mail. 'People consistently tell me they're sick of politics and I think childish name-calling only makes that worse, which is why I've deliberately avoided dirty politicking throughout this campaign. 'I really feel for the volunteers who have to deal with this my own team has spent the week cleaning and replacing Greens signs that were vandalised with homophobic slurs in Bardon. It has to stop.' In the early 1980s, archaeologist Bob Kelly was looking down at one of the foremost experts in his field, deep into a ditch and in his element. George Frison was digging three colleagues repeatedly said he would dig and dig and dig. He passed dirt up to Kelly, who shoveled it out and away. It was a hot summer day. Kelly didnt expect to find much, though this area the Horner Site was a famed for its artifacts from prehistoric peoples and mammoths. But George dug and dug. He was a rancher turned archaeologist, an amateur artifact hunter who became something like the Indiana Jones (sans the whip and Nazi hunting) of bison and prehistoric peoples. Suddenly, he stopped. He told Kelly to stop, too, and to be quiet. Kelly didnt know what was going on. Its not like any bison or mammoth bones in the hole were going to suddenly shake their prehistoric dust and gore them. George stared upward, and Kelly followed his eyes. There was a bird perched on the edge of the hole looking down on them. The two men sat and watched it as it watched them, until it flew away. Then they began to dig again. That for me really tells you something about George, that when youre going to dig a hole, you dig a hole, you work really, really hard, Kelly said. But if theres a chance to look at the beauty of nature, you take the chance to view the beauty of nature. George Carr Frison, the first and still only UW professor to ever be selected to the National Academy of Sciences and an understated titan in the field of mammoth and paleo-Indian archaeology whose work took him to the Soviet Union and Africa, where he tested ancient weapons on elephants, died Sept. 7. He was 95. Frison grew up a rancher in Worland. He left his rural community and the University of Wyoming to join the Navy, where he served in the Pacific and was wounded by a kamikaze attack. After the war, he married June Glanville, who would be with him until her death in 2011. Frison was a hunter and a guide on the ranch, where he remained for years after his return from the Pacific. But hed already developed a keen interest in the prehistoric artifacts all around him. Hed discovered some early on, including a Native American skeleton wrapped in buffalo hide. He eventually returned to the University of Wyoming in 1962. Within five years, hed earned bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees from UW and from the University of Michigan, a breakneck pace of study that would be intense for a seasoned academic, let alone a rancher returning to campus for the first time in two decades. He earned a PhD from Michigan in three years, said UW colleague Todd Surovell, who called Frison an intellectual archaeologist. He became the head of UWs anthropology department soon after he was hooded at Michigan. It was a seismic achievement he was in his mid-40s at the time but had spent comparably few years in academic. They hired him as the head of the anthropology department to build anthropology, Kelly said. Someone becomes a department head, you have to wait usually youre a full professor, thats usually 14 years after you start a job. Its just of course he was older and consequently mature, obviously. And he had run a ranch, he kind of knew how to run things. But still, to get his PhD in three years at Michigan and then to just walk into department head ... Frison would publish more than 15 books during his academic career, including a memoir, and he was renowned for publishing all the data he collected from the various sites he excavated. Even in his early, more amateurish days, when he perhaps wasnt following exact archaeological code, Frison kept notes and would later publish them. Despite his pedigree the National Academy of Sciences is one of the most prestigious institutions in the world he was described by colleagues as humble, open and willing to hear opposing thoughts. He would take everything that somebody had reported on or written on, he would take it very seriously and sure, every once in a while, it was like this cant be right. But most of the time he was more into he was not into critiquing as much as some of the rest of us, said Marcel Kornfeld, who worked closely with Frison at UW and on dig sites. He bent backwards for people, especially students but colleagues as well, Kornfeld continued. He would bend backwards for students if they werent doing well or about to drop out of school or needed something, whatever, to try to work it out for them. During the course of his research, Frison discovered and reported on a phenomenon that has become known as the Frison effect. Essentially, it dictates that stone tools purposes can change as they are sharpened. It sounds minor but was a significant part of archaeological study. Ill miss interacting with him both socially and professionally, Kornfeld said. And being able to bounce ideas off of him and see what he thinks about it. Wed travel occasionally around the state. I learned a lot about archaeology that nobody knows. His colleagues noted Frisons work ethic, shaped over years as a rancher, and his absolute obsession with understanding the way the world was in ages long past. He was quiet, reserved and dedicated to his work. He was a hunter and was able to bring that almost entirely unique perspective to his work. He understood animal behavior, even prehistoric mammoth behavior, on a level lost on others. At one point, he traveled to Africa to test if a certain type of spear and pointed tip could pierce elephant hide (the elephants were being culled and werent healthy or out in the broader bush). He successfully did so. Hes probably the only guy in the world to have killed an elephant with a Clovis point and an atlatl, Surovell told the Billings Gazette in 2015, referring to the pointed tip and the throwing stick it was attached to. When somebody like that goes, the first thing I always think about are the conversations I couldve have with him and the things I couldve learned, Surovell told the Star-Tribune recently. Kelly said that Frison and June were attached at the hip. June would accompany him on digs and to conferences, where she would cook and support Frison and his fellow researchers. Kelly called their marriage legendarily happy. June would come with him, bring novels and sit there while he was digging and read novels, he said. You cant talk about George without talking about June. She was the support for him. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Area animal shelters showered with funds in memory of Betty White The online fundraiser challenged fans of actress Betty White to donate to a local animal rescue or shelter in honor of her Jan. 17 birthday. Police in Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahr district have booked three persons for allegedly raping a teenage girl for months, officials said. The family of the Dalit girl found out about her ordeal when they learnt she was four months pregnant. Also read: Conviction in cases of crime against women highest in Uttar Pradesh, say police Police have registered a case of rape against three accused. Two of them -- a 70-year-old and a 50-year-old -- have been arrested. Police said the accused knew the girls family and they raped the girl at different places over the past few months, impregnating her. Bulandshahr senior superintendent of police SK Singh said officials were sent to girls family to enquire about the incident and that a case was registered after that. The incident comes against the backdrop of a 19-year-old Dalit womans alleged rape and assault in the states Hathras. She died in a Delhi hospital due to the injuries she suffered. The incident has triggered outrage across the nation with politicians of rival parties hitting out at the states ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Gandhinagar, Oct 3 : The Gujarat State Human Rights Commission (GSHRC) has issued notice to the Narmada Collector and District Development Officer (DDO), asking them to explain why a pregnant woman had to be carried to a hospital while seated on a sling tied to bamboo shoots. A pregnant women of Mathasar village in Dediyapada tehsil was shifted to the hospital by her relatives in a makeshift stretcher since her village remains disconnected with the outside world during monsoons. According to sources, there are 22 more area women whose deliveries are expected this week. Shocked by this incident reported in local newspapers, NGO Ground Reality Foundation in Gandhinagar complained to the GSHRC against the violation of the expectant woman's rights, her health, and her dignity. Taking due cognisance of the complaint, GSHRC chief RR Tripathi issued the notice om September 23 and directed the officials to submit a detailed report within 20 days. "Under Clause 17 (1) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, you are required to furnish a detailed report within 20 days of receiving this notice. If you fail to do so, the GSHRC will carry out due legal procedures against you. It should also be noted that, instead of sending report by a subordinate officer, we want you to send a detailed report signed by you and your clear opinion on this issue," reads the notice. "Even after 70 years of Independence, expectant women and other patients are forced to shift to hospitals in this most inhumane and primitive manner, which is a grave violation of not only their human rights but a serious health threat also. The village doesn't have a medical facility, nor a pucca road, due to which the woman was carried on a sling on her relatives' shoulders. I appreciate the notice issued by the rights panel and hope that strict punitive action will be taken against the Narmada officials for violation of human rights," NGO convener Pankaj Buch said. If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here The Lagos State Police Command has said it will charge 30 #RevolutionNow protesters arrested during Independent Day protest to court today. The police had arrested 30 protesters on Thursday at Maryland area of Lagos during the #RevolutionNow protest against the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. A statement issued by Muyiwa Adejobi, Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Lagos Police Command confirmed that the police arrested 30 protesters at various locations within the state. He said they were arrested for unlawful assembly and conduct likely to cause breach of public peace, and other offences including violation of Covid-19 protocols/laws in Lagos State. The arrested individuals, who put on crested vests of #RevolutionNow# with placards, will be charged to court tomorrow, Friday, 2nd October, 2020, he said in the statement. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates President Donald Trump, right, meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the United Nations General Assembly in September of 2019. Read more President Donald Trump is now part of a terrible troika of populist leaders who tried to wish COVID-19 away but caught it themselves. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a severe case in March, while Brazils president, Jair Bolsonaro, had a mild case in July. Like Trump, both had downplayed the severity of the virus while disdaining vital precautions such as masks and social distancing. Like Trump, both are showmen, not serious political leaders, more interested in florid rhetoric and demagoguery than managing a crisis. As the Financial Times' Martin Wolf put it well: They dont care about government. They are more interested in politics as performance. Like Trump, these two right-wing nationalists failed miserably at curbing the virus in their countries. The United States, with 208,000 deaths, and Brazil, with 145,000, have the dishonor of ranking first and second in the world in their coronavirus death toll. The United Kingdoms 42,000 death toll is the worst in Europe, and fifth worst in the world. So, if anyone hopes Trump might be sufficiently sobered by sickness to start listening to scientists, a look at the post-virus performance of Johnson and Bolsonaro should cure that illusion. It should remind us that our only escape from our current COVID-19 trap is via the polls on Nov. 3. Lets start with Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist whom Trump has praised and welcomed to Mar a-Lago. He called the virus a measly cold. As cases soared, he got rid of two health ministers who urged quarantines and distancing rules. After they rejected his demand that they endorse you guessed it hydroxychloroquine, he installed military men in their place. Even as his country was hit hard Bolsonaro attended political rallies unmasked and went around shaking hands. Sound familiar? READ MORE: Trump's use of the big lie with COVID-19 echoes autocrats past and present I Trudy Rubin But heres the worst part. After recovering from a mild case of the coronavirus, Bolsonaro continued to promote fake cures and downplay the rampaging disease. His illness was not even able to teach him how to fight the disease, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, a fired health minister, told the Financial Times. His quick recovery strengthened his claim that the pandemic was not that bad and strengthened his image as a superman messiah. At least it did among his followers, who, according to polls, number around 37% of Brazilians (with a slight uptick after he got sick). And then we come to Boris Johnson, a political performance artist who rose to power playing an entertaining rogue (and who lied through his teeth about the benefits Brexit would bring to Britain). Johnson also dithered as virus casualties mounted, even proposing at one point that Britons just take it on the chin and let the disease rip until they achieved herd immunity. In early March, he boasted about shaking hands with people - while unmasked at a hospital filled with coronavirus patients. He was reluctant to order any lockdown while failing to upgrade the creaking British health system. When he was rushed to a London hospital on April 6, he initially hid the extent of his illness (and the government confusion over how to handle his absence), while later admitting he had been fighting for his life. Yet after he returned, the British government remained mired in confusion over masks and lockdowns, with Johnson seeming unable to devise a policy as COVID-19 resurges. At one point, the reliably conservative Daily Mail newspaper labeled the prime minister a breathless bullser. Johnsons continued mistruths and half-truths on Brexit dont work when it comes to a coronavirus that has its own truth, irrespective of what he says. Which brings us to Trump, the third member of this terrible troika, who on Tuesday, at the presidential debate, mocked Joe Biden for wearing a face mask. Somehow I dont see it for myself. I just dont, he said about masking, at the White House on April 3. I dont wear a mask like him, Trump said of Biden at the debate. Every time you see him, hes got a mask. And then Trump got sick. READ MORE: The new vaccine wars mean COVID-19 cases won't end I Trudy Rubin Having made his career as a showman, Trump has played the poseur with COVID-19, downplaying it since the get-go, promoting fake cures and pressing scientists to churn out a vaccine before the election. As with Bolsonaro and Johnson, the virus has been part of a performance, his macho rhetoric calculated for political effect, not effective science. If Trump recovers soon, one can expect him to use that fact to bolster his image, as did Bolsonaro. It wont move him to listen to the scientists hes insulted. And, like Johnson, he isnt capable of devising a national strategy to curb disease. If the presidents case worsens, all bets are off. But one can hope that Trumps illness will finally unmask the man who refuses to wear one. That it will move some of his base to recognize the irresponsibility of a national leader who risks his life and theirs so recklessly and carelessly. I second the University of Pennsylvanias noted expert on medical ethics, Ezekiel Emanuel, who told MSNBC: "I do hope the part of the country that has been skeptical does wake up and that their behavior will change. This is a learning moment. I do hope we dont make fun of people who wear masks, Emanuel continued. That alone would be one gratifying outcome of Trumps infection. The most gratifying would be if it drives the public to make a change at the polls. Albany Police Officer Jenn Williams is across the country, fighting for her life. Earlier this week, while on an assignment on the East Coast, Williams grew ill. She doesnt remember a lot of what happened, but her family and fellow officers, both in Albany and across the country, have pieced a bit together. She was doing a background check on a potential Albany Police Department hire and had to travel between Chicago and Cleveland. She remembers feeling ill in her hotel. She somehow got moving and, eventually, APD received a call. APD got a call from New York State Police that they had her and she was being transported to Rochester, APD Chief Marcia Harnden said. Williams is currently in intensive care with life-threatening kidney failure. Harnden said she couldn't disclose the details of Williams' medical condition for privacy reasons, but said it may have stemmed from E. coli and the officer was in good spirits. We just need her body to gear up, Harnden said. Williams wife, Tara, who is also in law enforcement, was able to fly to New York to be with her, but their young daughter, Shay, is still in Oregon and hasnt seen her mother for three weeks. Williams has undergone several rounds of dialysis, blood transfusions and medical testing, and Harnden said a lot of those costs are covered by the city. But not all of them. Anyone familiar with kidney ailments and recovery, theres a lot that goes into that and some will have to come out of pocket, Harnden said. So, for the first time, APD is asking for direct financial assistance for one of their own. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Williams and her family with the expenses of her illness one APD hopes is short-lived. Jenn and her wife are lifelong residents of Albany, and Jenn does a lot of community outreach, Harnden said. Williams trains other officers, attends Coffee with a Cop and heads the departments trust team police officers who help other officers during trauma incidents. Shes also spearheaded the effort to bring a new chaplain into the department to help with officers wellness. She does a quality job as an officer, but shes invested in the community and the human side of what we do, Harnden said, noting that Williams is scheduled to take the sergeant's exam in November. We want her well, Harnden said. And we owe a public thank you to the New York State Police. They treated Jenn like one of their own when we werent in a position to help her. Were in their debt. To donate, or for more information, visit GoFundMe and search "Jenn Williams Albany Oregon" or click this link. Love 7 Funny 10 Wow 3 Sad 24 Angry 9 Spanish police have launched a manhunt for a British man after another Brit was stabbed to death at around 3am on Thursday morning at a house party. According to news agency Efe, the two Britons got into an argument at a property in Ciudad Quesada near Alicante before one was fatally stabbed in the neck. The victim, believed to be 18 years old, reportedly then went out into the street seeking help, but collapsed and died. A young British man believed to be from the Woodvale area of Southport has been stabbed to death in Ciudad Quesada near Alicante. Spanish police have reportedly launched a manhunt, searching for another British man involved in the incident in the early hours of Thursday He was later found on a public street in an unnamed urbanisation in Quesada. Sources believe that the pair were both at a house party with their partners when the incident occurred. The Olive Press, a Spanish expat newspaper, has reported that Spain's Guardia Civil have launched a manhunt to find the alleged killer. The Liverpool Echo has reported that the victim is a young man from the Woodvale area of Southport. He is believed to be around 18 years old and well known in the Southport area, the report said. The MailOnline has reached out to the Guardia Civil for comment. USCIRF report examines role religion plays in Fulani attacks on Christians Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has released a new report examining the claims of religious persecution involving Fulani herding communities in Africa, amid increasing calls for the violence, in Nigeria specifically, to be called genocide. The congressionally mandated panel of experts, activists and scholars who advise the White House, State Department and Congress on issues of religious freedom released a fact sheet Thursday exploring the role that religion plays in the escalating violence being committed by and against Fulani communities in West and Central Africa. The Fulani people are considered to be the largest nomadic ethnic group in the world; they are predominantly Muslim and linked to livestock raising. The global Fulani population spans millions across more than a dozen countries in the Sahel and West Africa. But in recent years, the report states, some Fulani communities have become caught up in what is described as recurrent cycles of resource conflict and intercommunal violence. According to many analysts and local civil society representatives, this violence has escalated religious tensions in a region home to many Muslim and Christian communities that have peacefully lived side-by-side for centuries, the report states. The report comes as highly-armed radical Fulani extremists (most prominently in Nigeria) are regularly accused of carrying out overnight attacks against predominantly Christian farming communities in agricultural-rich regions, going so far as to kill innocent people, burn homes and displace entire tribes from their farms and homes. Estimates suggest that thousands have been killed and displaced in recent years due to attacks, with some Christian international human rights groups calling for an investigation into genocide. However, Fulani communities have also been the victims of deadly attacks over the years as Christian activists say there have been instances of reprisal attacks carried out by village youths. The increasing violence, which seems to occur daily in some parts of Nigeria, has drawn the concern of the State Department. Last December, the agency listed Nigeria on its special watch list of countries that engaged in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom. At the time, Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told The Christian Post on a press call that the U.S. is concerned about the increasing violence and communal activity and the lack of effective government response. The USCIRF report notes that since the Fulani people are a large ethnic group that has great diversity in terms of culture and lifestyles, it is difficult to make generalizations about the ethnic group and its different clans. But anecdotal evidence and qualitative research suggest that the great majority of Fulani are Sunni Muslims and practice Sufism. According to the government body, some Fulani tribes have played a significant role in several violent campaigns to implement Islamic rule in west Africa during the 18th and early 19th centuries. However, the report notes that some Fulani groups refused to participate in those violent campaigns. Still, in several cases the resulting caliphates privileged people from specific, elite Fulani clans for political positions over non-Fulani individuals, the report explains. This contributed to resentment among non-Fulani communities in some areas born from the marginalization and discrimination they experienced under Islamic rule. In some countries today, this resentment lingers and is apparent in civil society rhetoric. As the violence by and against Fulani communities have escalated in recent years, USCIRF reports that the trend is being driven by a complex confluence of climate variability, population growth, arms proliferation, poor governance, intercommunal tensions, illicit economic activity, and inequitable distribution of services and resources. Experts and practitioners continue to debate the extent to which religious ideology plays a direct role in driving violence involving Fulani communities and individuals in west and central Africa, the report adds. However, violence by and against Fulani groups is clearly aggravating religious tensions in countries like Nigeria and CAR, the report reads. A 2019 USCIRF study found that narratives around the causes of violence involving Fulani communities in Nigerias Middle Belt are some of the most polarizing between religious communities." The report goes on to state that the drivers of violence against and committed by Fulani are complex and multidimensional. In some areas, Fulani militants have been accused of deliberately targeting Christians based on their beliefs, the document reads. As previously discussed, Fulani militia violence is commonplace in CAR, where political, ethnic, and resource-based violence has taken on sectarian dimensions. In Nigerias Middle Belt, incidents of suspected Fulani militants burning churches and attacking predominantly Christian villages and Christian religious ceremonies have led to allegations that suspected Fulani fighters are committing genocide against Christians. However, the USCIRF report stresses that intra-Muslim violence involving Fulani groups complicates claims that Fulani militias are religiously motivated. In northwest Nigeria, pastoralist Fulani bandits frequently face off against predominantly Hausa vigilante farmers, who are also primarily Muslim, with clashes reaching critical levels in recent years, USCIRF details. Some cite the participation by some ethnic Fulani in jihadi groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda as evidence of Fulani radicals religious motivations. In Nigeria, there is increasing geographic overlap and evidence of relationship building between jihadist groups and organized criminal bandits that are known to include Fulani fighters, the report says. Yet several analysts familiar with the situation on the ground who were interviewed by USCIRF reported that religious ideology plays only a minor role in the motivations of most Fulani fighters, even those associated with jihadist groups. The interviewed analysts suggest that there are common objectives shared between Fulani fighters and Islamic extremists, such as overthrowing regional governments, disrupting the status quo, distributing resources and profiting from illegal activities. In some areas, jihadist leaders have relaxed their expectations of local fighters, including Fulani fighters, to adhere to strict religious practices where necessary, the report stresses. In general, jihadist groups and ideologies reportedly do not enjoy much popular support in Fulani-majority areas. Anietie Ewang, a researcher with Human Rights Watch based in Nigeria, previously told CP that among the factors driving violence in the Middle Belt of Nigeria is the increasing desertification of Nigeria, leading to increased migration of herders from the north. Before concluding its report, USCIRF stressed that there are many examples of Fulani people living peacefully and promoting harmony with other ethnic groups in countries like Guinea, Ghana, and even Nigeria. The drivers of this violence are complex and multifaceted, and the extent to which religious ideology plays a prominent role remains a subject of debate, the report stressed. Yet, violence involving Fulani communities is aggravating religious tensions in a region where religious freedom violations are common. USCIRF recommends the U.S. government invest in analysis that identifies the perpetrators of violence by and against Fulani groups and their motivations, especially in regions where these dynamics overlap with interreligious tensions. The body called for targeted sanctions against those who are responsible for the violence against civilians in Nigeria, saying that an approach that focuses on individuals or specific armed groups would delink violence from perceived religious or ethnic identity. Advocates in the U.S. have been calling for the U.S. State Department to name a special envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. US President Donald Trump has been a prominent figure throughout the coronavirus pandemic that aggressively hit the world in 2020. We have put together a selection of some of the statements made by Trump this year regarding the virus. Trump: "If the economic shutdown continues, deaths by suicide "definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that were talking about for Covid-19 deaths." More than 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. But the number of people who died by suicide in 2017, for example, was roughly 47,000, nowhere near the Covid-19 numbers. Estimates of the mental-health toll of the Great Recession are mixed. A 2014 study tied more than 10,000 suicides in Europe and North America to the financial crisis. Trump: "Coronavirus numbers are looking much better, going down almost everywhere, and cases are coming way down." When Trump made these claims in May, coronavirus cases were either increasing or plateauing in the majority of American states. Over the summer, the country saw a second surge even greater than its first in the spring. Trump: "The pandemic is fading away. Its going to fade away." Trump made this claim ahead of his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when the country was still seeing at least 20,000 new daily cases and a second spike in infections was beginning. Trump: 99% of Covid-19 cases are "totally harmless." The virus can still cause tremendous suffering if it doesnt kill a patient, and the WHO has said that about 15 percent of Covid-19 cases can be severe, with 5 percent being critical. Fauci has rejected Trumps claim, saying the evidence shows that the virus can make you seriously ill even if it doesnt kill you. Trump: "We now have the lowest Fatality (Mortality) Rate in the World." The U.S. had neither the lowest mortality rate nor the lowest case-fatality rate when Trump made this claim. As of July 13, the case-fatality ratethe ratio of deaths to confirmed Covid-19 caseswas 4.1 percent, which placed the U.S. solidly in the middle of global rankings. At the time, it had the worlds ninth-worst mortality rate, with 41.33 deaths per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University Trump: Children are virtually immune to Covid-19. The science is not definitive, but that doesnt mean children are immune. Studies in the U.S. and China have suggested that kids are less likely than adults to be infected, and more likely to have mild symptoms, but can still spread the virus to their family members and others. The CDC has said that about 7 percent of Covid-19 cases and less than 0.1 percent of Covid-19-related deaths have occurred in children. Trump: The U.S. has among the lowest case-fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world. When Trump said this, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and India all had lower case-fatality rates than the U.S., which sat in the middle of performance rankings among all nations and among the 20 countries hardest hit by the virus. Trump: America is rounding the corner and rounding the final turn of the pandemic. Trump made these claims before and after the country registered 200,000 coronavirus deaths. As the winter approaches, coronavirus cases are increasing in a slew of states in the Midwest and the South, and data suggest that a third national surge might happen in the coming weeks. Fauci and CDC Director Robert Redfield have also warned Americans about the winter, with Fauci highlighting the "need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter, because its not going to be easy." More Trump Covid-19 claims In March: "You have to be calm. Itll go away." In April: "Im feeling good. I just dont want to be doing -- somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I dont know, somehow I dont see it for myself. I just dont. Maybe Ill change my mind." In May: "When we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing,...Because it means our testing is much better. I view it as a badge of honor, really, it's a badge of honor." In June: "Coronavirus deaths are way down. Mortality rate is one of the lowest in the World. Our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down. Embers or flare ups will be put out, as necessary!" In July: "You will never hear this on the Fake News concerning the China Virus, but by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well - and we have done things that few other countries could have done!" In August: "We've done a great job in Covid but we don't get the credit." In September: "Take your hat off to the young because they have a hell of an immune system. But [the virus] affects virtually nobody. Its an amazing thing. By the way, open your schools everybody, open your schools." In October: Trump and First Lady test positive for coronavirus. Kshitij Ravi Prasad, a former executive producer of Dharma Productions, arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with its probe into the drug angle in Sushant Singh Rajputs death case, was sent to judicial custody till October 6 by the magistrate court on Saturday. Special public prosecutor Atul Sarpande said Prasad was sent to judicial custody for three days to club his case with that of the other accused whose custody ends on October 6. While seeking his judicial custody, we mentioned that Prasad never cooperated with the agency and was arrogant in his behaviour, Sarpande said. He added that while Prasad had moved an application claiming he wanted to retract statements recorded by the agency, he had also not signed any statement so far. Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs death was a suicide, not murder, says AIIMS panel chief Prasad was arrested on September 26 for allegedly receiving contraband from alleged pedlars who had supplied hashish to Showik and Rhea Chakraborty. In its application before the court seeking Prasads custody, the agency had stated that during the house search, the agency recovered one roll joint believed to be remains of smoked ganja. The agency has claimed that Prasads role was revealed during interrogation of Sanket Patel, one of the alleged drug peddlers. Patel claimed that he had delivered ganja (weed) to Prasad at his residence in Andheri on the instructions of Karamjeet Singh. Singh is an alleged drug distributor believed to have a local network which provides drugs to people in the film industry. He (Patel) further stated that he delivered ganja around 12 times to Prasad from May 2020 to July 2020. Further, Prasad make payment of Rs 3,500 each after taking delivery of 50 grams of ganja, read the application of NCB seeking Prasads custody on September 27. The agency further submitted that during interrogation, Prasad admitted to having taken ganja from arrested alleged drug peddler Ankush Arneja and Singh through Patel. From the above, it is clear that Prasad purchased hashish/ganja from Arneja; further Arneja used to purchase drugs from [alleged drug peddler] Anuj Keshwani. Hence, Prasad is part of the conspiracy for drug procurement with Arneja and his co-accused. Prasad was connected with Keshwani, and Keshwani was linked with Kaizan Ibrahim, who was further linked with accused Dipesh Sawant and Sawant was linked with Showik, Rhea, [and] Rajput, read the remand application. While disclosing the alleged chain of distribution of ganja, the agency in its application had stated: Patel supplied ganja/weed to Arneja and the said contraband was purchased by him from accused Singh. On the instruction of accused Singh, accused Patel purchased charas/weed and further delivered it to Prasad. Samuel Miranda [Rajputs former house manager] and Prasad had taken delivery of ganja from Singh and his associate. Prasads lawyer, advocate Satish Maneshinde, had contended that his statement was recorded forcefully. The lawyer submitted that Prasad was in detention for almost 50 hours. He alleged that Prasad was called in to record his statement on September 25 and was made to spend the night at the NCB office. The next morning, when his statement recording resumed, Kshitij was categorically informed by Sameer Wankhede [investigating officer] in the presence of several other officers, that since he was associated with Dharma Productions, they would let him off if he implicated either Karan Johar, Somel Mishra, Rakhi, Apoorva, Neeraj or Rahil, falsely alleging that they consumed drugs. Kshitij refused to comply with this threat despite the pressure mounted on him as he did not know any of these people personally and did not wish to falsely implicate anyone, Maneshinde had contended. At the end of nearly 50 hours of interrogation, humiliation and torment, Kshitij, is his desperation to speak to his lawyer or family, unwillingly and under threat, signed the statement, he had further stated. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Melbournes bayside councils have threatened to close beaches and one mayor has told residents to stay away after large, unruly gatherings over the weekend. The councils rallied behind Premier Daniel Andrews, who scolded people pictured at St Kilda Beach on Friday mingling in large groups without masks and mobbing a TV news reporter, saying they had let down the majority of rule-abiding Victorians. Footage of maskless beachgoers at St Kilda sparked anger from the Premier and Chief Health Officer. Credit:Nine News With eight new cases and three deaths announced on Saturday, the Premier repeated his message that "we are so close" and said he had spoken to Police Commissioner Shane Patton about stepping up police presence in bayside hotspots. Nobody has the right to break the rules and potentially put at risk everything that good, decent, law-abiding Victorians have built," Mr Andrews said. All of the sacrifice has to be worth something. Why did this happen? Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy. A pastor attempted to exorcise a demon from an emaciated 21-month-old boy while having a meth session with the child's mother and other parishioners. Arkansas officials revealed the activities of ex-felon Lloyd Eddie Lasker Jr. as pastor. He serves in the House of Refuge and Deliverance Ministries church located in Mayflower. After the reported incident, he was apprehended while he stopped to fill up at a gas station last September 22. The car was searched by the police with meth and a pipe, reported Meaww. Police went to Conway and a church to accomplish a welfare check, just days before Lasker was arrested. They arrived at the place to see the young child, with obvious bruises all over his body. His mother and the 49-year-old Lasker were present, according to the New York Post. The mom told the police that her toddler son is demon-possessed. He was rushed to an intensive care unit (ICU). Sources say that the doctors said the victim was afflicted by hemorrhage in his brain. They also observed that his mother had caused extreme undernourishment to her son, remarked the police, noted WhatsNew2day. Lasker is sought after by Police Investigators went to his residence in Mayflower home last September 22 to talk to him about particulars. He was not at home when they went there but they saw him later. Lasker filled up gas in his White Dodge truck at an Exxon gas station near Little Rock. An affidavit allowed them to legally search his vehicle when meth was found inside. A pipe was recovered in the search too. Also read: Jealous Husband Slays Ex-Wife's Fiance With an Axe Before They Got Married Another individual, Timothy Bynam, was on the driver's side. He told the officials that the drugs were the pastor's not his as the pastor denied owning the items found. He added that he took meth on several occasions in the church, with the child's mother and other people. Cops found out that he attempted to drive out the demon inside the child. But, he stopped there and did not elaborate. Next, the investigators combed the premises for evidence where more meth was found. A firearm was also discovered which was not allowed for him because he is a felon. The law prohibits convicted felon to use any firearm, especially a shotgun. After finding these items, he was charged with possessing drugs, drug paraphernalia, and illegal possession of firearm. However, he was released on a $7500 bond cited by the Log Cabin Democrat. But he will stand on trial this October 13. In a similar incident that happened at the Rogers Christian Church, a teacher in the said church was involved in a relationship with a 17-year-old student. On more than one occasion, Andrews, 50-years-old, would do things to the teen and instructed the girl to keep quiet. The student wanted to stop it, but the suspect will not allow it. Police found a note as proof that verified the accusations. Related Article: Husband Shoots Wife in Murder-Suicide After Posting Unsettling Facebook Messages @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The following York County restaurants were found to have violated Pennsylvanias health and safety regulations during inspections between Sept. 6-12. Inspections are overseen by the Department of Agriculture. The department notes that in many cases violations are corrected by the restaurant before inspectors leave. MARKET HOUSE BBQ 201 Memory Lane, York Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Waste not being removed from the food facility at an appropriate frequency as evidenced by overflowing waste bin. --Food facility does not have available sanitizer test strips or test kit to determine appropriate sanitizer concentration. MUSSOLINIS BAKERY 201 Memory Lane, York Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Employee cell phone in direct contact with cutting board on food preparation table. SUSQUEHANNOCK HIGH SCHOOL 3280 Fissels Church Road, Glen Rock Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Observed static dust development forming behind ovens(along walls and upper areas), and in need of cleaning at this time. VINCENTS DELI 551 S. Main St., Shrewsbury Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Change of Owner Compliance: In Violations: --Food facility is using duct tape to repair the bottom PVC plumbing system, which is not an approved material. --Observed rear area bottom wall juncture coving missing and needing repair/replaced at this time. --Observed wall underneath front counter sink has a hole, or is broken and in need of repair at this time. KARNS FOODS 10 Newberry Commons Etters Date: Sept. 10, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Dates that the shellstock was sold are not being recorded on the tag. --Wall and baseboard between the meat room and walk-in cooler is damaged and needs repaired. Shutterstock illustration VFW POST #6771 22 Franklin St., Dillsburg Date: Sept. 9, 2020 Type: Complaint Compliance: In Violations: --Observed an accumulation of grease and food debris on the floor under the fryers. --Refrigerated ready-to-eat, time/temperature control for safety food prepared in the food facility and held for more than 24 hours, located in the walk-in cooler, is not being date marked. AYE RYZE 380 W. Market St., York Date: Sept. 8, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: Out Violations: --Food employees observed in grill area, not wearing proper hair restraints, such as nets, hats, or beard covers. --Observed clean single service equipment, utensils, linens stored in market stand area directly on the floor, and not six inches above the floor. --Observed single-service, single-use articles stored on prep table which were not in the original protective package. --A food employee was observed touching a ready-to-eat food with bare hands. --Shelves underneath grill unit observed extremely dirty to sight and touch. --The Person in Charge does not have adequate knowledge of food safety in this food facility as evidenced by this non-compliant inspection. --Thermometers for ensuring proper temperatures of food are not available or readily accessible. --Observed dirty dishes to be mixed with clean ones. --Paper towels were not available at the hand wash sink in the stand area. DUNKIN DONUTS 105 Glen Drive, Manchester Date: Sept. 8, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: Out Violations: --The Person in Charge does not demonstrate adequate knowledge of food safety in this food facility as evidenced by this non-compliant inspection. --Green tea and green tea dispenser liner dated for expiration on 9/4/2020 are in use at time of inspection. Tea was disposed. --Food contact surfaces one. Areas of beverage and condiment dispensers directly over open product while dispensing two. Ice machine deflector plate three. Pan supports, interior frame and condenser vents, hood of Bain Marie in which foods are stored uncovered. Four. Measuring cups and storage unit. Five. Single use lids and storage unit six. Food containers stored as clean seven. Interior surfaces of custom coffee blender cabinet are slimy and dirty. Are not clean to sight and touch. --Observed cooking equipment in the front preparation area, with encrusted grease and soil accumulation. --Observed counter/table tops with an accumulation of dust, dirt, food residue, debris on non-food contact surfaces. --Observed food splatter, crumbs, debris and dirt on most surfaces in the front area of the food facility. --Non-food contact surfaces including but not limited to equipment handles, tray carts, rolling cart, storage shelving, equipment exterior/interior surfaces not cleaned at a frequency to preclude accumulation of dirt and soil. --Observed ice bucket stored uncovered or not inverted. --Filthy broom without handle stored on hand-wash sink faucet/spigot fixture. --Trash receptacles used inside the food facility extremely soiled, dirty, sticky and attracting insects. --A working container of Spic and Span cleaner was stored on the same shelf with food and single service articles in the front counter area. --Single use plastic cups without handles being used as dispensing utensils observed stored in direct contact with foods in bulk storage containers. --Scoop being stored in the ice hopper with handle touching and/or buried beneath the ice. --In use long handled spoons stored between uses in a food pan that is not clean to site and touch. --Uncovered waste receptacle located directly beside trays of bagels that are not covered or protected from potential contamination from waste disposal. --Waste not being removed from inside the food facility at an appropriate frequency as evidenced by overflowing waste can in employee toilet room. --Ceiling vents directly over ice machine observed to have heavy accumulation of static dust. The following establishments had no violations JIMS FAST FOOD 200 E Walnut Lane, Hanover Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Change of Owner Compliance: In Violations: None found LOGANS VIEW WINE SHOP 8892 Susquehanna Trail S Loganville Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found LOGANVILLE FIRE CO 16 Mill St., Loganville Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found SOUTHERN EL SCH 3280 Fissels Church Road, Glen Rock Date: Sept. 11, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found CHERI ANNE 48 W Philadelphia St., York Date: Sept. 8, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found DOTTIES FAMILY MARKET 898 E Canal Road, Dover Date: Sept. 8, 2020 Type: Complaint Compliance: In Violations: None found JIM MACKS ICE CREAM 5745 Lincoln Highway York Date: Sept. 8, 2020 Type: Follow-up Compliance: In Violations: None found RITE AID #2510 43-47 Baltimore St., Hanover Date: Sept. 8, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found The Mumbai Fire Brigade will hold short training sessions with all 227 corporators of Greater Mumbai to create awareness about fire safety, the challenges faced in their respective localities, and how they can be tackled. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) expects that through corporators, this information will reach party workers, community volunteers, and residents. This is part of BMCs larger aim to ensure citizens are educated about fire safety. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner in charge of the fire brigade and disaster management departments, said, The Mumbai Fire Brigade is planning a series of interventions, from the point of view of saving maximum in number of lives if there is a fire. It has decided to tweak its inspection, compliance, data maintenance, and awareness creation policies. At the back end, this will involve meticulous maintenance of data, blue prints, permissions, and inspection related documents of buildings.This information will be available online. BMC will hold awareness sessions with elected public representatives to sensitise them about fire hazards in their localities, and design a plan for them to communicate this information to the voters periodically. Also read: Fire breaks out at market near Chembur railway station in Mumbai Between 2017 and 2020, 126 civilians died in fires across the city, and 849 were injured. As many as 109 fire personnel were also injured in these incidents. Kakani said there are simple things that need to be followed to ensure inhabitants of a building can safely vacate the building if there is a fire, such as keeping exit ways unobstructed, installing signages pointing at exits, displaying floor plans in a visible location and manner and regularly inspecting if fire safety systems of the building are working. After BMC approves the blueprint and gives fire NOC to any establishments, owners should not make internal changes that will divert the original exit pathways, Kakani added. He said lack of awareness only adds to the body count. During the Kamala Mills fire, for instance, a lot of people in the restaurant ran into the toilet and locked themselves in, believing smoke will not enter a locked toilet. Such lack of awareness increases the chances of mortality in fire and needs to be addressed, Kakani said. Sessions with elected public representatives will also comprise information about fire safety hazards typical to a locality. For example, the B ward area of Byculla, Bhendi Bazar, has old buildings, many of which do not have in-built fire fighting systems like sprinklers, and smoke detectors. It also has narrow roads and street parking, making it difficult for the fire brigade to access a building during a disaster; similarly, suburban wards have many high-rises that need to inspect their fire fighting systems periodically. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON (CNN) Prince Harry has described his "awakening" to the existence of systemic racism, saying "the world that we know has been created by White people for White people." Harry said he has only recently recognized the full extent of racism in everyday life, telling the UK's Evening Standard newspaper: "I've had an awakening as such of my own, because I wasn't aware of so many of the issues and so many of the problems within the UK, but also globally as well. I thought I did but I didn't." Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex were talking to the paper from their home in California at the start of Black History Month, which is marked every October in Britain. "When you go into a shop with your children and you only see White dolls, do you even think, 'that's weird, there is not a Black doll there?'" Harry said. "I use that as just one example of where we as White people don't always have the awareness of what it must be like for someone else of a different colored skin, of a Black skin, to be in the same situation as we are, where the world that we know has been created by White people for White people," he added. Meghan also praised the Black Lives Matter movement for promoting a conversation about racism in the US and worldwide. "That's uncomfortable for people, and we recognize that. That's uncomfortable for us," she admitted, before adding that the movement "shouldn't be inflammatory at all, (it) should be really exciting, actually." The couple unveiled a list of British "Trailblazers" with the newspaper, highlighting a number of prominent Black Britons, including Book Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo and Olympic boxer Nicola Adams. Harry is sixth in line to the British throne, but the decision he and Meghan made in January to essentially retire from the royal family and move to the US sent tremors through the UK's most recognizable institution. Since stepping aside from royal duties, the duke and duchess have been more outspoken about issues such as racism and the legacy of empire. Earlier this year, the pair encouraged the UK to reckon with its colonial past, highlighting the "wrongs" of its historic involvement in the countries that now make up the Commonwealth. "When you look across the Commonwealth, there is no way that we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past," Harry said in July. "It's not going to be easy and in some cases it's not going to be comfortable but it needs to be done, because, guess what: Everybody benefits." This story was first published on CNN.com "Prince Harry says he's had an 'awakening' on racism, in a world 'created by White people for White people'" CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF), is not the largest company out there, but it saw a decent share price growth in the teens level on the NYSE over the last few months. With many analysts covering the mid-cap stock, we may expect any price-sensitive announcements have already been factored into the stocks share price. However, what if the stock is still a bargain? Lets take a look at CF Industries Holdingss outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if the opportunity still exists. See our latest analysis for CF Industries Holdings Is CF Industries Holdings still cheap? Great news for investors CF Industries Holdings is still trading at a fairly cheap price according to my price multiple model, where I compare the company's price-to-earnings ratio to the industry average. In this instance, Ive used the price-to-earnings (PE) ratio given that there is not enough information to reliably forecast the stocks cash flows. I find that CF Industries Holdingss ratio of 17.53x is below its peer average of 25.72x, which indicates the stock is trading at a lower price compared to the Chemicals industry. However, given that CF Industries Holdingss share is fairly volatile (i.e. its price movements are magnified relative to the rest of the market) this could mean the price can sink lower, giving us another chance to buy in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for share price volatility. What does the future of CF Industries Holdings look like? Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. 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. However, with a negative profit growth of -11% expected over the next couple of years, near-term growth certainly doesnt appear to be a driver for a buy decision for CF Industries Holdings. This certainty tips the risk-return scale towards higher risk. Story continues What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? Although CF is currently trading below the industry PE ratio, the adverse prospect of negative growth brings about some degree of risk. Consider whether you want to increase your portfolio exposure to CF, or whether diversifying into another stock may be a better move for your total risk and return. Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on CF for a while, but hesitant on making the leap, I recommend you research further into the stock. Given its current price multiple, now is a great time to make a decision. But keep in mind the risks that come with negative growth prospects in the future. So if you'd like to dive deeper into this stock, it's crucial to consider any risks it's facing. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for CF Industries Holdings (of which 1 is a bit unpleasant!) you should know about. If you are no longer interested in CF Industries Holdings, 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. Egypt's Marsa Alam Airport received on Saturday its first-ever flight by Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), arriving from Kiev, a statement by the Ministry of Civil Aviation said. The UIA flight, carrying 128 passengers on board, was welcomed on Saturday with a water cannon salute as the first flight by the operator to land in Marsa Alam, the statement said. A public relations team at the airport completed the arrival procedures and anti-coronavirus measures were implemented to ensure the safety and health of passengers and airport workers, the civil aviation ministry said. The UIA resumed its flights to Cairo last week following an almost six-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, and this, the statement said, comes in light of joint efforts between the ministries of civil aviation and tourism to stimulate tourism to Egypt. Egypt announced in July the gradual resumption of international flights at its airports nationwide in line with the resumption of beach tourism in the South Sinai, Red Sea, and Matrouh governorates. International flights had been suspended since 19 March to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The arrival of two Ukrainian flights by Azur Air and Sky Up Airlines marked the end of Egypt's suspension of international commercial flights on 1 July. The flights arrived at Sharm El-Skeikh and Hurghada international airports carrying more than 350 Ukrainian tourists. On 31 August, the Egyptian civil aviation ministry said travellers entering Egypt at Sharm El-Sheikh, Taba, Hurghada and Marsa Alam airports can take a coronavirus test upon arrival for $30, which would exempt them from submitting negative PCR test results taken before they boarded their flights. Earlier in August, the Egyptian authorities decided that incoming travellers must submit negative PCR test results at their port of entry due to increasing coronavirus infections in some countries. The tests must have been taken no more than 72 hours before the arrival date. More than 600 hotels nationwide have been allowed to reopen after adhering to the safety protocols announced by the authorities and at a reduced occupancy of 50 percent. Search Keywords: Short link: Marking its first public appearance since arrival on Indian land, the Rafale fighter jet will be taking part in the Air Force Day parade on October 8, the Indian Air Force said on Saturday. Rafale is a 4.5 generation, twin-engine omnirole, air supremacy, interdiction, aerial reconnaissance, ground support, in-depth strike, anti-ship and nuclear deterrence fighter aircraft, equipped with a wide range of weapons, the IAF tweeted on Saturday. The IAF is operating its newly inducted Rafale fighter jets in the Ladakh theatre where the military is on its highest state of alert. The IAFs current fleet of five Rafale fighters is fully operational and ready to undertake any mission. India ordered 36 Rafale jets from France in a deal worth Rs 59,000 crore in September 2016. Also read: India, China to hold sixth round of military talks today; IAF Rafales flying in Ladakh The air force formally inducted the planes at the Ambala air base on September 10 though they landed at their home base on July 29. At the induction, IAF chief RKS Bhadauria made it clear that the warplanes were mission-ready and the ceremony marked their full operational induction into the air force. The Rafale jets are part of the IAFs No. 17 Squadron, which is also known as the Golden Arrows. The IAF has been projecting its capability to carry out day-and-night, all-weather combat missions in the Ladakh sector, with front-line fighter jets, attack helicopters and multi-mission choppers getting airborne for demanding night-time missions from forward airbases. The race for Harris County District Attorney likely will come down to two things: party and voters definitions of law and order. Incumbent Kim Ogg has the edge in the former, running as a Democratic officeholder in the most populous blue county in Texas. Republican Mary Nan Huffman hopes the latter will give her the advantage in what political observers say is an uphill battle. Its the only (race) where the Republicans have even a ghost of a chance of winning in the cycle, said Mark Jones, a professor at Rice Universitys Department of Political Science. She still is an extreme long shot. While Ogg frequently is the target of criticism by Huffmans employer, the Houston Police Officers Union, the incumbent insists she has not veered to the far left on policing issues, adding she tries to walk the line between demands for public safety and criminal justice reform. Ogg, 60, touts her indictments against multiple police officers in the fallout of a botched narcotics raid on Harding Street that left two residents dead, as well as her program to divert misdemeanor marijuana possession cases from the court system. She also repeatedly has requested more prosecutors for her office and opposed a landmark settlement over the countys use of cash bail for poor defendants, saying it did not do enough to protect the public from violent criminals. Ogg was a longtime prosecutor before becoming the gang czar for Houston Mayor Bob Lanier. She subsequently served as executive director of Crimestoppers of Houston for six years before moving into private legal practice. She was elected district attorney on her second attempt in 2016. Huffman, who brands herself as not a politician on her campaign website, is a former prosecutor in Montgomery County, where she was the felony chief in the Child Exploitation Division and the Internet Crimes Against Children Division. The 37-year-old now is now an attorney for the Houston Police Officers Union, which has endorsed her and long been a staunch critic of Ogg. Huffman said Harris County has not remained a safe place under Oggs leadership, whom she views as a progressive. On Twitter, she frequently shares stories about defendants who are released on bond and are accused of more crimes. In interviews, she often mentions streets being flooded with criminals let out on sweetheart deal after sweetheart deal. Harris County isnt safer than it was four years ago weve seen crime rise throughout Harris County, she said. Public safety should be the one thing that the government provides for its people. TEXAS TAKE: Catch the political news you need every weekday at HoustonChronicle.com. More Information Harris County District Attorney's race Democrat Kim Ogg, 60, incumbent v Republican Mary Nan Huffman,37, legal counsel for the Houston Police Officers' Union See More Collapse Houston saw an uptick in violent crime for the first half of the year, with murders, aggravated assaults, robberies and sexual assaults up 6 percent in the first six months of 2020 over the same period in 2019. Aggravated assaults increased 21 percent overall from the first half of 2019. Robberies and sexual assaults were down. Whether Huffmans rhetoric about rising crime rates will tilt voters in her favor remains to be seen, said Jeronimo Cortina, associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. Perception is key, he said, and people are more likely to vote for Huffman if they agree that crime is as bad as she says. Its not very clear to me that such an argument can sway a lot of voters, Cortina said. If you go out and you dont see it, you dont see people being mugged in the street or robbing a liquor store, a voter is going to create cognitive dissonance. Ogg and Huffman agree that the district attorneys office needs to do its part to alleviate mounting caseloads in the district courts, especially the more than 1,300 murder and capital murder cases awaiting resolution. The similarities mostly stop there, however. Ogg said she wants a better flow of evidence from police to attorneys at the start of prosecutions; Huffman said major problems stem from inexperienced prosecutors in Oggs intake division. Ogg still wants more staff to handle the increasing caseloads. Huffman said she wants to return to at least a staffing level that makes up for prosecutors that Ogg lost during her first term, one of her major criticisms of the incumbent. Huffman also has accused Ogg of being unethical in choosing which cases to prosecute, such as a failed environmental crimes prosecution against Houston Ship Channel chemical plant Arkema. After finding that prosecutors did not prove their case, Judge Belinda Hill last week issued a directed verdict acquitting three defendants in the trial. Another two defendants had already been dismissed. She also pointed to several people who left the prosecutors office, saying Ogg cared more about prosecutorial wins than obtaining justice. She picks and chooses what cases to prosecute based on a political agenda and not facts and evidence, and that should scare everyone, Huffman said. We need a DA who does the right thing every single time. Ogg denied the accusations. She chalked up some employees dissatisfaction with the office to a changing of the old guard. And she questioned whether Harris County residents would be receptive to a law-and-order district attorney after four years of progressive change. It would be a setback to have somebody who is single-mindedly pro-police, Ogg said. Huffman said she still plans to hold officers accountable when they take advantage of Harris County residents. On HoustonChronicle.com: Emails show independent investigator hired to assist Harris County DA Kim Ogg has been sidelined I do support law enforcement but I support good law enforcement, Huffman said. Nobody likes a bad cop. Huffman has said she would recuse the office from the Harding Street investigations to avoid conflict of interest perceptions, but Ogg said voters should consider whether they want the county to turn over a police corruption case to be tried in a surrounding county that may be friendlier to police. Oggs 2016 election was part of a Democratic sweep of every countywide office. She garnered support for her promises of criminal justice reform, but some of those early supporters have drifted, instead backing two of her primary opponents who branded themselves as more progressive than Ogg. Jones said Oggs centrist position is likely what will help her in November. Kim Ogg doesnt leave much space in the center that Huffman could move over and occupy and win in Harris County, Jones said. The only way for Huffman to win is to convince a significant number of voters going Democrat up and down the ballot to vote for her rather than Kim Ogg. Cortina anticipates voters will remain polarized along party lines, even though Ogg faces some dissatisfaction within her own party. Ogg's struggles with some Democrats are unlikely to make a big difference, because it was not effective in the primary, he said. The attacks that she had in the primary from the left didnt work very well because she won the nomination, Cortina said. For her part, the incumbent maintains her position as a reformer and promotes her misdemeanor marijuana program, police prosecutions and exoneration of previously incarcerated defendants as examples of a progressive agenda. Weve only just begun the massive changes that I foresee happening in criminal justice across the country, she said. At least, weve begun here in pretty significant approaches and results. Huffman is running as a Republican, but said her candidacy is not about political party. If Kim Ogg had done a good job, I wouldnt have run against her, Huffman said. Im running for the people of Harris County. I think it has nothing to do with her being a Democrat. samantha.ketterer@chron.com The Head of State recalled that he had heard about the intervention when he connected to the news this morning, as did the entire population. In Peru, the Public Ministry is independent from the Executive Branch. As the top official argued, any person should be deprived from the most precious right which is freedom only when there is a guilty verdict. He went on to add that only in exceptional cases preliminary detention should be imposed, for instance, when there is a high risk of flight or a serious crime that could continue being committed. "In the case of this investigation, we do not find any proportionality for the decision that has been made, but we still respect it. We are sure that once the Judicial Branch and the Public Ministry complete the investigation, they will determine that there is no reason for sanctions," he added. The statesman recalled that the substance of this investigation is the hiring of a public servant supported by a procedure established in the State's hiring administration system, thus meaning one of the 40,000 who are under the same modality. After mentioning that objectivity and transparency are expected so that the best decision is made, the Peruvian leader stressed that on his part he provided all the information required by the Public Ministry's prosecutors who had arrived at the Government Palace on two occasions. "We respect the decisions, but we do not necessarily agree with them on this and other cases," Mr. Vizcarra insisted as he considered that it would be appropriate for those citizens to be investigated while being free. However, he noted, the decisions made by the Public Ministry prove its full impartiality. "This proves that there is no link between the Public Ministry and the Executive Branch, as some had said. These types of decisions show the total impartiality of the Public Ministry," he underlined. "What we ask is that the justice system act with objectivity and impartiality, and make the most appropriate decisions to find the truth," he concluded. Presidente @MartinVizcarraC: Sobre las detenciones realizadas hoy, afirmo que respetamos la independencia de poderes. Sin embargo, discrepamos, ya que solo se debe privar de la libertad a una persona cuando ya tiene una sentencia, sea un delito grave o exista peligro de fuga. pic.twitter.com/dPiRsSbVKU The teenager starred in the hit CBBC show So Awkward as Ollie Coulton Archie Lyndhurst's mother today shared a poignant tribute to her 'wonderful unique son' following his death at the age of 19. The actor, who was the beloved son of Only Fools and Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst and his wife Lucy Smith, died at his family home in West London after a short illness. The teenager starred in the hit CBBC show So Awkward as Ollie Coulton and also appeared as a young Jack Whitehall in the BBC's Bad Education in 2014. Today his mother shared a touching tribute to her son on the comedian Jack Whitehall's Instagram page. Ms Smith, who had been responding to an Instagram tribute posted by Whitehall, also thanked the comedian for the 'kindness and friendship' he had given her son over the years. Archie Lyndhurst died at the age of 19 at his family home in West London following a short illness Archie, who was the beloved son of Only Fools and Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst and his wife Lucy Smith, starred in the hit CBBC show So Awkward as Ollie Coulton She wrote: 'Dearest Jack. Thank you for all the amazing opportunities you put Archie's way and the kindness and friendship you have always given him over the years. 'He loved every moment of every job and relished in the fantastic scripts you wrote. But it went further than that like you said. 'He loved all of dearly, as do we. And a lifelong friendship has ensued. I love the picture up the tree. 'I remember him being asked to move along a bit to make room and he called out 'ooo, I've snaggged me fishnets now!'' 'Then not wanting to take the false beard of after the palladium as he wanted to look like you. We shall love him forever and a day and are the luckiest parents to have had the most wonderful unique son who has bought us nothing but joy in our lives.' In his tribute, Whitehall described Archie as an 'enthusiastic and talented boy' who would 'never be forgotten' and who 'would have continued lighting up the lives of all those who encountered him'. He wrote: 'I write this with an extremely heavy heart. Archie Lyndhurst came into my life nearly ten years ago, playing the young me in a short film I'd written. He was brilliant, so talented and funny. An utter joy to work with. Today Archie's mother shared a touching tribute to her son and described him as a 'wonderful unique son' The actor, whose father Nicholas Lyndhurst famously played Rodney Trotter in the long-running BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses, had been acting since the age of 11 Archie with his So Awkward co-stars Sophia Dall'aglio (left) and Cleo Demetriou (right) at the Children's Baftas last year. Archie had appeared in the hit CBBC show since 2005 'So much so that it proved to be the start of a wonderful partnership, we did a skit at the London Palladium, he played me again in a sketch for my arena tour and special, and when we needed to find an actor to play the young Alfie Wickers in Bad Education it was the easiest piece of casting we ever had to do. 'Every time I worked with Archie he was the same - passionate, generous and pitch perfect, he was loved by everyone on set. I have no doubt he would have had a long and illustrious career and would have continued lighting up the lives of all those who encountered him. 'The enthusiastic and talented boy I met all those years ago had grown into an equally charming young man, during lockdown he would take shopping and groceries to my parents house for them when they couldn't leave the house, it's testament to what a wonderful and kind person he was. 'The world has been robbed of a truly special soul. He will never be forgotten, I feel utterly devastated that he is gone but i also feel so blessed to have met him. Goodbye Archie.' Archie, whose father Nicholas Lyndhurst famously played Rodney Trotter in the long-running BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses, rose to fame in the CBBC drama So Awkward- a sitcom about a group of schoolchildren. He also voiced a character in the video game Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward. The actor also appeared as a young Jack Whitehall in the BBC's Bad Education in 2014. The teenager appeared with his father Nicholas Lyndhurst in an episode of CBBC drama So Awkward Following his son's death, Nicholas Lyndhurst said in a statement: 'Lucy and I are utterly grief stricken and respectfully request privacy'. Only Fools and Horses star John Challis, who played Aubrey 'Boycie' Boyce in the show, tweeted: 'The saddest news of all today. The death of Archie Lyndhurst, just starting out on his chosen career in acting. My heart aches for Nick and Lucy. They could not have loved him more.' Sue Holderness, who played Boycie's wife Marlene in the sitcom, said: 'It is too sad to hear that Archie Lyndhurst has died. My heart goes out to his mum and dad and to all who knew him.' Meanwhile Archie's friend Small, who also starred in So Awkward as Rob Edwards, said in a tribute: 'To my brother Archie. I still can't quite comprehend that you have passed. 'You still had so much life to live and I'd give anything for you to keep on living it. 'My heart aches all day and everyday thinking about you and I just wish I could talk to you just one more time so you could know how much I loved you. I vow to make you proud with every last breath. Love you from now until infinity. Rest in power bro.' A BBC spokesman said: 'We're so sorry to have to tell you that Archie Lyndhurst, who so brilliantly played Ollie in So Awkward on CBBC, has very sadly died after a short illness. 'Archie will be hugely missed by all who worked with him, and by all the fans who laughed along with Ollie in the show.' Police officers and paramedics were called to the actor's family home in Fulham on September 22 following reports of a 'concern for welfare'. Archie, who had a brief role in Casualty in 2018, was declared dead at the scene in an 'unexplained but not suspicious' death which is not being investigated by police, who have passed a file to the coroner. Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Tuesday said Ghanaians are witnessing better governance and leadership under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and, therefore, the need to retain him in power. He cited the restoration of the teacher/nursing trainee allowances, implementation of the Free Senior High School Policy of which government is paying GH2.1 billion annually, payment of GH21 billion to 4.6 million depositors whose funds were locked up in the banking sector clean-up, and provision of infrastructure such as roads, libraries, classroom blocks, and health facilities. The government, he said, had recruited 90,000 teachers since assuming office in 2017. Dr Bawumia made these remarks at a durbar of chiefs and people of Amanfrom in the Bortianor/Ngleshie/Amanfrom Constituency of the Greater Accra Region to begin his four-day tour of the Region. He inspected an ongoing construction of a 1,000-seater capacity Astro Turf at Tuba and commissioned a multipurpose ICT centre and library at the A.O. Basic School at Abossey Okai in the Ablekuma Central Municipality. The Vice President explained that in view of the fulfilment of about 80 per cent of the New Patriotic Partys 2016 electioneering promises with more projects ongoing, Ghanaians could trust the NPP-led Administration with four more years to deliver more developmental projects. He outlined some policies and programmes the Akufo-Addo-led government intended to implement when given the nod in the December 7 elections. These include the National Transport Recapitalisation Scheme, Leasing programme to enable commercial drivers own new vehicles, Tertiary Loan Scheme for university students to receive loans and pay it after completion of school and National Rent Allowance Scheme for workers to rent decent accommodation and later deducted from their salaries. He, therefore, asked the electorate to disregard the juicy promises being made by former President John Dramani Mahama as he lacked the credibility to fulfil them. Vice President Bawumia said the Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress had been inconsistent with his promises and could not be trusted with the future development of the nation. He cited the Mahama governments cancellation of the teacher/nursing trainee allowances, failure to pay the arrears of service providers under the National Health Insurance Scheme, high youth unemployment rate and poor management of the economy under his watch. Dr Bawumia said the NPP would not fail in fulfilling its promises and assured the chiefs and people of Amanfrom that a new district court and Astro Turf would be built for them. Nii Kwashie Gbolor IV, Chief of Amanfrom, lauded the Akufo-Addo-led Government for staying true to its words to roll-out the Free SHS Policy, which had lessen the financial burden on most parents and guardians. He said the traditional leaders in the area had released land for the construction of the district court and pledged the cooperation of the chiefs and people towards the implementation of all the projects government had initiated. Some dignitaries in Dr Bawumias team included Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Anthony Abeyifa Karbo, Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways, Alhaji Saad Habib, Member of Parliament for Bortianor,Ngleshie/Amanfrom, and Mr Sylvester Tetteh, CEO of the National Youth Authority and NPP parliamentary candidate for Bortianor/Ngleshie/Amanfrom. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Cal Cunningham apologized late Friday for the text message exchanges Called Arlene Guzman Todd 'historically sexy' and said he dreamt of kissing her Cunningham is in a tight race in North Carolina with GOP Senator Thom Tillis The married father-of-two however has insisted he is not dropping out The Democratic challenger in North Carolina's closely contested U.S. Senate contest has admitted to exchanging sexually suggestive text messages with a woman who is not his wife, but he said he will not drop out of the race. Cal Cunningham apologized late Friday for the text message exchanges in which he tells the woman he wants to kiss her and she says she wants to spend the night with him. The messages were first reported by the website NationalFile.com. ADVERTISEMENT 'I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry. The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do,' Cunningham said in a statement. Cal Cunningham (pictured with his wife), the Democratic challenger in North Carolina's closely contested U.S. Senate contest has admitted to exchanging sexually suggestive text messages to a campaign strategist Screengrabs of the messages show Cunningham told public relations strategist Arlene Guzman Todd (pictured), 'Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now,' to which she replies, 'You're so sweet. I would enjoy that.' Cunningham's admission regarding the text messages could reshape a closely contested campaign that's considered key to determining the power balance in the Senate. It came after his opponent, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, tested positive for COVID-19. But Cunningham added that he's not dropping out of the Senate race: 'I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state.' Screengrabs of the messages show Cunningham told public relations strategist Arlene Guzman Todd, 'Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now,' to which she replies, 'You're so sweet. I would enjoy that.' Cunningham apologized late Friday for the text message exchanges in which he tells the woman he wants to kiss her and she says she wants to spend the night with him Another shows Guzman Todd - who is also married - tell Cunningham, 'the only thing I want on my to do list is you,' to which Cunningham replies, 'Sounds so hot and so fun!' The pair also plan for Cunningham to make up an excuse for his family and ditch a staffer so the two can meet and 'kiss a lot.' A spokeswoman for Cunningham's campaign, Rachel Petri, confirmed the authenticity of the text messages. It's unclear when the messages were sent, but at one point Cunningham says he's 'Nervous about the next 100 days,' which could be a reference to the Senate election. One hundred days before the election would be July 26. An email trying to reach Guzman Todd at the communications firm that lists her as an employee wasn't immediately returned Saturday morning. ADVERTISEMENT Earlier Friday, Cunningham's opponent, Republican Thom Tillis, announced that he tested positive for COVID-19 but said he has no symptoms. Cunningham tweeted that he wished Tillis a 'quick recovery' and said he would get tested himself after the two men shared a debate stage Thursday night. Lawyer Cunningham met his wife Elizabeth in 1997 and they have two teenage children. He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, and has served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Guzman's husband is also a veteran, according to reports. She serves as the media director of a marijuana public relations company and was previously a lecturer at California State University. According to FEC records seen by the News and Observer, Guzman has donated $450 to Cunningham's Senate campaign since April - donating $100 on April 2, $250 on April 28 and $100 on Sept. 29. Click here to resize this module Cunningham, who is married with two children, insisted he's not dropping out of the Senate race: 'I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state' 'FBD faces a test case in the Commercial Court on October 6 against four pubs over the companys refusal to pay out claims for Covid closures.' (stock photo) FBD's interim chief executive sent a letter to staff yesterday laying out the insurer's position as the company faces a crucial High Court test case of its business interruption policies next week. In a message sent to all employees, Paul D'Alton said FBD must "defend the integrity of the insurance contract" in the case, which concerns whether pub policies should pay out for revenue lost during the Covid lockdown. "The interests of and obligations to FBD shareholders and to our 500,000 policy holders could be challenged if we were to provide coverage outside the contract terms," he said. FBD faces a test case in the Commercial Court on October 6 against four pubs over the company's refusal to pay out claims for Covid closures. The result will help determine whether the insurer will have to pay claims for 1,300 business customers that were forced to close because of public health advice. The case follows a similar UK test case last month in which policyholders won a victory against insurers who had also refused business interruption claims during the Covid restrictions there. Mr D'Alton pointed out that the UK verdict "is regarded as favourable to the position of policyholders". "The UK judgements are expected to be subject to appeals and we are closely monitoring how all of this impacts on our own case and policy wordings," he said. FBD maintains its policies do not cover losses incurred by the pandemic. It argues that the closures were not due to an outbreak on or near the premises, but were caused by a nationwide order. However, the company changed the wording of its commercial policies last month to exclude Covid and other communicable diseases from coverage under its commercial policies. "FBD is in the process of introducing Communicable Disease and Covid-19 exclusions to all of our commercial policies, specifically under the Property and Consequential loss/Business Interruption sections," the company said. Over the coming days the annual National Archaeological Conference takes place online (1st to 10th October 2020). This year the conference sets out to explore the archaeology of coasts and islands and is titled 'Land, Sea and Sky'. Speakers in recorded presentations will explore the concept of the sea as a natural highway bringing sometimes remote communities together, while examining how specific coastal peoples created distinctive maritime identities, heritage and traditions. Voyages of exploration and settlement, sites and features of coastal and intertidal zones, the challenges of recording unique heritage threatened by climate change, islands as refuges for the dispossessed or havens for illicit activities, the legacy and identity of coastal communities of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, England and North Africa and public attitudes to loss of heritage: all these questions and more will be discussed. The conference, which is being presented by the National Monuments Service, takes place as a series of recorded free-to-view online presentations available to see on the Archaeology Ireland website by visiting https://archaeologyireland.ie and there promises to be some very interesting talks. Another conference to save the date for is the 3rd Irish Ecological Association Conference. This will take place in 2021 from 7th to 8th January and further details are available at https://www.irishecologicalassociation-conference.org/. Ecology and Archaeology are just two aspects of heritage and another most prominent aspect is oral tradition and folklore. Speaking of folklore, and notwithstanding the impact of Covid-19, the Cork Folklore Project team has continued to work hard for the people of Cork to record and share the memories and stories of the city and county, in albeit different ways. They are delighted to now present the new edition of their Newsletter, which updates people on some of the work they have been engaged with over the last while, including their ground-breaking Chronicles of Covid and Oral History for Health Projects. The newsletter is available to see on https://corkfolklore.org. My Creative Life A strong part of our folklore and tradition as an Irish people is our story telling tradition and one is never too young to begin and carry on this tradition. It is often said we all have a story within us, and there are more and more opportunities for people to express themselves creatively as more and more focus is put on the importance of heritage and culture and creativity as a whole. Culture and Creativity has been the backbone of the Creative Ireland Programme and one initiative that has stemmed from same is the My Creative Life Podcast and Radio Series - a series that celebrates creativity in young people across Ireland - from music, circus, writing, to visual art, dance and acrobatics and more. As part of these series one young person in each county speaks about the importance of creativity in their lives and the Cork Episode, which has been supported by Cork County Council through the Creative Ireland Programme, will air on RTE Jr on 13th October 2020. The Cork County episode features Aodhagan O Riordain - a 15 year old traditional storyteller from the rural village of Kilnamartyra in the County Cork Muscrai Gaeltacht. 'Aodhagan loves the challenge of bringing a story to life for the people who gather round to hear it. Through his facial expressions, hand gestures and tone of voice, he enthrals his audience, and they forget about the modern-day lure of phones and social media for a while! For Aodhagan, nothing beats the simple, age old pleasure of making an audience laugh or smile with a story'. My Creative Life is made by Grey Heron Media for Creative Ireland and RTEjr Radio and Seasons One and Two of the Podcast are available to listen to on the RTE Radio Player - https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/podcasts/series/32225. War of Independence In terms of our creativity it is often the past that inspires us, and in these present years, there is much focus on the quest for Irish Freedom as we remember the War of Independence and the impact it had on County Cork, one hundred years ago. A significant event that occurred during the War of Independence was the only taking of a Military Barracks anywhere in the country and that was Mallow Military Barracks, on the 28th of September 1920, which subsequently led to a number of reprisals in the town. To mark this event in Cork's history, the Heritage Committee of Mallow Development Partnership, courtesy of Cork County Library Service, is currently holding an Exhibition at Mallow Library, which runs up until 3 October 2020. Library opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 17:30. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-02 00:33:50|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close People select products at a store in an ancient block in Hanoi, Vietnam, Oct. 1, 2020. A traditional Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated on the eighth lunar month's full moon night, involves the customs of moon contemplating, procession of star and moon-shaped lanterns, lion dance, as well as holding parties with moon cakes and fruits amid the cool weather of autumn. Parents were busy during the harvest, so the holiday after that was a chance to spend time with their children. Over the years, it had been widely recognized as a festive event for kids across the Southeast Asian country. (Xinhua/Jiang Shengxiong) by Nguyen Thi Thanh Xuan HANOI, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnamese parents have tried their best to bring their children the fullest and happiest Mid-Autumn festival ever. A young woman wearing a mask crept among the crowd step by step on Hang Ma Street, Vietnam's capital city of Hanoi on Thursday evening. In her arms, a toddler reached out to the colorful stuff hanging over his head. Across the street in Hanoi's iconic Old Quarter, arrays of shops, stalls and walking hawkers were selling technicolor star-shaped lanterns and toys hand-crafted in paper and bamboo. From nearby corners, dynamic sounds of drums and live music beat the excitement up. Dao Hong Chi, 31, was showing her two-year-old son the traditional toys for the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Tet Trung Thu in Vietnamese, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month every year. NO LONGER LIKE BEFORE The festival is celebrated on the eighth lunar month's full moon night, the most charming and picturesque night of the year, marking the end of the rice harvest in the Red River Delta around the Vietnamese capital originally. Parents were busy during the harvest, so the holiday after that was a chance to spend time with their children. Over the years, it had been widely recognized as a festive event for kids across the Southeast Asian country. A traditional Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Festival involves the customs of moon contemplating, procession of star and moon-shaped lanterns, lion dance, as well as holding parties with moon cakes and fruits amid the cool weather of autumn. For every night in the past few weeks, people from the capital and nearby localities had been flocking to the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where ancient streets are filled with colorful decorations and goods, mostly toys for children, to enjoy the atmosphere of the vibrant and traditional event. Like many parents in Vietnam, Chi hoped to make up for her son, who barely had chances to play out since the pandemic. "I don't want my child to miss this occasion. It's a hard-won opportunity that we earned in Vietnam amid the complex developments of the disease globally," Chi told Xinhua. As of Thursday, the Southeast Asian country has recorded no new cases of COVID-19 infection in the community for 29 straight days after the recent outbreaks reported in late July and August. However, earlier lockdown regulations, social distancing orders, and schools' months-long break have deprived the opportunities of millions of children across the country to socialize, play and study. Considering that the occasion itself comes only once per year, the Vietnamese mother decided that she needed to show her son the beauty of the festival. While trying to maintain a safe distance from others, Chi took the baby to see lion dance performances, experience making mooncakes and some traditional toys such as paper lanterns, star lamps, and engage in dynamic games. "Since other parents are also worried about infection risks in public places, I think they will strictly follow the directions to keep everyone, especially the children, safe," Chi said. As part of the efforts to control and prevent the COVID-19 epidemic this year, many interactive activities of the Old Quarter's Mid-Autumn Festival program had been held in virtual format. With the support of technologies, artisans and craftsmen now could guide far-away families and babies to make traditional toys. Some exhibition spaces were even moved online so that people outside Hanoi, or those afraid of the infection risk in the community, can enjoy from the comfort of their homes. CHILDREN AT CENTER Like millions of Vietnamese kids, seven-year-old girl Do Thuy Linh from Long Bien district had been looking forward to the Mid-Autumn Festival for months. Celebration activities at school including watching lion dances, art performances and joining traditional games are her favorite. However, the COVID-19 this year has halted almost all large-scaled activities at Linh's school. To ensure safety for students, outdoor performances and games, which used to draw great participation of students were replaced by small parties inside classrooms. Refusing to let the girl down, Do Duc Luong, Linh's father, decided to create a home-made playground for his daughter this year. "I'll take this opportunity to truly engage with my girl," the 39-year-old father told Xinhua, adding that he totally understood the school's decision to scale down celebrations activities. Luong believed that hosting a party in his area, though more strenuous than taking the child to public places, is much safer but can still be fun. Together with some adults from his neighborhood in Thach Ban ward, Luong decorated their alley with hanging strips of flashing lights and colorful lanterns, designed simple games and prepared food, including the indispensable mooncakes for the kids. A small stage was also set up at the entrance of the neighborhood and kids from the surrounding area were welcomed to join the so-called "Sparkling Night" event. Under the light of the full moon, Linh and some 10 playmates, wearing animal face masks with adorable painting, were counting down to the start of the party. They knew the moment was coming when drumbeats rang out from down the narrow alley, and the father -- in a round-happy faced mask that symbolized the moon -- appeared on the stage. "COVID-19 has made our lives more difficult but we will not let it ruin our kids' festival," Luong said, his eyes fixed on the children playing around. Bearing brightly colored lanterns, the kids formed raucous processions and toured the neighborhood singing songs. Their amazing night would only end when they are called to get back home for sleep. "More crisis, even worse than the COVID-19, may come in the future, but as parents, we will always do our utmost to delight our kids with the fullest and brightest mid-autumn festival," said Luong while looking upon to the yellow moon. The Boston Beer Company Inc. SAM has been catching up with the latest trend of shifting to non- or low-alcoholic beer category owing to a change in consumer preference. Consumers are increasingly switching to drinks with low or no alcohol content due to increased health awareness. Consequently, beverage companies are looking to expand in the near-beer categories with healthy ingredients and different flavors to attract consumers. Benefiting from this trend, there has been a marked boom in the hard seltzer category since 2019, which further gained momentum on increased at-home consumption occasions during the pandemic. According to Grand View Research Inc., the global hard seltzer market size was $4.36 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $4.51 billion in 2020. Moreover, the hard seltzer market is projected to reach $14.5 billion by 2027, witnessing a CAGR of 16.2%. The hard seltzer beverage industry is dominated by the privately-held White Claw and Boston Beers Truly brand. Truly and White Claw together held nearly 80% of the hard seltzer market at the end of 2019, per sources. Boston Beer has been particularly making a fortune in recent times through growth in the hard seltzer, cider, tea and kombucha categories while it significantly lost share of its Samuel Adams lager beer in recent years. The company has been witnessing robust trends for the Truly and Twisted Tea brands, which aided depletions in second-quarter 2020. Growth at Truly was led by the Truly Hard Lemonade, which is witnessing solid trends with the upside likely to stay. The company expects to continue investing heavily in the Truly brand to enhance the brands position in the hard seltzer category as competition stiffens. It is optimistic about the new Truly advertising campaign that showcases colors, variety and joy to hard seltzer drinkers through four different commercials. Management foresees increased brand investments in the second half of 2020 compared to the first half and expects accelerated distribution and volume growth for the Truly, Twisted Tea and Dogfish Head brands. Product innovation and more frequent brand launches played a crucial role in the growing penetration of hard seltzer. Further, hard seltzers are expected to continue gaining popularity from low-alcohol content, which is preferred by millennials in developed economies like the United States, Canada and Australia. Among the beverage behemoths, The Coca-Cola Company KO is the latest to join the race to gain a firm footing in the fast-growing hard seltzer market with the recent launch of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer in the Latin America countries including Mexico and Brazil during late September. The Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is launched in three gluten-free flavors including Tangy Lemon Lime, Strawberry Guava and Pineapple Twist in sleek aluminum cans. Moreover, the company plans to roll out the brand in the United States in the first half of 2021. Another company upping the hard seltzer game is Molson Coors Beverage Company TAP with the launch of Vizzy and Coors Seltzer brands, earlier this year. Vizzy contains the anti-oxidant vitamin C from acerola superfruit, which differentiates its quality from other sparkling seltzers. The Vizzy brand launched in April 2020 has been reckoned by Nielsen as one of the top-10 growth brands since Aug 8. Moreover, the company rolled out the Coors Seltzer brand at the end of August, which has been exceeding expectations ever since. It predicts the same to become a popular beer brand in the segment. Moreover, the company launched HUZZAH, a pumped-up, full-flavored seltzer with probiotics and low calories in Southern California during September. It also recently signed an exclusive partnership with Coca-Cola to manufacture, market and distribute its Topo Chico hard seltzer in the United States. Bud Light Seltzer from Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD, unveiled earlier this year, is another prime stakeholder garnering a decent market share in the hard seltzer category. Additionally, the company has other spiked seltzer brands like Bon & Viv in its kitty, which recorded robust sales in 2019. Overall, the hard seltzer market has been a lucrative investment avenue for companies brewing beer and other spirits in the past few years. Apart from the aforementioned names, the industry houses several small-sized companies that are looking up to gain traction from the momentum in the hard seltzer category. Story continues These Stocks Are Poised to Soar Past the Pandemic The COVID-19 outbreak has shifted consumer behavior dramatically, and a handful of high-tech companies have stepped up to keep America running. Right now, investors in these companies have a shot at serious profits. For example, Zoom jumped 108.5% in less than 4 months while most other stocks were sinking. Our research shows that 5 cutting-edge stocks could skyrocket from the exponential increase in demand for stay at home technologies. This could be one of the biggest buying opportunities of this decade, especially for those who get in early. See the 5 high-tech stocks now>> 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 Molson Coors Beverage Company (TAP) : Free Stock Analysis Report CocaCola Company The (KO) : Free Stock Analysis Report AnheuserBusch InBev SANV (BUD) : Free Stock Analysis Report The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (SAM) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Early in the coronavirus crisis, and in this summers wave of chaos in American streets, Rachel Bulman began paying close attention to the faces in news reports. She also found herself thinking about a hero: the Black Panther. Born in the Philippines before being adopted, the Catholic writer has lived her life as a daughter, wife and mother in White America. As a child, she didnt look like her family. Now, her children are growing up knowing that they just dont look like everyone else, she said. Our family has its own story. Bulman responded by hanging images of saints from Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere in their home. There was St. Josephine Bakhita from Sudan, and an icon of St. Augustine with darker skin, since his mother was from North Africas Berber tribe. There was St. Juan Diego of Mexico, who encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Sister Thea Bowman of Mississippi, the granddaughter of slaves, whose cause for sainthood has been endorsed by Americas bishops. I wanted my children to see all kinds of saints and heroes, including some with faces kind of like their own, she said. Bulman had also become interested in the Marvel Comics universe and the symbolic role of King TChalla the Black Panther for millions of Black Americans, especially children. She was stunned when actor Chadwick Boseman died this summer at age 43 after a long, private fight with colon cancer. He endured years of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries while filming Black Panther and related Avengers movies. Searching through press reports, Bulman noted colleagues referring to Boseman as a man of faith, a beautiful soul and someone with a spiritual aura about his work with others including children with cancer. At a memorial rite for Boseman, his former pastor at Welfare Baptist Church in Anderson, South Carolina, said that even after fame arrived, the actor remained the same person hed known as a young believer. Hes still Chad, said the Rev. Samuel Neely. He did a lot of positive things. ... With him singing in the choir, with him working the youth group, he always was doing something, always helping out, always serving. That was his personality. Digging deeper, Bulman said she cried all the way through a video of Bosemans 2018 commencement address at Howard University, his alma mater. She noted the actors adept use of scripture, especially when describing a lesson learned when he questioned violent, hopeless themes in one of his first roles. I was let go from that job on the next day. ... The questions I asked set the producers on guard and perhaps paved the way for a less stereotypical portrayal for the Black actor that stepped into the role after me. As the scripture says, I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God kept it growing, said Boseman, citing 1 Corinthians 3:6. The actor noted: Sometimes you need to feel the pain and sting of defeat to activate the real passion and purpose that God predestined inside of you. God says in Jeremiah, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Spiritual themes emerged in other appearances, including Bosemans remarks at the 2019 American Film Institute tribute to a mentor, Denzel Washington. He thanked the superstar a Pentecostal pastors son who is open about his faith for helping young people in civic groups, theaters and churches, saying an offering from a sage and a king is more than silver and gold. It is a seed of hope, a bud of faith. There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington. Boseman closed with Ephesians 3:20: May God bless you exceedingly and abundantly more for whats in store than He ever has before. Bulman stressed that Boseman kept playing roles that looked past the color of someones skin and into their search for purpose. It was a bonus that he didnt look like other movie superheroes. ... I also thought it was important to learn that his faith made a difference in his life and his work, she said. What Chadwick Boseman offered us was a chance to see that nothing is completely secular, that everyone has a chance to be reclaimed and redeemed, said Bulman. He was a different kind of hero. Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi. President Donald Trump was doing very well and was in exceptionally good spirits, his medical team said on Saturday at a military hospital where he was shifted hours after he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for Covid-19, deepening the health crisis in the country and throwing his re-election campaign into uncertainty. At this time the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the President has made, Dr Sean Conley, the presidents physician said at Walter Reed military hospital, accompanied by the team of specialists and nurses looking after the president. Thursday, he had a mild cough and some nasal congestion and fatigue, all of which are now resolving and improving. President Trump has had no trouble breathing and not been put on oxygen,. Dr Shaw Dooley, a lead specialist on the team said, the president is in exceptionally good spirits and conveyed to them I feel like I could walk out of here today. Trump was shifted to Walter Reed on Friday out of an abundance of caution, the White House had said. And in a video message he tweeted after reaching the military medical facility, the president said, I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out. The first lady is doing very well. So thank you very much I appreciate it I will never forget. President Trump had waved to reporters as he walked to the helicopter waiting on White House grounds to fly him to Walter Reed, a short distance from DC. But he did not answer questions shouted out by reporters. He wore a mask, as did others with him, including his chief of staff Mark Meadows. Earlier in the afternoon Kayleigh McEnany, press secretary to the president, had said in a statement that out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the President will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days. The presidential suite at the medical facility in Bethesda in the adjoining state of Maryland, are large and roomy and include a conference room, a living room and a bedroom. Dr. Conley, the presidents physician, had said earlier in a statement Trump was fatigued but in good spirits and had been administered a single 8-gram dose of a cocktail of antibodies against the coronavirus, which is an experimental drug that has not been approved for use yet. The doctor that the president was also given zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and a daily aspirin. The first lady remains well with only a mild cough and headache, the physician said, adding, the rest of the first family had tested negative. But aides and staff who had been around president in the last some days either at an event at the White House or on the campaign trail continue to test positive. The included Kellyanne Conway, the former adviser to Trump, and Bill Stepien, head of the Trump re-election campaign. The Trump campaign, which has either cancelled all of the presidents rallies for now and taken all of these to be addressed by family members online only, kept up attacks on Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, signaling the urgency of the situations with election day just a month from now. Do you regret repeatedly attacking President Trump in a Michigan speech on the same day he was diagnosed with COVID-19? the Trump campaign posted as the question of the day for Biden on Saturday, pointing to the former vice-presidents remarks on the economy and jobs. But the campaign left out Bidens concluding remarks: I want to say God bless you, may God protect the first family and every family that is dealing with this virus, and may God protect our troops. The Biden campaign has also pulled down its negative ads on Trump, but the former vice-president continues to campaign. Emirates SkyCargo will be commencing twice weekly scheduled cargo flights to Guadalajara, Mexico from the first week of October. The cargo flights to the countrys tech hub will be operated by Emirates Boeing 777-F aircraft offering around 100 tonnes of cargo capacity per flight. Guadalajara will be Emirates SkyCargos second cargo destination in Mexico and its 15th cargo destination in the Americas. Emirates SkyCargo has been facilitating trade between Mexico and the rest of the world since April 2014 when the air cargo carrier first commenced scheduled freighter services to Mexico City. Since then, the freight division of Emirates has facilitated trade of more than 25,000 tonnes of cargo, including exports of avocadoes, berries and other fresh produce from Mexico to markets in Europe and the Middle East. Emirates SkyCargos new service to Guadalajara, its second point in Mexico, will help provide additional international cargo connectivity and new opportunities to businesses in the region to connect with customers across the carriers growing network of more than 125 destinations. Emirates SkyCargo is committed to connecting Mexico. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the air cargo carrier continued operating scheduled cargo flights every week to Mexico City, facilitating the imports of essential medical supplies into the country while continuing to provide a channel for exports for Mexican goods to other international markets. Emirates SkyCargos flight to Guadalajara will operate on Mondays and Fridays. On both days, Flight EK 9936 will arrive at Guadalajara from Mexico City at 7.20am local time and depart at 9.20am local time. Commodities that are expected to be moved on the flight to and from Guadalajara include automotive components, fresh produce and other general cargo. Emirates SkyCargo is an important facilitator of international trade with its cargo flights to destinations across six continents. The air cargo carrier offers cargo capacity on its fleet of wide body aircraft including 11 Boeing 777 freighters. TradeArabia News Service TORONTO (AP) Canada is forming its own forensic examination and assessment team to examine evidence and information after Irans Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukrainian jetliner in January, killing all 176 people on board. The office of Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told The Associated Press the team will collect, organize and analyze all available information, evidence and intelligence about the Jan. 8 crash near Tehran, and will advise the Canadian government on its credibility. This is yet another step to uncover the truth, hold the Iranian regime to account and seek justice for the families of the victims. We will spare no efforts on behalf of the families of the victims to obtain justice and closure, Champagne said in a statement provided to the AP. The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, more than 50 Canadians including many Iranians with dual citizenship and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials. The route was popular with those traveling onward to Canada. Shahin Moghaddam, who lost his wife Shakiba Feghahati and his 10-year-old son Rosstin, said the Canadian probe is late, but he called it a good first step. He said the families have a lot to share. "Iran wont cooperate and wont answer any of the questions. At a same time we have to use all the tools we have to pressure them to answer," he said. The shootdown happened the same night Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting U.S. soldiers in Iraq, its response to the American drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3. At the time, Iranian troops were bracing for a U.S. counterstrike and appear to have mistaken the plane for a missile. Iran announced recently announced it retrieved some data, including a portion of cockpit conversations, from the Ukrainian jetliner. The head of Irans Civil Aviation Organization said in August that the passenger planes black boxes have only 19 seconds of conversation following the first explosion, though the second missile reached the plane 25 seconds later. The report quoting him did not elaborate. The Canadian government previously dismissed Irans reports as limited and containing selected information, and said Tehran still has many questions to answer. Iran initially denied responsibility for the crash before admitting in the face of mounting evidence and international pressure the Boeing 737-800 went down after being hit by two Iranian missiles. Even if someone drops a ballot in the mailbox on the way to the polls on Election Day, the mail-in ballot would be rejected because an in-person vote already would be recorded by the time the ballot is received via mail, officials said. Though rare, knowingly voting or attempting to vote more than once in an election is a Class 3 felony in Illinois, punishable by two to five years in prison. French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a summit in May to review the way Western countries fund African economies, saying that investments were often high-risk, making African nations more inclined to turn to China than the West. "Why is it that for several years, a country like Kenya has turned a lot to China?" Macron said Thursday during a tech conference by French investment bank Bpifrance in Paris. "It's because China provided funding and turnkey solutions, along with ultra-competitive investments, which did not respect the rules of the OECD," he said. The French president has called for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development rules -- which have often made African countries take unnecessary risks -- to be changed. At the Paris business conference, attended by visiting guest Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Macron pledged to hold a summit next May to "redefine together the rules of African financing", in order to play by a set of conditions which are bearable for the African continent. Africa champion The planned summit is in line with calls by the French government to ease African debt to enable countries to fight against the coronavirus. It also gives France another occasion to portray itself as a champion of the continents interests. "If we don't succeed in helping Africa develop, we, Europeans, will pay the price and will only continue to speak of Africa in terms of the migration suffered by a youth whom we failed to offer opportunities on their own continent," Macron said, all the while insisting that Africa has "extraordinary development potential". Under the current French leader, Paris has increasingly expanded its footprint beyond the North and West African markets, where it has been active since the colonial era, towards East Africa. Kenyatta's presence in Paris -- his first overseas trip since the Covid-19 pandemic -- provided further evidence of France's growing role in Kenya. Story continues Signing deals Uhuru Kenyatta, who exhorted French entrepreneurs to "seize the opportunities which exist" in Kenya and in Africa, signed three major infrastructure projects with French companies. Infrastructure giant Vinci Concessions made its first foray into the continent with a 1.3 billion euros public private partnership (PPP) to build and operate a 175 km highway from Nairobi to Mau, one of the largest PPP projects in the region. Other agreements included the development of the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) and a commuter railway line to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Along with foreign direct investment, Kenyatta is hoping to boost Kenyas exports of mainly fruit and vegetables to Europes second-largest market. Over 100 French companies are operating in the East African nation in sectors including hospitality, energy, luxury goods and retail. Officials in the rural Winston-Dillard district in southern Oregon plan to open Douglas High School for in-person learning Monday, bucking state guidelines set back in June. In a note to parents on Facebook, Winston-Dillard Superintendent Kevin Miller lambasted state education officials, saying reopening decisions should rest with local elected officials rather than the Oregon Department of Education, saying state officials believe, erroneously, that if everyone stays home, everyone is safe. Society is no longer judgmental of women who choose not to have children as long as they have thought about it and made an active decision. That's the preliminary finding of new research from Edith Cowan University examining the attitudes towards people who are childless or child-free. Kate Banister and her husband Ian decided more than five years ago to remain child-free and have no regrets. Credit:James Brickwood Bronwyn Harman, a senior lecturer at the university, said the findings were "very clear". Based on a national survey with a sample of nearly 500, women who decide not to have children are perceived just as positively as mothers. But women who have put off the decision about whether or not to have children or have never contemplated parenthood are judged more harshly. "They might not agree with the choice [not to have children] but they feel at least the person's made a choice and they can respect them for that," Dr Harman said. "Whereas they see the procrastinators and non-contemplators as fence-sitters." Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The annual switch to daylight saving time has become a perennial debate in Australia, which is already in full swing as parts of the nation wind their clocks forward from Sunday. But apart from the political and social debate that rages every year, what is the evidence about the benefits and costs of utilising a summer time zone? Unfortunately for the many people who enjoy an extra hour of sunshine, the evidence suggests the pros arent worth the cons. Theres no debate, anyone who is on the side of the switch-over is going to lose that debate every time, said Sean Cain, an associate professor of psychology from Monash University. Daylight saving creates an annual debate but what are the facts behind the practice? Credit:Wolter Peeters Professor Cain is a chronobiologist, a scientist who studies timing processes in living organisms, such as circadian rhythms in humans. He is strongly against daylight saving, and points to the scientific work over the past decade to show the annual switch is bad for us. Theres both an acute and a chronic issue with daylight saving, he said. There are the problems that come when we switch over and everyone collectively loses an hour of sleep, which is understandable. But there are also the long-term issues which research is increasingly showing has a long-term cumulative effect. Advertisement Research suggests the shift to daylight saving around the world raises the instance of heart attacks as well as strokes, with research published as recently as January showing an increase in atrial fibrillation episodes in the days following the jump forward in the US. The latest research out of the US also suggests there is a jump in fatal car crashes of about 6 per cent in the days following the leap forward, with drivers tired and out of whack. Vanderbilt University Medical Center released a study in November warning that daylight saving was fundamentally interfering with peoples circadian rhythms, the internal biological clock that keeps our bodies operating at top efficiency. The result, the paper argues, is there could be hidden long-term health problems caused by our biological clocks being out of alignment for up to eight months of the year in some parts of the world. Its not like this is a massive problem and you have thousands and thousands of people dying in Australia because of it - we would have picked that up, Professor Cain said. But more and more of the research is showing that living in daylight saving time is a little bit unhealthy. And when you take something that is a little bit unhealthy and put it on a population scale it can affect a number of people. Claims have been made that daylight saving contributes to the rate of melanomas and other skin cancers, however the research around this is patchy. Advertisement Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie famously made the claim in 2006 as part of his refusal to start another trial of daylight saving in Queensland, however the scientific consensus is that the middle of the day presents the most risk of skin damage because of the higher UV index. So an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day probably doesnt have a noticeable effect on Australian skin cancer rates, already the highest in the world. Daylight saving was introduced in Australia during World War I, in an effort to conserve power, with the process reintroduced during WWII for the same reason. Tasmania adopted it on a regular basis in 1968, with Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT all leaping forward in 1971. However, Queensland abandoned the practice just a year later, and other than a brief reintroduction between 1989 and 1992 has stayed away from daylight saving. Western Australia reintroduced daylight saving a number of times over the years, most recently between 2006 and 2009. Advertisement As a result, Australia has three time zones during the winter months and five during summer. While the difference between Queensland and NSW changes by an hour, South Australia goes from being 30 minutes behind Queensland to 30 minutes ahead. Companies in WA that do business with the eastern states also have to navigate the shifted time zones, going from two hours behind NSW and Victoria to three hours behind. The annual shift prompts rivalry between Queensland and NSW, but in 2020 the annual winding forward of the clocks comes on top of a fierce war of words over the closure of Queenslands borders. Communities on the Queensland-NSW border have just been physically rejoined, only to be thrown out of temporal alignment for another year. Credit:Tony Moore With the Queensland government expanding its border bubble to allow more free movement in the border regions, communities that have had to endure a winter physically separated are just beginning to be reunited, just in time to be temporally separated. Tweed Shire mayor Chris Cherry says the annual time changes always cause disruption, but they have become a fact of life for locals. I dont know if it will create more of an issue this year than any other year, perhaps people may be more aware of it because of the parochial feelings that have been coming out due to the demarcation of the border line, Cr Cherry said. Advertisement The reality affects you every day - catching flights, going to the bank, certain businesses closing before others. A big thing is modern devices, which tend to switch over automatically, although sometimes they dont in Tweed Heads, so locals know to keep an analogue clock with them around this time. Cr Cherry is of the opinion that Queensland should adopt daylight saving to match NSW, and that view is shared by many in the south-east corner of the state, however out in regional Queensland it is another matter. John Cole is the executive director of University of Southern Queenslands Institute for Resilient Regions, and works closely with businesses and farmers in regional Queensland. He says because of the vast size of Queensland, residents in Mount Isa are already nearly an hour behind Brisbane in pure geographic terms, and so already exist in a state of daylight saving year-round. [In western Queensland] even without daylight saving, in the summer the sun isnt going down until 8 oclock at night and its 40 degrees. Those people dont need an extra hour of sunlight, he said. For Professor Cole, the daylight saving debate ignores the reality of people living in regional parts of the country. Advertisement (Reuters) - A blank check-company helmed by former Uber Technologies Inc's executive Emil Michael is looking to raise $250 million in an initial public offering, the company said on Friday. DPCM Capital Inc aims to sell 25 million units at a price of $10 each and has applied to list its units on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "XPOA.U", it said in a filing https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1821742/000121390020029922/fs12020_dpcmcapital.htm#T7. Michael, who served as the chief business officer of the ride-hailing provider for over three years until 2017, had spearheaded the firm's expansion in China and Russia. The blank-check company also counts former Alphabet Inc's Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt among its special advisors. A special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, is a shell vehicle that raises money in an IPO to buy and then merge with an unknown company. DPCM has become the latest SPAC to file for an IPO, joining the likes of high-profile investors such as Bill Ackman and Michael Klein, who have raised billions through their SPACs this year. On Thursday, a SPAC led by billionaire Charles Ergen, said it was aiming to raise around $1 billion in an IPO. UBS Investment Bank is the underwriter to DPCM's offering. (Reporting by Abhishek Manikandan in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel) WHITING A 15-year-old boy was struck at a Norfolk Southern train crossing near Whihala Beach Friday night. At 7:35 p.m. first responders were called to a pedestrian struck by a train at 117th Street in Whiting near the entrance of Whihala Beach, said Whiting Fire Department personnel. Whiting firefighters and police found an injured 15-year-old boy, who was taken to St. Catherine Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, said Whiting Chief of Police Don Greer. As of 8:30 p.m., the area around the scene was shut down by police at 117th Street and also at 119th Street by the Mascot Museum, an eyewitness said. In addition, two freight trains were stopped at the crossing. No extrication was needed to get to the victim, firefighters said. After a decade of sheer hard work of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the strategic Atal highway tunnel, one of the world's most challenging and a marvel of engineering motorways, in the Himalayas that will also bring the infantry combat vehicles closer to the Line of Actual Control. (Image: Twitter) Mumbai, Oct 3 : Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi on Saturday wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind demanding CRPF security cover for the family of the alleged victim of gang-rape in Hathras, who died on Tuesday at a government hospital in Delhi. In her letter to Kovind, Chaturvedi highlighted that the brutality of the incident in Hathras and the abdication of responsibility of due process by the UP Police have shaken and shamed all. She said, "In the history of humanity, people are accorded the dignity of a decent cremation, and family members are given a chance to bid adieu to their beloved ones. But on September 30, the nation saw the grief-stricken and sobbing family of the deceased being denied of a decent cremation as per Hindu rites, as the body was burnt in the middle of the night." She also alleged that the victim's family is being held in "captivity" and being "threatened" by the officials in Hathras. "The family members have also expressed their distrust towards the UP Police in carrying out a free and fair investigation. In that backdrop, I urge you to provide CRPF security cover to the victim's family and ensure their safety," the Rajya Sabha MP wrote. Earlier in the day, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Hitesh Chandra Awasthi and Additional Chief Secretary Home Avnish Awasthi met the family members of the victim and assured them of justice. They spoke to nine people, including the victim's father, mother, brothers and sisters. WEST HARTFORD Back in 1998 when Matt Warshauer moved into his house on Main Street, he decorated for Halloween in typical fashion with pumpkins, spiders and witches on trees. But reality became scarier than fiction for him in 2003 with the Iraq War. Warshauer said that was the first year he introduced political themes to his Halloween displays, enlisting the help of his daughters. In 2003 with the American invasion of Iraq, I felt like I needed to make a statement, he said. That year, he created an effigy of then-President George W. Bush and then-Vice President Dick Cheney, both wearing pants covered in flames, next to a sign that read liar, liar, pants on fire. Over the years, local residents have come to know Warshauers home as the Halloween House as thousands pass by each day on the busy West Hartford street. Warshauer, a history professor at Central Connecticut State University, said this years display and the one in 2003 were his response to gigantic lies ... whether its lying to send us to war or lying about the legacy of systemic racism ... and the COVID-19 pandemic. This years display highlights what Warshauer said are the two leading cultural and political issues and that is obviously COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement. With the help of his three daughters, ranging in age from 16 to 20, Warshauer finished the installation of this years display on Sept. 26. One part of the display features a COVID-19 panel covered in Styrofoam virus molecules and honors some of those who died from the illness, while also providing data and information from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Spanish Flu in 1918. The Black Lives Matter portion of the display focuses on the origins of the movement, the history of slavery and the impacts of systemic racism. It includes quotes from leaders like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. There are also memorials to well-known Black Americans killed by police, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. This years display also features a public art aspect something Warshauer said he introduced about five years ago after his daughter added a wall as part of a Vietnam War display in honor of the 50th anniversary and urged passersby to write the name of a veteran. That year, there were hundreds of responses, he said. He said hes hopeful this years display will create as much interest. A panel that states what is your truth gives visitors a chance to react to Warshauers display and further stimulate conversation. I havent heard anything negative yet, he said of the display, adding that hes had several productive conversations with strangers about the displays. Earlier this week, Warshauer, who is white, said he was talking to two Black women when a Black man in his mid-20s drove by and pulled a U-turn to see the display. Warshauer said the man told him the display gave him goosebumps. The four of us stood there and we had this moment, Warshauer recalled. Those moments are why I do it. I am trying to tap into something so that when people see the display, they know theyre not alone in how theyre feeling. Warshauer said his Halloween displays have grown bigger and more elaborate over the last decade. Some years, especially when theres a big election, he said he uses his display to showcase a very specific political message. In 2017, for example, he said he created one of the most complicated and time-consuming things he has ever built garnering the attention of national news outlets when he installed a display he called The Trumpian Ship of State in reaction to the 2016 election. The 2017 display was featured on Fox News, and he said it led to some backlash with people calling for CCSU to fire him. My displays never hurt anyone, he said. Theyve never been a hateful message ... It is mean to present ideas in an out-of-the-box way and to get people to reach a little bit deeper into their own hearts and minds and maybe re-consider what they believe. This year though, he said he didnt want to feature either presidential candidate. I didnt want any images of Trump. I didnt even want his name or Bidens for that matter, he said. Our country is so frenzied right now, so I decided to avoid that. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra plan to leave for Hathras around noon on Saturday to meet the family of the 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was allegedly gang-raped and murdered. The Uttar Pradesh police prevented the two from meeting the family on Thursday. Congress leaders KC Venugopal, Rajesh Lilothia, Sushmita Dev, Ajay Lallu, PL Punia, and Deepender Hooda are likely to accompany the Gandhis. Congress MPs [members of Parliament] under the leadership of former Congress President Shri. @RahulGandhi will go to #Hathras today [Saturday] afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19 year old daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted & murdered, Venugopal tweeted. Also read: Here is what is happening in Hathras and beyond @INCIndia [Congress] delegation led by Shri. @RahulGandhi will meet the family members to hear their grievances & demand justice for the victim & her family who have been denied justice & severely traumatized by the BJP Government in UP. The Uttar Pradesh police have cordoned off the womans village to prevent journalists and opposition leaders from meeting the family. The authorities have also allegedly seized phones of the family and put them under surveillance. The woman was attacked and gang-raped on September 14, and rushed to a hospital in Aligarh. Eight days later, on September 22, she recorded her statement, where she said she was raped and named the four accused. Her mothers statement echoed the claims. As her condition deteriorated, she was moved to Delhis Safdarjung hospital on September 28 and died in the early hours of September 29, sparking nationwide protests. Later that evening, police drove the family and the victims body back to the Hathras village but proceeded to cremate the body without the consent of the parents. At 2.30am on September 30, the policemen cremated her body even as the family alleged they were restricted from even getting a final glimpse of their daughter. A day after the controversial cremation, prohibitive orders were clamped and the village was made off-limits for journalists and outsiders. Since then, protests against the crime have swept the nation and prompted several opposition leaders to try and visit the village but have all been thwarted by the state police. Citing forensic reports, the police have denied that the woman was raped but experts have pointed to lapses in procedure during the medical examination. Priyanka Gandhi joined hundreds of people in New Delhi on Friday to express solidarity with the womans family. We are all here to ensure that the girl gets justice. We will pressure the government to get her justice, she said. Her family has got no help from the state government. They must feel they are all alone. We are holding the prayer meeting for them. They should know that they are not alone and fight the injustice being done to them. We will put political pressure and every woman in this country must put moral pressure on the government. President Trump (Geoff Robins / AFP / Getty Images) Narrative is humanitys defense against the randomness of existence. We tell ourselves stories not to sink into chaos. Would-be authors of our time on Earth, we impose order onto our lives by drawing connections between events, underscoring thematic trends, fleshing out character psychology and shoehorning our years into plots with beginnings, middles and ends. Packaging experience in this way doesnt simply protect us from the possibility of meaninglessness. It helps foster the illusion that the future is predictable and that, whatever else might happen to us, anarchy will not mow us down. Among the many catastrophes we can lay at Donald Trumps feet, his long-shot presidency has plunged the nation into a narrative crisis. The tale of his four years in office cannot be contained within discrete genres. He lacks the dignified gravitas required of tragedy. And as commander in chief, he possesses too much lethal power to be laughed off as a comic buffoon. Trump's political drama is unlike anything weve seen before. No one can figure out the rules of the script. Just when you think the action is building to a climax the Mueller report, impeachment, more than 200,000 dead from a pandemic a different calamity usurps our attention. i'm really starting to think we might get aliens this year Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) October 2, 2020 The latest development positive COVID-19 test results for the president and first lady comes on the heels of a week of bombshells. On Sunday, the New York Times, having obtained more than two decades of Trumps secret tax-return data, revealed that the billionaire emperor has no clothes. This puncturing of the successful businessman myth that Trump rode to the White House came one day before Trump announced he had nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death Sept. 18 was said to have upended a presidential race that had already just been turned upside down when Trump refused to guarantee a peaceful transition of power. Story continues The New York Times tax story was nearly all anyone could talk about until Tuesday when Trump and Joe Biden had their first presidential debate. Trumps belligerent hijacking of the stage, a performance better suited to the professional wrestling ring than electoral politics, had pundits riffling through a stack of dumpster fire metaphors. On Wednesday, the chattering class was preoccupied by the horrific realization that Trump at the debate had in fact directed the Proud Boys, a far-right group, to stand by in case he needs help in strong-arming an electoral victory. This explosive headline was still dominating on Thursday, even as tapes of Melania Trump emerged in which shes heard bad-mouthing Christmas and complaining that the kids in detention centers at the border who are cruelly separated from their parents never had it so good. But naturally the plot turned. In the evening, Hope Hicks, a senior aide who had been traveling with the president, was revealed to have tested positive for coronavirus. The president tweeted that the first lady and he would quarantine themselves as required. The medias fried synapses sizzled into action. Speculation about Trumps health and what COVID-19 might mean for a 74-year-old obese man with cardiac risk factors was rife across news channels not owned by Rupert Murdoch. Remembering that it was only Oct. 1, I tweeted, 31 days of October surprises. Night one: Hope Hicks get Covid! And then, for the sake of my mental health, I turned away from the news for 45 minutes. When I next peeked at my phone, I saw that my waggish tweet was already obsolete. A bigger October surprise had arrived: The president himself was infected. Twitter erupted in a strange form of dramaturgical glee. Had a dramatic pattern finally solidified? Thoughts and prayer were dispatched from both ends of the political spectrum, but the shift in plot was making people giddy. For many this development marked what Shakespeare would have called a turning of the wheel, that moment in drama when a villains streak of luck runs out and the light of justice peeks out from behind pitch-black clouds. Send a case of champagne to the writers room. They have more than earned it. Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) October 2, 2020 The word karma was being bandied about on social media not so much in a spirit of schadenfreude as in relief that a traditional storytelling arc was at long last asserting itself. The bad guy has a habit of stealing the show, but if theres no comeuppance, if the transgressor continues to get away with murder, exhaustion is inevitable. Reckonings can be postponed but only for so long. But how could anyone be sure that were in the last act of a single play and not in a multipart epic? Or might this be a tragicomedy a la Chekhov, where a gun glimpsed early on is eventually used to settle a score but doesnt actually hit its target? In this scenario, Trump, who expresses derision for public health safety measure like masks, is infected with the virus but only gets mildly ill and then uses his bully pulpit to espouse the notion that the pandemic has been a Democratic hoax designed to unseat him. Nothing changes because were in a genre that is comfortable ending on a note of mournful irony. Yet political entities with nuclear arsenals at their disposal arent usually characters in Chekhovian plots. Their lives are too consequential. Best to leave the existential musing to those with nothing to do all day but ruminate on missed chances. Television, the medium that launched Trumps political trajectory and temporarily replenished his broken bank accounts, would seem to be a more obvious source of dramatic templates. The only problem is that his presidential series has been jumping the shark from Day 1. This hyperactive drama, with a cast that includes a brainy porn star, an unhinged ex-mayor, spoiled brat children and a rogues' gallery of felons, would be considered too much by even Netflix's freewheeling standards. Realism, a dramatic style that coincided with the rise of middle-class audiences eager to see reflections of themselves onstage, has conditioned us to expect behavior to fall within reasonable norms. This is why Trump comes across as such an unrealistic character. Biden called him a clown at the debate, and whatever you might think of the former vice presidents flash of impatience, a circus would have been a more plausible context for Trumps act. The president was born for extremity, making it difficult to place him in the correct dramatic universe. Ive looked to Shakespeare and Sophocles for answers. Among friends, Ive traded comparisons with The Sopranos. Reality TV has been the default analogy. But the truth is that we have been living the last four years on the metabolism of Twitter. The state of alarm has been continual since Trump took office. Structural limits have proved to be as flimsy as his border wall. Anything can happen at any time. The only mode that can be discerned is accretion, a flooding of the zone so that nothing can be properly weighed or valued. With sensation mainlined into our veins through our phones and laptops, art has little chance of keeping pace. Our attention spans are shattered. As soon as we learned that Trump has COVID-19, we were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was this a ruse? Would he be incapacitated? What about Vice President Mike Pence and Biden and Coney Barretts confirmation? More, more, more, more, more. As exhausted as we are, were still hitting refresh. Were addicted, but I think if Trump loses it will be because fewer Americans have the stamina for The Donald Trump Show. A sober Biden rerun is just what the rehab doctor ordered. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Easter Sunday attacks: Cardinal raps police for release of Rishads brother, alleges political deal View(s): The Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith yesterday questioned as to how the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had released suspects it had earlier claimed were directly linked to the masterminds of the Easter Sunday terror attacks without subjecting them to judicial process. Addressing a news conference at the Archbishops House, Cardinal Ranjith expressed his sorrow, sadness and complete refusal to accept the conduct of the CID regarding the investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks. His comments followed the CID this week releasing Riyad Bathiudeen, brother of former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, after five months in custody. At the time of his arrest on April 14, the police had claimed Mr. Bathiudeen had direct links to the plotters. Alluding to the developments, the Cardinal noted that some of the suspects whom the CID had earlier alleged had close connection with terror leaders and were even involved in business ventures with them, had suddenly become Saints and been released. Five months ago, they said that there was plenty of evidence to show that the suspect directly associated with the Easter Sunday plotters. The CID even told us that it had phone records between the suspect and the plotters. How can it now say it has no evidence? he questioned. He added that the actions are completely contrary to the assurances given to us by the rulers and also smack of a political deal. Police Spokesman Jaliya Senaratne defended the actions of the police. He told the Sunday Times that though the suspect had been arrested due to suspicion regarding his links to the Easter attack plotters, investigations conducted over five months had shown that there was no evidence to link him to those involved. If the CID finds new evidence to link him to the case, he will be rearrested, SSP Senaratne said. The Minister for Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah says the current COVID -19 tests at the airport must be celebrated and not attacked. The minister also announced that the government has no plans of suspending the tests at the airport, changing the company, or suspending the contract. According to him, the company Health Frontiers, as contracted by the airport company Limited is providing a critical service that protects the 30million Ghanaians from the importation of cases. Mr. Nkrumah was responding to claims by the Minority questioning the operations of the company tasked to perform that duty. We are very satisfied with their tests which have helped prevent 50 cases from getting into the general population as of the end of September 2020. It will be irresponsible of us to tinker with the successes being achieved so far he said. The Information Minister who is also the MP for Ofoase Ayirebi rubbished claims by the Minority questioning the credibility of the company providing the service at the airport. Their services were well procured, their standards meet global requirements and we have no qualms with them. If indeed the minority wants answers to questions, they know the appropriate place to file those questions as parliament resumes. He said It was sad that the NDC has at every turn sought to play politics with the management of COVID 19. Their scare tactics, calls to parents to withdraw wards from schools and attacks on government have all failed. This is the latest page in their book of cooked up controversies he stated. The Minority Caucus in Parliament has called for the immediate suspension of the ongoing COVID-19 testing at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA). The Caucus has also questioned the viability of the contract awarded to a private company, Frontiers Health Care Limited, and called for its termination. Speaking at a news conference in Accra on Thursday, 1 October 2020, the Minority spokesman on health and ranking member committee on health, who is also the member of Parliament (MP) for Juaboso, Hon. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh urged the government to engage the services of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research to carry out the COVID-19 tests instead of contracting a private institution whose charges are higher. We, in the Minority, have suggested to the government to utilize the services of Noguchi, who have spearheaded the testing of COVID-19 cases in our country since this pandemic took its course, instead of contracting a private institution whose charges are higher, he noted. Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The U.S. Supreme Court opens its new term next week in a swirl of uncertainty, amid a new justice's politicized confirmation battle and a divisive presidential election the court might have to resolve. The death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ushered in President Donald Trump's third nomination to the court, Amy Coney Barrett, and the prospect she may tip the balance further toward conservatives in time to decide election-related disputes. The docket already is a meaty one, highlighted by a bid to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a high-stakes clash between religious and gay rights, a battle stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and multibillion-dollar disputes involving Google, Oracle Corp., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On top of that could come a showdown over the Nov. 3 presidential election, with Barrett in place if Senate Republicans meet their aggressive timetable for confirmation. The court already is being hit with pre-election skirmishes over the rules for casting and counting ballots in the contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. "Everybody's kind of on a hair trigger on both sides of the aisle filing litigation this year about the election," said Paul Smith, vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for expanding voting rights. Trump has spent months laying the groundwork for a legal fight, claiming despite limited evidence that mail-in voting will produce widespread fraud. Though the court can operate with only eight justices, Trump says it needs nine in time to decide any election cases. "I'm counting on them to look at the ballots, definitely," Trump said at Tuesday night's debate. "I hope we don't need them in terms of the election itself." Election-related cases could arrive in many forms. This week Pennsylvania Republicans asked the court for an emergency order blocking the state from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day. More than 200 lawsuits have already been filed testing how to hold an election during a pandemic, with key fights raging in the pivotal states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida. After the election, one side could challenge state results and create a sequel to Bush v. Gore, the 2000 Supreme Court case that put Republican George W. Bush in the White House by blocking continuing Florida recounts. Or the court may have to referee the electoral vote count fight that formally determines who is sworn in Jan. 20. In a concession to the coronavirus, the justices will again hear arguments by telephone with live audio release, at least in October. The court held remote arguments for the first time in its history in May. A more certain fight is set for a week after the election, when Republican-led states and the Trump administration will argue for invalidating the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Republicans have tried repeatedly to kill the 2010 measure, also known as Obamacare. The Supreme Court upheld the law's core in 2012 in a 5-4 decision centering on closely related issues. The fight turned on the individual mandate, an ACA provision that originally required people to acquire health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said the individual mandate was a legitimate use of Congress's taxing power. A Republican-controlled Congress later joined with Trump to zero-out the tax penalty, leaving the mandate without any practical consequences. Republican-led states then sued. They now argue that, without the tax penalty, Roberts's rationale for upholding the individual mandate no longer applies. And the Republicans say the mandate is so integral to the law, even without any penalty attached to it, that the court now must strike down the whole thing. Paul Clement, the lawyer who argued against the law in 2012, said opponents "have a very uphill battle" in seeking to invalidate the entire law. Both Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh have said courts generally should be reluctant to strike down a whole statute because of a constitutional flaw in one provision. Still, Barrett's potential involvement could give Trump and the Republican-led states a boost. She criticized Roberts's reasoning in the 2012 case as pushing the law's text "beyond its plausible meaning." The day after the election, the court will consider what could be a major religious-rights case. The question is whether Catholic Social Services can be excluded from participation in Philadelphia's foster-care system because the group won't work with same-sex couples. A federal appeals court said Philadelphia, which contracts with private charities to screen potential foster families, could enforce a city anti-discrimination law. The case raises issues the court sidestepped in the 2018 case of a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. Like the Philadelphia clash, the Colorado dispute tested the intersection of religious rights and equal treatment. The Roberts court has consistently backed religious rights, doing so three times in the term that ended in July. The court might rule for the Catholic group without reaching the biggest issues, said Marty Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown Law Center in Washington. Lederman said he expects "there will be many justices who are inclined to find a way to rule for Catholic Social Services, even though I think the city ought to win on the facts of the case." A Dec. 2 argument centers on a lower court order that would require the Justice Department to give the House redacted parts of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, along with underlying grand jury transcripts and exhibits. The Supreme Court in July ensured that Democrats won't get pre-election access to the material, blocking the order while the justices hear the appeal. The House Judiciary Committee sought the records as part of its impeachment inquiry last year. Trump was impeached on different grounds by the Democratic-controlled House before being acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate this year. As with several cases this term, the Mueller fight could look very different should Biden win the Nov. 3 election. His Justice Department potentially could make the case moot by turning over the materials if he takes office in January. The justices on Dec. 9 will consider whether investors can challenge the 2012 agreements that let the federal government collect hundreds of billions of dollars of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's profits. The Trump administration is appealing a ruling that would force the government to defend against a shareholder lawsuit. The investors say the agreements exceed the authority of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates the two mortgage giants. A ruling in the investors' favor would give them a chance to collect a massive settlement. Fannie and Freddie have paid more than $300 billion in dividends to the Treasury under the so-called net-worth sweep. The business-heavy term will also feature: - Google's appeal of a ruling that the company improperly used Oracle's copyrighted programming code in the Android operating system. Oracle says it's entitled to at least $8.8 billion in damages. The case, set for argument Oct. 7, promises to reshape the legal protections for software code. - A Dec. 1 case that could give companies a broader shield against lawsuits by victims of overseas atrocities. Nestle SA's U.S. unit and Cargill Inc. are urging the court to end a suit that accuses them of complicity in the use of child slavery on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast. - A Dec. 8 argument on a lawsuit that accuses Facebook of sending unwanted text messages in violation of federal law. The case will clarify what types of technologies are covered by a 1991 law that bans unsolicited robocalls to mobile phones. The Travelling Swimburys delivering the proceeds of their swim, 20,000, to four local charities on Sunday A group of swimmers who set themselves a fundraising target of 7,500 ended up raising an impressive sum of 20,000 to be shared between four charities. The month of July say the Travelling Swimburys take on the challenge of swimming virtually around Wicklow Harbour as the crow flies over a 30 day period. They set up an iDonate page in order to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland, Pieta, The Gavin Glynn Foundation, Wicklow Cancer Support. The Travelling Swimburys completed a 1500km trip around Ireland and to Arklow and back. The swim was the brainchild of Rebecca Harris. On Sunday the swimmers all gathered at the seafront in Wicklow town to make presentations to their four charities of choice. All the funds raised will go directly to the four charities. A generous donation from Ballyhenry Angus beef helped bring the figure up to 20,000. 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 Singh Rajput's death 'a case of hanging and death by suicide': AIIMS India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Oct 03: The AIIMS'' medical board has ruled out murder in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, terming it "a case of hanging and death by suicide", the premier institute''s forensic chief Dr Sudhir Gupta said on Saturday. In its conclusive medico-legal opinion to the CBI, the six-member team of forensic doctors has dismissed the claims of "poisoning and strangling" made in the case of Singh''s death. "It is a case of hanging and death by suicide. We have submitted our conclusive report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)," Dr Gupta, who is also the chairman of the forensic medical board, said. Sushant Singh Rajput case: Abetment to suicide not ruled out There was no injury on the body other than that of hanging. Also, there was no mark of struggle and scuffle, he said but refused to divulge any further details stating the case is subjudice. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Rajput, 34, who made his silver screen debut in the critically acclaimed "Kai Po Che" seven years ago, was found dead in his apartment in suburban Bandra in Mumbai on June 14. The CBI had taken over the probe from Bihar Police into the alleged abetment to suicide case filed by the actor''s father K K Singh in Patna against Rajput''s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family. Earlier this week, the central probe agency had said that it has not reached any conclusion in Rajput''s death case and that all aspects were under investigation. The controversy regarding Badgers and TB in cows and cattle has rumbled on for years and debate is likely to continue for some time to come. Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a highly infectious disease that affects mainly the lungs and airways of cows and cattle. The disease is caused by a species of bacterium. An animal with the disease releases bacteria into the air through coughing and sneezing thereby spreading the disease to uninfected animals. It follows that animal density is a major factor in the transmission of the disease so the fact that cows and cattle are farmed in large numbers in close contact helps the disease to spread rapidly. Bovine TB bacteria in the air can infect wildlife and people but the risk of they further spreading the disease is low; the main exception in Ireland is the Badger where the risk of spill-back from these spill-over hosts is high. Badgers pick up the disease from cattle and since they are sociable animals that live in small groups they spread it to others in their clan and they can go on to spread it back to uninfected cows and cattle. A farmer with a disease-free herd is understandably angry when his or her animals get infected by a diseased Badger foraging at night in the heretofore disease-free farm. The immediate reaction is to usually a call to cull the Badgers that are spreading the disease. While Badgers are protected animals under the Wildlife Acts 1976 to 2012, it is believed that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has culled over 100,000 Badgers to date to try to control the spread of bovine TB. The Irish Wildlife Trust reports that in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, 5,614 Badgers were trapped and shot. In addition to shooting, the Department has an active programme to conserve the animals via vaccination. The long-term goal is to eradicate bovine TB from Ireland. Some other countries have successfully got rid of the disease, so eradication is achievable. Annual flareups aside, progress is being made and an ongoing decline in bovine tuberculosis in Ireland is slowly being achieved. However, additional measures are needed if the rate of decline is to be maintained or accelerated. Badgers are just one brick in the wall of issues that need to be addressed in the complex quest to rid Ireland of a nasty and expensive disease. Burning embers cover the ground as firefighters battle against bushfires around the town of Nowra in the Australian state of New South Wales on Dec. 31, 2019. (SAEED KHAN/Getty Images) Large Dangerous and Uncontrolled Bushfire Threatening Lives and Homes in Far North Queensland A large dangerous and uncontrolled bushfire is threatening lives and homes in far north Queensland, with residents told to leave immediately. The Queensland Fire and Emergency Services is fighting a blaze travelling on both sides of Oakey Creek Road in Cooktown, north of Cairns. Conditions are very dangerous and firefighters may soon be unable to prevent the fire advancing, the leave immediately alert issue warns. The fire poses a threat to all lives directly in its path, it says. You should not expect a firefighter at your door: act now. QFES says the fire is expected to reach multiple properties and have a significant impact on the community. Power, water and mobile phone service may be lost and road conditions may become very dangerous over the next several hours. People in the area will be affected by smoke, which will reduce visibility and air quality. Tiffanie Turnbull in Brisbane Canada affirms strong trade ties with Vietnam (Photo: Vietnam Briefing) Hanoi - A comprehensive trade agreement between Canada and ASEAN will help Vietnam fully tap opportunities offered by free trade agreements and promote the positive impacts of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in areas of common interests, a Canadian official has said. Kendal Hembroff, General Director for Trade Policy and Negotiations at the Global Affairs Canada (GAC), made the statement at a webinar hosted by the Canada-Vietnam Trade Council on October 1. She highlighted strong trade ties between Canada and Vietnam, saying that these relations were built on the foundation of good people-to-people exchanges. Vietnam is currently Canada's largest trading partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with a two-way trade hitting 7.98 billion CAD (6.01 billion USD) in 2019. After one year of implementing the CPTPP, Vietnam's export turnover to Canada increased by 29.7 percent, while Canada's export value to Vietnam also rose strongly, especially for meat and for cereal which recorded 230.7 and 61.2 percent growth. Addressing the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to Canada Pham Cao Phong spotlighted the fact that while the worlds trade flows decreased sharply in the first six months of 2020, Vietnam-Canada trade still kept its upward trend though it grew just by 0.1 percent. Vietnam is now in the top 10 importers of seafood from Canada, he said, with its advantage as a FTA hub in the Asia-Pacific, Vietnam will serve as a bridge to help Canadian goods and services access the 660 million-strong ASEAN market, as well as to other important markets in the region. In return, Canada may be a gateway for Vietnamese products to penetrate other markets in America, Phong said. Julie Nguyen, Director of the Canada-Vietnam Trade Council, said economic cooperation is becoming an issue of great concern of the two countries, especially when relevant parties are exploring the possibility of signing a Canada-ASEAN free trade agreement, and Vietnam is successfully taking over its role as ASEAN Chairman this year. Canada along with four ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, are members of the CPTPP. The North American country and the bloc are implementing the Plan of Action within the Canada-ASEAN Joint Declaration on Trade and Investment. In the context of Canada-ASEAN growing trade ties, Canadian experts said that it is necessary to establish a structure to facilitate growth and adapt to new trends and challenges in international trade and investment. The Canada-ASEAN FTA is expected to lay a solid foundation for promoting commitments and cooperation between the two sides. Frankie Dettori riding Enable wins the 97th Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Paris Longchamp in 2018 - their second win in Europe's richest race By James Toney Back in France and hoping it's not all a case of deja vu, Enable and her smitten jockey Frankie Dettori will always have Paris, regardless of what drama unfolds there this Sunday. Twelve months ago the superstar mare and her dashing but greying jockey lined up at Longchamp in a bid to win an unprecedented third straight Prix de LArc de Triomphe, Europe's greatest racing prize. It was set to be the final race of a storied career but in a stamina test on energy-sapping soft ground, Enable finished a narrow second to prove that fairytales only happen in the movies. Days later, connections confirmed she'd race on as a six-year old, an age most mares are contemplating motherhood rather than tilting at history. Immediately October 4th was circled in the diary - a hopefully glorious encore to last year's soggy ending under a leaden and drizzly Parisian sky. And while so much is different from back then - 1,000 will get the chance to witness history rather than 45,000 - so much is the same. The weather is equally grim and Dettori is equally nervous. Also in the autumn of his career, he turns 50 in December, this could be one last ride of a lifetime. "I want her to be remembered as one of the greats and I just get emotional talking about her, a lump comes in my throat and the tears start to well," said Dettori. "I've ridden a lot of horses but she's the one for me, I cannot explain how much she means, you just can't put it into words. "Now weve got another chance and it would be the greatest feeling to take it. I don't know how long I've got in my career but I know I'll never find another like her. When I can't ride her again it'll be such a blow to me emotionally, she's like nothing else I've ever sat on. "She's the cleverest horse in the world, she's one way out on the gallops at home and another on the race track - she just knows when it matters. I think it hurts her as much to lose as it hurts me and all her fans. "Everything this season has been about this day. She's a different horse to three years ago but in many ways she's stronger. Time will tell, so let's roll the dice again. Story continues "She has stayed in training for one reason and one reason only, let's just see what happens and try to enjoy the moment." A mare in a million... Enable has won our hearts and is only days from a mesmeric third Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe tilt! pic.twitter.com/gMkPUSIeNi At The Races (@AtTheRaces) October 1, 2020 Jockeys aren't known for being sentimental types but Dettori looked crestfallen and flatter than a Crepe Suzette last year. He was still greeted like a winner in the parade ring but there was no flying dismount and no broad grin. And, in a surely predictable twist, this time his closest rival could be another horse he dotes on, the chestnut colt Stradivarius, also trained by John Gosden, who Dettori rode to three Gold Cups at Royal Ascot. "I can't believe I'm riding this horse four times in this special race, just to get her back here again is an achievement," he added. "The two hours after last years Arc were the longest two hours of my riding career. You could feel all the expectation because she's loved by everyone and we came so close. I actually dont feel as nervous because now she has been beaten, it does take a bit of pressure off. "There's a lot of rain forecast and that will put a premium on stamina, so Strad is a big danger because he's a stayer and he'll certainly handle the soft ground." Exceptional insight from an exceptional trainer - John Gosden explains how Enable has trained for the 2020 Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe! #QPAT pic.twitter.com/UjPmvbMuMH At The Races (@AtTheRaces) October 3, 2020 Master trainer Gosden said after last year's race that he knew his stable star was beaten the moment he walked the track in the morning. This time around, his predictions are similarly downbeat - indeed his pre-race quotes are a racing equivalent of a Gallic shrug. C'est la vie. "She's a classy filly and it's hard to show your brilliance on a surface that is likely to turn it into a slog. It's the same for everyone but we know she wants the easy side of good ground - and we aren't getting that," he said. "I can assure you that defeat is a strong likelihood on this ground." Whether Gosden is managing expectations or being brutally honest remains to be seen, though Enable's place in the pantheon of legends is already secure, regardless of what unfolds over 150 heart thumping seconds at the Bois de Boulogne. The head tells you to be realistic but screw statistics and common sense and embrace pure and undiluted sentiment. The heart wins this - and hopefully Enable and Dettori will follow. As ephemeral as space and as fundamental as gravity, time is an aspect of this universe that cannot be felt, only experienced through its cumulative passage. In his latest book, On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping, author Ken Mondschein, traces societys continued attempts at ever more accurate timekeeping first via the observation of the stars, followed by sun dials, mechanical clocks, and onto modern atomic devices and how the Western world would not exist in the technological state it does today without the ongoing efforts to bisect our notion of time into continually smaller, more regular intervals. In the excerpt below, Mondschein recalls the tragedy that befell Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and his 21-ship armada at the cliffs of Scilly. But out of this loss of life came a new technology, the chronometer, which would prove vital in preventing similar future tragedies as well as helped European colonists spread both themselves and their notions of timekeeping across the worlds oceans. on time On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping by Ken Mondschein (Copyright 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press) Punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes. Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton History loves winners, but sometimes its the losers who are more interesting. Take, for instance, the tragedy that befell Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell one autumn evening in 1707 off the rocky Isles of Scilly, which lie 28 miles (45 kilometers) off Cornwall in the southwestern corner of Great Britain. Shovell, commander in chief of the British fleet, was returning from attacking the French navy with a flotilla of 21 ships. Though their mission had gone well, the British were beset with storms on the return voyage and went badly off course. The standard route would have taken them past the Island of Ushant (French: Ile dOuessant), the traditional marker for the southern end of the English Channel; through the Channel; and then up the Thames and to London. On the night of October 22 (by the Julian calendar), Shovell and his men thought themselves safely west of Ushant. However, owing to the foul weather and the impossibility of determining their exact position with navigational techniques of the day he was actually on a collision course with Scilly. Four ships Shovells flagship Association, the Eagle, the Romney, and the Firebrand ran aground on the rocks and quickly sank. In all, about 1,500 sailors and marines were lost, with only one crew member from the Romney and 12 from the Firebrand surviving. The commander was among the dead: the bodies of Shovell and his two stepsons washed up on a beach some 7 miles (11 kilometers) away a day later. Story continues This tragedy affected Great Britain in several ways. First, Shovell was given a state burial in Westminster Abbey and treated as a national hero. Second, as they are wont to, stories and legends grew up around the disaster. One held that Shovell washed up alive, but a beach combing Scilly native murdered him for his emerald ring.This might have some basis in reality, since Shovell was indeed missing his ring, but he was also highly unlikely to have survived very long in the frigid water. Another, less likely legend is that a common sailor from Scilly warned Shovell that they were off course and would run aground, but the low-ranking mariner was ignored (or, worse, punished). This is plainly impossible, since all hands on the Association were lost and no one could have related the tale. But the fact that the story was considered credible shows that navigation at sea was reckoned more an art than a science which brings us to the third, and more lasting result of the Scilly disaster: in 1714, Parliament offered a prize of 20,000 for anyone inventing a foolproof means of determining longitude at sea. Specifically, it offered 10,000 for a method accurate to within one degree, 15,000 for 2/3 of a degree, and the full 20,000 for a method accurate to 1/2 degree. This was an enormous sum for the time equivalent to tens of millions of dollars in todays money, though direct comparisons are impossible. This princely reward was still deemed a bargain by those who offered it. Seafaring was the lifeblood of nations in the early modern world, but it was fraught with danger. Ships carried gold from the New World to Spain; enslaved human beings from Africa to the New World; tea and spices from Asia to England and the Netherlands; and explorers, missionaries, merchants, colonists, soldiers, and administrators to secure their mother countries hold on their new territories. However, for lack of a means to precisely determine a ships position, sea voyages could be extended by weeks or months, dooming sailors to slow death by scurvy, starvation, or thirst as their captains searched fruitlessly for land. This ignorance was militarily disadvantageous, as well: needing to keep to known shipping channels, Spanish galleons could easily be intercepted by British privateers. Finally, as the case of the unfortunate Cloudesley Shovell shows, there was the ever-present danger of running aground at night or in foul weather. All of this was for sailors inability to determine their exact position, which requires knowing the longitude. The means by which this technical challenge came to be solved by John Harrison, a self-educated man from an obscure background, is well known: Dava Sobel explains his invention of the chronometer thoroughly and entertainingly in her book Longitude. (The term chronometer, meaning a really accurate clock suitable for navigation, was coined by the German academic Matthias Wasmuth in 1684.) I, however, think the story is more interesting if its told from the opposite direction not as the heroic tale of a lone, revolutionary genius who overturned centuries of thought but as a story about hard-working experts laboring collaboratively over long years. This is, after all, the more usual means by which scientific knowledge creeps forward. In this case, the experts put their faith in a means of determining longitude that did not rely on tried-and-true astronomical observations and, ultimately, they succeeded in their task. While the myth of the lone genius is a much more appealing narrative, it is also a misleading one. Though the chronometer represents the triumph of simplicity over complexity and thus exemplifies our themes of precision, accuracy, and ease of use in the end, the more informative story may not be Harrisons but that of his great opponent, Nevil Maskelyne, who championed the more complicated astronomical lunar-distance system. Despite the fact that the chronometer eventually replaced the lunar distance system, Maskelyne was influential to the history of timekeeping in a way that was arguably more important: he was instrumental in establishing Greenwich mean time as the standard against which all other times were to be compared. The local time at sea or in part of a far-flung colonial empire wasnt the most important time to know; rather, what was the most important was the time in an arbitrary location back in England as indicated by the face of a clock. Whats more, this time wasnt taken from looking at the sun or stars at whatever location you happened to be in, but rather it was an imaginary, corrected standard time Newtons absolute time made flesh. By comparing the local time against this imaginary time, you found your position on the globe. In short, universal Newtonian time was something European colonizers projected over the whole world. The chronometer was a necessary device for keeping this time, but arguably, it was the mental concept that was more important. This chapter will first look at the history of the longitude problem, followed by the controversy about how to solve it, before turning to how the Industrial Revolution incorporated this practical Newtonianism to regulate society and the far-reaching effects of this development the world over. Much like ships at sea, the world of work and production for the entire human race increasingly came to be regulated by objective, independent, mechanical indicators of time that were divorced from any human perception or natural sign. This idea of time became albeit unevenly, with fits and starts the time the world ran on. A student or staffer at Elizabethtowns East High Street Elementary School has tested positive for the coronavirus, district officials announced Saturday. District officials said they were notified of the test results Friday evening. Those who came into close contact with this individual have already been notified, the district said. However, this case is not believed to be connected to others discovered in the district in recent weeks, according to a notice posted to the districts website. Every time we have a confirmed case of COVID-19 that impacts our schools we will share as much information as we can with all of our families district-wide, the district said. We are sending our best wishes to this member of our school community. East High Street Elementary will be disinfected and deep-cleaned, but will not close, officials said. The district said prompt communication with parents has helped quickly complete contact tracing when a positive case crops up. An individual at Bear Creek School tested positive for the virus last week. One case each was found two weeks ago at Elizabethtowns middle and high schools. Our highest priority is the safety of our students, staff, and community members, the district said Saturday. Rest assured, we will remain vigilant in following the health protocols we have in place to keep our schools open for in-person instruction. READ MORE: How doctors are treating President Trumps coronavirus as he settles into Walter Reed hospital Will 2020s stress ever end? How Americans deal with pandemic, politics, economy, racism, more Eagles get stark reminder of coronavirus impact from Titans outbreak ahead of cross-country trip For over 180 years, the Senate has relied on the filibuster to prevent the tyranny of the majority. This forced senators to work things out rather than ride roughshod over each other. Democrats should be especially aware of the filibuster's virtues, given that their decision to do away with the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations means they cannot stop Amy Coney Barrett's nomination. Despite that, Democrats still want to do away with the filibuster entirely. Ezra Klein, at Vox, explains why: Democrats have a long list of hard-left initiatives they can achieve only by bulldozing them through with the smallest possible majority. To his credit, Klein is open about the Democrats' need to end the filibuster if Biden gets the White House and a Democrat Congress: Virtually everything Democrats have sworn to do honoring John Lewis's legacy by strengthening the right to vote, preserving the climate for future generations by decarbonizing America, ensuring no gun is sold without a background check, raising the minimum wage, implementing universal pre-K, ending dark money in politics, guaranteeing paid family leave, offering statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, reinvigorating unions, passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act hinges on this question. If Democrats decide and it is crucial to say that it would be a decision, a choice to leave the 60-vote threshold in place, that entire agenda, and far more beyond it, is dead. The above statement is an admission that 49% of the country does not want to "decarbonize America," an idea that will bring soaring energy prices, decreases in crop availabilities, expensive cars, and rolling blackouts, further limit gun sales, have the federal government involved in setting wages (as if there's no difference in the cost of living from Mississippi to California), put children in government hands even before kindergarten, "reinvigorate" unions so that taxpayers can overpay union employees who then funnel the money to Democrat politicians, and Grant statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, an act that guarantees a perpetual Democrat majority in Congress. The only thing that Klein left off the list is packing the Supreme Court. That was surprisingly discreet of him. However, we know from Biden's frantic refusal to answer the court-packing question at the debate (and Chris Wallace's willingness to let the issue drop) that, yes, the Democrats will pack the Supreme Court. Once that happens, we will no longer have an even marginally independent Judiciary. Instead, the Supreme Court will exist to rubber-stamp every leftist idea and initiative. The result of these efforts will be a nation governed as California is governed: one-party rule that has destroyed what was once the best state in America, for it once was a beautiful place that promised an economic opportunity to everyone who went there and was willing to put in the effort. California has turned into a medieval enclave in just a little over a generation, with a small oligarchy along the coast and an impoverished inland region. The state is plagued with rolling power outages, endless fires, a broken education system, an overburdened welfare system, insanely high taxes, urban streets under the control of homeless people with mental illness and substance abuse problems, out-of-control rents, and all the other ills that the Democrats have visited upon that once "golden" state. Klein's article purports to be an erudite look at all the reasons the filibuster should be removed. He includes several historically based analyses, including the fact that the Founders themselves envisioned simple majority rule. However, none of Klein's arguments acknowledges that a fully Democrat party government, should it come to pass, will be socialist. The Founding Fathers, who had their liberty-based revolution almost two decades before the French had their socialist revolution, could never have imagined Americans who craved total power over their fellow citizens, and whose fondest dream was the end of the American constitutional system. No matter how much Klein dresses things up, the hard-left modern Democrat party's desire to end the filibuster is a raw power play. Democrats no longer want to bother convincing a substantial majority of the American people to support the Californication of the United States of America. If you find unnerving the thought of Democrats with unlimited power, be sure that, on November 3, you mask up, go to the polls, and vote a straight Republican ticket, from Trump on down. Image: United States Congress (edited in Pixlr) by JessicaRodriguesRivas. CC BY-SA 4.0. Scientists have presented findings to Congress that report there are more red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico than previously known, information that could affect future management of the fishery. According to a summary by Chris Oliver, assistant fisheries administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the new information comes from the Great Red Snapper Count, a survey conducted by the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University. On Thursday, a team from the Harte Institute briefed members of Congress on their findings. First, the welcome news, wrote Oliver. (B)ased on this study, there are more red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico that previously thought, possibly up to three times as many. We can all agree thats a good thing. The Great Red Snapper Count began in 2016 when $10 million in federal funding was made available for a study. The goal for the two-year project was to create an independent estimate of the snapper population in the Gulf. The Harte Institute summed up the problem: Red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) is perhaps the most economically valuable and culturally relevant fishery in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The trends in fishing activity over the past 150 years have led to a depleted stock, which is now under a rebuilding plan. As the stock continues to show signs of recovery, fishermen are seeing more (and larger) red snapper in the population; however, the spawning potential of the population (the number of eggs produced by reproductively active females) is still lower than the rebuilding target. The conundrum caused by a population that is rapidly rebuilding, but has not yet met its rebuilding target (the biomass needed for long-term sustainable yield), has led to discontent among some user groups. Thats putting it mildly: Fishermen have chafed at tight limits on the number of days in the recreational snapper season and the number of fish an angler can bring home. Alabama had a limit of two fish per person per day this year, a limit that will again apply in an upcoming three-day extension of the recreational season. The accusation that regulators have been overly aggressive has made the issue into fertile territory for politicians. For years, anglers have argued that snapper have become increasingly abundant. While the Great Red Snapper Count backs that up, it also paints a more complex picture. The study distinguishes between high relief areas, meaning the natural and artificial reefs generally targeted by anglers, and low relief areas that are basically open terrain on the sea floor. Whats new is this study better estimates the red snapper living in the low relief/bottom habitat, such as sand or mud, Oliver wrote. "Those areas are very extensive, but have low fish per area so are not where the fishery typically operates. In fact, the study suggests that most of the Gulf red snapper population is located in these low relief areas. This confirms what some scientists, managers, and fishermen have long suspected, but did not have the means to prove until now. Historically, much of the Gulf red snapper stock assessment data comes from the fishery, he continued. The fishery occurs mostly on the high relief natural and artificial structures in the Gulf or from surveys conducted near those areas. And, while we suspected there were more fish out there, a study of this magnitude is unprecedented. The early results that more fish were found is not surprising given the scale of this effort and use of new, innovative technologies to count fish. What does that mean for future fishery management? Oliver said it may well mean changes, but they wont come overnight. While it is difficult to determine exactly how this study will influence red snapper management, we intend to incorporate study results into an interim stock assessment in 2021, he wrote. We will work with our partners on the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council and their Scientific and Statistical Committee to peer-review the assessment and make adjustments to red snapper management as appropriate. Its clear, however, that the new findings bolster the political case for a bigger snapper harvest. Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby said Friday via Twitter that he was proud to have led the efforts in Congress to fund the Great Red Snapper Count. He added, Hopefully this data will allow for more #RedSnapper fishing opportunities in the Gulf. Im proud to have led the efforts in Congress to fund the Great Red Snapper Count. Preliminary results show there are 3X the amount of #RedSnapper in the Gulf of Mexico as previously estimated. Hopefully this data will allow for more #RedSnapper fishing opportunities in the Gulf. https://t.co/mpJzrrQ1Gv Richard Shelby (@SenShelby) October 2, 2020 Ala. Rep. Bradley Byrne likewise said hed been instrumental in funding the study and said its an antidote to poor federal data on the fishery stock. The Great Red Snapper Count will make clear what fishermen and scientists across the Gulf Coast have long known federal data has consistently been wrong and undercounted the true snapper fishery, Byrne said. I am confident this new data will show that we can increase opportunities for snapper fishermen without danger to the health of our fishery. I am proud to continue fighting federal bureaucrats for Alabama to have the flexibility to make the best decisions to protect our fisheries, and it is now the responsibility of the Gulf Council to use this new and more accurate data to assure that everyone along the Gulf has a rational and appropriate season. There are plenty of fish for everyone. According to Byrnes statement, results of the count will be released to the public later this year. According to information released on Linkedin by the German company Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft (FFG), the company has unveiled its new 8x8 armored vehicle technology demonstrator called Genesis, fitted with a fully hybrid diesel-electric drive system. Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link New FFG Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft Genesis 8x8 armored vehicle technology demonstrator with a fully hybrid diesel-electric drive system. (Picture source @Ninja998998 Twitter account) Today, several studies and demonstrator projects dealing with electric and hybrid electric vehicles were carried out in the United States and Europe, both in the military and the commercial sectors. Hybrid combat vehicles could provide many benefits for armed forces. Automotive performance of hybrid electric vehicles in terms of speed, acceleration, grade ability and stealthy operations is superior to the performance of mechanically driven vehicles. Hybrid electric drive systems provide better fuel economy than their mechanical counterparts due to the use of optimum engine performance and energy recovery during braking. Energy storage onboard hybrid electric vehicles can support silent watch operations and also electric weapon stations such as directed energy laser weapons. Citing the European Security and Defense Website, the new Genesis 8x8 armored vehicle technology demonstrator from the German Company FFG (Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft) was presented at the Forderkreis Heer Symposium Current Challenges and Perspectives of Medium-Sized Defense Technology Companies as a Driver for Capability Maintenance and Technology Innovation that was held from 22nd to 23rd September at the FFG premises in Flensburg. The Genesis was developed to provide a modular concept similar to the German-made Boxer 8x8 armored vehicle using a platform/drive-line and a removable mission module. The vehicle is powered by a hybrid diesel/electric powerpack located at the front of the vehicle. Hybrid/diesel-electric propulsion is the technology where a diesel internal combustion engine drives a generator to produce energy for an electric motor in a vehicle. The significant onboard energy storage system can be used to meet silent watch requirements for extended periods of time for various missions. Depending on the power requirements of the silent watch, a mission can be extended over a few hours. Silent mobility over a limited distance is also achievable where the vehicle can move in or out of hostile territory with a reduced chance of being detected. The FFG Genesis Technology Demonstrator was configured to be used as IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) with a Kongsberg unmanned turret armed with one 30mm automatic cannon. It has a crew of three including the driver, commander, and gunner, and the rear of the vehicle can accommodate up to 10 infantrymen. Using the electronic propulsion, the Genesis has a cruising range from 40 to 150 km. With the diesel engine, the vehicle can reach a maximum road speed up to 100 km/h with a maximum cruising range of 600 km. It has a combat weight of 40 tons, with a length of 8.25 m, a width of 2.25 m, and a height of 2.40 m. Michael Kavanagh, chief executive of the ACOI, said this month's Budget for 2021 will be a "landmark" budget for the country.(stock photo) More than half of compliance officers in financial institutions across Ireland believe the upcoming Budget should be a cautionary one, but 39pc say it should be expansionary, with tax cuts and spending commitments, according to a recent survey. The survey of almost 300 members of the Association of Compliance Officers of Ireland (ACOI), found that 35pc of them believe the implications of Brexit and Covid-19 will have an equal impact on their businesses in 2021. The surveyed members are primarily employed at large financial services firms around the country. Michael Kavanagh, chief executive of the ACOI, said this month's Budget for 2021 will be a "landmark" budget for the country. "At the beginning of this year, the Government expected to spend somewhere around 70bn, but the latest figures suggest we are actually heading towards 86bn," he said, adding that the country faces into the Budget with a significant deficit. "Unlike the recession of 2008, the Government cannot use austerity as the tool with which to address the deficit caused by the pandemic," said Mr Kavanagh. While the more than a third of respondents see Brexit and Covid as equal dual threats, 11pc said Brexit is the single biggest threat facing their businesses in 2021. At the moment, it appears that a hard Brexit is on the cards for January, when the UK's transition period from its former EU membership ends. But Mr Kavanagh said a study from the Economic and Social Research Institute suggests that it's unlikely that the financial services sector would suffer a double blow from the coronavirus outbreak and Brexit, because the pandemic hasn't hit the sector as badly as others. "However, this is a sector that could potentially be highly exposed to a hard Brexit," he said. "So perhaps, based on this, firms should be cautious not to become overly focused on Covid to the detriment of their Brexit preparations." The ACOI survey found that 74pc of members support cutting the rate of capital gains tax from 33pc to 20pc. "Whatever way Government goes about compensating for the damage done to the Exchequer by Covid and preparing for the disruption by Brexit, it's clear that new approaches need to be taken in order to try stabilise job losses and safeguard the economy," said Mr Kavanagh. Work on a massive mixed-use development across Broadway from the Pearl complex is expected to start soon. GrayStreet Partners wants to convert over 20 acres it has amassed in the fast-changing Government Hill neighborhood into a blend of multifamily housing, retail and hospitality space, offices and outdoor plazas. The San Antonio firm is teaming up with Midway, a Houston company that developed CityCentre and GreenStreet there along with other mixed-use projects. The 1.6 million-square-foot development bounded roughly by Broadway, Grayson, Casa Blanca and Oleander streets is being called Broadway East, according to a recent presentation to the Midtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone board. It is expected to cost $560.8 million and will be constructed in phases over a decade. The first phase will include office and retail space and a 380-unit multifamily complex. This is a total transformation of the area, Peter French, GrayStreets director of development, told the board. On ExpressNews.com: W Hotel in the works for downtown San Antonio GrayStreet plans to request a phased TIRZ and Chapter 380 agreement of $20.5 million. The TIRZ reimburses developers for public improvements, paid for out of property tax revenue. Infrastructure upgrades for Broadway East will include new streets, bike lanes, sidewalks, drainage and other infrastructure work for Broadway East, according to the presentation. The firm plans to extend Pearl Parkway into Government Hill. GrayStreet plans to ask for $8.9 million for the first phase of the project. The goal is to have an agreement for the TIRZ board to consider before the end of the year. The developers want to begin the infrastructure work this fall, French said. Theres been a significant amount of disinvestment in this area over the preceding decades, so we have literally crumbling sidewalks when they exist, he said. It has to be improved top to bottom. The firm predicts tax revenue including property, sales and hotel occupancy taxes from 2020 through 2030 will total $163 million. It also expects Broadway East to create about 9,000 construction-related jobs and support 2,600 jobs when finished. French said rent increases on a percentage of apartments at Broadway East will be capped based on the Consumer Price Index. He said the company also plans to build some smaller units in the $1,200 to $1,400 price range and to set up an annual fund to support affordable housing and community activities. On ExpressNews.com: Skyline: Competition focuses on downtown shade ideas Ramiro Gonzales, a Midtown TIRZ board member, noted that the reinvestment zones are increasingly being evaluated as potential solutions to mitigate displacement and affordable housing. Gonzales said he would be interested in a lower reimbursement for GrayStreet so more of the funds could be retained by the TIRZ and used for affordable housing programs. Lynn Knapik, another board member, asked whether the developers plan to work with the San Antonio Housing Authority or the San Antonio Housing Trust. French said no. He also said the firm doesnt plan to tear down any homes for its project, and four houses on its properties have been moved to preserve them. GrayStreet started buying properties around the Pearl over five years ago, understanding the tremendous value and opportunity that was present in the midtown district, French said. The Broadway East site includes about 14 acres GrayStreet bought from the San Antonio Independent School District. The firm also purchased Project MENDs downtown headquarters and donated land on the Northwest Side for the nonprofit medical equipment suppliers new home base. The Government Hill neighborhood is growing, as residents drawn to its historic homes and proximity to the Pearl move in. French cited Museum Reach, Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, colleges and universities in the area, the extension of Broadway and parks as factors in the areas appeal. On ExpressNews.com: GrayStreet is buying San Antonios former Lone Star Brewery complex Rose Hill, who leads the Government Hill Alliance Neighborhood Association, said the group supports the Broadway East project. It will bring green space, retail, jobs and economic development, which we desperately need, she said. This is going to enhance our neighborhood, Hill added. GrayStreet also is working on other projects in the urban core. The firm is building a 20-story tower at Broadway and Newell Ave. with a W Hotel location and office space. It also is renovating the San Antonio Light building for office and retail space and refurbishing the Grant and Kress buildings on Houston Street for co-working giant WeWork. GrayStreet purchased the former Lone Star Brewery complex this spring and is partnering with Midway on plans to turn the roughly 32-acre property into a mixed-use development. madison.iszler@express-news.net Australian workers are saving their sick leave by working from home while ill during the coronavirus pandemic, latest figures show. Australian Bureau of Statistics absenteeism figures show the amount of sick leave taken fell dramatically from April through to August. In April, absenteeism fell by 30 per cent compared with the same month last year. People are not using their sick leave as they just keep on working when unwell from the comfort of their couches, new figures suggest This was when people had begun working from home in earnest, and pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants were shut during the first round of coronavirus closures. The drop continued through May when 37 per cent fewer personal leave days were taken than the previous year. The trend continued through June, with a 32 per cent fall, July down 21 per cent and August down 19 per cent. Australia's Public Service Commission revealed on Friday that sick leave has fallen from 3.2 days per worker to 2.3 days from April to June. Physical blue-collar workers have been showing up at levels above those in previous years, possibly because the threat of joblessness makes them concerned for their employment. Sick leave management company Direct Health Solutions' Paul Dundon said he had seen a large fall in sick leave when the pandemic began. 'In times of crisis, people turn up,' he says. 'It's very engaging for people. If you have a hurricane, everyone shows up,' he told The Weekend Australian's magazine, The Deal. A uSwitch survey of 2000 Britons in May found where people are most likely to work from when working from home. Australia's sick leave numbers have fallen dramatically Workers were more likely to call in sick last year when they physically had to go to their offices Some of the fall can be accounted for by loss of jobs due to the pandemic, with Australia's official unemployed numbers rising above the one million mark for the first time ever in August. Australia's unemployment rate of 6.8 per cent is deceptively low as the Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force figures classify someone as employed if they work at least one hour a week. National Australia Bank chief economist Alan Oster said last month that about 18 per cent of the workforce either doesn't have a job or wants more hours. Another portion of the fall can be attributed to some employees being forced onto annual leave or unpaid leave due to the pandemic. The fall may also reflect a drop in other infectious illnesses such as the flu, which have not spread as fast this year due to the social distancing measures taken to stop the coronavirus. However the drop also reflects workers opting to stay on the job from under their doonas when they are feeling under the weather, answering their emails and not calling in sick. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 15:59:13|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- China needs further reforms to boost the quality and efficiency of domestic circulation as it moves to establish a new development pattern featuring "dual circulation," experts said. A new pattern of development must be forged on the basis of vigorous reform and high-level opening-up, and hurdles in domestic circulation must be removed, said Zhang Zhanbin, head of the School of Marxism at the Party School of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. Floated in May, the new development pattern featuring dual circulation takes the domestic market as the mainstay and allows domestic and foreign markets to boost each other. "Only by solving residents' consumption, income and living security needs can we give full play to the advantages of the domestic market in the process of building a new pattern," Zhang said. Echoing Zhang's view, Wang Yiming, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, called for the active deepening of reforms and establishing a high-standard market system to vitalize dual circulation. China still has weak links in technology as well as its industrial and supply chains, while circulation in the financial sector and the real economy is not sufficiently smooth, said Wang. Previous reform efforts have contributed to a rise in market players and an increasing ease of doing business. The country now has 132 million registered market entities, and it takes no more than five working days to open a business. Last month, the State Council, China's cabinet, released a circular that listed business system reforms and introduced new measures. These measures include the adoption of fully online procedures to start a business, in order to further reduce the time required to establish an enterprise, improving the country's business environment and invigorating the market. With a master plan issued for three new pilot free trade zones (FTZs) in Beijing, Hunan and Anhui, China now has 21 FTZs. A total of 260 institutional innovations adopted by the FTZs have been promoted across the country. Wang said the country should further stimulate the creativity of scientists and engineers by giving them the ownerships or long-term use rights of their research results. More efforts should be made to enhance the country's logistics system by cultivating a set of modern logistics companies, while continuing to ease market access and expand registration system reforms for the financial sector, said Wang. He advised the construction of a high-level opening-up economic system, the advancement of FTZ reforms, and further protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors to enhance the country's business environment. Zhang added that to build the new development pattern, supply-side structural reform should be deepened. That would include improving the property rights system and the market-oriented allocation of factors, as well as breaking through obstacles in all aspects of production, distribution, circulation and consumption. Enditem Red brush blankets forest in the Pinelands. The Lenni-Lenape people used prescribed burns to clear brush and debris to limit future fire damage for centuries. Now the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is tasked with keeping the fires under control using prescribed burns and other methods. Read more While I was growing up in the heart of the South Jersey Pine Barrens, the threat of wildfire was always at the back of my mind. When I was little, the woods across the street from my familys house caught fire. Ill never forget what it felt like to peer out the window and see that sinister orange glow creeping up toward our house, or waking up to see that every tree within eyesight had been burned to a blackened crisp. For most of my childhood, it stayed that way, ghostly and still. But eventually, the trees began sprouting new growth. The forest came back. As my dad explained to me then, in the Pinelands, fire is a part of life. Wildfires have long been an important part of the Pines ecosystem, but they are getting riskier. The densely wooded region has a number of ecological ingredients that make it especially susceptible to wildfires, with the NJDEP website noting that it is one of the most hazardous wildland fuel types in the nation. This year, as of Sept. 25, New Jersey had already seen 894 wildfires burning 4,711 acres. A 2016 State of New Jersey Wildfire Risk Assessment compared the Pinelands specifically to an inch of gasoline covering all of south and central New Jersey. READ MORE: N.J. Pinelands are a tinderbox; much of Pa. is in drought watch. Major wildfires could happen on the East Coast, too. The Pine Barrens are still something of an enigma to those who grew up beyond its wooded borders. The 1.1 million acres of the Pinelands National Reserve, created in 1978, make up 22% of New Jerseys total landmass and sit on a 17.7-trillion-gallon aquifer. While its inner recesses remain rural and remote, the Pinelands' outer edges and bigger towns are only an hours drive from Center City (and on the way down the Shore). Yet it exists in a liminal space a mostly forgotten corner of the state whose residents are saddled with century-old classist stereotypes and whose breathtaking natural resources are continually under threat. And I grew up smack dab in the middle of it. I was born and raised in the tiny village of Chatsworth, christened the Capital of the Pines by naturalist John McPhee in his 1968 book The Pine Barrens. My family still lives there, and I am fiercely proud to be a Piney, an old demonym that was once intended as a slur against the regions poor and working-class residents but has since been reclaimed by those who have cedar water running in our veins. For those who arent familiar with its quirks, the Pines can come off as decidedly alien, a strange world of sugar sand, cedar water swamps, Seussian pines, sphagnum moss, cranberry bogs, and blue holes dangerous old gravel mines filled with warm water that tempt locals for swimming. The soil is fine and sandy, prone to lapsing into quicksand; its acidic nature and inhospitality to their preferred crops is why disappointed European settlers declared the region barren. The water is the color of strong black tea, tinted by cedar tannins and the naturally occurring iron deposits that once supported a major iron industry. Rare wild orchids and carnivorous plants abound, and 126 threatened or endangered plant and animal species call the forest and wetlands home. Blueberries and cranberries are major crops for farmers. The legend of the Jersey Devil looms large in local lore, and when youre out in the woods at dusk, alone with whirring insects and silent pines, its easy to believe there just might be something else out there, too. My grandmas sworn shes seen him. And of course, there are the trees dense clusters of scaly pitch pines, whose slender needles scrape the sky and perfume the air after rainfall, and their Lilliputian counterparts, the pygmy pines that carpet the Pine Barrens Plains and barely hit four feet after decades of growth. The pitch pine has developed several distinct attributes in response to frequent wildfires: some of its pine cones only open to release their seeds after exposure to intense heat. If a pitch pine is burned, even down to the root, new growth will eventually sprout. After a millennia of fire, the pines are prepared to weather the cruelest blaze. Humans, on the other hand, are staring down the growing risk of being chased out by fire. The original stewards of this land, the Lenni-Lenape people, understood the cycle of fire and rebirth, using burns to clear brush and debris to limit future damage for centuries before European settlers showed up. Now, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is tasked with keeping the fires under control using a variety of methods, including prescribed burns. By using the prescription of fire, we reduce those fuels down, we reduce the litter on the forest floor, state fire warden and New Jersey Forest Fire Service chief Greg McLaughlin told me. Simultaneously, knowing historically where fires have happened, or where theres higher risk areas, we try to build in these fire breaks and fuel breaks. The Forest Fire Service is already well-versed in the science of battling blazes, and has devoted significant study to controlling wildfires' impact on the Pines. During fire season, they rely on early detection and rapid response, and spend the offseason tweaking their robust prevention strategy and using historical wildfire data to develop new tools like WRAP (Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal). Their work also includes public outreach efforts like Firewise, a community fire prevention program, and ubiquitous Smokey the Bear fire warning signs that line the regions highways and sternly remind passerby that only you can prevent forest fires! READ MORE: What scares Pa. teens about climate change and how do they want to fight back, a year after massive global protests? | Opinion The bear has a point. According to McLaughlin, most forest fires are started by humans, including the devastating 2019 Spring Hill Fire that tore through over 11,000 acres of pine forest and the 1963 Black Saturday fire that burned 193,000 acres and killed seven people. Since that 1963 blaze, the population of the area has tripled to nearly half a million people. With more people leaving suburbs and cities for the Pines' rural setting, and developers still pushing for an environmentally destructive pipeline that would run through the Pines, the risk of human-created fires has only increased. That quiet voice whispering 'fire has stayed coiled around my brain stem, and lately its gotten louder. Kim Kelly Many of the regions smaller towns and villages are isolated, with spotty cell service and a single road leading in and out. Add that to an intensifying climate change crisis and unpredictable weather conditions that have already ravaged much of the West Coast, as well as the arrival of invasive species like the tree-killing southern pine beetle that worsens fire risks, and youve got a recipe for disaster previewed in one 2016 Rolling Stone headline: Will Americas worst wildfire disaster happen in New Jersey? The guardians of the forest are certainly doing their best, but the doomsday clock is still ticking. Right now, the forest surrounding my parents' house is lush and green and alive. I cherish every moment Im able to spend out in the woods. But that quiet voice whispering fire has stayed coiled around my brain stem, and lately its gotten louder. With the climate heating up and the environment being plundered, the Pines in all their otherworldly beauty are a reminder of what we stand to lose. So I write this as a love letter and a warning. Remember that at the drop of a cigarette butt or a malignant gust of wind, all of this could go up in smoke. It is truly a place where only the most determined can survive, but there is beauty in that resilience. Humans neglect the fragile wonders of the Pines at their own peril. Someday, the forest wont come back. Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist and organizer based in South Philadelphia. She is a regular contributor to Teen Vogue, the New Republic, the Washington Post, and the Baffler, and the author of the forthcoming labor history book Fight Like Hell. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Though there is some construction activity at developmental projects abandoned after the lockdown, contractors say the guidelines about reduced workforce and social distancing has halted most activity Punkaj Bajaj, who retired as CEO and MD of Steel Authority of Indias Durgapur Steel Plant, thought he had all the time to finish the renovation work of his two bedroom apartment ahead of his sons wedding slated for April enxt year. Familiar with the ways of labour and everything else that such renovation entails, Bajaj had factored in four days to break the old mosaic floor and lay new vitrified tiles in the living room of his flat built by the Ghaziabad Development Authority almost 30 years ago. With that calculation, Bajaj got the old floor of the living room broken. But that very evening, India went into total lockdown. And all his workers, with their contractor, disappeared, as did tens of thousands of other migrants in the National Capital Region. Bajaj, a widower whose two sons live and work in Mumbai, has literally been eating dust ever since. The flats main entrance was a temporary, unstable, lightweight plywood door. About 40 bags of cement and sand remain stacked along the walls in the drawing room. All the tools and implements of the labourers were also strewn haphazardly. Bajaj has lived in that mess, with only the mobile phone connecting to the labourers and the carpenter who had begun the renovation work, for the next six months. Then came Unlock 1.0 in June, and Bajaj called up Sharmaji, who had taken Rs 38,000 as advance. But he was in Jharkhand, he told Bajaj, adding he would not want to return to Delhi by bus, and train tickets were difficult to come by. Bajaj could not find other workers who would take on the job as labourers are scared to poach someone elses work. After many heated exchanges and parting with some more money, on 23 September, Bajaj managed to get Sharma to send an associate of his to finish the work. By then, the stacked cement had all solidified! With his sons wedding now postponed, Bajaj spent most of his time in the corridors outside his flat, given the mess inside. Workers hesitant to return Bajajs plight is perhaps not an isolated one. Around 50,000 to 80,000 old apartments in NCR would normally be under renovation at any given time, said property consultant Raveesh Kumar of Noida. The last few years have seen a dip in purchase of new flats. People are converting two bed rooms into 3 or 4, redesigning to make more space or giving the flat a new look. So, there will be many such works that were suspended because of COVID-19, he adds. The economic slowdown in recent years had, as it is, depressed the realty and construction sector, adversely affecting even the big real estate companies. But the hardest hit by COVID-19 were small contractors, employing five or six workers, whose main business came from those renovating their old flats. Many of the migrant labourers who fled the National Capital from end March through April-May, have not yet returned. I was working in six houses in east Delhi and Ghaziabad, in March, says a small contractor Hemprasad, who is now in Raipur, Chattisgarh. It is 29 hours by train, and when I came there was just one train, and I had paid Rs 2,500. I will return to Delhi only when the fear of coronavirus goes away, and there is some permanent treatment for it. Just before the lockdown in March this year, there were 5,52,843 construction workers registered under the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board. They were amongst the first category of people in the unorganised sector for whom the Delhi government announced a one time compensation of Rs 5000 each, for loss of income on account of the lockdown. Sources say that only about 40,000 of them could get this cash transfer into their account. It was presumed that most of the others were itinerant labour. In May, the Delhi government allowed resumption of construction on the condition that the labour stays at the site, but by then, the small teams which were employed by people like Bajaj were back home and were hesitant to return. The Kejriwal government announced a second round of cash transfer. Bajajs contractor, however, told him that he didn't have a place to house the workers or the means to comply with other quarantine requirements. Construction apart, small manufacturing unit owners are also awaiting the return of labour who had gone back to Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Many small machine part manufacturers in Jhilmil industrial area in East Delhi are awaiting the return of labour to complete long pending orders. The fear factor Prashant, working for Vision Property dealers in Ghaziabad, has not been able to find a tenant for any of the four apartments he has in hand. One family, who were to shift in April said now that they were working from home, they did not want to allow labourers to fix the RO, the air conditioners, etc, said Prashant. People want to avoid workers entering their homes, and also it is difficult to find labour to complete works that are unfinished. A view echoed by Hemprasad who admits he is presently sitting idle at home. I may go back, but people are still afraid of allowing workers into their homes and some Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) dont allow outside workers, says Hemprasad. Such diktats by the RWAs have emerged as an important factor in construction activity not picking up. For instance, three RWAs in Vasundhara in Delhi decided to keep labourers out of their society, saying they did not want to risk having outside workers in their premises. The president of one RWA, on condition of anonymity, said some members were pressing for a total ban on domestic workers, drivers, mechanics including electricians and plumbers, etc, into their premises. But there is pressure from some homes who say that with all adults going out to work, they needed these services. Hemprasad, however, managed to complete some of the renovation work he had taken on by deputing friends from Jhansi. But the majority that managed to reach home are scared of having to repeat that long and difficult journey home, should there be another lockdown. No work for those who remain The truth of what Hemprasad says can be seen on the pavement across the Mother Dairy booth on Sahni Road between Delhi and Ghaziabad. Every morning almost 200 labourers gather there waiting for customers who will give them a livelihood. Though the rate is less, there is less demand because of fear, says Teni Ram, part of a team of painters. Over the last one month, he has been able to secure work on only three days. The contractor, who used to hire Tenis team, has not yet returned from Bihar. Those who gather here are largely from the nearby towns of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Beginning May, the home ministry allowed resumption of construction work on condition that the labourers will have to stay at the site and the contractor would have to ensure they wore masks, sanitised hands, and maintained physical distancing. But those conditions were for only those working on new buildings. We have been told work will resume very soon, says Netram, who had been working in an apartment complex being constructed in Mayur Vihar. May to September has been a long wait for him without work, but he has not given up hope. The up market high rise constructions in Greater Noida, however, are bustling with activity. The manager at one such site said that while the number of people at the site was a third of what it was before March, they were able to get back most of their labourers because the contractor sent buses to villages in Jharkhand to bring them back. Builders are now offering a property swap scheme to buyers in stalled projects, and providing them an option to switch to another property if they are ready to pay at least 70% of the price of the new property. Realty portal realtynxt.com reported that builders like Supertech and Bhutani were coming up with such swap schemes and brokerage firms were acting as intermediary between buyers and developers. Though there is some construction activity behind the huge scaffoldings at Pragati Maidan where a huge redevelopment project came to a grinding halt in March, and some road work has resumed after being abandoned for the past six months, contractors say that government guidelines about reduced workforce and social distancing has halted most activity. A recent study claimed that two out of three skilled migrant workers, a definition that would apply to construction workers, who had fled the cities want to return to work. But project managers everywhere voice the same complaint: there is a shortage of construction labour. For the workers back in their villages, the fear of a repeat of the happenings of March-May, is overpowering. This article was first published in Citizen Matters, a civic media website and is republished here with permission. (c) Oorvani Foundation/Open Media Initiative. Democracy depends on confidence in the integrity of elections, a standard held sacred in this nation since its founding 244 years ago. We are now facing, however, an assault to undermine that confidence, coming from the most unseemly source, the nations president. President Trump has repeatedly questioned the validity of mail-in ballots during a pandemic in which mailed ballots are going to be the preferred means for many to cast their votes. Contrary to Trumps claims, voting by mail has proven to be safe and secure in the five states that already use it broadly. In fact, voter fraud is so rare in the United States that analysis by the Brennan Institute for Justice found Americans were more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud. On Tuesday toward the end of the contentious debate between Trump and his Democrat opponent Joe Biden, the president launched into an extended argument against mail voting, claiming without evidence that it is ripe for fraud and suggesting mail ballots may be manipulated. The contention and claims of disruption are occurring in Harrisburg, too, where the Republican controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfs office are trading volleys on whats needed to accurately manage the mail-in aspect of the election. Republican legislators last week proposed a resolution to set up a Republican-majority state House panel to review the fall election. The resolution does not exclude reviewing processes before Nov. 3 a situation which jeopardizes the systems counties are working hard to put in place to assure vote security. This is an unprecedented attack on non-partisan election administrators at a time when we should all be doing everything we can to instill confidence in our elections, Wolf said in a statement. Pennsylvanians have several options when it comes to voting: They can cast their ballot by mail; they can vote early by filling out a ballot at their county election office; and they can go to the polls on Election Day. Requests for ballots will be honored up until seven days before the Nov. 3 election, but election officials are asking that voters request a ballot as soon as possible to expedite the process. Ballots started going out last week to those who had requested them. Voters are reminded of the steps to use a mailed ballot properly: Make sure there is a secrecy envelope included because a mailed ballot not in a secrecy envelope, also known as a naked ballot, will not be counted. Fill out the ballot immediately and completely. Place your ballot in the secrecy envelope, then put the secrecy envelope into the official envelope. Be sure to sign the declaration or your ballot may not count. Mail your ballot so it arrives at the county elections office by Election Day. For those who prefer not to use the mail, drop boxes are available at a number of locations throughout counties and ballots can be taken to county election officees. Voters who choose to drop off their ballots are not allowed to drop off ballots belonging to anyone else a practice deemed illegal by state courts. Counties have invested in extra manpower, dedicated space and technology such as rapid letter openers to expedite counting. The system of voting in this nation has withstood challenges before, but it continues to succeed because of a national trust in our systems to protect the right to vote. Without that trust, the system will surely fail because citizens will choose not to participate. Our democracy depends on participation, and participation demands confidence. As citizens, we cannot allow ourselves to be deterred or denied this right by false charges. You have choices on how to cast your vote, and elections workers are striving to make every one of those choices protected and reliable. Trust in an electoral system that has carried us forward, and vote by the method in which you feel safest and most secure. Attacking that system and walking away from your duty is how democracy fails. Give it your vote to succeed. Prominent personal injury attorney Steve Barnes is dead, his longtime law partner at Cellino & Barnes confirmed Friday. Barnes and his niece, Elizabeth Barnes, were killed in a small plane crash in Upstate New York, Ross Cellino Jr. said. Barnes, a registered pilot, was flying a single-engine Socata TBM 700 from Manchester, New Hampshire, to Buffalo when it crashed in the woods in Corfu, near Pembroke, N.Y., around 11:45 a.m. Friday. Neighbors described the plane making a loud, whining noise, then dropping into a wooded area and exploding, according to Genesee County Sheriff William Sheron. No other passengers were onboard the aircraft, owned by Barnes and registered with the FAA at an address that matches Cellino and Barnes' Western New York office. Stephen Barnes and Ross Cellino Jr. operated a law firm for nearly three decades with offices in Buffalo, Rochester, New York City, Long Island, and California. Their catchy commercial jingle with the phone number 800-888-8888 (Dont Wait, Call 8) was well known across New York state and inspired Saturday Night Live skits, other late-night TV jokes and an online Cellino & Barnes Challenge. His passing is a significant loss for the legal community, Barnes' law partner Ross Cellino said. He was always a fearless advocate for his clients. All of us at Cellino & Barnes are deeply saddened." Cellino and Barnes had battled in court in recent years, and officially split this summer to form two separate firms: Cellino Law and The Barnes Firm. It is with the heaviest of hearts that we acknowledge the loss of Steve Barnes and his niece Elizabeth Barnes following a tragic accident earlier today, The Barnes Firm said in a statement. Steve was a friend, colleague, partner, and mentor to so many people across our firm, in NewYork, California, and beyond. He was a legal industry giant, proud Marine, and loving father. Steve and Elizabeth will be sorely missed by many. Our utmost condolences go out to his family and closest loved ones during this very difficult and unfortunate time. Steve Barnes is survived by his longtime partner, fellow attorney Ellen Sturm, and three children, Josiah, Rachel, and Julia. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash. The Associated Press reports the NTSB is expected to release its initial report within seven to 10 days. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor I will be voting for Donald Trump because he states his plans, then works to implement them. Less regulation check. Lower taxes check. Border security check. Reining in China check. Under President Trump, we had record lows for unemployment, record growth in wages, and record highs in the stock markets. Joe Biden says he doesnt support the Green New Deal, but on his website, he calls it a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face. He doesnt support socialism, but he cut a deal with Bernie Sanders, advocate of Medicare for All, to give Sanders supporters a wider role at the Democratic National Convention. Which Joe will we get if hes elected? Donald Trump says what hes going to do and tries to do it. Joe Biden says whatever he thinks his current audience wants to hear. And more than a few media outlets allow the contradictions in his positions to pass because their hatred of Trump has short-circuited their journalistic objectivity. Worse than his contradictions, Joe Biden is too beholden to the radicals in his party. If hes elected, well never know whos really in charge. Ed Kovacic, Westlake GRAND RAPIDS, MI Looking for a good burger? Matt Urbane, the owner of Fat Boy Burgers, a classic diner specializing in All American food, has you covered. US president Donald Trump arrived at the Walter Reed military hospital from where he will work for the next few days, his spokesperson said. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Friday, a day after he was tested positive for Covid-19. President Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day, she said, adding that he appreciates the outpouring of support for both him and the the first lady. The president flew to Walter Reed medical hospital in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington DC. Earlier, presidents physician Sean Conley, in a memo released by the White House, said as a precautionary measure the president received a single 8-gram dose of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail. He completed the infusion without the incident, Conley said. In addition to the polyclonal antibodies, the president has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin, he said. As of this afternoon the president remains fatigued but in good spirits. He is being evaluated by a team of experts, and together we will be making recommendations to the president and first lady in regards to next best steps, presidents physician said. Dr Conley said First Lady Melania Trump remains well with only a mild cough and headache, and the remainder of the first family are well and tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 today. File image Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday that India has the capability to become a global player in many sectors and needs to scale up its manufacturing activities. Speaking at a webinar organised by EXIM Bank, he said sectors which have potentials to become globally competitive are required to be identified. 'There is no need to segregate between products for exports and domestic sector. We require quality, good technology and scale, though some support may be needed at times,' Goyal said. Exports will definitely happen automatically if products are 'good and competitively priced', the minister said, adding that the industries should not expect that subsidies will be the 'only solution'. Speaking on the free trade agreements (FTAs), he said, 'We have to foster such collaborations with the developed countries which have large markets, and not nations like Chile and Peru.' India can surely be part of the global supply chain and also a reliable partner, Goyal said, adding that 'building capabilities, scale and good manufacturing practices are the need of the hour'. EXIM Bank Managing Director David Rasquinha said India's manufacturing and export sectors have to become globally competitive. 'Despite the growing private consumption demand, India's gross value added (GVA) has decreased. EXIM Bank has commissioned a study on the policy constraints faced by some sectors like textiles, apparel, automobile, electronics and pharmaceuticals,' he added. Adityanath had set up three-member Special Investigation Team on Wednesday and instructed that it submit its report by October 14. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi leave for Hathras to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped, in New Delhi, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020. (PTI Photo) Hathras/New Delhi: The SIT set up by the Uttar Pradesh government has completed its probe into the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who was assaulted and allegedly gangraped, officials said on Saturday as barricades outside her village in Hathras were lifted and the media was allowed in. All roads it seemed led to Hathras with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath sending senior officials, including Additional Chief Secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police HC Awasthy, to the village to meet her family. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who were detained amid high drama on Thursday, also headed towards Hathras in another effort to meet the family. There was heavy police deployment on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with barricades on Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway and scores of policemen deployed. The border is not sealed but checks have been intensified at the Delhi-Noida border, according to a local police officer. As the Congress delegation from Delhi prepared to make its way to Hathras, about 180 km away, its Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu and more than 500 workers were put under house arrest, the party alleged. The Dalit teen died of her grievous injuries in the early hours of Tuesday in a Delhi hospital and cremated in the dead of night near her home on Wednesday with her family alleging that they were forced by local police to hurriedly conduct her last rites, triggering outrage nationwide and protests in several places. She was attacked on September 14. On Thursday, the Hathras administration clamped prohibitory orders barring the assembly of more than four people in the district, where scuffles broke out as politicians, including from the Congress and the TMC, as well as the media tried to access the village. About 300 police personnel stood on guard to prevent anybody from entering. Today, however, the administration lifted restrictions on the media's entry. Only the entry of media has been allowed into the village of the victim as the probe of the SIT has completed, Joint Magistrate Prem Prakash Meena told reporters. Adityanath had set up three-member Special Investigation Team on Wednesday and instructed that it submit its report by October 14. The state's government's top officials, Awanish Awasthi and police chief HC Awasthy, will meet the woman's family members and submit their report to the chief minister on their return. After returning from there we will be submitting a report on the entire incident to the chief minister, Awanish Awasthi said. The death of the young woman, whose brutal assault recalled for many the horrors of the Nirbhaya case, continued to snowball into a major political issue In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable. The former Congress president asserted that "no power in the world" can stop him from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and sharing their pain. Hitting out at the Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi described the UP government as "morally corrupt" and said, "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test." The party also alleged that the woman and her family had been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government. BSP president Mayawati demanded a CBI or a Supreme Court monitored probe into the incident and said people were not satisfied with the initial investigations in the matter. There is tremendous resentment in the entire country over the Hathras heinous gangrape case. The public does not seem satisfied with the initial probe report. Therefore, this matter should be investigated by the CBI or under the supervision of the honourable Supreme Court. This is the demand of the BSP, Mayawati tweeted in Hindi. Also, the honourable president of the country, who also comes from UP and is a Dalit, it is a strong appeal to him to intervene in this case, keeping in mind the inhuman attitude of the government, to bring justice to the victim family, she added. The governor does not have authority under either of the states emergency statutes to continue the coronavirus state of emergency, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in questions related to a federal case on Friday. Two laws -- the Emergency Management Act from 1976 and the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act from 1945 -- govern how states of emergency are declared and handled in Michigan. Neither, the court found, gave Gov. Gretchen Whitmer the authority to continue declaring states of emergency or issuing unilateral orders under them past April 30, when her initial declaration would have expired. We conclude that the Governor lacked the authority to declare a state of emergency or a state of disaster under the EMA after April 30, 2020, on the basis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we conclude that the EPGA is in violation of the Constitution of our state because it purports to delegate to the executive branch the legislative powers of state government-- including its plenary police powers-- and to allow the exercise of such powers indefinitely," wrote Justice Stephen J. Markman in the majority opinion. As a consequence, the EPGA cannot continue to provide a basis for the Governor to exercise emergency powers. The courts order comes at the behest of U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney, who found a federal case needed input from the state courts on whether Whitmer has the authority after April 30 to renew any executive orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether Michigans state of emergency laws are constitutional. The underlying federal case was filed in May by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation on behalf of four west Michigan medical providers and a patient seeking a knee surgery. At the time, Whitmers orders banned elective procedures. Related: Health care groups sue governor, claim Michigan coronavirus curve flattened and call emergency orders unconstitutional Related: Michigan Supreme Court will take up federal questions about Whitmers emergency authority The Michigan Supreme Court took up the case and considered it separately from a state case brought by the states Republican-led legislature that raised some of the same questions. The impact of the courts order is not immediately clear. A footnote in the majority opinion notes, Our decision leaves open many avenues for the Governor and Legislature to work together to address this challenge and we hope that this will take place. Markman was joined in the majority opinion by Justices Brian Zahra, Elizabeth Clemente and in part by Justice David Viviano. Viviano, who did not join in the section of the majority opinion quoted earlier, did join in on the sections of the majority opinion saying the court should address the questions posted by the federal judge, the governor had no authority under the EMA and the EPGA was unconstitutional. In a dissenting opinion authored by Chief Justice Bridget McCormack, Justices McCormack, Richard Bernstein and Megan Cavanagh agree with the majority that the governor does not have power under the EMA, but would uphold the EPGA. Breaking new constitutional ground here to facially invalidate the EPGA is unnecessary because there are other judicial remedies, McCormack wrote. COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS: In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus. Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible. Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued executive orders requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nosewhile in public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. See an explanation of what that means here. Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus. For more data on COVID-19 in Michigan, visit https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/data/. Related stories: Unlock Michigan turns in 539k signatures to limit Gov. Whitmers emergency powers Michigan Supreme Court will take up federal questions about Whitmers emergency authority Health care groups sue governor, claim Michigan coronavirus curve flattened and call emergency orders unconstitutional A string of crimes against women, especially Dalit women in Uttar Pradesh has outraged the country again. The alleged gang-rape and a hurried middle-of-the-night cremation of a 19-year-old womans body in Hathras by the UP police has led to many questioning why there is no end to atrocities against Dalits in the country. According to the latest National Crime Record Bureaus (NCRB) report that documents annual record of crime and legal outcome of such cases, in the last one decade crimes against Dalits have risen by 37% while the conviction rate in such crimes increased by merely 2.5%. Crimes against women in general, too, saw a steep rise of 86% in the last ten years between 2009 and 2019. Besides this, cases of rape increased by 50% during the same period. In 2009 alone, 33,594 cases of crime against Dalits were registered across the country which went up by 12,341 to 45,935 cases in 2019, the comparative study of the NCRB data shows. The conviction rate arrived at by dividing the number of conviction in a year by the number of cases completing trial in a year in such crimes was 29.9% in 2009 which rose to just 32.1% in 2019. Chargesheet rate ten years ago in crimes against Dalits was 88.5% which has come down to 78.5% in 2019, a concerning trend as per the NCRB figures. Jharkhand and Rajasthan performed poorly on this parameter with 34.1% and 49.0% respectively. However, Uttar Pradesh, now under public scrutiny, ensured 81.8% chargesheets, higher than the national average last year in such cases. In 2019, with 11,829 cases, Uttar Pradesh saw the highest number of cases of crime against Dalits, followed by Rajasthan with 6,794 cases, and 6,544 cases in Bihar. The number of such cases has remained constantly high in the first two states over the last few years, with Uttar Pradesh registering 11,924 and 11,444 cases, and Rajasthan registering 4,607 and 4,238 cases in 2018 and 2017, respectively. However, the total number of cases of crime doesnt give a real picture of the situation as states with higher population tend to have more number of cases. To arrive at a more rational conclusion the NCRB data also gives the rate of crime i.e., the number of incidents per 1,00,000 Dalit population. Rajasthan, as per the Bureaus 2019 data, ranked number one with 55.6 cases of atrocities against Dalits per lakh population. Rajasthan was followed by Madhya Pradesh and Bihar at 46.7 and 39.5 cases per lakh population, respectively. Uttar Pradesh, though in news for recent cases, ranks 6th among the states with 28.6 cases per lakh population. When it comes to the conviction rate in 2019 in cases of crime against Dalits, Uttar Pradesh comes second, just behind Uttarakhand which saw a conviction rate of 68% in cases of crime against Dalits. The conviction rates in these cases in Uttar Pradesh was 66.10% while it was 51% in Rajasthan. The conviction rate, according to NCRB, is calculated by dividing the number of convictions in any given year by cases in which trials were completed in that year. On average, 10 daily cases of rape of Dalit women were reported last year in the country with Rajasthan reporting the highest number at 554 cases. Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh followed with 537 and 510 rape cases respectively. The rate of such crimes (cases per lakh Dalit population) was 4.5 for both Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, Kerala with the rate of 4.6 cases per lakh population was first in the country. A Cumberland County man and an Allentown woman died Friday on Interstate 81 in the Harrisburg area after a speeding 18-year-old driver hit their car while switching lanes, Pennsylvania State Police said. Shaun A. Yuhas, 42, of Enola, and 50-year-old Linda M. Silva were in a 2020 Toyota Camry headed south on I-81 near mile-marker 67.3 when the 18-year-old traveling at high speeds in a 2020 Toyota Corolla attempted an unsafe lane change" around 6:16 p.m., according to state police. The passenger side of the 18-year-olds vehicle hit the drivers side of Yuhas and Silvas, causing their vehicle to hit two light poles before coming to rest on the shoulder, state police said. The 18-year-old hit a concrete barrier but was uninjured in the crash. Yuhas and Silva were pronounced dead at the scene. The Susquehanna Township Volunteer Fire Department and EMS assisted at the scene. READ MORE: Two charged in death of man found in Cumberland County home Pot smell alone cant form basis for vehicle search, Pa. court rules Not guilty: OJ Simpson acquitted of killing his ex-wife and her friend 25 years ago ALLENDALE, MI Sara Simons feels conflicted about Grand Valley State Universitys mandatory two-week lockdown, which ended Thursday, Oct. 1. On one hand, the 21-year-old from Berrien Springs said shes relieved the school has significantly decreased the number of new positive cases in students. NEW HAVEN Police have identified the man killed on Exchange Street Wednesday night as Divonne J. Coward, 27, of New Haven. Capt. Anthony Duff said police were called to a report of gunfire on Exchange Street between Ferry and East Pearl streets at approximately 11:25 p.m. Wednesday. Officers canvassed the area and found an adult male gunshot victim on the front porch of an Exchange Street residence. New Haven Fire and American Medical Response arrived to treat the victim, Duff said. Medical responders pronounced the victim deceased at the scene. At the departments biweekly Compstat meeting, Assistant Chief Karl Jacobson said police believe the man did not live at the Exchange St. house, as residents there did not know him. Sgt. Michael Fumiatti, the district manager for Fair Haven, said he and representatives of Yale Child Study would canvass the area in the coming days, seeking to help any children dealing with the trauma of the incident. Jacobson also noted that graduates from the departments clergy academy would visit the neighborhood in the coming days to speak with residents. The homicide was the 17th of the year in the city. There had been eight homicides at this point last year, according to the Police Department. Anyone with information is asked to call New Haven police at (203) 946-6304. Callers can remain anonymous. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com Alabama native Cliff Sims, a former adviser to President Trump early in his White House tenure who left the administration and wrote a best-selling tell-all book, is rejoining the presidents team. Sims has been named a senior adviser to the director of national intelligence, Politico reported Friday. The Office of National Intelligence confirmed to Politico that Sims has joined the agency. Sims sued the Trump administration over the book and the president criticized Sims in a January 2019 tweet, describing him as a low-level staffer and a gofer who pretended to be an insider. Politico reported that Sims and Trump reconciled when the president realized the book -- Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House -- was largely flattering. Sims also helped oversee speechwriting for the Republican National Convention earlier this year, including remarks prepared for Trump children Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Trump. An actor who accused filmmaker Anurag Kashyap of sexual misconduct has filed an application with the police to have Anurag undergo narco analysis and a lie detector test, after he categorically denied the allegations. Anurag was questioned by the police on October 1, and a day later, his lawyer released a statement claiming that the filmmaker had provided authorities with an alibi for the period in which the alleged incident took place. In a tweet, advocate Nitin Satpute shared a copy of the application he had filed on the actors behalf. Earlier, the actor had tweeted, Mr. Kashyap has lied before police in his statement.. My Lawyer is moving an application to conduct Narco Analysis, Lie Detector & Polygraph Test of Mr. Kashyap to find out the truth. Today application will be filed to the police station, for the interest of Justice. Anurags lawyer Priyanka Khimani had written in her Friday statement, Mr Kashyap has provided documentary proof of the fact that throughout August, 2013 he was away in Sri Lanka in connection with the shooting of one of his films. Mr Kashyap has categorically denied that any such alleged incident ever took place and has also denied all allegations levelled against him. The allegations were made with the purpose of vilifying the filmmaker, the statement continued. Mr Kashyap is distressed with the false and reckless allegations made against him that have caused pain to him, his family and his fans. Mr Kashyap intends to vigorously pursue the legal remedies available to him. Also read: Anurag Kashyap vehemently denies sexual misconduct charges, provides proof that he wasnt in India at time of incident The filmmaker has sought for severe action against the complainant, for misusing the criminal justice system and for hijacking the Me Too Movement for her ulterior motives. The FIR was registered under Indian Penal Code Sections 376 (I) (rape), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 342 (wrongful confinement), an official said, adding that further investigation is underway, as per PTI. Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR HT Entertainment Desk Dedicated professionals who write about cinema and television in all their vibrancy. Expect views, reviews and news. ...view detail Archie Lyndhurst's heartbroken girlfriend has paid a touching tribute to her 'talented best friend' following the 19-year-old actor's sudden death. Actress Nethra Tilakumara, who starred alongside Archie in the CBBC show So Awkward, described the teenager as a 'beautiful soul', writing: 'Every day with you was the best day ever.' She shared the poignant tribute to her Instagram last night, alongside a photograph of her late boyfriend taking pictures with a Polaroid camera. Ms Tilakumara wrote: 'There was once a boy named Archie Lyndhurst and he made me the happiest girl in the whole wide world. Archie Lyndhurst's heartbroken girlfriend Nethra Tilakumara (pictured together) has paid a touching tribute to her 'talented best friend' following the 19-year-old actor's sudden death Actress Nethra Tilakumara, who starred alongside Archie in the CBBC show So Awkward, described the teenager as a 'beautiful soul', writing: 'Every day with you was the best day ever' 'A boy in a white beanie with his skateboard, swaggered through two wooden doors with an unimaginable lust for life down the hallway of Sylvia Young Theatre School. 'He sat across from me while my head was buried in a script, trying to book a job. He was there for his friend who was really nervous and auditioning too, he was always there for his friends. 'Blissfully unaware, I had no idea my future was sitting right in front of me.' She added: 'Boyfriend doesn't do it justice. Archie you were my Person and Best friend all in one. To spend the rest of my life laughing and going on adventures with you, was just it for me. 'Everything made sense with you. You made me laugh like no one else and you loved me in such a way that I will forever just be grateful for. Being loved by you was a bonus, but I can proudly say you are the most incredible person that I have ever met and had the pleasure of being in love with. She shared the poignant tribute to her Instagram last night, alongside a photograph of her late boyfriend taking pictures with a Polaroid camera (pictured) Ms Tilakumara ended the tribute by telling Archie: 'You have my heart forever,' before signing the message 'your tiny dancer'. Pictured: Archie and Ms Tilakumara together 'The world isn't ready for what's yet to come. You talented, beautiful soul, thank you for a lifetime I will never forget.' Ms Tilakumara ended the tribute by telling Archie: 'You have my heart forever,' before signing the message 'your tiny dancer'. Archie, who was the son of Only Fools and Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst and his wife Lucy Smith, died at his family home in West London after a short illness. Police were called 'to a report of a concern for welfare' on September 22 and he was declared dead at the scene. His death is being treated as 'unexplained but not suspicious.' The teenager starred in CBBC show So Awkward as Ollie Coulton and also appeared as a young Jack Whitehall in the BBC's Bad Education in 2014. The actor's mother Ms Smith yesterday shared a touching tribute to her son on comedian Jack Whitehall's Instagram page. Ms Smith, who had been responding to an Instagram tribute posted by Whitehall, also thanked the comedian for the 'kindness and friendship' he had given her son over the years. Archie Lyndhurst died at the age of 19 at his family home in West London following a short illness Archie, who was the beloved son of Only Fools and Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst and his wife Lucy Smith, starred in the hit CBBC show So Awkward as Ollie Coulton She said: 'Dearest Jack. Thank you for all the amazing opportunities you put Archie's way and the kindness and friendship you have always given him over the years. 'He loved every moment of every job and relished in the fantastic scripts you wrote. But it went further than that like you said. 'He loved all of dearly, as do we. And a lifelong friendship has ensued. I love the picture up the tree. 'I remember him being asked to move along a bit to make room and he called out "ooo, I've snaggged me fishnets now!"' 'Then not wanting to take the false beard of after the palladium as he wanted to look like you. We shall love him forever and a day and are the luckiest parents to have had the most wonderful unique son who has bought us nothing but joy in our lives.' Today Archie's mother shared a touching tribute to her son and described him as a 'wonderful unique son' The actor, whose father Nicholas Lyndhurst famously played Rodney Trotter in the long-running BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses, had been acting since the age of 11 In his tribute, Whitehall described Archie as an 'enthusiastic and talented boy' who would 'never be forgotten' and who 'would have continued lighting up the lives of all those who encountered him'. He wrote: 'I write this with an extremely heavy heart. Archie Lyndhurst came into my life nearly ten years ago, playing the young me in a short film I'd written. He was brilliant, so talented and funny. An utter joy to work with. 'So much so that it proved to be the start of a wonderful partnership, we did a skit at the London Palladium, he played me again in a sketch for my arena tour and special, and when we needed to find an actor to play the young Alfie Wickers in Bad Education it was the easiest piece of casting we ever had to do. 'Every time I worked with Archie he was the same - passionate, generous and pitch perfect, he was loved by everyone on set. I have no doubt he would have had a long and illustrious career and would have continued lighting up the lives of all those who encountered him. Archie with his So Awkward co-stars Sophia Dall'aglio (left) and Cleo Demetriou (right) at the Children's Baftas last year. Archie had appeared in the hit CBBC show since 2005 'The enthusiastic and talented boy I met all those years ago had grown into an equally charming young man, during lockdown he would take shopping and groceries to my parents house for them when they couldn't leave the house, it's testament to what a wonderful and kind person he was. 'The world has been robbed of a truly special soul. He will never be forgotten, I feel utterly devastated that he is gone but i also feel so blessed to have met him. Goodbye Archie.' Archie, whose father Nicholas Lyndhurst famously played Rodney Trotter in the long-running BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses, rose to fame in the CBBC drama So Awkward- a sitcom about a group of schoolchildren. He also voiced a character in the video game Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward. Following his son's death, Mr Lyndhurst said in a statement: 'Lucy and I are utterly grief stricken and respectfully request privacy'. Only Fools and Horses star John Challis, who played Aubrey 'Boycie' Boyce in the show, tweeted: 'The saddest news of all today. The death of Archie Lyndhurst, just starting out on his chosen career in acting. My heart aches for Nick and Lucy. They could not have loved him more.' The actor also appeared as a young Jack Whitehall in the BBC's Bad Education in 2014. The teenager appeared with his father Nicholas Lyndhurst in an episode of CBBC drama So Awkward Sue Holderness, who played Boycie's wife Marlene in the sitcom, said: 'It is too sad to hear that Archie Lyndhurst has died. My heart goes out to his mum and dad and to all who knew him.' Meanwhile Archie's friend Small, who also starred in So Awkward as Rob Edwards, said in a tribute: 'To my brother Archie. I still can't quite comprehend that you have passed. 'You still had so much life to live and I'd give anything for you to keep on living it. 'My heart aches all day and everyday thinking about you and I just wish I could talk to you just one more time so you could know how much I loved you. I vow to make you proud with every last breath. Love you from now until infinity. Rest in power bro.' A BBC spokesman said: 'We're so sorry to have to tell you that Archie Lyndhurst, who so brilliantly played Ollie in So Awkward on CBBC, has very sadly died after a short illness. 'Archie will be hugely missed by all who worked with him, and by all the fans who laughed along with Ollie in the show.' An inquest into Archie's death is due to be opened next week. Pound Sterling has posted net gains on Friday with relief that EU/UK trade talks have not broken down. The pound-to-dollar rate strengthened to near 1.2950 with the Euro-to-pound exchange rate dipping to touch 0.9050. Political talks over the weekend will be crucial in assessing the underlying mood and whether the intense phase under blackout conditions can get underway. If not, the most likely outcome is that the timeline will slip beyond the UK October 15th deadline. Political dimension takes centre stage in weekend talks Early on Friday it was announced that UK Prime Minister Johnson will speak with EU Commission President Von der Leyen on Saturday. Sterling rallied in response with the pound-to-dollar rate moving above 1.2900. Nomura forex strategist Jordan Rochester commented; This meeting is what sterling longs needed. Still, the pound is unlikely to strengthen by much until it becomes clear in which direction the talks are headed, he said. With each (Brexit news) headline you get sucked in to put trades on and within minutes a denial comes in and it turns either way. HSBC noted; GBPs relief that tomorrows talk may signal a willingness on both sides to make concessions is understandable. However, an alternative spin on this development is that the need for PM Johnson to intervene reflects how both sides are struggling to get negotiations to a point where the details of an agreement can be thrashed out. Barnier usually holds a press conference following the conclusion of negotiating rounds, but the Friday conference was cancelled. German Chancellor Merkel is scheduled to meet EU Chief Negotiator Barnier on Monday. These political talks will be crucial in determining whether sufficient political concessions will be made to put negotiators close enough to secure agreement in an intense round of technical talks. ING added; While we dont look for a confirmation of a trade agreement (for that it is too early, in our view), no escalation in tensions and hints that negotiations are to continue should be enough to help the pound. The pound-to Swiss franc rate advanced to near weekly highs. Depending on the outcome of weekend talks, there will be the risk of sharp Sterling moves at Mondays Asian open. Negotiations set to resume next week Source reports indicate that talks will continue next week in London and Brussels the following week. Barnier subsequently made comments after his report to lawmakers. He noted that the latest round of talks had made some progress in some areas, but level playing field, fisheries among a lot of issues still open. In comments on Friday, Von der Leyen stated that it is worth stepping up Brexit talks now, we are running out of time for a deal. She also noted that there is still a lot of work to do and the most difficult fields are still completely open. Merkel also commented that we must respect Britains wishes and find a suitable answer. She added that we need a level playing field on future EU-UK trade relations. Logistics fears continue According to law firm Blick Rothenberg, which specialises in international trade, thousands of UK businesses may need to set up an EU presence if they want to export goods to European markets. Both EU and UK law will require companies to "have a door to knock on" if there are any disputes over payment and compliance with customs changes that will treat the UK as if it were any other non-EU country after 1 January. The only other option is to pay a customs and freight forwarding agent to bear the risk that new paperwork and payment obligations are satisfied and the cost of these would be substantial. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Saturday inaugurate Atal Tunnel, which will cut down the distance between Leh and Manali by 46km and the travel time by four to five hours, in Himachal Pradeshs Rohtang. We have made all preparations and we are waiting for the Prime Minister. Its a moment of joy for the people of Himachal Pradesh. This is a historical moment, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jairam Thakur was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. The tunnel holds great significance in the light of the situation with neighbouring countries and added that it is not only significant from a national security point of view but also be very helpful for the commute of the people, Thakur said. Around 200 people will be present at the event. Prime Minister is sending out a message that how close Himachal is to his heart. He is appearing physically for a development project. We wanted a huge inauguration event. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, only a small event is being organised. The tunnel will also send a strong message for a border security point of view, he added. Defence minister Rajnath Singh visited the Atal Tunnel on Friday along with Thakur and reviewed the preparations for the inaugural function of Atal Tunnel. Here are 10 things to know about the Atal Tunnel: * The decision to construct Atal Tunnel was taken on June 3, 2000, by the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The foundation stone for the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. * On 25 December 2019, the Rohtang tunnel was renamed as Atal Tunnel in the memory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. * Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 meters. * The 9.02km long tunnel has been built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas. * It is a horseshoe-shaped, single tube double lane tunnel with a roadway of 8 metres and an overhead clearance of 5.525 metres. * It has been designed for a traffic density of 3,000 cars and 1,500 trucks per day with a maximum speed of 80 km/hr. * The tunnel is 10.5-metre wide and a 3.6x2.25 metre fireproof emergency egress tunnel has been built into the main tunnel itself. * The tunnel is equipped with various security features such as CCTV cameras, telephone connections at every 150 metres for any emergency, fire hydrant mechanism at every 60 metres and auto incident detection system. * There are evacuation lighting and exit signs at every 25 metres and broadcasting system throughout the stretch. SIT Hand in Glove With Accused, We Want SC-Monitored Probe, Says Hathras Victims Family After Being Allowed to Meet Media Police have removed the barricades near the rape victims home and finally allowed the media to meet the bereaved family. The family has demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe, saying the SIT is hand in glove with the accused and has rejected the idea of a CBI probe too. READ MORE As Indias Covid-19 Death Toll Crosses 1 Lakh, Here are the Lessons Weve Learnt So Far & the Ones We Havent With the emergence of a new infectious disease, it was crucial for the state health departments and central government to follow a fresh protocol to accurately and adequately capture deaths occurring due to Covid-19. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) rolled out detailed guidelines to record Covid-19 related deaths in India. The guidelines were explicit in stating that prior co-morbid conditions such as asthma and diabetes were not be considered as an underlying cause of death as they may have not directly caused death due to Covid-19.READ MORE Donald Trump Moved to Military Hospital After Mild Symptoms, Given Experimental Drug for Covid-19 President Donald Trump was hospitalized Friday and given an experimental Covid-19 treatment, but said he was well," following bombshell news that the Republican had contracted the virus, knocking him off the campaign trail a month from the US election. READ MORE Chirag Paswans LJP to Contest Bihar Elections Alone Amid Rift With Nitish Kumar, Promises Post-Poll Alliance with BJP As Bihar approaches for polls later this month, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) is likely to contest on 143 seats outside the NDA alliance with the slogan Modi se bair nahi, Nitish teri khair nahi, or No enmity with Modi but wont spare CM and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar. Chirag Paswan met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda on Thursday to discuss the seat-sharing formula. READ MORE Govt Ready to Waive Interest on Loans Up to Rs 2 Crore, Says its the Only Solution Amid Pandemic In a huge relief for individual and MSMEs borrowers, the central government on Friday told the Supreme Co urt that it will be waiving interest on the repayment of loans of up to Rs 2 crore, frozen by the RBI in a six-month moratorium granted because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It said the benefit will remain available to those who were clearing their loan dues between March and August. READ MORE Sushant Singh Rajput Case: AIIMS Panel Rules Out Murder Claim; Calls It Suicide, Suggests Report The AIIMS forensic panel has ruled out murder claim in the Sushant Singh Rajput case and called it a case of suicide in its conclusive medico-legal" opinion to CBI, sources have told NDTV, dismissing the theories of poisoning and strangling. As per the sources, the CBI is likely to continue its probe into abetment to suicide". READ MORE The Social Dilemma is Distorted: Facebook Issues 7-Point Response to Viral Documentary The Social Dilemma has been a viral documentary that highlights how users remain addicted to social media and their smartphones, in turn promoting dysfunctional social behaviour. Now, weeks after the release of Orlowskis documentary on Netflix, Facebook the worlds largest social media group, has issued a seven-point response to the narrative that The Social Dilemma weaves with reference to addiction, privacy, targeted ads, polarising content, misinformation and more. READ MORE IPL 2020: MS Dhoni Admits CSK Have Been a Bit Too Relaxed at Times This Season Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni was in a reflective mood after the side slumped to a third loss in four IPL 2020 games after Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated them by 7 runs in Dubai on Friday (October 2). Dhoni not only said that he was trying too hard to hit every ball and was thus not able to middle it, he further said that his team needed to step their game up after losing three straight games.READ MORE Two cops were also transferred after the victim's family alleged that the police inaction pushed the 32-year-old to end her life four days after she was gang-raped A policeman has been arrested in Madhya Pradesh's Narsinghpur district for allegedly not registering a Dalit rape victim's complaint for four days, following which she ended her life, a top officer said on Saturday. The arrest was made after Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took serious cognisance of the alleged lapse and ordered that a case be registered against the local police official. Two senior officials were also shunted out as per the orders. The woman, who was allegedly raped by three men four days ago, committed suicide on Friday, police said. An official in Bhopal said that Chouhan had ordered on Friday night that Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police (ASI) Mishrilal Kodapa of Gotitoriya police outpost in Gadarwara tehsil, some 50 kms from Narsinghpur district headquarters, should be booked and arrested for not registering the victim's complaint of gang-rape. Besides, as per the orders, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rajesh Tiwari and Gadarwara Sub Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) S R Yadav were shunted out from Narsinghpur, he said. "A case was registered against Kodapa and he was arrested under 166 (c) (public servant failing to record information) of IPC on Friday night," Jabalpur Zone Inspector General of Police Bhagwat Singh Chauhan told PTI. The ASP and the SDOP have been transferred from Narsinghpur, he added. Kodapa had been suspended on Friday after a video went viral in social media, in which the husband of the deceased woman accused the policeman of not registering a complaint of rape, police said. The man was purportedly heard saying in the audio-visual clip that instead of taking action in the case, he was held based on a complaint lodged by the accused and had to cough up Rs 50,000 as a bribe for his release. "Three men identified as Arvind and Parsu Choudhary, who belonged to the same community as the victim, and another accused Anil Rai, allegedly gang-raped the 32-year old woman on Monday. They trio has been arrested," Narsinghpur SP Ajay Singh said. According to police, the accused allegedly raped the woman when she was in a field cutting grass for the cattle. The police, however, said on Friday that the woman's two nieces said that the accused caught hold of her and teased her, but did not confirm that she was raped. As per the girls' version, when they raised an alarm, the accused fled from the spot, police added. SDOP Yadav, who has been shunted out, had said on Friday that the woman and her husband had orally complained to the police on the same day but there was no clarity in the complaint. On Friday, when the victim went to fetch water from a tap, a local woman had allegedly taunted her, after which the victim returned home and hanged herself, police said. Police said they have have already arrested that woman. "Besides, Motilal, Arvind's father, too, was arrested under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) as he had said something insulting to the woman," Yadav had said. After the Dalit woman hanged herself, the police registered a case of gang rape against the three accused on Friday after four days. Bengaluru, Oct 3 : Karnataka's total number of recoveries touched 5,08,495, with discharge of 8,989 more patients on Saturday, health officials said. However, on the flip side, 9886 positive cases outnumbered the 8989 recoveries on the same day. 100 patients have succumbed to the infection till Friday night, taking the number of fatalities in the southern state to 9,219. "9,886 new cases were reported from across the state, pushing the Covid tally to 6,30,516 including 1,12,783 active cases," said the state health bulletin. Bengaluru registered 3,925 fresh cases, taking its Covid tally to 2,45,700, including 53,292 active cases, while 1,89,362 were discharged so far, with 2,001. With 21 succumbing to the infection in the last 24 hours, the death toll in the city touched 3,045 since the virus broke out in the state on March 9. Of the 841 patients in the intensive care units (ICUs) across the state, 291 are in Bengaluru Urban district hospitals, 93 in Dharwad, 80 in Ballari, 62 in Hassan and 40 in Kalaburagi, Of the new cases in the districts, Mysore reported 1,514, Hassana 460, Shivamogga 337. Tumkuru 302 and Bengaluru Rural reported 283 cases. Among the districts where patients were discharged are Tumkuru 963, Shivamogga 866 and Mysuru 859 were reported. Everything you need to know about skiing the Northeast this winter Whether you want to stay close to home or head north, here's everything you need to know about skiing or snowboarding in the Northeast and New York this season. On Friday afternoon, President Trump boarded the Marine One helicopter for a short flight to the Walter Reed Medical Centre to be treated for coronavirus symptoms, writing the next major chapter in history for a medical facility thats been at the heart of U.S. wars and politics for more than a century. "Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the President will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said. The president and First Lady had previously been quarantining following their positive tests. The news of their condition has rocked Washington, the presidential election, and the country overnight; however, as the premier hospital treating American servicemembers and lawmakers, Walter Reed is no stranger to high stakes. The last time the president reportedly visited the facility, in July, was to visit wounded servicemembers, and to meet medical personnel who were helping to fight the COVID-19 crisis. It was the first time Mr. Trump, often skeptical of face-coverings, wore a mask in public, NPR reported. I think when youre in a hospital, especially in that particular setting where youre talking to a lot of soldiers and people that in some cases just got off the operating table, I think its a great thing to wear a mask, Mr. Trump reportedly said at the time. Ive never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place. Walter Reed, which has since changed locations, first opened its doors in 1909 as an Army hospital, named for an Army doctor and scientist who helped show mosquitoes carry yellow fever. Since then, it has treated hundreds of thousands of Americas soldiers, as well as various presidents and other elected officials. Walter Reed is where President Calvin Coolidges teen soon was treated for an eventually fatal infection. Richard Nixon, who was then President Eisenhowers Vice President, was treated for a staph infection at Walter Reed in 1960. He hadnt fully recovered by the time of his famous first televised debate with John F. Kennedy, where many remarked he looked in ill health compared to the vibrant young Senator. Later, in 1968, Eisenhower himself entered Walter Reed, where he was treated for coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure, and eventually died there in 1969. Before the hospital was even built it had an outsized connection to national events; a Confederate bullet nearly struck President Abraham Lincoln on the site for the original hospital. Its historical prominence has carried on into more recent decades, too. In 2007, the Washington Post reported a series of exposes about decrepit housing and poor treatment for soldiers at Walter Reed, many who were returning from Americas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This isnt Trumps first newsworthy stay at Walter Reed either. Speculation ran rampant after Trump made an unannounced visit to the facility in November 2019 that the president mightve experienced a stroke, though the White House denied that and said he was merely getting a regular checkup. Famed historian John Meacham recently warned that, generally speaking, when trying to understand medical crises and presidents, its best to take information with a grain of salt. There is a very checkered history of American presidents even in the best of times sharing accurate medical information with the public. he told MSNBC on Friday. Its far more the exception than the rule. The Madhya Pradesh government has proposed a steep hike in user charges for water supply, sewerage and solid waste management services in the urban areas to recover the cost incurred in providing these facilities as its revenue generation continues on the downward trend, according to a state government notification. The government has also proposed a hefty increase in the spot fines for various violations such as spitting or urinating in public places in urban areas depending on the population of the habitat. For instance, Rs 1000 spot fine may be imposed on a person who dumps solid waste, urinates, spits, defecates in open in cities with a population of one million and more. The fine will be less in cities with less than one million population. Similarly, heavy fines will be imposed on dumping of construction materials, non-segregation of solid wastes, interfering in or damaging the water supply system, disposing animal excreta in public etc, the notification said. Certain officials from the urban administration and housing department say if the notification is implemented in letter and spirit, the water charges in urban areas may see an increase up to 400% to 600% over the existing charges, which vary in every city. For instance, the user charges for water supply in Bhopal, Indore, Sagar and Jabalpur are Rs 180, Rs 200, Rs 150 and Rs 175 per month. Similarly, the charges for solid waste management, which is usually one third of the water supply charges, will also see a steep hike. The actual water charges to be notified are yet to be decided. The process is underway, said an official from the urban administration and development department. In Madhya Pradesh, more than 20 million people reside in urban areas, as per census 2011. There are as many as 378 urban bodies including 16 municipal corporations. Also Read: No doctor or even peon: MP minister finds hospital staff missing, posts video on social media The notification dated August 28, 2020 issued by urban administration department states, Based on the actual expenditure on the items mentioned in rule 4 audited by local fund auditor or chartered accountant, the calculation of user charges for water supply services shall be done in such a manner that annual expenditure incurred on water supply services can be recovered cent per centAnnual expenditure incurred on solid waste management system can be recovered cent percent. Sewerage charges shall be minimum 60% of user charges for water supply services. As per an official, hardly 25% of the expenditure on the water charges is recovered from consumers due to two reasons- public not willing to pay and a shortage of manpower with the urban bodies and also a lack of professionalism in the urban bodies. For instance, Bhopal municipal corporation (BMC) incurs an expenditure of about Rs 300 crore annually on supply of water, including Rs 125 crore on electricity charges, Rs 40 crore on chemicals, Rs 30 crore on salaries and interest on loans etc, whereas, the realisation of water charges is about Rs 50 to Rs 60 crore annually. Also Read: Dalit woman kills herself after police refuses to lodge FIR on gang-rape A study prepared in June 2019, for the 15th finance commission, based on 39 municipal corporations in the country which include Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur from Madhya Pradesh, states, User charges for water supply, sewerage and solid waste management accounted for only 27% of the municipal operations and maintenance (O&M) expenditures in 2017-18. On the issue of proposed increase in the user charges for water supply, commissioner, Bhopal municipal corporation, KVS Chaudhary said, A committee will take a decision on the same. The rates will be notified based on the decision of the committee. Retired executive engineer, BMC, RB Rai said, The corporation needs to augment its revenue if it has to upgrade its facilities to provide quality water to people in the city. State Congress spokesperson Bhupendra Gupta said, When people are facing a financial crisis due to loss of jobs, salary cuts or business losses due to anti-people policies of the central and state governments and their inefficiency in controlling Covid situation, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh is looking for Aapada me awsar (opportunity in disaster). The notification was issued secretly, that too, at a time when people are fighting against Corona. But Congress would not allow such malpractices by the government. Minister for urban administration and development, Bhupendra Singh, couldnt be reached for his comments. However, the state BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said, The BJP government is sensitive towards the needs of people. I dont think the state government will allow such a steep hike in the water charges. The party will bring the notification to the notice of the government if there is any proposed hike in it. Trump's physician confirmed he is being treated for Covid-19 with remdesivir For all hospitalised patients, FDA has given emergency use of the anti-viral drug NHS doctors told to save drug for those 'who have greatest capacity to benefit' UK hospitals issued alert warning of 'increased demand against available supply' Fears are mounting over a global shortage of the coronavirus drug remdesivir, which is being used to treat Donald Trump after the US bought much of the world's supply. The US President's physician confirmed last night that Trump is being treated for the virus with the experimental anti-viral drug that was first developed to combat Ebola. ADVERTISEMENT For all patients hospitalised with Covid-19, the US' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given emergency-use of the intravenous antiviral drug sold by Gilead Sciences Inc, which has been shown to shorten hospital stays. But NHS doctors have been told not to give the drug to the most seriously ill patients, and to save it for those who 'have the greatest capacity to benefit'. Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilsom said: 'With this pandemic causing so much pain, ministers have a duty to do everything they can to keep people safe and ensure no one is left behind. US President Donald Trump, who is being treated for Covid-19 with the experimental drug remdesivir, walks to Marine One as he heads to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on Friday Remdesivir, pictured, works to prevent the virus from copying itself within a patient's body so it can't spread further but scientists have not yet discovered how 'Reports the NHS is already rationing remdesivir because it is in short supply is deeply troubling. It is made all the worse by the denial from the Department for Health. 'People deserve to know he truth. While it is clear the Government failed to prepare properly for a pandemic, they must leave no stone unturned in getting it now.' The National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that patients being given the drug improved after 11 days, four days faster than those who didn't receive the medication. It works to prevent the virus from copying itself within a patient's body so it can't spread further but scientists have not yet discovered how. Before he was hospitalised, the president was also treated with an experimental antibody drug from Regeneron. Click here to resize this module The FDA issued an emergency use authorisation for remdesivir on May 1, in response to the preliminary results of the NIH study that were released at the end of April. ADVERTISEMENT The study found that the medication helped patients recover 31 per cent faster. According to Hackensack Meridian Health, initially only severely ill hospitalised COVID-19 patients were eligible to be treated with remdesivir. On August 28, however, the FDA extended its authorisation to all hospitalised adult and paediatric patients with suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, irrespective of their severity of disease. Meanwhile, NHS hospitals around the country were issued an alert on Thursday titled 'supply disruption' which warned of an 'increased demand against available supply', telling doctors to be more selective about to whom they give the drug. Marine One lifts off from the White House in Washington to carry President Trump to Walter Reed National military Medical Center. Trump will spend a 'few days' at the hospital White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, right, watches as Trump walks off Marine One while arriving at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday WHAT IS REMDESIVIR AND DOES IT WORK AGAINST CORONAVIRUS? Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug first made to try and treat Ebola, has been used experimentally on COVID-19 patients since the outbreak's early days. The FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the drug on May 1, in response to the preliminary results of a notable study that was released at the end of April. According to Hackensack Meridian Health, initially only severely ill hospitalized COVID-19 patients were eligible to be treated with remdesivir, otherwise known as Veklury. On August 28, the FDA extended its authorization to all hospitalized adult and pediatric patients with suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, irrespective of their severity of disease. 'The FDA continues to make safe and potentially helpful treatments for COVID-19 available as quickly as possible in order to help patients. The data to support todays action are encouraging. The data show that this treatment has the potential to help even more hospitalized patients who are suffering from the effects of this devastating virus,' said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. 'We are working with drug developers to conduct randomized clinical trials to further study the safety and effectiveness of a number of potential therapies for COVID-19.' However in August, a report from the drug's California-based maker, Gilead Sciences Inc found that the effects of the medication may only be seen in those with severe infections. There are claims of miraculous recovery, improved survival odds and shorter illness, but other studies have found it makes no difference to patients in hospital with Covid-19. Remdesivir produced encouraging results earlier this year when it showed promise for both preventing and treating MERS - another coronavirus - in macaque monkeys. The drug appears to help stop the replication of viruses like coronavirus and Ebola alike. It's not entirely clear how the drug accomplishes this feat, but it seems to stop the genetic material of the virus, RNA, from being able to copy itself. That, in turn, stops the virus from being able to proliferate further inside the patient's body. The Department of Health denies there is a shortage of the drug, claiming there 'remain plenty of supplies', but said it was being used up faster and more stocks couldn't be delivered until the end of October. It is not clear how much of the medicine the UK has bought. The US, where remdesivir manufacturer Gilead is based, was criticised in June for buying up the entire global supply of the drug meaning no new orders could be placed for the three months following. As well as this, Gilead donated 1.5million doses of it for clinical trials around the world, further depleting supplies. Britain is not alone in feeling the impact of the stocking issue, however, and hospitals in India are struggling to get hold of the drug, too. Hospitals were advised to ration use of the drug in an emergency alert and were told the restrictions were likely to remain in place until at least the end of this month. ADVERTISEMENT The alert ordered staff to deny remdesivir to the most seriously ill patients, including those on ventilators, demanding it should only be given to people with the 'greatest capacity for benefit'. It said: 'Due to increased demand against available supply, clinicians are now asked to apply the full eligibility criteria ... last published on 3rd September 2020... 'Clinicians are also asked to adhere to a standard treatment course of 5 days.' It says that for people to be eligible for remdesivir they should be in hospital with Covid-19 and pneumonia but not using a ventilator. 'The FDA continues to make safe and potentially helpful treatments for COVID-19 available as quickly as possible in order to help patients. The data to support today's action are encouraging', said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D in August. 'The data show that this treatment has the potential to help even more hospitalised patients who are suffering from the effects of this devastating virus. 'We are working with drug developers to conduct randomized clinical trials to further study the safety and effectiveness of a number of potential therapies for COVID-19.' Yet the same month, a report from the drug's California-based maker Gilead found that the effects of the medication may only be seen in those with severe infections. Researchers found a group of patients given the drug for five days saw their conditions improved but a similar group who received the drug for an average of six days had no significant benefit. The team looked at 584 patients with moderate cases of Covid-19. One third of the patients received a five-day course, one-third received a 10-day course and the remaining were given standard care. The patients were at 105 hospitals in the US, Europe, and Asia, and were followed for a little less than two weeks. The median length of treatment was five days for patients in the five-day remdesivir group and six days for patients in the 10-day remdesivir group. Those treated with remdesivir for five days were much better by day 11 than the standard care group, but the authors said this 'was of uncertain clinical importance.' Remdesvir is approved in the US for emergency use in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Pictured: A vial of remdesivir at the University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany However, the group that received the drug for an average of six days did not differ from standard care group What's more, death rates didn't vary between the 10-day group and those who didn't get the treatment with two percent in each group dying. Researchers say that patient receiving remdesivir did have fewer severe symptoms of the virus, they had more moderate symptoms and side effects such as headache and nausea. The team says its not sure why there was such a difference but plant to evaluate these discrepancies in further trials. Remdesivir produced encouraging results earlier this year when it showed promise for both preventing and treating MERS - another coronavirus - in macaque monkeys. It was developed to treat Ebola, the deadly fever that emerged in West Africa in 2014. While it was unsuccessful in treating Ebola, the drug appears to interfere with the ability of the coronavirus to copy its genetic material. It's not entirely clear how the drug accomplishes this feat, but it seems to stop the genetic material of the virus, RNA, from being able to copy itself. That, in turn, stops the virus from being able to proliferate further inside the patient's body. Gilead announced in September that is looking to expand the ways that remdesivir might be used. Its CEO Daniel O'Day told CNBC's Squawk Box on Monday that the company has launched trials to use the drug in IV form outside of hospitals. White House physician Sean Conley said on Friday night the president was 'doing very well' President Trump tweeted on Friday night that he believed his treatment was 'going well' Many major hospitals in the US are reserving the use of remdesivir for the sickest patients and have cut their orders by a third. At $3,120 per treatment course, remdesivir is expensive, and hospitals are reticent to buy or the drug on hand when it may go unused as hospitalizations for Covid-19 continue to decline in many states. O'Day said his company is 'not done with remdesivir yet' and is also trialling an inhaled form of the antiviral. In August, researchers want to see if adding another drug could improve the effects of remdesivir and shorten recovery time even further, reported The New York Times. Beta interferon, currently approved to treat multiple sclerosis, also has anti-inflammatory properties and helps tame the immune system response, which may help tame a deadly overreaction the immune system has to the virus The trial is the third phase of the Adaptive Covid-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT), being run by the NIH's National institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The first phase of the study was the phase that helped remdesivir receive emergency use authorisation as a treatment for severe coronavirus patients. The second phase tested remdesivir and a placebo in comparison with remdesivir and baricitinib, an arthritis drug that helps suppress inflammation, according to The Times. Researchers are still evaluating the results, but it appears baricitinib did not quell cytokine storms, which occur when the body doesn't just fight off the virus but also attacks its own cells and tissues. US BOUGHT ALMOST ENTIRE GLOBAL SUPPLY OF REMDESIVIR IN JUNE Boris Johnson was forced in July allay fears of an anti-coronavirus drugs shortage today after Donald Trump bought up almost the entire global supply of remdesivir. The US president was accused of 'undermining' the global coronavirus fight by splashing the cash on one of only two drugs approved to treat Covid-19 at the time. UK business minister Nadhim Zahawi was among those who criticised his decision to make the rest of the world compete for the medication, originally designed to treat Ebola but proven to speed up recovery time for coronavirus patients. But Downing Street and the Department of Health later played down the significance of the move, insisting that the UK has enough of a stockpile to treat everyone who needs it. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said on July 1: 'The UK currently has a sufficient stock of Remdesivir.' And the Department of Health said it had secured supplies in advance and had enough to treat every NHS patient who needs it. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) had earlier revealed it had secured more than 500,000 treatment courses of remdesivir for American hospitals. It represents the entire global supply for July and 90 per cent of stocks for August and September, leading to fears of an autumn shortage. Discussing the deal which US health chiefs boasted was 'amazing' Mr Zahawi told Sky News: 'It's much better to work together than to work to undermine each other, so we'll continue in that spirit.' After Trump's hospitalisation, White House physician Sean Conley said in a letter to Press Secretary McEnancy that Trump began taking the drug on Friday night. 'This afternoon, in consultation with specialists from Walter Reed and Johns Hopkins University, I recommended movement of the President up to Walter Reed Military Medical Center for further monitoring,' Conley wrote. 'This evening I am happy to report that the President is doing very well. He is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but in consultation with specialists we have elected to initiate remdesivir therapy. He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably.' Trump also tweeted that he believed his treatment was 'going well' on Friday night. Earlier on Friday, the president had been treated with an experimental antibody drug that has been called one of the most promising approaches to preventing serious illness from a Covid-19 infection. Its maker, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, said the company agreed to supply a single dose, given intravenously, for Trump at the request of his physician under 'compassionate use' provisions. The new drug is in late-stage testing and its safety and effectiveness are not yet known, and no treatment has yet proven able to prevent serious illness after a coronavirus infection. Trump was given the experimental drug at the White House on Friday before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre. Several doctors who treat Covid-19, including Dr David Boulware at the University of Minnesota, had speculated that doctors might use the antibody drug, given that this approach has worked against other diseases in the past. 'They're not going to just sit around and watch to see if he gets sick,' he said. Antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs and vaccines trick the body into thinking there is an infection so it makes these antibodies. But it can take weeks for them to form after natural infection or a vaccine. The drugs aim to give that protection immediately, by supplying concentrated versions of one or two antibodies that worked best against the coronavirus in laboratory and animal tests. Regeneron's drug contains two antibodies to enhance chances that it will work and the company previously developed a successful Ebola treatment from an antibody combination. A scientist works in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' Infectious Disease Lab in New York state, for efforts on an experimental coronavirus antibody drug. Antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs; they attach to a virus and help the immune system eliminate it Earlier this week, Regeneron said partial results from about 275 Covid-19 patients who were not sick enough to need hospital treatment suggested it might be cutting how long symptoms last. However, the study has not been completed, the results were only announced in a company news release and have not been published or reviewed by other scientists. On Friday, Conley said Trump also was taking zinc, vitamin D, an antacid called famotidine, melatonin and aspirin. None of those have been proven to be effective against Covid-19. Trump apparently is not receiving hydroxychloroquine, a drug he widely promoted that has been shown in many studies to be ineffective for preventing or treating Covid-19. The president announced he and the First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus in the early hours of Friday morning. ADVERTISEMENT The White House said he will be spending a 'few days' in hospital but will continue to work. "It is a case of hanging and death by suicide. We have submitted our conclusive report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)" New Delhi: The AIIMS medical board has ruled out murder in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, terming it "a case of hanging and death by suicide", the premier institute's forensic chief Dr Sudhir Gupta said on Saturday. In its conclusive medico-legal opinion to the CBI, the six-member team of forensic doctors has dismissed the claims of "poisoning and strangling" made in the case of Singh''s death. "It is a case of hanging and death by suicide. We have submitted our conclusive report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)," Dr Gupta, who is also the chairman of the forensic medical board, said. There was no injury on the body other than that of hanging. Also, there was no mark of struggle and scuffle, he said but refused to divulge any further details stating the case is subjudice. Rajput, 34, who made his silver screen debut in the critically acclaimed "Kai Po Che" seven years ago, was found dead in his apartment in suburban Bandra in Mumbai on June 14. The CBI had taken over the probe from Bihar Police into the alleged abetment to suicide case filed by the actor's father KK Singh in Patna against Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family. Earlier this week, the central probe agency had said that it has not reached any conclusion in Rajput's death case and that all aspects were under investigation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis "very sad" and "tragic." "I always pray for the president and his family that they're safe," she said on Friday. The top Democrat also said Trump's behavior during the pandemic was a "brazen invitation for something like this to happen." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is praying for President Donald Trump after his positive COVID-19 test but called his behavior during the pandemic a "brazen invitation" for the virus. "This is tragic, it's very sad," Pelosi said in an interview on MSNBC on Friday. "But it also is something that, again, going into crowds, unmasked, and all the rest, was sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen." The top Democrat also expressed that she remains "hopeful that it will be a transition to a saner approach of what this virus is all about." Trump has regularly hosted campaign rallies, both indoors and outdoors, against the warnings of public health officials who have cautioned that the events with closely packed crowd sizes and little mask-wearing could be superspreaders of the virus. Those rallies have now come to a halt as the president is quarantining with First Lady Melania Trump at the White House following their positive diagnosis late Thursday. Pelosi said the news could serve as a "learning experience" for the rest of the country to heed coronavirus health guidance and take the crisis more seriously. The disease has now taken the lives of more than 205,000 people in the US. "Maybe this will be the moment where people will say, 'OK, Masks. Distance. Sanitation. Tracing. Treatment,'" she said. Out of an abundance of caution, Pelosi said that she took a COVID-19 test and is awaiting the results. Her spokesman later confirmed she tested negative. Story continues The California Democrat also spoke about the new $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill the House passed on Thursday evening, and that talks were underway with the Trump administration. "Let's understand the diagnosis that our country has had at the highest level and recognize that every life, every diagnosis, is important," Pelosi said. "Having the treatment is very important. We're glad the president has it. We want it for everyone. That's in our bill." Read the original article on Business Insider Regina Fani-Kayode (Nee Hanson Amonoo) is a business woman, pastor and the legal wife of Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation. According to Mrs Fani-Kayode, who lives in Ghana, their 23-year-old union remains rock solid irrespective of a fourth wife (Precious Chikwendu) in the picture. In a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Mrs Fani-Kayode speaks about their union and her relationship with his fourth wife. PT: Tell us a bit about yourself. Regina: I am a pastor, interior designer and I live in Ghana. I am a very private person so Ill love us to leave it at that PT: Why do you live in Ghana? Regina: I used to live in Nigeria but a few years ago, I came to Ghana because I wanted my daughter to be in a particular school. So I came down to Ghana and we were going back to Nigeria at weekends and we got back before school every week. After a while, it became a little bit too stressful, so our visits reduced to like one weekend in a month, then one weekend every three months and all. With all the political activities in Nigeria and everything, it was also a better environment here in Ghana than in Nigeria. PT: How long have you been living in Ghana? Regina: Quite a while, maybe slightly lesser than ten years. PT: You said in a recent interview that you are still legally married to FFK. Regina: Very very married. I talk to him every single day. We talk every single day, sometimes, we talk for hours or less. PT: Its a bit confusing now. Did he marry Precious while still married to you? Regina: He paid a dowry on Precious, I think this year February. I felt it was the right thing to do because they have four children and it is only right for him to do the right thing. I am still married to him, I am his legal wife and everything but the circumstances demanded a little bit of you know, and because of the children. He introduced Precious to me from the very beginning, he told me that he was a bit lonely and he needed somebody. You know he likes talking and so he needed company all the time. I understood because I knew that he was lonely and I wasnt there. PT: At that point, why didnt you decide to come back? Regina: My daughter was already a teenager and at that age, they start socialising and if youre not there to watch over them if anything happens, you wont be able to blame anybody but yourself. PT: Why didnt you return to Nigeria with your daughter? Regina: No, because at that age, she was almost approaching the end of a stage and I didnt want to interrupt her schooling. Another thing is that she never liked any of the Nigerian schools that she was attending, so she insisted on being in the same school as Folake. Folake is Femis first daughter. They got on very well so, from a very young age, she was always insisting. PT: Really? Regina: Yes. Femi is a great guy, hes wonderful, a great husband, and everything but that wont stop him from occasionally cheating. So, Im not the type that will say if Im there 24/7, it will stop him from doing that. I am a very practical person, I wasnt going to risk watching over my daughter to stay with him because if it will happen, it will still happen anyway. It is better for him to be upfront about it and tell me I like this girl and everything rather than sneaking around and all that. So, when he introduced this girl (Precious) to me, I liked the girl because she was nice and all that. I completely loved her, we got on like a house on fire, and we were like sisters. She was like my baby. We were very close to the point that any complaint that Femi ever had, I wont even hear it. Whatever she says was what Ill insist Femi does for her. She was very demanding but I thought it was because of her age. I didnt mind, she was like my little sister. Advertisements PT: Most women would be jealous Regina: No, I wasnt. I have a lot of Igbo friends so I took to her (Regina) immediately. There was never any issue of me being jealous or anything. Ever. PT: Werent you lonely too? Since your husband was with somebody else? Regina: Well, I was, but I was very engaged with everything I was doing. The ministry work and then watching over my daughter. My outlook on that is that, if a man will cheat, he will cheat no matter what you do. Now, its up to you to know what you want. Its up to the woman to decide. Growing up, we didnt learn that, we just assumed that he is going to stay faithful to his vows because every woman believes in the vows they are making. PT: Some people are wondering why you have decided to go public to speak about your marriage at this time. Regina: If anybody goes through Femis page, his Facebook page, they will realise that up until Precious came into the picture, he always posted my photos on his page and everything. I am a very private person, I dont like that kind of exposure. Why did I come out now? I came out now because, for years, one of his ex-wives had posted stories against him because she was very bitter. She posted stories about all sorts of things, domestic abuse, and whatever. But the two of us totally ignored it because it wasnt true. We never addressed it publicly. The sad thing about it is that she never posted any story about what she claimed Femi did to her. She created a fantasy scenario of Femi attacking me, beating me and me attacking his first wife, who was also divorced by him. She created all kinds of scenarios, crazy ones and we never did anything about it. Over the years, people have assumed that it must be true. PT: What is this impression you are talking about? Regina: The idea and impression is that FFK beats up his wives and it is stuck in peoples minds. And as far as they are concerned, he has been married three times and he beats up all his three wives and they all left him. And that was completely false. It wasnt true. The first wife whom he divorced got married to him when he was twenty-two but it didnt work because of some reasons. She has never posted anything about any abuse anywhere. He married the second one, she was the one that was posting all these things and then I came into the picture and he has never abused me or anything. I am not divorced from him, Im still with him. PT: And when he was with his fourth wife, Precious, you guys were still in talks? Regina: Everyday. Not just with him but with Precious as well. I talk to him for hours, I talk to Precious as well and the children know me. PT: Having been married to him for 23 years, how would you describe your husband? Regina: He is very charming, very generous to a fault, very intelligent, very passionate about everything and very sensitive to peoples emotions. He is also very compassionate and he just has a short temper but it blows over very quickly and that is it for him. He doesnt bear grudges and he would even overcompensate for it most of the time. That is his nature, that is how he is. PT: Now that he allegedly has an issue with Precious, have you tried to mediate? Regina: I have mediated in every argument theyve ever had. Back in November or December, something happened which I dont want to go into details. Something like an entanglement by Precious and I still intervened. I spoke to her to get her side of the story but there was no way to get her out of it. For the first time, I was really angry with her but I still got Femi to calm down and not to react or send her away or break the relationship. It was very very difficult for Femi and at that point, he felt like I was not sympathetic to his feelings but I felt like it could be handled. It was bad but at the same time, it could be handled. I and a lot of people talked him into keeping her (Precious), in spite of the situation. At that point, her dad was in the hospital dying and Femi is the person that finances his medical bills. So, if he just lets go, the mans medical bills, his burial, everything was going to be a disaster. We had to just push him into just cooling down and accepting to go about it in a different way, instead of even allowing the situation to come out. After that situation, a lot of information now came out which was even worse than that entanglement, bordering on life and death. After that one came out, I was like, I mean, it cant go on because if you cant trust somebody with your life, you cant be with that person. That was when I actually broke off with her. I told her no no no, I cannot continue being on your side when it comes to life and death. PT: So, will you move to Nigeria ? Regina: I come visiting so its not a big deal. Its not like I dont come at all. PT: When you come around do you guys still have that time together? Regina: No, because Precious has become my friend. Since this latest issue, I havent been there. When I come to Nigeria I dont sleepover at thiers. I just stop by to check on him, check on some business, and then Im out. Because I wanted them to be happy. I never felt like Im not with him. I will always be with him. PT: But the intimacy is important. Regina: Yes, it is but ever since he cheated, that was way before Precious, he cheated once and I was like how could you possibly? So I was like if this can be possible, I had to re-orientate my thinking. I didnt allow physical intimacy to be a big thing with me. PT: How do you manage advances from men? Precious: They all know Im married, very married. PT: Where did you two get married? Regina: We had our engagement in Ghana, and we did our registry marriage in Nigeria. PT: Was Precious married under the law? Regina: No, hers wasnt under the law. He just paid her dowry and they held a traditional marriage. PT: Have you spoken to Precious since this incident? Regina: No, I havent because I will not talk to somebody who wants to destroy my husband. The last time I talked to her, that was when we were trying to settle the entanglement case. She made statements that made me realise that she wasnt truly what she pretended to be. She made statements like she was going to scandalise him and destroy his political career. PT: What is your view about his political life? Regina: I actually met him when he came to a prayer group in Ghana and he came there to pray. There was a prophecy in his life that had something to do with his political career. So, I knew that that was what God wanted him to do and that was also why he sticks to politics no matter what happens. He says, I cannot run away to another country because I want to have peace of mind. God wants me to do this (politics), let me do it for God. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: (Natural News) On Thursday, October 1, the New York Times ran an op-ed piece defending a plan by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to take over Hong Kong, justifying both the recently passed national security law and the violent crackdowns on pro-democracy protests in the special administrative region. Written by Hong Kong Executive Council member Regina Ip, the article argued that the new law is saving the one country, two systems government by ensuring that Hong Kong does not become a danger to China. In her article, Ip also criticized the West for its positive portrayal of pro-democracy activists. She described how Western media outlets glorify these people as defenders of Hong Kongs freedoms, but pointed out that pro-democracy figures have caused more harm to the city by going against its constitutional order and stirring up chaos and dissatisfaction toward our motherland. Something had to be done, and the Chinese authorities did it, Ip wrote. The Executive Council member mentioned that she saw little chance of compromise between the pro-democracy faction in Hong Kong and the central government in Beijing. Democratic development in Hong Kong has brought about nothing but chaos, polarization and anti-China sentiment according to the central government. (Related: Massive protests rock Hong Kong as citizens reject fake democracy controlled by communist China.) Pro-China article draws criticism The papers decision to run Ips op-ed drew a fair amount of criticism, with commentators calling the decision to do so dangerous and hypocritical. Hal Brands, a professor at Johns Hopkins Universitys School of Advanced International Studies, wrote on Twitter: I wonder if NYT will apologize for running this op-ed, which is clearly so dangerous to the advocates of democracy and autonomy in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Yascha Mounk, an associate professor from the same institution, pointed out that the previous head of the paper stepped down after publishing another controversial piece, but a propagandist for an authoritarian regime got a thumbs-up despite arguing that a violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests was necessary. Mounk was referencing the resignation of former New York Times editor James Bennet back in June. Bennet, who was formerly in charge of the papers op-ed section, stepped down after having greenlit a controversial article by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton that encouraged the use of force against Black Lives Matter protesters. The associate professor dubbed the papers hypocrisy with regards to the opinion pieces as staggering. The running of Ips op-ed was not the first instance in which the New York Times kowtowed to the CCP. Previously, the paper ran advertorials by Chinese state-owned broadsheet Peoples Daily on its website advertorials that it eventually took down in August. (Related: NYT quietly scrubs Chinese propaganda.) One country, two systems continually ignored by Beijing Despite the one country, two systems principle in place in Hong Kong, Beijing has continually asserted its control over the island ever since the British returned it. The CCP has imprisoned a number of high-profile supporters of democracy for the special administrative regionincluding media tycoon Jimmy Laias part of its assertion. According to Ip, the former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping proposed the one country, two systems formula in the late 1970s with the ultimate objective of national unity by bringing back Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan into a single Chinese nation. Hong Kong was returned in 1997 after more than 150 years under the British, while the Portuguese returned Macau after more than four centuries. Taiwan, however, has resisted reunification efforts. Ip wrote that Hong Kong is part of China whether people like it or not, and its progressive integration with the mainland was inevitable given the disparity in size and the special administrative regions growing economic dependence on the mainland. She warned that any attempts to change the formal political status of Hong Kong, turn it into a de facto independent political entity or free it from the mainlands control is a fundamental challenge to Chinas sovereignty. Learn more about Hong Kongs fight for democracy at Freedom.news. Sources include: FreeBeacon.com NYTimes.com Twitter.com 1 Twitter.com 2 TheGuardian.com NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The government said on Saturday it will waive 'interest on interest' on loans of up to 2 crore for six months through to the end of August, but warned this will impact pressing commitments" such as fighting the coronavirus pandemic. The announcement, made in an affidavit to the Supreme Court, was welcomed by retailers and small businesses that have been the hardest hit by the pandemic. But it came twinned with a warning. Bearing the cost of paying interest on interest, it told the court, would naturally have an impact on several other pressing commitments being faced by the nation, including meeting direct costs associated with pandemic management, addressing basic needs of the common man and mitigating the common man's problems arising out of loss of livelihood." It also said it did not waive the interest charged on all categories of loans because that would have made it difficult for banks to survive. In its affidavit, the government said that due to unprecedented conditions "the only solution is for the government to bear the burden of waiving of interest" and that it will seek Parliament's approval for the decision. The move includes those who have cleared their dues, and the compound interest will be scrapped for eight sectors: micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), education loans, housing, consumer durables, credit card dues, auto loans, personal and professional loans and consumption loans. To be sure, interest on the loan itself has not been waived. The finance ministry said in the petition on Saturday that if charges were waived for all categories of loans, it would lead to a 6 trillion burden for banks. "If the banks were to bear this burden, it would necessarily wipe out a major part of their net worth, rendering most of the banks unviable and raising a very serious question mark on their survival." The finance ministry will have to seek the Parliaments approval in the winter session for additional funds to support the waiver of the compounding interest. The immediate impact of the waiver on government finances is not known. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 22 May extended the moratorium on loans till 31 August as businesses ground to a halt amid the nationwide lockdown. Back in March, it had allowed a three-month moratorium from paying EMIs and on payment of all term loans due between 1 March and 31 May. On 28 September, the apex court had adjourned the loan moratorium case till 5 October, granting more time to the Centre, the RBI and banks to work together and file a response on their stand on waiving interest charged during the moratorium period. Petitioner Gajendra Sharma, a borrower from Agra, had submitted that no interest should be charged during the moratorium because people are facing "extreme hardship". The move is set to benefit retail and small businesses with loans up to 2 crore, categories that bore the brunt of the pandemic. While the final decision rests with the Supreme Court, the governments move to bear the burden will also include borrowers who have not availed of the moratorium. That said, bankers pointed out that the waiver will apply to those who have not availed of the moratorium and have defaulted on repayments during the six months of April-September. The court will hear the case next on Monday. "This endeavour will be over and above the support of 3.7 trillion to MSMEs, 70,000 crore for home loans, etc. already exerted through the Garib Kalyan and Aatma Nirbhar packages announced by the government earlier," the government said in the affidavit. Last month, Parliament approved a 20,000 crore infusion into public sector banks via government securities as the covid-19 crisis put borrowers under pressure, increasing the threat of higher non-performing assets. A senior government official told Mint that there will be more clarity on Monday, after the Supreme Court hearing. The implementation and the modalities of how the benefit of the waiver will be given to borrowers will be decided once the final judgment is out," the official said. The official said the waiver may cost the government more than 20,000 crore, mainly due to the presence of large categories of lenders, including private and public sector banks, non-bank financiers, small finance banks, among others. Analysts, however, say the cost to the exchequer will be about 5,000-7,000 crore. According to a senior banker at a private sector bank, the idea to bear the burden is a welcome decision, given that most Indian banks are starved for capital and this would have further depleted resources. "Responsibility of such welfare initiatives rests with the government and it is a good move to not force banks bear such costs. However, the modalities need to be worked out and only then will a clearer picture emerge," the banker said. He cautioned that it will lead to a mammoth EMI recalculation exercise by banks that are already in the midst of a debt recast exercise. That apart, it also needs to be seen how long it takes the government to reimburse the compound interest costs to banks. Typically, in the case of farm loan waivers, state governments take anywhere between a few months to a year to reimburse banks. The pandemic has undoubtedly stretched the governments finances, forcing it to borrow more than what was initially budgeted. The total amount raised so far this year has been 7.7 trillion or 82% higher than the corresponding period last year, Care Ratings said in a report on 25 September. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics To the editor: People who know nothing about praying, pictures, statues, churches should not have been allowed to have a say in removing the beautiful statue of Christ from Messiah Lutheran Church. People who have knowledge know that Christians do not pray to a statue, a picture or any kind of object. Those objects are there as a gentle reminder to us as to whom we are praying to. Same as a picture of one's mother, father, etc. reminds us of them when we take time to look at pictures. The statue has been up there for quite some time. Why all of a sudden did someone get the notion to say something they seem to know nothing about so a wonderful work of art could be gotten rid of? Courage from seeing the rioters and deranged people out there destroying, maiming, killing and wanting to be important for a minute in his/her life? How very sad. Is this why he/she waited? Heavy police deployment has come up on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border in Noida on Saturday, ahead of a scheduled visit of a Congress delegation that plans to meet the family of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras who died after an alleged gangrape. Barricades were installed at the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway where scores of policemen, including senior officers, were present at 12.30 pm, even as CrPC section 144 remained imposed in UPs Gautam Buddh Nagar. The border is not sealed but checks have been intensified at the Delhi-Noida border, according to a local police officer. A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras on Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the young woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gangraped, a senior party leader said. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the Uttar Pradesh police in Greater Noida and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the young woman. The party leaders and workers were also booked in multiple cases for allegedly violating restrictions imposed under the CrPC section 144 in view of COVID-19 outbreak and under the Epidemic Diseases Act, among others, according to officials. The Congress has alleged that the woman and her family have been denied justice and severely traumatised by the BJP government in its attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhis Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police had forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out as per the wishes of the family. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards has designated Oct. 4-10 as Wisconsin School Board Week as a time to build awareness and understanding of the vital function an elected board of education plays in our communities. Viroqua Area Schools is joining all public school districts across the state to celebrate Wisconsin School Board Week to honor local board members for their commitment to Viroqua and its children. It takes strong schools to build a strong community, and these men and women devote countless hours to making sure our schools are helping every child learn at a higher level, Tom Burkhalter, District Administrator said. They make the tough decisions every month and spend many hours studying education issues and regulations in order to provide the kind of accountability our citizens expect. Burkhalter said the key work of school boards is to raise student achievement by: Creating a vision for what the community wants the school district to be and for making student achievement the top priority; Establishing standards for what students will be expected to learn and be able to do; Ensuring progress is measured to be sure the districts goals are achieved and students are learning at expected levels; Being accountable for their decisions and actions by continually tracking and reporting results; Creating a safe, orderly climate where students can learn and teachers can teach; Forming partnersh ips with others in the community to solve common problems; and Focusing attention on the need for continuous improvement by questioning, refining and revising issues related to student achievement. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The brand new chariot of the skies for the Indian Prime Minister, President and Vice President landed at IGI Airport on Thursday. The first of the two Boeing B777 custom-made aircraft, is specially retrofitted with the latest self-defense protection suite for VVIP transport duties. This aircraft, which was originally owned by Air India, will now be handed over to the Indian Air Force, and will be used to ferry the top political leaders of the country. Officials said the total cost of purchase and retrofitting the two planes has been estimated to be around Rs 8,400 crore. Here are some visuals of the interior of the first VVIP aircraft 'Air India One'. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Email address By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy ALBANY Police videos of a defendant telling an Albany detective about suspects in other crimes, and offering to help police buy two guns, have garnered thousands of views since they were posted on YouTube in June a scenario that prosecutors had warned could occur under the state's new criminal justice reforms that require them to swiftly turn over evidence in criminal cases, including witness statements. State Senate Republican Minority Leader Robert Ortt's office on Wednesday provided links to the videos in a news release in which he blasted Democrats for passing pre-trial discovery reforms that he called "a major public safety fail." "State Senate Democrats failed to heed our warnings that bail reform and discovery reform presented real danger to real people," Ortt said. "Why would anyone want to risk their safety to talk to police or testify if sensitive information like this could be circulated on social media?" Albany County District Attorney David Soares, when he was president of the state district attorneys association, said he had warned lawmakers and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that some of the changes they were making to pre-trial discovery rules would endanger witnesses and victims. Soares noted that turning over evidence such as the videos in the Albany case must be done within 20 days of a defendant's arraignment, leaving the identities of witnesses and victims exposed for potentially months or longer while a criminal case is pending. There is also limited funding to place witnesses in protective housing, especially for long periods of time, he said. "Now, you force me to turn that information over within 20 days of arraignment and with no trial date," Soares said. "I can't provide that kind of protection. We certainly provide witness protection, but it cannot be at the level necessary to accommodate the (new) discovery schedule." The videos of the man talking to Albany police were turned over to another defendant as part of pre-trial discovery in December, just before the new pre-trial discovery rules took effect. But Albany County prosecutors, judges and district attorneys across the state said by then they had begun implementing the new standards that were about to become law. The man in the video had been charged in October 2019 in connection with a shooting two months earlier that wounded a 23-year-old man on South Pearl Street in Albany. He was later charged in connection with a second shooting incident in the city in April 2020 while out on $50,000 bail. The criminal justice reforms including new speedy trial rules, elimination of cash bail and an expedited discovery process were passed in the state budget last year by the state Legislature and Cuomo. Laurie Shanks, a former prosecutor and a longtime criminal defense attorney, said the pre-trial discovery rules that enable defendants and their attorneys to review evidence early on in a case, and before agreeing to any plea bargain, are critical to a fair justice system. She said New York was the last state in the nation to enact the reforms, and that similar pre-trial discovery rules in other states have not resulted in mass killings and violence. "Prosecutors routinely forced people to make a decision about whether to plead guilty without even having the lab reports," she said. "People are left with the impression that they are in danger because poor people have the same right not to be incarcerated before trial as rich people do and that the defense has a right to the same information that the prosecution does." Shanks, a professor emerita at Albany Law School, said that before the new discovery rules most defendants in New York would plead guilty "so they never know the exculpatory information ... they never have an opportunity to have a fair trial." Under the new measures, prosecutors can seek a protective order to keep the identities of victims, witnesses or informants under seal, but they must show there is proof of an "actual risk" of danger that includes a threat or a defendant's document history of witness intimidation. Prior to this year, videos such as the ones posted online of the defendant's interview with an Albany detective would not have been turned over to a defense attorney until just before a case was scheduled for trial. If the matter ended with a plea agreement, the evidence would never be shared with the defense. Soares said his office and other district attorneys rely on assistance from the New York Prosecutors Training Institute to finance witness protection, although that not-for-profit organization has a limited budget for that purpose. He said his office also will use asset forfeiture funds to provide safe housing for witnesses and victims, but that there is not enough money to cover all of those needs. The defendant in the videos posted on YouTube in June is identified by name on the video, which was captured by a police camera in an interview room at Albany's detective office. It also shows the date of his October 2019 interview with a detective. Many of those commenting on the video ask for the identity of the young man, even though his name is visible on the video clip. A spokeswoman for the Senate Republicans, when asked about any concerns they have about publicly sharing links to the videos of the man who was acting in the capacity of an informant stated in an email: "This is circulated to reporters, not to the public. The link is for you to verify that this is on YouTube." But in addition to the press release sent to news outlets, the Senate minority office also had included the video links in a version of the news release posted Wednesday on their taxpayer-funded and publicly accessible website. The video links were removed on Thursday, not long after the Times Union asked about the Senate GOP promoting the videos. In March 2018, a month after after New York's Democratic Conference unveiled a series of proposed criminal justice reforms, a poll found New Yorkers overwhelmingly supported the reforms. The poll was sponsored by FWD.us, an organization co-founded in 2013 by Facebook chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg that has sought to influence policy on issues ranging from immigration to criminal justice. Zoe Towns, a senior criminal justice reform director at FWD.us, said at that time that in the Bronx a person charged with a misdemeanor waited an average of 571 days for their case to go to trial. The poll found that 86 percent of those polled believe a trial must take place within four months of an arrest. More than half thought defendants are entitled to a trial within eight weeks; while nine out of 10 of those surveyed supported setting stricter speedy trial requirements, which would reduce the number of people held in jails while cases are pending. In January, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins acknowledged that her conference was aware "tweaks" may be needed for the newly enacted criminal justice reforms but that they would not rush to make adjustments as a result of "a lot of fear-mongering." "We are interested in making the justice system just, and we are paying attention as it continues to see if there are any necessary tweaks," Stewart-Cousins said during a news conference at the Capitol that month. "We don't want to criminalize poverty. We do not want to continue a system that everybody agrees is broken, without making changes." Under the new rules, prosecutors said, they cannot declare they are ready for trial which would stop the six-month speedy trial clock in a felony case until they certify that they have provided all discoverable evidence to the defendant. That would include any lab analysis confirming the authenticity and amount of a narcotic. The new rules also mandate that defendants have the ability, through what is known as pre-trial discovery, to review the evidence against them in a much shorter time frame. Steve Hughes contributed reporting for this story. Prime Minister Boris Johnson looks on from aboard the Opportunis IV fishing trawler during a visit to Peterhead in Scotland - AFP British fishermen are not ready to take full advantage of the additional stocks the country stands to reclaim from the EU, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives has said. In an interview with The Telegraph, Douglas Ross said the UK's fishing industry did not yet have the "capacity" to reap the full benefits of leaving the Common Fisheries Policy at the end of this year. Mr Ross's remarks came after Nigel Farage accused Boris Johnson of "backing down" on fish in the post-Brexit trade talks. On Sunday, Mr Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president agreed to "intensify" negotiations this week. In a joint statement the two sides said that "progress had been made in recent weeks" but that "significant gaps remained", including on the issue of fishing rights in UK waters. Mr Johnson is understood to have insisted that the UK was prepared to end the post-Brexit transition period without a formal trade agreement, as he warned that time was short to agree a deal. The UK has said it needs "clarity" by Oct 15 on whether a deal is possible. Last week it emerged that the UK had proposed a new three-year transition period for fisheries, in a bid to help unlock the talks. Over the course of the three-year period, the catches of EU fishermen would be gradually reduced before the implementation of new quotas. Mr Ross's remarks are likely to foreshadow the arguments that ministers would make to placate the fishing industry and Tory Brexiteers, if the negotiators agree such an arrangement. While warning that fishing was a "totemic" issue for Scotland, Mr Ross said: "While I understand what the industry want to see and want to get to immediately, we've also got to ensure we have the capacity, both in the catching sector and in the processing sector to deal with the benefits we will get for our fishermen and fishing communities as we leave the Common Fisheries Policy. Story continues "I think a lot of people would accept right now, we're not at the stage where we have the capacity to deliver on that here in Scotland or across the UK, and we've got to work towards that." Following a telephone conversation between Mr Johnson and Mrs von der Leyen, a joint statement drawn up by Downing Street and Brussels stated: "They agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future. "They endorsed the assessment of both Chief Negotiators that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained, notably but not only in the areas of fisheries, the level playing field, and governance. "They instructed their Chief Negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps. "They agreed to speak on a regular basis on this issue." Since the September reopening of schools in all German states, the number of COVID-19 cases has increased rapidly. As in other European countries, the number of infections in Germany is reaching dramatic highs. Schoolchildren, teachers and educators are being exposed to mortal danger. On Friday the number of new infections reached the highest level since April, with 2,500 new cases. Although the school year only began in the last weeks, according to the Bild newspaper around 50,000 students are currently in quarantine. This number shows that we are still in the middle of the pandemic and it is again having a large impact on school operations, Federal Education Minister Anja Karliczek (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) told the newspaper. The minister deliberately neglected to mention that she herself was a driving force behind the unsafe reopening of schools. The President of the German Teachers Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, recently warned of a further increase in the number of infections in schools. According to the German Teachers Association, the current high of 50,000 students will more than double in the next three months, and probably even quadruple, said Meidinger, suggesting a nearly uncontrollable outbreak. In light of this development, more medical professionals are warning that the number of deaths related to coronavirus infection will likewise significantly increase. The number of deaths will continue to rise in the coming weeks, President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), Uwe Janssens, told the newspaper of the Funke media group. For days, double-digit deaths have been reported in Germany. Since the victims were infected on average roughly five weeks earlier, an increase in deaths is expected with the same time lag. But even in the face of these developments the federal government is holding its deadly course and presenting the opening of schools and companies as an unavoidable necessity. The reckless policy of the government is most clearly demonstrated in its handling of those at high risk of severe COVID-19 illness due to pre-existing medical conditions. Public pressure partially protected these high-risk groups at earlier stages of the pandemic through paid leave of absences, remote working, etc. Now, however, these individuals are being exposed to enormous risk with their return to work and the opening of schools and day-cares. The teaching practices painstakingly developed by educators at schools, universities and day-cares during the lockdown have been thrown overboard in order to restart traditional operation. Jessica, 39, is a teacher from Berlin who is studying part-time. She began remote learning in mid-March and was able to take her first exam in July. But since receiving an exemption from classroom teaching, her studies have been discontinued because they are no longer part-time. Like Jessica, high-risk individuals nationwide have to choose between their livelihoods and health. They either stay at home and protect themselves and their families and face impoverishment or put themselves at enormous risk to finance their existence. This is blackmail! concluded Jessica. Her case is not the exception. Nationwide, thousands of teachers who belong to high-risk groups have submitted applications for suspension of compulsory attendance, only a fraction of which have been approved. The broadcaster NDR reports that in the state of Schleswig-Holstein alone, 1,600 teachers claimed elevated risk of severe infection and were therefore unable to teach face-to-face. Only 30 of these applications were approved. In the Berliner Zeitung, a teacher from Berlin reports struggling to protect his life and health in the face of the pandemic. Despite presenting a certificate from his family doctor strictly forbidding him from conducting face-to-face classes due to several heart operations and ventricular fibrillation, he was required to visit a state-commissioned occupational medicine facility. It was clear to me from the start that this doctor did not want to confirm my illnessI can only speculate why, the vocational school teacher reported. The doctor put the teacher under pressure and initially refused to confirm the disease, even intimidating the teacher and threatening to break off the appointment. It was only when the teacher became so upset that the doctor recognized his high blood pressure and heard his heart murmurs that the teachers absence from school was approved. One can suspect that teachers with previous illnesses are being pressured not to exempt themselves from classroom teaching. The percentage of educators not teaching in person5.6 percent among vocational trainers and 3.1 percent in general educationis extremely low. Teachers associations and unions had previously presumed 15 percent. The action committee founded by students and teachers in Dortmund uncovered similar cases. There, a teacher with a significant immune deficiency has to teach in person. This trend can be seen across Germany. The range of conditions defined as high-risk for serious COVID-19 disease, exempting one from classroom teaching, has been reduced significantly. Those over 60, suffering from high blood pressure or other mild to moderate illnesses usually must return to schools and day-cares. It was sheer farce when Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) declared that there should be special measures in the future to minimize the dangers for high-risk groups. It is important that we continue to protect particularly high-risk groups and advance concepts to do so in everyday life, said the CDU politician, at the same time speaking out against extended mask requirements. These are the conditions under which students and teachers are returning to schools. The consequences are clearly devastating. Schools cannot be made safe under the present conditions. Problems begin on the way to school. Most students and teachers travel by over-filled public transport. Subway cars intended for 30 to 40 people are often packed with well over 100. Students from different classes intermingle on the way to class and during the breaks. Classrooms measuring 3040 square metres (300400 square feet) cannot guarantee safe distancing for 25 to 30 students. Moreover, mask requirements have been abolished in most federal states. There is nothing stopping the spread of the virus. Thus high-risk individuals are being exposed to mortal danger and the state governments refuse to lift a finger. North Rhine-Westphalia Education Minister Yvonne Gebauer of the liberal Free Democratic Party explained that special ventilation systems, recommended by leading virologists because they filter aerosols, are too expensive and therefore not an option. A ventilation system costs around 3,000. Gebauers statement makes clear the value placed by the ruling class on saving human lives. While hundreds of billions of euros have been transferred to banks and large corporations through the Corona rescue packages, 100 per student is considered an exorbitant price. NEWTOWN TOWNSHIP >> Newtown Township will be applying for federal funding to bolster its career firefighting force. And its crossing its fingers and hoping the third times a charm. At its Jan. 12 meeting, the board of supervisors voted unanimously to resubmit its SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to... PACEMAKER BELFAST 30/09/2020 Detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Major Investigation Team have launched a murder investigation following the death of a man in a flat in the Crebilly Road area of Ballymena. Two men have been charged with murder after the death of a man in Ballymena. The Police Service of Northern Ireland said Donald Fraser Rennie, 33, died after being beaten in a flat in the Crebilly Road area either late on Tuesday night or early on Wednesday morning. Expand Close Probe: The victims body is removed from a flat on Crebilly Road / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Probe: The victims body is removed from a flat on Crebilly Road In a statement on Friday night, PSNI said two men aged 29 and 33 had been charged with murder. They are due to appear via video link at Ballymena Magistrates Court on Saturday. Authorities in Russias Far East are warning people to avoid beaches on the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula after a mass die-off of marine life. Videos of the mass die-off appeared on social media on October 2, showing dead seals, fish, and other marine creatures littering at least three beaches on the Avacha Bay. Surfers reported eye and skin irritation following contact with the water. Activists believe the die-off was caused by a release of petroleum products. Acting Natural Resources Minister Aleksei Kumarkov said that after checking water samples, experts found an excess of oil products, phenol, and other substances, according to the Russian branch of the Greenpeace environmental group. "The extent of the pollution has not yet been determined, but the fact that dead animals are found all over the coast confirms the seriousness of the situation," Greenpeace said in a press release on October 2. The organization said many people who have been in contact with water also show symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, weakness, high fever, which may indicate phenol poisoning. Officials said the results of an analysis of water samples would be available on October 5. Greenpeace called the incident an ecological catastrophe and urged the Natural Resources Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and the Prosecutor Generals Office to investigate the incident and undertake a clean-up. The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement on October 3 saying the Pacific Fleet played no role in the incident. With reporting by dpa and Reuters The Congress on Saturday blamed the Centre and its media allies for defaming Maharashtra over actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death while demanding a probe into the conspiracy and the mastermind behind it. The demand came after India Today quoted Dr Sudhir Gupta, the head of an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) panel constituted to re-evaluate the actors post-mortem report, saying Rajput had died by suicide while ruling out murder. After the official confirmation by AIIMS panel head Dr. Sudhir Gupta that #SushantSinghRajput committed suicide, it is proved that investigation by @MumbaiPolice was honest and forthright. It is also clear that it was conspiracy of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi govt with help of their fake media allies to defame Maharashtra, tweeted Congress spokesman Sachin Sawant. Till yesterday the fake channels were peddling fake news of IPC [Indian Penal Code section] 302 [murder] in the case. BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leaders kept defaming Maharashtra. CBI & other agencies kept leaking fake information. In a night thousands of fake twitter, FB [Facebook] & YouTube acs were created by BJP IT cell. Now we demand govt of Maharashtra to form an SIT [Special Investigation Team] to nab the conspirators and their mastermind. Also to find the originators of SM [social media] racket by BJP IT team. And take appropriate action against these fake channels to save our democracy as their fake stories r harmful for our country, said Sawant. Congress is a part of the Shiv Sena-led ruling alliance in Maharashtra. The Maharashtra police said Rajput died by suicide before CBI took over the case on August 5. Rajput was found dead in his apartment on June 14. His family has accused actor Rhea Chakraborty of abetting his suicide and misappropriating his funds. Chakraborty is currently in jail on drug-related charges pertaining to the case. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), another constituent of the states ruling alliance, said the CBI should now complete its investigation in a month and bring the truth before the people. This proves that the entire campaign was politically motivated and BJP is exposed, said NCP spokesman and minister Nawab Malik. They [CBI] have already taken two months, how much more time do they need? BJP leader Ram Kadam said the CBI investigation is still on and the aim was to ensure justice for Rajput and his family. We have never questioned the efficiency of the Mumbai police. We wanted the state government to give free hand to the police to probe the matter. Kadam alleged the state government wanted to protect the drug mafia and thus never investigated that aspect. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump has COVID-19, and it may be difficult to reliably determine how he is doing. His physician reported to the media Saturday morning that he is doing very well, that his fever is gone and other symptoms are improving, and said he had not required oxygen on Thursday, nor since his admission to Walter Reed hospital, though he carefully worded his oxygen answers in a way that raised doubts. Soon after, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said some of Trumps vital signs over the past 24 hours were very concerning, and that the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. The Associated Press reported that a source familiar with Trumps condition confirmed that the U.S. president was given oxygen at the White House on Friday before being flown to the hospital. As so often with Trump, knowing precisely what the truth is may be tricky. It was also becoming clearer by Saturday that an increasing number of people around Trump his staff and political allies have also contracted the virus. As of this writing, in addition to the president and his wife, the infected group includes three Republican senators, the chair of the Republican National Committee, Trumps campaign manager, his former spokeswoman, one of his most senior advisers, and political ally and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie. As the news of Trumps diagnosis with COVID-19 turns into a story about what appears to be a White House-driven outbreak, its useful to keep in mind that these are human beings. They have families and friends who are no doubt scared; they are capable of suffering, worthy of sympathy and kind hopes. These are not characters in a satirical sketch or a literary drama. The schadenfreude of political opponents may be an impulse they want to resist if they recognize it. But this has also been the point behind the criticisms of Trump and his administrations response to COVID-19 since the beginning: all 7.3 million Americans who have contracted the coronavirus since the pandemic began have been just as human, just as real, just as worthy of compassion and prayers and protection. Their illnesses and deaths cant be waved away in the name of a political goal. And it is difficult now for many not to see the almost literary element whether you think it looks like Shakespearean tragedy or poetic justice or something else in the latest turn of events. The president and his party especially those elected members in the Senate have long been accused specifically of putting political imperatives above public health and other public interest objectives. The urge to downplay the virus to preserve confidence in the economy, to rapidly reopen businesses and schools to move economic numbers before the election, to shun masks and other distancing measures as projections of strength and confidence all these appeared to many, including epidemiological experts I spoke to at various points, as moves that put political objectives over the clear public interest in limiting the spread of the virus. Trump and his family and administration acted on the sense of unearned invulnerability they wanted to project: reports from inside the White House say staff and visitors were encouraged not to wear masks there, were even shunned for doing so. It affects virtually nobody, Trump said just last month, a message that suited his campaign theme that the virus was near an end. While a succession of experts said this message was wrong, the White House certainly put on a convincing display that they believed it in their own practices. Many believe that the country has paid a dear price for the decisions made using that apparently politically motivated reasoning. And now, it appears, Trump and his party are paying a price, too. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, many thought the recently stated principles of the Republican members of Congress and the integrity of the court called for waiting until after the election to fill her seat. But Trump and Republican senators quickly made clear their objective was to put a conservative justice on the court before voters could have a chance to stop them. In pursuit of that political objective, they held a big party at the White House to introduce the nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, with a crowded and virtually mask-free outdoor presentation, accompanied by indoor receptions. While it is not possible for those on the outside to definitively pinpoint who contracted the virus where, it certainly now appears that Supreme Court nomination celebration may have been the ground-zero virus-spreading event inside the administration, campaign and Republican party. An event that now affects them personally, but does so in a way that severely demonstrates the inadequacy of the approach the administration has taken, the message the campaign was trying to portray, and even the political objective of filling the Supreme Court seat. By Saturday it was looking as though the spread of the virus through the Republican caucus could complicate, or even imperil, the push to confirm the court nominee, despite the official determination to push on with it. The message of Trumps coronavirus critics has always been that Trumps pursuit of political objectives was damaging the country. Now it is damaging the health of those involved directly, and may be sabotaging the political objectives they were pursuing in the process. There are human beings involved, and people of goodwill will hope for the best for them, and expect that whatever measures are possible to protect them during their illness will be taken. Just like every other pandemic victim before them. No one of conscience will be celebrating. But perhaps many will be reflecting on how and why something like this could happen to the president, and the country while mourning the human cost. Read more about: Two days after the Odisha government held a public hearing over Vedanta Limiteds proposed expansion of its aluminium smelter plant in Jharsuguda district, prominent environmental activist Prafulla Samantra has demanded a fresh public hearing calling the earlier one illegal. In a letter to the member secretary of Odisha state pollution control board that conducted the public hearing at a government school in Jharsuguda districts Kurebaga village on September 30 afternoon, Samantra alleged that the hearing was conducted in a hurried manner. Vedanta Aluminium had proposed to expand its existing smelter plant at Jharsuguda from 16 LTPA to 18 LTPA and its captive power plant capacity to 1,215 megawatt at a cost of about Rs 1,240 crore. The public hearing on the environment impact assessment of the proposed expansion was held on September 30 after some dramatic developments involving a stay on the hearing process and the lifting of the stay order hours before the actual hearing. Samantra, who in 2017 had won the prestigious Goldman Environmental prize for his ground-level environmental activism, said he had urged the OPCB not to hold public hearing without proper information to the public as the news of the stay order given by Orissa high court on September 29 had appeared in several newspapers on September 30. The HC on September 29 had issued a stay order on public hearing notification issued by the Odisha state pollution control board after a petition was filed alleging that the public gathering, as a result of holding a public hearing, will violate the Covid guideline order by special relief commissioner which prohibits large congregations of people. However, the HC in another hearing, done via video conferencing on September 30, permitted the public hearing to take place by relaxing the stay. Samantra, who has already filed written objections to the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report for the Vedanta Aluminium expansion project, however, said the whole process of public hearing should have been transparent. Also Read: Odisha govt provides uniform to 14.83 lakh pre-school children on Gandhi Jayanti The OPCB should have fixed another day for the public hearing and issued advertisements in the newspapers as per the rules. The HC order could have been implemented on another date by following the law. Many villagers who could have participated in the hearing were not aware of the latest HC order and were deprived of the right to appear in public hearing. How was the hearing made possible within a short time and under whose supervision was it conducted, asked Samantra. The public hearing was attended by around 400 people including 62 who spoke. Also Read: Odisha fisherman catches exotic fish, sells it for Rs 1.56 lakh OPCB regional officer Hemandra Nath Nayak who had conducted the hearing said that adequate time was given to people through advertisements floated in local dailies on August 28. Those who are opposing the public hearing should read the notification for public hearing. Besides, no violation of Covid guidelines had taken place as people who attended the hearing had maintained social distancing and wore masks, said Nayak. Sanjiv Patnaik, the PRO of Vedanta Aluminium, said the company had no role in the public hearing as it was conducted by OPCB. The proposed expansion will be within the existing aluminium smelter plant complex of about 2061.41 acres. No additional land would be acquired, he said. Dennis Amakiri, a former Deputy Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), has said that Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State was actually warned against embarking on the recent trip that led to the attack on his convoy by Boko Haram terrorists. Amakiri said the Governor ignored the intelligence report and felt he could go on with the trip. The former DSS chief said this during a special programme on Channels Television to mark Nigerias independence anniversary on Thursday, October 1, 2020. Amakiri said, The Governor of Borno State was given the intelligence that this road is not safe, he felt he could go. And being the Chief Executive, he ventured out. He was attacked twice. I hope he will not go again because at least they continue telling him, managing him to make sure that he keeps himself safe. According to him, before Very Important Persons move, there are certain procedures to be carried. The ex-DSS boss said that the public figures are exposed to danger if such procedures are not met. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates A space station cargo ship rocketed into orbit on Friday carrying a 360-degree camera for spacewalking, radish seeds for growing and a smorgasbord of fancy meats and cheeses for feasting. Northrop Grumman launched its capsule to the International Space Station from the Virginia coast, providing a nighttime treat for observers from the Carolinas to New England, at least where skies were clear. The 8,000-pound (3,600-kilogram) shipment should reach the space station Monday. Stashed aboard the Cygnus capsule: pressurized air tanks to help offset a vexing leak at the space station, a new $23 million titanium toilet custom fit for women, and a virtual reality camera to provide cinematic views of spacewalks and other outdoor shots. The ship also contains more fresh food than usual, given that the space station population will be expanding from six to seven with SpaceXs second astronaut launch on Oct. 31. Among the delicacies requested by the astronauts: proscuitto, Genoa salami, smoked Gouda and provolone, brie, cherry tomatoes, oranges, pecans and chocolate-covered cranberries in plenty of time for Thanksgiving. The astronauts also will get a chance to enjoy their own harvest. Researchers are hoping for 40 radishes from the seeds going up, within a month. (Image Credits: AP) This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Kabul, Oct 3 : US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has again called on Afghan political leaders and the Taliban to agree on a peaceful settlement of the country's 40-year-old and avoid repeating "past mistakes" . Khalilzad held talks with the negotiating team of the Taliban in Doha on Thursday after he arrived the Qatari capital almost three weeks following the inauguration ceremony of Afghanistan's peace negotiations, TOLO News reported. "The fact that the Afghans are sitting across the table for the first time in 42 years is a moment of hope and opportunity," Khalilzad in an interview on Friday. Both Afghanistan and the US must avoid mistakes of the 1990s, he added. The envoy's remarks came after the Taliban said that it does not feel the need for a mediator for the Afghan peace negotiations. In a statement on Thursday, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said that the Afghan conflict requires important, ongoing discussions, and stated that both sides of the negotiations should demonstrate patience for a positive outcome, TOLO News reported. Contact groups comprising Taliban and Afghan government delegates have failed to fully agree on the procedural rules. This delay has prolonged the time before an official face-to-face talk between both negotiation teams is possible. Pronab Mandal By Express News Service KOLKATA: With all guns blazing against Yogi Adityanath government, TMC chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee marched on the Kolkata streets on Saturday as part of a protest programme against the alleged gangrape and murder of a Dalit woman in Hathras. In order to woo the Dalit electorates in West Bengal, she announced that her party would continue protests against "BJP-sponsored" torture on the people of the backward class in the next seven days across the state. "The BJP is torturing those who belong to Scheduled Caste (SC) community. We are always with the Dalits. Today, I am physically here, but my mind is in Hathras. The BJP-led government brutally set the rape and murder victim ablaze at night without informing the victims family. The BJP wants one nation, one leader, one political party. The country is witnessing super autocracy,' said Mamata. ALSO READ | On way to meet Hathras rape victims family, TMC delegation, including MP Derek OBrien stopped Mamatas march labelling BJP "anti-Dalit" is said to be the 2021 Assembly poll ploy as Dalit and tribal communities form 29% of Bengals total population and Dalits are the deciding factor in 84 out of 294 assembly seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP made deep inroads in Dalit dominated areas, which were TMCs turf, and Mamatas statement condemning the Hathras incident and her Saturdays protest march is seen as an attempt to regain strength in its erstwhile citadel. Referring to the BJPs allegation that she was favouring minorities, the Bengal CM said, "How many people have been arrested in Delhi riot? If I raise this issue, the BJP labels me for favouring minorities. Minorities are in distress and I am with them. Today Dalits are suffering and I am with them. If tribals are in trouble tomorrow, I will be beside them. Like them, I do not divide people on the line of religion. Humanity is my only religion." ALSO READ | Bengal elections: TMC to make Durga Puja curbs in UP a poll plank Mamata also said she had specific information that apart from the victims family, journalists were also being threatened not to highlight the issue. "I called up someone and asked him to give the phone number of a family member of the victim. But I was shocked to know that the administration took away the cellphones of all the family members. They confined the family in their house for hours and waylaid journalists movement so that facts could be suppressed," she alleged. The CM said her party is fighting against the Covid-19 pandemic and it is time to fight the pandemic of autocracy. She asked her party workers to meet Dalit families in Bengal and narrate them how the people of the backward classes are being tortured in BJP-ruled states. The partys youth and students' wings have been asked to carry out week-long protest programmes following social distancing norms from Sunday in block-level across the state. South China's Hainan Province on Thursday brought into effect a trailblazing medical insurance policy that will cover foreign medicines yet to be approved domestically. The special insurance, launched by the Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone, marks another milestone in Hainan's medical innovation after the pilot zone greenlighted the sale of foreign medicines that are unavailable in the rest of the Chinese mainland. The government-backed insurance covers 70 anti-cancer drugs for 35 common types of cancer. Among these, 49 medicines are yet to be approved for sale in the Chinese mainland market. The annual premium for Hainan residents is 29 yuan (about 4.3 U.S. dollars), while the insurance covers up to 1 million yuan in drug costs. Residents from other parts of the Chinese mainland are eligible to purchase the insurance with an annual premium ranging roughly from 40 yuan to 1,300 yuan, the administration said. According to the administration, nearly 600,000 Hainan residents have purchased the insurance by late September. The new insurance policy has been hailed for reducing the financial burdens of cancer patients while speeding up the process for overseas pharmaceutical enterprises to enter the Chinese market. Huang Song, an official with the pilot zone administration, said usually Chinese patients have to wait for five to ten years before a new foreign medicine gets approval for sale in the Chinese mainland market, mainly due to clinical trials as required. The new insurance and other preferential policies now allow patients to bypass the waiting process and buy the latest foreign drugs in Hainan. According to Huang, international pharmaceutical companies are cooperating with the pilot zone to gain faster access to the Chinese market. AbbVie Pharmaceutical Trading (Shanghai) Co., LTD., whose AML (acute myeloid leukemia) medication is covered by the insurance, said it is greatly encouraged by the new initiative and will work to bring more treatment methods to Chinese patients by actively responding to the policies. Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group, in its response to Xinhua, confirmed the company currently has seven oncology drugs listed in Hainan's special drug insurance catalog, including two new targeted drugs that have been on the market for a year or two. Liu Zhefeng, deputy director-general of the pilot zone administration, said the insurance is closely related to the construction of the Hainan free trade port. "We are actively cooperating with overseas pharmaceutical companies to achieve a win-win situation," he said. The Chinese government on June 1 released a master plan for the Hainan free trade port, aiming to build the island province into a globally influential high-level free trade port by the middle of the century. The plan also encourages the province to explore innovation in the medical insurance sector. Representative image A rapid antigen test developed by Becton Dickinson (BD) has been certified to be marketed within the European Economic Area (EEA). The 15-minute test is pocket-sized and can be used in hospitals and smaller clinics. Bloomberg reported that BD's test will be based on the BD Veritor Plus System and will be available by the end of October 2020. While rapid antigen tests are quicker than PCR testing, which takes up to 15 days, they are generally thought to be less reliable. Becton Dickinson said its antigen assay is 93.5 percent sensitive, a measure of how often it correctly identifies infections, and 99.3 percent specific, the rate of correct negative tests, the report said. The test is already available in the US, and BD said it could manufacture eight million tests a month by October. The company is discussing adoption of this mobile testing system with several governments, but did not reveal how much they would be priced. New Delhi: A captain of the Indian Navy was reportedly killed in a paragliding accident on Friday morning. The powerglider plunged into the the Arabian Sea in Karnataka's Karwar, killing the Navy man. The victim, hailing from Andhra Pradesh, has been identified as Madhusudan Reddy. He was working with the Indian Navy at Karwar. Reddy, 55, and his family members had come to Karwar on Friday morning from Bengaluru and were at the beach in the evening. The incident happened due to an alleged engine failure. While, the instructor managed to escape unhurt in the incident. He was rescued by the life guards and the fishermen. Live TV Incidentally, it was the first day of the resumption of parasailing activities at the beach after the lockdown imposed due to check the spread of the novel coronavirus. In paramotoring, a chute is attached to a seat powered by a motor. A motor is attached at the back of the seat which thrusts the seat upwards. The rider who is harnessed to the seat is lifted into the air. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Community Board 1 will hold a virtual steering committee and budget public hearing on the Capital Expense Budget, a virtual youth committee meting and an outdoor land use public hearing this week to address the potential construction of homes, including two in the Special Hillsides Preservation District. The steering committee meeting will take place on Monday, Oct. 5. The public is invited to join the meeting by video system or Skype for business, dial 1731070152@webex.com. The meeting password is FTpw3HZVK85. The Land Use Public Hearing will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 6:30 p.m. at 276 Virginia Ave. During the meeting, two Board of Standards & Appeals applications will be considered to permit the construction of single-family residences that do not front on a legally mapped street at 10 and 12 Jasmine Way, a private road that connects to 1534 Victory Blvd. Additionally, a Department of City Planning application will be addressed. That request is to authorize development of two two-family homes on Chester Place within the Special Hillsides Preservation District. Those who do not feel comfortable attending the meeting in person may attend virtually by video system or Skype for business by dialing the access code 1735220117 and entering the meeting password WrSvut74R5v. For more information, call the board office. Community Board 1 will also host a Youth Committee Meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Use this link to join, then use meeting ID number 846 5580 7252. Community Board 3 will host a meeting of the Community Alliance and Health and Human Services committees by Webinar at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 6. During the meeting, Dadeaqah Adi, a registered nurse with Staten Island University Hospital, will discuss the status of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the community and the availability of routine preventive and diagnostic care during the pandemic. Additionally, Rob DeLuca, owner of DeLucas Italian Restaurant, will speak about the citys pandemic restrictions and the severe financial hardships they have caused for Staten Island restaurant owners and employees. The Board 3 Traffic and Transportation Committee will meet on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m. by Webinar. There is no set agenda. To attend the virtual meetings, register on the boards website, sicb3@cb.nyc.gov by 9 a.m. on the day of the event. Once registered, a link will be sent to join the meeting. For technical issues, email sicb3@cb.nyc.gov. Community Board 2 has no meetings planned this week. All Community Board meetings and meetings of their committees are open to the public. They provide an excellent opportunity for residents to learn about happenings in their neighborhoods and surrounding areas. Below is more information about the Islands three Community Boards: Community Board 1 Arlington Castleton Corners Clifton Concord Elm Park Fort Wadsworth Graniteville Grymes Hill Livingston Mariners Harbor New Brighton Port Richmond Randall Manor Rosebank St. George Shore Acres Silver Lake Stapleton Sunnyside Tompkinsville West Brighton Westerleigh The district manager is Joseph Carroll. The Board chairman is Nicholas Siclari. The telephone number is 718-981-6900. Community Board 2 Arrochar Bloomfield Bulls Head Chelsea Dongan Hills Egbertville Emerson Hill Grant City Grasmere High Rock Lighthouse Hill Midland Beach New Dorp New Springville Oakwood Ocean Breeze Old Town Richmond South Beach Todt Hill Travis. The phone number is 718-568-3581. The fax number 718-568-3595. Parking is available. The chairman is Robert J. Collegio, P.E. The district manager is Debra A. Derrico. Community Board 3 Annadale Arden Heights Bay Terrace Charleston Eltingville Great Kills Greenridge Huguenot New Dorp Oakwood Pleasant Plains Princes Bay Richmond Valley -- Richmond -- Rossville -- Tottenville -- Woodrow. The office phone number is 718-356-7900. The Board chairman is Frank Morano; the district manager is Charlene Wagner. India on Saturday said it is yet to decide on opening its part of the Kartarpur Corridor, which allows Indian pilgrims visa-free access to Durbar Sahib gurdwara, following Pakistans decision to open its side of the corridor. New Delhi also called on Islamabad to construct required infrastructure, including a bridge, for the safe movement of pilgrims over a stretch that gets waterlogged during the rainy season. Pakistans religious affairs ministry issued a notification for reopening Kartarpur Corridor on Friday following an improvement in the Covid-19 situation. According to reports in the Pakistani media, the notification said Indian pilgrims would be allowed to visit the gurdwara from dawn to dusk. Responding to queries from the media about Pakistans move, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said movement of pilgrims through the corridor was suspended because of the Covid-19 outbreak. We remain in touch with all concerned authorities, including ministries of home affairs and health and family welfare. A decision on reopening of the corridor would be taken in accordance with the Covid protocol and easing of restrictions, he said. Srivastava noted that at the time of opening of the Kartarpur Corridor last year and in the bilateral agreement signed in October 2019, it was decided both sides would establish requisite infrastructure, including construction of a bridge at Budhi Ravi Channel at the earliest, for safe and hassle-free movement of pilgrims. He said, One year hence, Pakistan is yet to construct the bridge while it is ready at our end. A technical meeting with Pakistan was also facilitated and two teams met on August 27, 2020. There is, however, no progress on [the] part of Pakistan. The 4.7-km Kartarpur Corridor connects Dera Baba Nanak in Indias Gurdaspur district with Durbar Sahib gurdwara in Pakistans Kartarpur. The gurdwara stands on the site where Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, spent the last years of his life. India had gone ahead with the opening of the corridor last year to respect the sentiments of the Sikh community despite strong misgivings about several steps taken by the Pakistani side, including the imposition of a service fee of $20 on every pilgrim, and security concerns. Following the closure of the corridor in March, Pakistan had offered to reopen it in June. Pakistan has also opened its section of the corridor on the occasion of some Sikh festivals. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday evening met the family of the Hathras victim, declaring they will fight for justice to the Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped. We will fight against injustice, and fight till justice is done, Priyanka Gandhi told reporters after the meeting that lasted about 45 minutes. Rahul Gandhi said no power can stifle the voice of the family. Uttar Pradesh authorities had scuttled an earlier attempt by the two leaders to travel to Hathras, detaining them and several party workers in Greater Noida outside Delhi on Thursday. On Saturday, the Congress staged another demonstration at the Delhi-Noida border, where Congress workers scuffled with police and were allegedly lathi-charged. When a delegation of Congress MPs and other leaders reached the barricades, the Noida police said they will allow only five party representatives to meet the family at their village in Hathras, about 150 km away. The 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped on September 14 in an assault by four men that left her critically injured. She died at a Delhi hospital last Tuesday. Villagers gathered outside as the Congress leaders entered the family's home. Some were seen on the rooftops nearby, waiting to catch a glimpse of the Congress leaders. UP Congress leaders Pradeep Mathur told PTI that K C Venugopal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Mukul Wasnik accompanied the Gandhis on the visit. There was heavy security presence outside the family home. ALSO READ: Hathras rape case: UP police deployed at Delhi border ahead of Congress delegation's visit ALSO READ: Hathras case: Clashes between Valmiki community members, police officers in Agra ALSO READ: Hathras gangrape case: SIT probe finished, media allowed entry to victim's village New Delhi: Amid the ongoing border dispute with China, India successfully tested a new version of the nuclear-capable Shaurya missile off the coast of Odisha on Saturday (October 03, 2020). The new version of the missile will be inducted in the strategic forces to complement one of the existing missiles in the same class, top government sources told ANI. The missile would be lighter and easier to operate in comparison with the existing missile and can strike targets at around 800 kms. In the last phase while moving close to its target, the missile moves at hypersonic speeds. This comes just days after India successfully tested an indigenously developed laser-guided anti-tank guided missile in Maharashtras Ahmednagar on Tuesday. It was the second such successful test firing of the missile in the last 10 days. The missile has a range of up to 5 kms. Live TV The missile was fired from an MBT Arjun Tank at KK Ranges in Armoured Corps Centre and School (ACC&S) in Ahmednagar. The ATGM employs a tandem heat warhead to defeat explosive reactive armour (ERA) protected armoured vehicles in ranges from 1.5-5 km, the Defence Ministry said in a statement. Recently, India also successfully testfired the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile which can hit targets at over 400 km strike range which is at least more than 100 kms from the previous capability of the missile. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has been working towards completing total self-reliance in the field of strategic missiles and has enhanced its efforts further under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year. A small plane piloted by Stephen E. Barnes, a former partner in one of the most well-known personal injury law firms in the country, crashed in upstate New York on Friday morning, killing him and a passenger, a lawyer with knowledge of the matter said. The single-engine plane went down in a wooded area near Pembroke, N.Y., about 32 miles east of Buffalo, Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said. Only two people Mr. Barnes and his niece were on board the plane, the lawyer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the Barnes family. Mr. Barnes was 61. His niece Elizabeth Barnes was 32. Residents saw the plane, which was traveling from east to west, go down at 11:46 a.m. and explode in some woods near Boyce Road, the Genesee County sheriff, William A. Sheron Jr., said in a statement. He confirmed that a man and a woman had died, but did not immediately identify them. Think about that. As a country, were still seared by the nearly 3,000 deaths in the 9/11 attacks. But the institutes model warns that by the end of December, well be losing that many each day. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who early in his career helped eradicate smallpox, argues that we can crush this virus as well. Weve seen the toolbox that other countries employed to do so: universal mask use, social distancing, testing, contact tracing and so on. We as a country have the tools and we have the resources; what we lack is the will. Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, suggested that he and other grandparents would prefer to die rather than take measures against the virus that would disrupt the economy. Uncovered protesters rampage through stores without masks, shouting Take off your mask, Its all a lie, and Take it off. Store and restaurant employees have been shot by customers angered at requests that they wear masks. Mask-wearing lags in the United States compared with some other countries, particularly among men. A poll suggests that many American men see mask-wearing as wimpish, a sign of weakness. Likewise, some Americans seem to believe that avoiding masks is a measure of freedom. No, its a measure of decency, altruism and responsible behavior. But note that one should avoid masks with valves (which are less protective of other people) and use the mask to cover ones nose as well as ones mouth. And its profoundly unhelpful to remove ones mask when speaking. Strangely, many of those who denounce masks are also those who claim to believe in personal responsibility yet dont understand that going without a mask is just like driving while drunk. Sure, most of the time when you go without a mask, you wont infect anybody, just as most of the time if you drive while tipsy, you wont crash your car. Every day some 300,000 people drive while intoxicated, and they kill about 10,000 people a year which pales beside the 100,000 who the modelers believe will die in the next three months because of reckless Americans who wont wear masks. Naana Afua Fremaa Busia 03.10.2020 LISTEN Ohemaa paaapabi, One agrees with those patriotic Ghanaians, who posit that whatever his faults, history will judge your late Papa, kindly, as a true democrat - who was a man of principle, who did not approve of self-seeking-leadership, koraaaa, oooo. He would never have tolerated this outrageous Agyapaaaapabi-blank-cheque-self-seeking, of the very worst kind, at all. For sure. The attempt to move assured annual gold royalties, worth at least some US$200 million, one gathers, offshore (to be domiciled in previously-secretive British Crown Dependency, the Bailiwick of Jersey that is today not nearly so secretive, in the know-thy-customer digital banking-era, thank goodness), out of the reach of Ghanaian Parliamentary scrutiny, and shod of Ghanaian financial sector regulatory oversight, is unprecedented. It has no size, koraaa, and is the Mother of all create-loot-and-share-insider-dealing, by privileged-politically-exposed golden-regime-princelings, ever. Cool. Not even the manoeuvring to ensure the deprivation of Ghana's golden share, in the takeover of Ashanti Goldfields, by the then AngloGold, comes close, perfidy-wise, oooo, Ohemaa. It is an egregious example, of why, to fight high-level-corrption, in Ghana, we need to ensure that our country's Auditor Generals are clothed with prosecutorial powers, by Parliament, asap, ooooo. The assured annual U.S.$ 200 million gold royalties, are apparently to be invested in sundry entities, listed on a number of overseas stock markets, including London and New York, which may or may not pay us any dividends, ever, by an opaque entity, which we can never sue, if it fails in its fiduciary duty to be transparent, well-run and run for the common-good, of Ghanaian rural communuties. Ditto, required to be anchored, corporate-ethos-wise, on a bedrock of corporate good governance principles. Some say it is one of the most abominable state-capture-gone-mad stealth-asset-stripping-maneuvering, ever, to be engaged in, by insouciant ruling elites, who are said to seem to think they are God's gift to Ghanaians, who should never dare question them, because they are far more intelligent than we are, wai. What gall. As for your family matters, out of respect for your late Papa, I shall not make any comments, there, oooo, Ohemaa paaapabi. However, again, I shall paraphrase the old wag, who railed against that alleged effort, at silencing a fellow family member, as undemocratic. He said it was clearly meant to stop you from figuratively rocking the golden-boat-of-comfort, heavily laden with the low-hanging-friuts of sychophantic-praise-singing, oooo. Hmmmm, eyeasem, ooooo. In his (me thinks rather quite cynical) view, in light of today's amoral leadership standards, they were very, very wise folk - who clearly knew where their bread was buttered from, wai. What do some of them care, about your Papa's principled political leadership views, and his abhorance of corruption? He had his Oxford-kudi, after all, did he not? So, obviously, in their view, he could comfortably afford his principles. In any case, just how do you expect those of them who need it, to fund their posh-lifestyles, to manage, he asked? Ahhh, you paaaa. Principles. What do those amongst today's fence-sitting comfortably-well-off middle-classes, enjoying their merrymaking, under the African sun, care? Ahhh, small girls are young, aampaa, wai. Do you not see the furious stealth-asset-stripping, of Mother Ghana, which is now going on, and is engaged in, by certain greed-filled arrogant-sods? BBC-pidgin-English: Abi, make you look your somewhere, oooo, wai - and make you go sleep. Haaba. Principles. Tut. Tut. Tut. Hmmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem, oooo - asem kesie bi, ebeba, debi ankaasa. Yoooooo... He was hard at work on his superhero film Samaritan before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Now Sylvester Stallone is back on set in Atlanta as filming begins with new coronavirus safety procedures. Despite the health and safety measures, the 74-year-old Rocky star was inconsistent about wearing a mask while on set on Friday. Back to work: Sylvester Stallone, 74, was back on the set of his dark superhero film Samaritan on Friday Stallone was dressed casually on set, as he had been in photos taken before the shut down, though it wasn't clear if he was in costume. The actor was spotted strolling on set with one crew member while wearing an olive zip-up hoodie and a pair of dark jeans. He rounded out the simple look with a pair of brown boots and sported a salt-and-pepper beard. Although the crew member was covered up with mask, Stallone didn't wear one while chatting with her, and he also didn't appear to be practicing social distancing. No fuss: Stallone was dressed casually on set, as he had been in photos taken before the shut down, though it wasn't clear if he was in costume Casual: The actor was spotted strolling on set with one crew member while wearing an olive zip-up hoodie and a pair of dark jeans Rugged: He rounded out the simple look with a pair of brown boots and sported a salt-and-pepper beard Risky business: Although the crew member was covered up with mask, Stallone didn't wear one while chatting with her, and he also didn't appear to be practicing social distancing But Stallone was seen wearing a mask during other parts of Friday night's shoot. He was spotted stepping out of black SUV while wearing a different outfit featuring a navy blue zip-up hoodie and a black tank top. Samaritan has been billed as a dark take on the superhero film and takes place in a world where the caped crusaders exist. The film takes place years after a famous superhero has gone missing following a high stakes battle, as a young boy thinks he may have found the man in hiding. Samaritan also star's Silicon Valley's Martin Starr, The King Of Staten Island's Moises Arias and Orange Is The New Black's Dascha Polanco. Precautions: But Stallone was seen wearing a mask during other parts of Friday night's shoot Costume change: He was spotted stepping out of black SUV while wearing a different outfit featuring a navy blue zip-up hoodie and a black tank top New take: Samaritan has been billed as a dark take on the superhero film and takes place in a world where the caped crusaders exist A hero rises: The film takes place years after a famous superhero has gone missing following a high stakes battle, as a young boy thinks he may have found the man in hiding Familiar faces: Samaritan also star's Silicon Valley's Martin Starr, The King Of Staten Island's Moises Arias and Orange Is The New Black's Dascha Polanco Although he directs many of his own projects, Stallone is only acting in and producing Samaritan, while Overlord director Julius Avery is helming with a screenplay by Bragi F. Schut. The film has undergone multiple delays and was originally to be released in November and then December of this year, but it's now set for a June 4, 2021 release date. The coronavirus pandemic may have slowed his pace, but Stallone still has multiple projects on his docket. His next film, the dystopian thriller Little America, is currently in pre-production. The film takes place in a future world in which China owns the United States, and Stallone will play an American soldier hired by a Chinese billionaire to track down his daughter in an American ghetto. Taking a break: Although he directs many of his own films, Stallone is only acting in and producing Samaritan, while Overlord director Julius Avery is helming Better late than never: The film has undergone multiple delays and was originally to be released in November and then December 2020, but it's now set for a June 4, 2021 release date Staying busy: His next film, the dystopian thriller Little America, is currently in pre-production The action hero is also set to return to his lucrative Expendables franchise for a fourth (and possibly final) film. Following The Expendables 3 in 2014, Stallone sounded on board for a subsequent sequel and even talked up the possibility of spin-offs for the series. In 2017, it was originally reported that he was stepping away from the series due to disagreements about the screenplay and directing, which also meant his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn't be participating. In August, a Spanish production company announced it would be working on The Expendables 4, which would feature Stallone with Jeremy Statham, Antonio Banderas and Dolph Lundgren. The series has featured a growing roster of mostly male action heroes, including Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes, Jet Li, Terry Crews and Mel Gibson. North Korean leader Kim Jong at the Mu Islet in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 5, 2017. KCNA/ via REUTERS North Korea has historically acted in a provocative manner like firing long-range missiles or shelling South Korea just a few weeks before or after a US election. A nonpartisan think-tank examined North Korea's behavior during a 64-year span and found that it averaged a provocative act within the 4.5 weeks before or after a midterm or presidential election. One of the leading experts of the Korean Peninsula told Insider that if President Trump is reelected in November, he would make another haphazard deal with North Korea one that "he'll talk about as being the greatest deal ever." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. North Korea has historically acted in a provocative manner a few weeks before or after a US election, leading foreign policy experts to brace for long-range missiles or other provocative acts around the upcoming presidential election in November. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonpartisan think-tank in Washington, D.C., recently examined North Korea's behavior during a 64-year span and found that it averaged a provocative act within 4.5 weeks before or after a midterm or presidential election. The organization found that the window of these provocative acts which include a serious violation of international law, military actions that breach "the sovereignty of a third country," or personal injuries or damages to property have narrowed during the election cycle. When Kim Il Sung, North Korea's first leader and Kim Jong Un's grandfather, was in power, the average window for provocations was 13 weeks during an election year. Kim Il Sung's son and successor, Kim Jong Il, took over in 1994, and the average window shortened to 5.5 weeks. After Kim Jong Un took his father's reins in 2011, that average was shortened again to 4.5 weeks. "This was a pattern that emerged that we thought was quite interesting," Victor Cha, the National Security Council's former top Asia official, told Insider. Story continues The former diplomat, who chairs the Korea department at CSIS and is a leading authority on matters regarding the Korean Peninsula, was previously the front-runner candidate for US ambassador to South Korea before being passed on by the Trump administration. Hillary Clinton and vice presidential running mate Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia celebrate during the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 28, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young 'Do you really think Hillary Clinton could win?' North Korea's interest in American politics is not new. The US's relationship with South Korea and its hand in imposing international sanctions is a motivating factor to keep up-to-date with the ongoings in Washington, D.C. This was apparent during the "Republican Revolution" in November 1994, when Republicans took over both chambers of Congress for the first time in decades. This transition of power would help scuttle a deal brokered between the Clinton administration and North Korea just one month earlier, which was expected to freeze the regime's nuclear reactors in exchange for light-water reactors, heavy fuel, and sanctions relief. "To the extent they can, they pay very close attention to what's happening in the United States," Cha told Insider. Cha recalled attending meetings with North Korean officials amid the 2016 presidential election, where he was asked, "Do you really think Hillary Clinton could win?" North Korea has also gone beyond insulting heads of state by referencing individual lawmakers, calling them out for what it claimed were antagonizing actions. During a televised interview in 2017, Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado described North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a "whack job" and a "crazed maniac at the helm of one of the world's nuclear regimes." North Korea's propaganda outlet responded by calling Gardner a "psychopath" who "perpetrated wicked blasphemy against our supreme dignity during an interview," according to UPI. "That a man mixed in with human dirt like Gardner, who has lost basic judgment and body hair, could only spell misfortune for the United States," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman reportedly said at the time. Getty Correlation, but not neccesarily causation Cha stressed that there were a number of variables such as scheduled weapons testing, South Korea's domestic policies, economic factors, and future negotiations with the US that precluded him from deducing that North Korea's behavior is solely prompted by an upcoming US election. But Cha noted that based on the data, "there is definitely a pattern there." "There are many possible explanations for why North Korea carries out provocations," Cha said. "The historical pattern that we found was that there were more of them during US election years. So regardless of what you think causes the provocations, there's at least a pattern." "It tells us that if North Korea behaves like it normally would, we would see provocations around these elections and if they don't, then maybe there are some other things happening inside the country that are affecting the way they behave externally," Cha added, pointing to reports of natural disasters, such as flooding, in the country. The Korean peninsula faced one of its longest monsoon seasons in recorded history, potentially diverting the North's scarce resources elsewhere. Heavy rains caused landslides and severe flooding in South Korea, killing at least a dozen people, according to local reports. North Korea is speculated to have experienced higher casualty rates given its vulnerability to flooding and its lacking infrastructure. Around 15% of the country's arable land was destroyed by floods in 1990s, according to one estimate, and a separate study approximated that over 2 million people died. North Korea claims that roughly 225,000 died during this period. Meanwhile, human rights organizations have presumed Pyongyang is struggling to keep the coronavirus pandemic under control, contrary to regime's claims that it has little to no cases of infection. The regime may have exacerbated its predicament after it sealed its borders and refused to accept humanitarian aid, claiming that accepting such help would fuel the coronavirus within its borders. Getty Made-for-TV Although CSIS's study examined decades of North Korean provocations, the results does not include those during the congressional midterm elections in 2018, where "there was a prolonged and anomalous period of no provocations." This particular lull came after Trump and Kim's first meeting in Singapore, which capped off a year of bellicose "fire and fury" rhetoric and rocky relations between the two leaders. Shortly after Trump took office in 2017, North Korea fired about two dozen missiles, including its highest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile. While the regime may portray itself as an unpredictable actor, North Korea's behavior is calculated by holding off on any outward, provocative acts amidst peace talks, according to Cha. He predicted that based on the historical patterns, the regime would have resorted to its usual round of provocations this election year had it not been for the bilateral talks with the US. "After Trump got elected, there was nothing going on in terms of diplomacy," Cha said. "North Korea, that following year, did 20 ballistic missile tests and a hydrogen bomb test. I think if left alone, they would do all sort of things." "It's typical North Korean tactics to try to negotiate from a position of strength," Cha added. "By carrying out provocations, they put themselves in the position of being asked to walk down from the crisis." President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden participate in the first presidential debate, September 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland. Olivier Douliery/AP But the bilateral talks, which Cha characterized as "made-for-TV summits," may not address many of the underlying concerns. Based on Trump's performance in the last four years, Cha believes that if reelected in November, the president would make another haphazard deal with North Korea one that "he'll talk about as being the greatest deal ever." Some evidence suggests North Korea continued to develop its weapons program, even after the 2018 summit and the exchange of so-called "love letters" between Trump and Kim. Current and former US and South Korean officials discovered Kim was continuing to process uranium and digging underground tunnels to move weapons, according to The Washington Post. "I'm sure they like Trump," Cha said, referring to North Korean leaders. "Trump met with their leader three times and says nice things about their leader. And they probably see Biden as a continuation of President Barack Obama and they did not like that administration." Roughly a month after Obama was reelected in 2012, North Korea conducted a long-range rocket test, marking one of the quickest acts of provocation during a presidential election year. "If Biden wins, I imagine that [the US] would immediately do a policy review because that's what a new administration does," Cha said. "It's possible that North Korea will carry out provocations to try to force the administration to deal with them right away." Although Cha did not rule out the possibility of North Korea continuing its current detente under a potential Biden administration, he said it would be "highly unusual behavior." "Right now, there is no agreement to get [North Korea] to stop producing fissile material or plutonium and uranium nuclear weapons," Cha said. "There's no formal agreement that they will no longer test nuclear weapons, and no formal agreement that they would actually stop testing long range ballistic missiles." Read the original article on Business Insider It's been 25 years since Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave released their classic ballad, Where The Wild Roses Grow. And on Friday, Kylie celebrated the song's 25th anniversary by releasing a high definition version of the music video on YouTube. 'Where The Wild Roses Grow was released 25 years ago,' the 52-year-old wrote on Instagram. Iconic: Kylie Minogue celebrated the 25th anniversary of her Nick Cave collaboration Where The Wild Roses Grow on Friday. (Pictured together in 2018) 'How grateful I am to have this, forever and always. Love you Nick, your Eliza Day. Xx.' The brooding ballad was a huge hit when it was first released in 1995. It peaked at No. 2 on the Australian charts and won Single of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Release at the 1996 ARIA Awards. Hit: The brooding ballad peaked at No. 2 on the Australian charts and won Single of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Release at the 1996 ARIA Awards Thanks to Nick Cave's involvement, Where The Wild Roses brought more credibility to Kylie as an artist. She was able to show a new side of herself beyond her bubblegum pop image, and the song's success led to her taking a more experimental approach on her next album, 1997's Impossible Princess. Unfortunately, the album suffered from low sales and was savaged by critics, leading Kylie to return to her signature dance-pop sound on future releases. 'How grateful I am to have this, forever and always. Love you Nick, your Eliza Day,' Kylie wrote on Twitter This week also saw Kylie celebrate the 19th anniversary of her most successful album, 2001's Fever. The songstress shared the album's cover art and photoshoot to Instagram on Thursday, captioning it: '19 today!' Fever spawned Kylie's biggest hit, Can't Get You Out of My Head, which is one of the best-selling singles of all time. Legendary: This week also saw Kylie celebrate the 19th anniversary of her most successful album, 2001's Fever Other hits from the album included Love At First Sight and Come Into My World. Kylie is currently preparing to release her fifteenth studio album, Disco, this November. The album's second single, Magic, was released last month. Joe Biden's campaign has dropped their negative ads denouncing Donald Trump following the president's coronavirus diagnosis. The Democratic nominee is plowing ahead with his campaign after testing negative twice for the virus on Friday, making a stop in battleground state Michigan. The news came as Biden espoused a message of unity, declaring in his speech from Grand Rapids that this cannot be a 'partisan moment' and that Americans must 'come together as a nation'. Its not clear how long the negative ads will be down. The decision came Friday afternoon in consultation with the former vice president and top advisors, as per CBS News. Joe Biden's campaign has dropped their negative ads denouncing Donald Trump following the president's coronavirus diagnosis. Biden pictured wearing a mask as he made a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan Friday Biden espoused a message of unity, declaring in his speech from Grand Rapids that this cannot be a 'partisan moment' and that Americans must 'come together as a nation' Its not clear how long the negative ads will be down. The decision came Friday afternoon in consultation with the former vice president and top advisors. A view of a Biden campaign ad bashing Trump above Biden offered sympathy to Trump following his COVID-19 diagnosis saying: 'Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family.' Early Friday just before 1am, Trump, 74, announced that he and Melania, 50, tested positive for COVID-19 after top aide Hope Hicks tested positive for the contagious virus. By Friday evening the president was flown to Walter Reed hospital for a several days long stay to undergo treatment 'out of an abundance of caution' after reporting symptoms of fever, cough and congestion. He also reportedly was having 'trouble breathing'. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, said it will not reciprocate the move and will continue to air a slew of negative ads attacking Biden and 'the radical left'. However, pro-Biden Super PAC Priorities USA has been airing several ads against the president and his COVID-19 response since the summer, targeting battleground states, with no intention of stopping. Biden offered sympathy to Trump following his COVID-19 diagnosis saying: 'Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family Biden tested twice for COVID-19 on Friday after sharing the debate stage with Trump on Tuesday, and proved negative Guests and reporters sit inside circles that enforce social distancing while listening to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speak at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 951 while campaigning in Grand Rapids, Michigan Biden has taken a low-key approach in his in-person campaigning hosting small, socially distanced events while adhering to state and local public health recommendations regarding masks. He only recently began in-person canvassing after hosting mostly virtual events due to the pandemic. Communications Director Josh Schwerin said: 'We're taking stock of the situation and hoping for a swift recovery for the President and First Lady. We have no plans to pull back on our ongoing efforts to hold the President accountable for his failures on the pandemic.' Biden has taken a low-key approach in his in-person campaigning hosting small, socially distanced events while adhering to state and local public health recommendations regarding masks. He only recently began in-person canvassing after hosting mostly virtual events due to the pandemic. Trump on the other hand continued to hold controversial large in-person rallies where attendees were seen packed together and going maskless. Donald Trump pictured waving to reporters before boarding Marine One outside the White House to be taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be treated for COVID-19 Friday evening Trump pictured boarding Marine One to be transported to Walter Reed hospital Following his positive diagnosis, Trump has canceled all his in-person events, with plans to hold them online. Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh bashed Biden for his campaigns decision to begin in-person campaigning after he expressed concerns for volunteers' safety for months now. 'Joe Biden is a complete hypocrite because after months of saying door-to-door campaigning was dangerous and would kill people, his campaign is now engaged in doing just that because he knows hes getting outworked on the ground,' he said. Twitter users were quick to slam the Trump campaign for refusing to back down in their negative advertising of Biden after his Democratic opponent halted his negative ads against the president Biden's in-person campaign comes at a crucial time in the presidential race, just weeks away from the election. Just earlier this week he ramped up his trail with a seven-stop train tour of Ohio and Pennsylvanie. Next week he has his first campaign event in Arizona. Twitter users were quick to slam the Trump campaign for refusing to back down in their negative advertising of Biden after his Democratic opponent halted his negative ads against the president. 'Biden campaign pulls down all negative ads. Trump campaign not doing the same. No surprise here,' one Twitter user said. 'Because the President is sick, Biden pulls all negative ads. Because Trump is Trump he doesnt. Biden will bring this nation together in a positive way,' another added. Representative image Attackers set off a truck bomb in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province on Saturday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, according to provincial officials, as violence continues in the war-torn nation despite peace talks taking place in Qatar. Attaullah Khugyani, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the number of casualties, most of whom were civilians, could rise and that dozens of people were also injured by the blast in Ghani Khel district. Obaidullah Shinwari, the Nangarhar provincial council's member, said 52 people were injured in the blast. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Ministry of Interior spokesman Tariq Arian blamed the insurgent Taliban for the attack, saying in the last two weeks they had carried 650 attacks which had killed 69 civilians and wounded 141 people. The Taliban did not immediately respond to calls requesting comment. Afghan government negotiators are holding talks with the insurgent Taliban in their political capital of Doha in attempts to end decades of conflict, but calls by the government and international community for a ceasefire or reduction in violence have so far been rejected by the Taliban. Violence has escalated since a reduction in violence period that led up to the United States signing a troop withdrawal with the group, designed to usher the way to peace negotiations, in February. The Ministry of Interior also said in a Tweet that Afghan forces had killed a key member of the Taliban and arrested five others on Friday night in northern Balkh province. A coronavirus outbreak that infected President Trump and spread to the Senate has thrown a fresh element of uncertainty into the politically fraught fight over installing Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court before Election Day, with Republicans vowing to press ahead and Democrats insisting on a pause. Pulling off a complex confirmation that touches all three branches of government in the four weeks remaining before the election always promised to be a daunting task for Republicans in the middle of a pandemic. But by Friday night, with the White House and Congress in turmoil and Senators Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, among those announcing that they had tested positive for the virus, it was clear that the challenge had grown steeper. Mr. Lee and Mr. Tillis are both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that would convene Judge Barretts confirmation hearings. Top Republicans insisted that they would move ahead at an uncommonly swift pace to hold hearings on Judge Barretts nomination by Oct. 12, send her nomination to the full Senate by Oct. 22 and confirm her as soon as Oct. 26, eight days before Election Day even if it meant breaking Senate norms and considering a lifetime judicial nomination by videoconference. But the latest outbreak raised the possibility that Republicans could lose their slim majority in the Judiciary Committee or on the Senate floor. And it gave Democrats, who were already objecting to Mr. Trumps push to install a new Supreme Court justice so close to the election, a new reason to call for a delay. Seeing a potential opening, top Democrats called for the Senate to pause and assess the scope of the outbreak. They declared that a fully virtual hearing for a candidate for a lifetime appointment to the nations highest court would be unacceptable. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, who is Head of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, chaired its national teleconference on October 3 to review the fight against the pandemic in the new situation. The health sector is stepping up the application of technology in telehealth checks-up and treatment Speaking at the event, Dam and said the World Health Organisation (WHO) forecast that the pandemic could last until the end of 2021 due to the unavailability of vaccines. With the Partys sound leadership, the PM and Governments determination, and the close collaboration between the steering committee and ministries, agencies and localities, Vietnam effectively and promptly localised affected areas, helping to achieve the dual goal of fighting the pandemic and ensuring economic growth. The country also stepped up cooperation with foreign experts and organisations to study the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, share treatment therapies and offer mutual support, he said. After four COVID-19 transmission risks were defined in Vietnam, the map of safe living with COVID-19 www.antoancovid.vn was launched on October 1, which will be firstly used at schools and medical establishments to update information about the disease. Later, the map will be widely used in lodging facilities, offices, factories, supermarkets and public transport vehicles. The Ministry of Health is working closely with the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Information and Communications to complete the tool. The Deputy PM asked the Ministry of Health to work on the national electronic health records to monitor the health of the elderly, patients with outlying diseases and those at high risk of COVID-19 infection, as well as step up remote health check-ups and treatment. Acting Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said Vietnam experienced two waves of COVID-19 outbreaks in March and July with 1,096 infections and 35 deaths. The country has so far gone through 30 consecutive days without local transmissions and 1,020 patients have been given the all-clear from the virus. As the upcoming winter-spring climate is conducive to the spread of the virus, he urged localities and people to stay vigilant, especially closely controlling illegal entry at border gates. Deputy Minister of National Defence Sen. Lieut. Gen Tran Don directed units and localities to ensure security and order, keep track of entries to Vietnam to minimise transmission risks in the community./. Localities share experience in battling COVID-19 The Ministry of Health held a teleconference recently discussing measures to ensure safety in battling COVID-19 at medical facilities, with more than 700 units around the country participating. The teleconference reviewed lessons in COVID-19 treatment and measures to contain the spread of this and other acute respiratory diseases in hospitals. In his opening remarks, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son underlined that in addition to quarantining people that visited pandemic-hit regions, early detection and appropriate treatment have an important role to play in coping with the disease. The ministry has prepared guidelines on COVID-19 diagnoses and treatment at hospitals, with updates from previous outbreaks and the experience of others. Notably, the establishment of a centre providing online consultations has contributed to saving critical COVID-19 patients and raising treatment quality. The pandemic has broken out in 215 countries and territories worldwide, Son noted. More than 34 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, while over 1 million have died. Vietnam has so far reported 1,095 cases, of which 1,018 have now been given the all-clear, for a recovery rate of 96.4 percent. The country has also recorded 35 fatalities. A total of 54 medical facilities around the country have provided treatment to COVID-19 patients. Thirty-two patients are now being treated at nine hospitals. Vietnam records no new COVID-19 cases on Oct. 3 morning Vietnam recorded no new COVID-19 cases on October 3 morning, marking 31 consecutive days without infections in the community. The country has to date confirmed 1,096 COVID-19 cases, including 691 local infections and the remainders are imported cases, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control. Among the patients undergoing treatment, one has tested negative for the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 once, two twice and four thrice. As many as 1,020 patients were successfully treated and there are now no patients in critical conditions. The death toll from the disease remained at 35, most of them were elderly people with serious underlying conditions. A total of 16,182 people who had close contacts with COVID-19 patients or entered Vietnam from pandemic-hit regions are being quarantined across the county, including 723 in hospitals, 10,796 in concentrated quarantine establishments and 4,663 at their residences./. CAJ highlights role of media during COVID-19 pandemic The Confederation of ASEAN Journalists (CAJ) has highlighted the role of the media in the fight against COVID-19, saying trust in the media is most crucial in time of crisis. It has been over 10 months that the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on countries around the world. More than 33 million people have been affected, and unfortunately over a million people have died as a result. The pandemic is undoubtedly the biggest challenge facing the international community, the CAJ said in its statement issued recently. This challenge for countries in Southeast Asia is no less daunting, if not more. In an online informal meeting of members of the Confederation of ASEAN Journalists (CAJ) recently, we heard how governments and societies in their countries work together to battle the pandemic, it said. In order to express their concerns over the continuing pandemic and its economic and social impact and to demonstrate their solidarity with the governments and peoples in the ASEAN region in coping with the crisis, CAJ members issued a statement to recognise the ongoing efforts by governments and peoples of all the CAJ member countries to overcome the pandemic and its economic and social impact in their respective territories. The CAJ appreciates all the hard work provided by healthcare workers whole have been at the frontline in battling the pandemic, and spirit of volunteerism by individual members of the public in this critical time has given us some shining moments in these dark hours. As governments and societies join hand to combat the pandemic, the role of the media has become more crucial as ever, both in providing accurate information and keeping the public informed. Most important of all, media practitioners are reminded that they must not let their guard down as far as professional ethnics is concerned in their coverage of the pandemic. Trust in the media is most crucial in time of crisis. The CAJ strongly promotes transboundary cooperation among its member countries so that timely and valuable information on the pandemic can be shared. Equally important, CAJ member countries can learn from each others experience in fighting against the deadly disease. Amidst the pandemic, the media, therefore, have responsibility to combat fake news and disinformation about the pandemic which has become a scourge that needs to be countered through joint efforts and cooperation among all the professional media in the region./. Da Nang closes COVID-19 treatment hospital The Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control in the central city of Da Nang decided on October 2 to dissolve the Hoa Vang COVID-19 treatment hospital. Located within the medical centre in Hoa Vang district, the hospital treated a total of 239 patients, with the last discharged on September 23. The medical centre is to continue handling the remaining workload. Da Nang was the pandemic epicentre of the second COVID-19 outbreak, which began on July 25. As of the morning of October 2, the city had gone 33 consecutive days without any community transmissions and recorded no new cases for 31 days. Over 350 Vietnamese citizens flown home from UK More than 350 Vietnamese citizens were taken home from the UK on a flight arranged by Vietnamese authorities, the Vietnamese Embassy in the UK, Vietnam Airlines and British competent agencies on October 2 and 3. The passengers included children aged under 18; students whose study completed, visas expired and or schools and dormitories closed; pregnant women; the elderly; the illnesses; and people who had been stranded during their travel or business trips. The Vietnamese Embassy worked with the host countrys competent agencies to support the citizens in reaching the airport and sent staff to the airport to assist them with boarding procedures. Vietnam Airlines strictly implemented in-flight security and disease prevention measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Upon landing at the Van Don international airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh, all crewmembers and passengers were given heath checkups and put into compulsory quarantine in accordance with regulations. In the future, more flights are set to be conducted to repatriate Vietnamese citizens with disadvantaged circumstances, depending on their need and quarantine capacity at home./. Thailand allows partial reopening of borders to tourists Thai authorities said on October 2 that the country will begin reopening its borders to outsiders and kick-start the tourism industry plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic with a flight from China this month. The scheme has been designed to forestall any risk of importing new cases, with only visitors from countries deemed low risk allowed to enter Thailand and all new arrivals required to spend 14 days in hotel quarantine. According to a Tourism Authority of Thailand spokeswoman, the first arrivals will be a group of 150 Chinese tourists, with local media reporting that their flight would land on the resort island of Phuket next week. If there are no problems with the first group, two more flights one carrying Chinese passengers and another with European travellers are booked to follow. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha told reporters this week that only a limited number of visitors would be allowed into Thailand, and that they would be monitored through wristbands and mobile phone apps. Thailands economy is highly dependent on foreign visitors but the country is expecting a fraction of the nearly 40 million international arrivals it recorded last year, after the pandemic brought global air travel to a near standstill./. (Left) President Donald Trump in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Feb. 16, 2020. (Right) Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Wilmington, Del., on July 28, 2020. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images; Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) Where Trump, Biden Stand on Law Enforcement When it comes to the issue of policing in America, President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden have stated that they dont want to defund or abolish law enforcement. A closer look at their policies and rhetoric shows the candidates are taking different approaches. Biden has carved out a careful balance so as not to alienate his progressive or moderate base. His campaign has stated that he hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change and that he also supports the urgent need for reform. While the former vice president has said that most cops are good, he has stated that federal funding for law enforcement should be based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. Biden also promised to address systemic racism with long overdue and concrete changes. On his campaign website, hes pledged to expand the power of the Justice Department (DOJ) to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors offices, with methods such as pattern-or-practice investigations, as well as consent decrees to address circumstances of systemic police misconduct. He also says he would establish a new, independent task force on prosecutorial discretion outside of the DOJ that will make recommendations on handling discrimination. According to his campaign website, Biden would create a new $20 billion competitive grant program that would spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention. Under this program, states that want to receive this funding must eliminate mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes, among other steps. In June, Biden called for legislation to ban chokeholds and for an end to the transfer of military weapons to police departments. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks during the first presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, on Sept. 29, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) Trumps position toward policing, meanwhile, has been one of law and order and of support for officers. While he hasnt pushed for any major changes to policing systems or funding, he did say the vast majority of officers are great men and women who deserve respect, while signing an executive order on police reform in June. I strongly oppose the radical effort to dismantle and disband police forces, Trump said at the time. The order has three main components: more certification and credential requirements for officers, information sharing on officials who have been subject to excessive use of force complaints, and co-responder programs that will send health professionals alongside officers during certain situations. A senior White House official told reporters that the package would create a database to track officers who have multiple instances of misconduct and would also use federal grants to incentivize departments to meet certain standards. The executive order also barred the use of chokeholds by state or local law enforcement agencies. The president also has explicitly denounced some of the current rhetoric surrounding law enforcement, describing it as an anti-cop crusade. During a previous roundtable event where Americans shared stories about how they and their families have been helped by law enforcement, Trump said his administrations stance is one of pro-safety, pro-police, and anti-crime. Trump said at the roundtable that radical politicians who want to defund and abolish the police have defamed our law enforcement heroes as the enemy, and noted that efforts pushing to defund and abolish law enforcement appear to be happening in many, many Democrat-run areas. Under the Trump administrations Operation Legend program, federal agents and resources have been sent to inner cities to tackle violent crime and to restore public safety. The federal initiative has so far led to more than 2,000 arrests, including nearly 150 for homicide, since its start in July. President Donald Trump walks from Marine One after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Oct. 1, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) Law Enforcement Stance The law enforcement community has largely expressed support for Trump, with major police unions and organizations endorsing the president. Early last month, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the U.S.s biggest police union, unanimously endorsed Trump, commending him for his calls for law and order. The FOP has more than 355,000 members in 2,100 lodges. Public safety will undoubtedly be a main focus for voters in this years election, FOP President Patrick Yoes said in a Sept. 4 statement. Look at what the national discourse has focused on for the last six months. President Trump has shown time after time that he supports our law enforcement officers and understands the issues our members face every day. The National Association of Police Organizations, a police lobbying group that represents some 241,000 members, also formally endorsed Trump for his steadfast and very public support for our men and women on the front lines. The group previously endorsed Barack Obama for president in both 2008 and 2012; Biden was Obamas running mate for both elections. Trump has also won the endorsement of the largest union representing New York City Police Department officers, as well as New Jerseys largest police union. The Southern States Police Benevolent Association Inc., a group of more than 60,000 officers employed by federal, state, county, and municipal governments, endorsed Trump in September. It was the associations first presidential endorsement in over 20 years. In these times when many are attacking the law enforcement profession, it is imperative that law enforcement officers know that they are not on their own as they face the dangers of their job, Chris Skinner, the associations president, said in a statement. We believe that President Trump and Vice President Pence have demonstrated that they understand and appreciate the honor and sacrifice of serving as a law enforcement officer. While virtually all major police unions and groups have endorsed Trump, Biden has gained the support of more than 175 current and former law enforcement officials who have criticized Trumps handling of months of civil unrest across the country since the death of George Floyd. Jack Phillips and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report. Police are on the hunt for a gunman who opened fire during a Pro-Trump parade in Ohio on Saturday morning The incident occurred near the town of Hilliard shortly before 11 am as a cavalcade of Trump supporters drove along the I-270. According to police, the shooter was a 'participant in the parade' and 'fired a shot through a victim's window.' The condition of that person is not publicly known, and the shooter is still at large. NBC 4 reports that the suspect was driving a 'black pickup truck with Trump and American flags and Marines sticker.' Police are on the hunt for a gunman who opened fire during a Pro-Trump parade in Ohio on Saturday morning. The scene is pictured Dublin Police took to Twitter shortly after the shooting, urging driver to exercise caution, saying emergency response crews were at the scene of a 'traffic accident'. 'We looped around 270 three times and didnt see any problems,' parade organizer Mary Ann Walker told WCMH-TV. 'I think we saw one accident, maybe a little fender bender off the side of the road. So thats very surprising. 'Hopefully, I wouldnt think it was anybody in our group because everybody is so friendly and nice and I just dont see that happening.' The incident comes just days after President Trump and Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden discussed instances of political violence currently plaguing political rallies and social justice protests. This past summer, dozens of people were shot dead and injured as rival political groups clashed in the streets, During Tuesday night's debate, the Commander-in-chief was blasted after he told far-right group The Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by'. He denied that a majority of political violence was started by people on the right, saying left-wing organizations such as Antifa bore more responsibility. Meanwhile, Biden was also criticized for appearing to play down violence committed by Antifa, claiming that the organization was merely 'an idea'. The pro-Trump parade consisted of hundreds of drivers who drove down the I-270 from Columbus on Saturday to show support for the President A Trump supporter is seen during the car parade in Ohio on Saturday. Most vehicles were adorned with American flags and MAGA stickers Supporters were also seen gathering on overpasses, waving American flags as the cavalcade drove by Trump parade in Columbus, Ohio had THOUSANDS of trucks/cars/motorcycles show up!!! Landslide incoming https://t.co/Cb8l3dnTmP veritastips@protonmail.com (@EricSpracklen) October 3, 2020 Saturday's Pro-Trump parade consisted of hundreds of drivers who drove down the I-270 from Columbus. Supporters were also seen gathering on overpasses, waving American flags as the cavalcade drove by. One Twitter user shared video of the parade in process, writing: 'Trump parade in Columbus, Ohio had THOUSANDS of trucks/cars/motorcycles show up!!! Landslide incoming.' The Pro-Trump parade was just one of hundreds of events held across the country on Saturday - exactly one month out from the Presidential election. Trump Parade In Wapakoneta, Ohio Get Well President Trump and First Lady . pic.twitter.com/t20rABzmRb rick Frazier (@Rickfrazrally) October 3, 2020 Scores of boats took to the waters of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they held a 'Make American Boats Great Again' parade in the president's honor In New York City, people gathered near a Regal Cinema in Staten Island to pray for President Trump after his COVID-19 diagnosis on Friday Many of the gatherings took on a more somber tone following Friday's revelation that the President had tested positive for COVID-19. The Commander-in-chief is currently hospitalized at the Walter Reed Medical Center 'out of an abundance of caution'. A separate car parade took place in Wapakoneta, Ohio, while a boat parade to support the President took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Meanwhile, dozens of Republicans turned out to pray for the POTUS at an event in Staten Island, New York. A group calling itself the Concerned Citizens of the Volta Region (CONCIVOR) has expressed resentments over the recent happenings in the Volta Region involving some secessionist group. The group, which seeks to become an independent country, carried out series of attacks days ago on some Police stations and the State Transport Corporation (STC) in the Region. The group has been widely condemned by Chiefs in the Region who have also called on the security agencies to deal with the perpetrators. Some political figures in the country have also registered their displeasure with the separatists. The Concerned Citizens of the Volta Region, in a statement copied to Peacefmonline.com, has thrown their weight behind the Chiefs in the Region and called for a lasting solution to the issue. "We are by this statement associating with the position of the chiefs across the Volta Region and especially that of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs expressed in a release to the media, dated 27th September, 2020 in which the traditional rulers did not only condemn the attacks and underscored the peaceful character of the people of the Region, but also called on Government to conduct an independent and transparent investigation into the events of 25th September, 2020. We also associate with the recount by the House of Chiefs, of certain unfortunate comments and conducts directed at the people of the Volta Region which as they note, are not only troubling but have negative consequences on the people of the Region." They asked the government to treat the members of the secessionist group as criminals and deal with them accordingly. "We note that the modus operandi of the group which so far has included taking hostages, attacking police stations, blocking roads and indulging in wanton destruction such as burning of State property raises serious doubts about the true intentions of these groups." "On the basis of the foregoing, we the Concerned Citizens of the Volta Region are convinced that these groups, whatever or whoever they are, entertain an agenda completely at variance with persons with true and good intentions for the Region. We, therefore, entreat the Government to treat these persons as criminals and view their acts as intended to upset the peace and democratic order of Ghana and to deal with them accordingly," the statement further read. In resolving the issue, the Volta Regional concerned residents also appealed to government to engage the Chiefs in the Region as well as the African and international communities. "We also believe that to fully resolve the issue arising and threatening the peace and security of Ghana, the Government must as a matter of necessity engage the chiefs and other traditional heads in the various communities where the troubles are being fomented. These engagements must be open, transparent and devoid of needless suspicion towards either side. "We hereby appeal to the ECOWAS, whose current head coincidentally is the President of the Republic of Ghana, the African Union and the United Nations to show keen interest in the matter as an early warning sign and take adequate measures to prevent another scar on the face of the world. We also call on community watchdog committees to heighten alertness across the communities by sharing timeous intelligence/information for action." Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video - Transaction captures long-term growth momentum of gaming and e-Health markets as COVID-19 accelerates gaming adoption and the digitalization of healthcare infrastructure - Cherry is a continuation of Argand's enthusiast investment theme NEW YORK, Oct. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Argand Partners, LP ("Argand"), the New York- and San Francisco Bay Area-based private equity firm, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Cherry GmbH ("Cherry"). Argand acquires market-leading specialty manufacturing and business services companies with sustainable competitive advantages and strong growth potential. Cherry is the world's leading global designer and manufacturer of high precision keyboard switch technology for PC gaming and professional use computing peripheral products. The company designs and manufactures premium key switches for mechanical keyboards, branded gaming peripherals, computer input devices (including mice and headsets), and products for security, point of sale and e-Health applications. Headquartered in Germany, Cherry operates across a global footprint of state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and corporate offices in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. Cherry has a reputation for "Made-in-Germany" quality, performance and reliability and enjoys significant brand equity with customers. Argand's investment in Cherry is supported by long-term growth in the global PC gaming market and the on-going digitalization of healthcare. Cherry has experienced a boost from 'stay-at-home' social policies and 'work from home' corporate trends that are accelerating the adoption of PC gaming and home-based office computer peripherals. In addition, Cherry is the leading provider of secure telematics infrastructure for the German healthcare market. Germany is the world's second largest healthcare market and is at the forefront of the e-Health transformation. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of digitalizing the country's healthcare infrastructure. Argand plans to support Cherry's efforts to expand its e-Health offering across Europe and North America. Founded in the U.S. in 1953, Cherry pioneered the mechanical keyboard switch. The company's CHERRY MX switches are considered the industry gold standard in keyboard switch technology. Cherry's products are engineered to maximize performance, ergonomics, durability and precision. The Cherry brand is used by a diverse customer base worldwide, including gaming professionals and enthusiasts, and corporates and governments in the defense, healthcare, finance and retail sectors. Cherry retains the Blue Angel ecolabel for environmentally friendly product design. Tariq Osman, Partner and Co-Founder at Argand, commented, "Cherry is a great fit for our firm and investment strategy. The company has a clear leadership position and significant brand equity, and is an innovator in its industry. We look forward to partnering with Cherry's management team to pursue an accelerated global growth strategy, including strengthening Cherry's U.S. presence, capitalizing on the e-Health business opportunity, and prioritizing highly strategic M&A on a global basis." Rolf Unterberger, Cherry's Chief Executive Officer, said, "We have found a partner that is as excited by Cherry's pioneering product innovation, customer loyalty, and growth potential as we are. We have been impressed by the energy, creativity and strategic vision that Argand has already brought to the partnership, and we look forward to working together to maximize our strong momentum in gaming and e-Health." The acquisition is supported by a loan facility provided by Hayfin Capital Management. Hengeler Mueller acted as lead legal counsel to Argand, supported by Winston & Strawn LLP for the USA, Jun He LLP for China, and Gide Loyrette Nouel AARPI for France. About Argand Partners Argand Partners is a New York and San Francisco Bay Area-based middle-market private equity firm that targets market-leading industrial companies with under-resourced and unrealized global growth potential. Argand companies have strong market share, sustainable competitive advantages, defensive characteristics, and significant growth potential supported by secular demand trends. The firm focuses on specialty manufacturing and business services companies with a strong U.S. nexus (headquarters, primary growth market, or majority of revenue) and often significant global operations or expansion opportunities. Argand is a growth-oriented control investor that seeks complex, often contrarian, situations in order to buy well. The team employs a hands-on approach to partnering with management to create value across the investment lifecycle and help portfolio companies achieve their full potential as world-class, industry-leading companies. Further information on Argand can be found on the website: www.argandequity.com About Cherry Cherry GmbH, headquartered in Auerbach in der Oberpfalz, Germany, is the world's leading manufacturer of premium mechanical switches for the PC gaming keyboard market. Cherry is also a leading global manufacturer of computer input devices with a focus on the Gaming, Office, Industry, Security and Healthcare markets. Cherry employs approximately 400 people in production plants and corporate branches in Germany, France, UK, China and the USA. Founded in 1953, the Cherry brand is synonymous with "German-quality" products that are designed and developed specifically for the needs of its customers. Further information on Cherry can be found on the websites: www.cherrymx.de/en www.cherry-world.com For more information about Argand or the Cherry transaction, contact: Tariq Osman Partner & Co-Founder Argand Partners (212) 588-6470 tosman@argandequity.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1306591/CHERRY_Logo.jpg Los Angeles: Netflix has officially announced a limited series on American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Titled Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the show has been co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, reported Deadline. The serieschronicles the story of one of Americas most notorious serial killers, largely told from the point of view of Dahmers victims, and dives deeply into the police incompetence and apathy that allowed the Wisconsin native to go on a multiyear killing spree. It will dramatises at least 10 instances where Dahmer was almost apprehended but ultimately let go, while also touching upon white privilege. As a clean-cut, good-looking white guy, Dahmer was repeatedly given a free pass by cops as well as by judges who were lenient when he had been charged with petty crimes. The show will feature Oscar-nominated actor Richard Jenkins as Dahmers father Lionel, a chemist, who showed him how to safely bleach and preserve animal bones when he was a child, a technique Jeffrey later gave a sinister twist with his victims. Carl Franklin will direct the pilot episode of the series. Janet Mock, who worked with Murphy on Hollywood, will direct and write several episodes. As a serial killer, Dahmer took the lives of 17 males between 1978 and 1991. He was captured in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms. Dahmer was killed by fellow prison inmate Christopher Scarver in 1994. AP/Report for America SANTA FE U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich introduced a bill Thursday aimed at improving air quality in schools serving low-income students. The Keeping Schools Safe Act would include $1 billion in funding for ventilation and air quality monitoring. It also would mandate the creation of coronavirus-specific technical guidance for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. School districts across the country are struggling to balance the health risks faced by educators at risk for COVID-19 with parents and childrens needs for in-person learning. The challenges are unprecedented, Heinrich said. That is why I am introducing this legislation to provide elementary and secondary schools with funding to improve air quality and ventilation putting them one step closer to safely reopening, the New Mexico Democrat said. Heinrich does not have any Republic co-sponsors for the bill. It could join a number of COVID-19 relief bills that have stalled in the Senate. Heinrichs bill focuses narrowly on air quality and supports in-person learning, a priority of President Donald Trump. It also would give final grant-making authority to the U.S. Education Department. Antiquated ventilation systems have hindered a return to in-person learning across the country, forcing some districts to take children outside. Heinrich has advocated for more outdoor classrooms, but few schools in New Mexico have embraced the idea. In Albuquerque, officials estimate improving ventilation systems would cost millions and theres no money from the state to do that, Albuquerque television station KOB reported. Unsafe ventilation was a major factor in the districts decision to remain online-only through the end of the year. Under the legislation, the Education Department would establish a grant program for schools with significant populations of low-income students. Grants would be awarded to a variety of urban, suburban and rural areas. The bill also mandates that 5% of grants go to schools managed or funded by the federal Bureau of Indian Education. Around three dozen of those schools are in New Mexico. The bill would require the DOE to provide technical guidance on airflow systems in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and industry organizations, such as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. Thats information districts are looking for as they try to replace or retrofit ventilation systems, said Stan Rounds, executive director of the New Mexico Superintendents Association. Ideal systems would accommodate filters that could trap virus particles while allowing increased airflow. Right now, thats not possible in many school buildings. The engineering of the units that they have wont fit the required COVID ventilation, Rounds said. TCN News Mohammad Hamid Ansari (Former Vice President of India), Prof. Rajmohan Gandhi (Historian and a Grandson of Mohandas Gandhi) and Rev Dr William Barber (Co-Chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign), Atishi Marlena (MLA, Aam Admi Party Delhi), Shashi Tharoor (Member of Parliament, Indian National Congress) and other leaders and activists to Address [email protected] Virtual Conference, Oct 3rd and 4th, 2020 on Defending Democratic Values and Countering Hindu Nationalism and Casteism in Both India and the United States. Support TwoCircles RECLAIMING INDIA is a joint initiative of the global Indian diaspora, representing diverse voices, issues, identities, and their intersections. The core founding members of Reclaiming India Alliance are Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), Global Indian Progressive Alliance (GIPA), Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Students against Hindutva Ideology (SAHI) and India Civil Watch International (ICWI). Plenary sessions will include conversations between Indian historian and grandson of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Dr Rajmohan Gandhi, and Rev. Dr William Barber, Co-Chair Poor Peoples Campaign. Other speakers include Dr Ramachandra Guha, Prashant Bhushan, Indira Jaising, Dr Roja Singh, Martin Macwan, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Aatish Taseer and other leading activists, political leaders and thinkers. This two-day global dialogue on Reclaiming India will cover pressing immediate issues like curtailing free speech and civil liberties, casteism, racism and other pertinent topics to the US and India. Several other aspects of the Indian (and American) democracy, including the implications of the upcoming American election results on India, threats to minority rights and equality under the law, freedom of religion, the right to dissent, independence of the judiciary and press freedom will also be discussed. A panel of Indian, Indian American students and youth will talk about their important role in shaping the future of our two democracies. A concluding panel by leading Indian political minds including Atishi Marlena (MLA, Aam Admi Party Delhi), Shashi Tharoor (Member of Parliament, Indian National Congress), Salman Soz (Deputy Chairman of the All India Professionals Congress) and Jignesh Mevani (Independent MLA, Gujarat) will deliberate on the future course of Indian politics. The draft conference schedule can be found here and the conference registration link can be found here. The Nigerian Air Force has launched a comic book titled Girls Can Fly in honour of the late combat pilot, Tolulope Arotile. The event was organised on Friday by the Ministry of Youths and Sports, in partnership with I Choose Life Foundation, in the spirit of celebrating young Nigerians during the independence anniversary. Nigerias first-ever female combat helicopter pilot, Ms Arotile, 24, died in a car accident on July 14 this year in Kaduna State. According to the preliminary investigative report by the air force, she was killed by her friend who mistakenly hit her with his vehicle. Her death was mourned all over the country. The Chief of Air Staff, Sadique Abubakar, during the launch of The Heroes Comic Series on Friday, said the NAF was devastated by the loss of Ms Arotile. We were devastated by the tragic and untimely passing of our gallant air staff. It was a painful loss that shook the Nigerian Air Force and the country itself, said Mr Abubakar, who was represented by Oladayo Amao, the NAFs Chief of policy and plans. The comic book, which is for children between ages three-13, was written to serve as a source of encouragement to young Nigerians to make choices that will benefit them and their nation, said Mr Abubakar. It also aimed to be a source of inspiration to the girl-child, he added. The Air Staff Chief noted that Ms Arotiles gallantry is worthy of emulation, adding that already, young Nigerians are being motivated by it. He disclosed that six young female Nigerians had shown interest in the recruitment process of the NAF. Asides from this, he said, another twelve female combats, who were highly motivated by the late Arotiles bravery, and had undergone training within and outside Nigeria, would be returned as air personnel at the Nigerian Air Force. As part of the NAFs tradition of immortalising its fallen heroes for their sacrifice, the book was launched to honour her, the Air Staff Chief said. This was not the first time the NAF would honour the late flying officer since her death in July. Last month, a Pilots Crew Room at the 115 Special Operations Group (115 SOG) in Port Harcourt was remodelled and renamed in her name. The minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, described the late Ms Arotile as a hero even in death. She was brave, courageous and efficient, fighting alongside the army in combat with Boko haram within her little time here, said Mrs Tallen. The event had in attendance the Minister of Youths and Sports, Sunday Dare; the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed; and popular musician, Waje among others. Meanwhile, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Sunday Dare, entreated the Nigerian youth to explore opportunities abound in the tech and sporting space, so as to contribute to national development. The coordinator of I Choose Life Foundation, Chijoke Obioma, said the foundation would continue to harness the potential of Nigerian youth through capacity building and mentorship. The New York Police Department (NYPD) has released surveillance camera footage of the unprovoked attack on actor Rick Moranis. At around 7.30am on Thursday, the Ghostbusters actor, 67, was walking southbound on Central Park West near West 70th Street in New York City, when an unidentified man approached him. The man, wearing a black face mask and an I NY jumper, punched Moranis in the side of his head, which caused the actor to fall to the floor. The suspect was filmed by a nearby surveillance camera calmly walking away from the scene as Moranis lay on the ground. On Friday morning, the NYPD released footage of the attack and asked the public for help in finding the suspect, but did not specify that the victim was Moranis. The NYPD News account tweeted: A 67-year-old male victim was walking southbound on Central Park West in the vicinity of West 70th Street, when an unidentified male struck him in the head with a closed fist, knocking him to the ground. Have info? Call/DM @NYPDTips Soon after the footage was posted, a representative for the actor confirmed to the New York Post that Moranis was the victim of the attack, after six officers were seen entering his building on Friday morning. Troy Bailey of Bailey Brand Management told the Post in an e-mailed statement: Rick Moranis was assaulted on the Upper West Side yesterday. He is fine but grateful for everyones thoughts and well wishes. Recommended Ghostbusters star Rick Moranis punched in head in unprovoked attack on New York street The authorities told the Post that Moranis was taken to hospital for evaluation following the incident, after suffering pain in his head, back and right hip. After being released from hospital, the actor, who also starred in Little Shop of Horrors in 1986 and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids in 1989, reported the attack to the authorities at the 20th precinct in the city. The NYPD announced on Twitter that it is offering a reward of up to $2,500 (1,933) for information that helps find the suspect. Vietnam is likely to benefit as major laptop producers shift production from China over the next decade, especially with further escalation of global trade tensions. The country now accounts for about 0.5-1 percent of the global laptop market, but this ratio could rise as the increasing conflict between the U.S. and China urges more manufacturing giants to move to Vietnam, according to Taiwanese think tank Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC). Southeast Asia could produce half of the worlds laptops by 2030 if trade tensions continue to intensify, and Vietnam and Thailand will emerge as manufacturing hubs, MIC said in a recent report. Chinas share of global laptop production, which was 90 percent last year, could drop to 40 percent by 2030, given rising labor costs and manufacturers desire to diversify their supply chain, the report said. Alice Hsu, an industry analyst at MIC, told VnExpress that major Taiwanese manufacturers such as Pegatron Corporation and Wistron Corporation were considering establishing plants in Vietnam, while Compal Electronics, with a plant in the northern province of Vinh Phuc, was considering expanding its operations in the country. A recent report by the Ministry of Planning and Investment confirmed that Pegatron, a supplier for Apple, plans to invest $1 billion in Vietnams northern port city of Hai Phong in the next several years. Hsu said some of Vietnams advantages are sufficient labor population and many free trade agreements like the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which came into effect in August. The country has already been chosen as a base for electronics production by several multinationals, such as Samsung and Foxconn. However, Hsu said that concerns about power shortage and inadequate transport infrastructure like ports and roads could also keep investors away. Computers and electronics was Vietnams second largest exports category behind smartphones in the first nine months this year, with value rising nearly 26 percent year-on-year to $32.2 billion. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, October 3, 2020 08:24 477 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48da85f 1 Politics Sandiaga-Uno,Gibran-Rakabuming,Joko-Widodo,Surakarta-mayoral-election Free Former Jakarta deputy governor Sandiaga Uno is set to join the campaign team for President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka and running mate Teguh Prakoso in the upcoming Surakarta mayoral election in Central Java. The Gerindra Party politician, who ran as party chairman Prabowo Subianto's running mate in the 2019 presidential election, will join Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri and her daughter, senior PDI-P politician Puan Maharani, on the team. The news about Sandiaga's endorsement of the Gibran-Teguh ticket was confirmed by the President's son himself, who admitted that he was "delighted" with it as he really looked up to the businessman-turned-politician. "He is my role model, a successful businessman [who turned into a politician]," Gibran said on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com. Read also: Sandiaga Uno joins campaign team for Jokowis son-in-law in Medan mayoral race Gibran added that his mayoral campaign events were likely to be held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic that requires people to avoid crowds. The Gibran-Teguh ticket has been endorsed by at least eight parties, including the PDI-P, Gerindra, Golkar and NasDem. Before dipping his toes into politics, the 33-year-old Gibran was known as a food and beverage entrepreneur who launched various local brands, including martabak (sweet or savory stuffed pancake) joint Markobar and beverage brand Goola. The Presidents eldest son previously said that he would pass some of his businesses to his younger brother Kaesang Pangarep. Sandiaga has also been confirmed as joining the campaign team for the Presidents son-in-law Bobby Afif Nasution and running mate Aulia Rachman in the Medan mayoral race in North Sumatra. World leaders were sending well wishes on Friday to President Trump and first lady Melania Trump after they tested positive for the coronavirus. What they're saying: The Kremlin press office said Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram wishing the Trumps well, saying: " I am confident that your vital energy, high spirits, and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus," per Interfax. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was hospitalized with COVID-19 in April, tweeted Friday morning, "My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady. Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: Like millions of Israelis, Sara and I are thinking of President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump and wish our friends a full and speedy recovery." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Friday: "My first thoughts are in support of them for a speedy recovery. They had certainly reached out when Sophie [Gregoire Trudeau] got her diagnosis earlier in the spring." European Council President Charles Michel also wished them a speedy recovery, adding: "COVID19 is a battle we all continue to fight. Everyday. No matter where we live." Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted, "Wishing President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump speedy recovery from COVID-19." India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished Trump and the first lady well in a tweet: A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted that she was "saddened" to learn of of the Trump's positive test results. "Hope they both have a speedy recovery and will be fine," she said. European Parliament member Radoslaw Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister, tweeted to the president, "I suggest you do not try to treat yourself with bleach," in reference to Trump's April comments that disinfectants may be used to treat coronavirus which he later said were sarcastic. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyeusus sent his "best wishes" in a tweet to the Trumps "for a full and speedy recovery." Of note: The president and Tedros have had a tumultuous relationship that culminated in Trump officially signaling the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO after repeatedly criticizing the health body over the pandemic. The big picture: Trump is the latest world leader to have contracted COVID-19. Others include Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro and Johnson. Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout 03.10.2020 LISTEN The African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have turned blind-eyes to the unprecedented and indiscriminate killings of civilians mostly in the southern parts of Nigeria. Nevertheless, the International Court of Criminal Justice (ICC) has utterly refused to categorise these as a genocide in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Amnesty International (AI), the International Crisis Group and local human rights organisations, have documented, in several reports, frequent attacks on civilians, mostly Igbo and Yoruba, in the Christian dominated southern Nigeria. Armed Fulani and Jihadist Moslem groups from northern Nigeria committed heinous attacks. Human rights reports say attacks also take the form of structural and cultural violence targeted at Christians by the heavily Moslem controlled central Government of Nigeria. The structural and cultural violence against Christians by the present Nigerian Government involves the enactment of pro-Islamic laws and promotion of policies that are pro-jihadist, including the gross lopsided composition of the country's public security establishments. Key heavily-Moslem controlled agencies condone the atrocious acts of the Muslim jihadists against the Christian population and provide them with state cover and protection, according to the reports. The violence against Nigerians by 'eco-jihadist' Muslim groups is locally called "banditry", and that involves targeted abduction of residing and travelling citizens and forcing them to pay monetary ransoms in captivity or permanent disappearance or killing without any traces. Such young Christian women are forcefully married off by their Islamic captors, converted to Islam and made sex slaves. Men among them are forced to be converted to Islam or risk being killed or permanently disappeared in custody. Captured Christian children are radicalised with radical Islamic doctrines and forced into child soldiering, including suicide bombing. IDN research checks reveal that there were, at least 1,800 Christians killed in Nigeria between January and September 2020. Further breakdown indicates that Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen accounted for between 1,150 and 1,200 Christian lives while Boko Haram and other jihadist groups accounted for, at least, 600. The number of abductions on the grounds of religion have also risen to 500 during this period. "The current Government that was founded on fraud, can never credibly and correctly tackle corruption because anti-corruption crusade firmly demands moral decency and uprightness. It requires clean hands, a saintly posture that the present Government does not have or possess. There is confidence, and the will power to take up this task. It scratches the problems on the surface," Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, told IDN in an emailed comment from Onitsha city, Eastern Nigeria. He explained that the Government and its security agencies must return Nigeria to its secular status or divide the country in peace so that any party wishing to Islamize itself and its culture can do so freely and peacefully. Other regions that are not in the agreement can be given self-governance or self-determination, regional autonomy or statehood. During the celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari appealed for nation-wide unity and integration. This principal task has not been realised after Nigeria gained independence in October 1960. Tensions have persisted between the north and south, and there have been rivalries between ethnic groups. Millions have been killed in ethnic clashes, with the south-Eastern region working hard to break away to become the Biafra state. "An underlying cause of most of the problems we have faced as a nation is in our consistent harping on artificially contrived fault-lines that we have harboured and allowed unnecessarily to fester," President Buhari said in a televised address in an apparent effort to appease the population, majority deeply frustrated by his administration. He promised to consolidate Nigeria's democracy and called for patriotism. The president suggested that Nigeria's population -- now around 200 million and projected to be the third highest in the world by 2050 -- is both a challenge and an asset for the country. That has sparked debates, with scholars and researchers expressing divergent views. "Nigeria is in the third place globally among countries most ravaged by terrorism. The structural insolvency in Nigeria is pronounced with the distrust, which has characterised the interactions between the Government and the governed since independence. Unattended to for years, the dissatisfaction of the oppressed has germinated into a chorus of clamour for an equitable and just society that now manifests as calls for self-determination by various ethnic spheres in the country," according to Funmilola Ajala, an independent Researcher on African Affairs, based in Berlin. Expressing some optimism, he explained: "As the drums of apocalypse sound louder in Nigeria, it is germane to say that, despite its intractable challenges, the strategic nature of the country makes it more appealing to remain one. The strength of its huge population is one reason which has over the decades made Nigeria a place of choice for trade and economic interests by many foreigners." That said, however, Ajala further offered a few suggestions. First, there is a need for a national document that genuinely reflects the will of the people to live together. The notion that the indivisibility of Nigeria is 'non-negotiable' is a farce and should be discarded in search of a template for peaceful co-existence. Second, a return to regional autonomy in place of the subsisting quasi-federation is long overdue; the system is yearning for deconstruction to help redress its many apparent contradictions and the attendant deficient outcomes. This would afford the regional components opportunity to develop from within without necessarily dictated to by the federal authority. Third, the 'gentlemen agreement' for rotational Head of Government should be constitutionally sanctioned to avoid making such a privilege an exclusive preserve of a particular ethnic group at the expense of others. Nigeria's population is estimated at over 200 million, which means the country has skilled and unskilled labour in abundance. The population also makes it a fertile ground for global trade. Nigeria is also rich in mineral resources. It is sub-Saharan Africa's largest, and the world's 13th largest, producer and exporter of oil. These endowments should have made Nigeria one of the critical destinations for global investment. And with its wealth in petroleum and natural resources as well as its vast agricultural potential, Nigeria should have by now become Africa's undisputed economic giant, Sheriff Folarin, Professor of International Relations, Covenant University, wrote recently in an assessment report. "Sixty years after independence, Nigeria, like a vehicle struggling to climb a hilly road, has yet to achieve its potential. Its large population has thus become a source of weakness, not strength. With mass unemployment and overstretching of inadequate and poorly maintained infrastructure, many Nigerians have had to seek their fortunes abroad," Folarin observes. In comparison, Folarin said "Smaller nations such as Ghana, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are beginning to catch up. At the same time, big corporations from industrialised and wealthy countries in Europe and South Asia find the Nigerian business climate inauspicious. That's largely due to decaying infrastructure, corruption and insecurity. Big European corporations have, over the years, shut down or relocated their Nigerian manufacturing plants. They point to a lack of stable electricity supply and endemic corruption, both of which impede their smooth operations." In a research paper he co-authored, he argues that national integration and its benefits could be realised only with the development and entrenchment of a supportive public culture. Nigerians must understand, respect and tolerate differences occasioned by socio-cultural diversity and develop new institutions and mechanisms that address poverty, revenue allocation and other national issues peacefully. "Nigeria can transform its potential into success. With a huge population, its citizens can be mobilised and empowered to engage in manufacturing as China, Singapore and South Korea have done. This will change the society from a consuming country to a powerhouse in manufacturing and exportation. At 60, Nigeria should not be groping in the dark. There have been numerous wasted opportunities, no doubt, but it takes just a right turn at any second for a vehicle in the middle of nowhere to find its bearing," Sheriff Folarin suggested. For Celine Akigwe, former General Secretary of the Nimo Brotherhood Society (NBS) UK & Ireland, multiple unresolved problems including frequent ethnic and religious attacks, deep-seated corruption, ineffective federal system of governance make Nigeria not the Giant of Africa. In her estimation, Nigeria is endowed with substantial natural resources. By population, it has the highest and that signifies the extent of its human capital in the country. As already known, Nigeria has three ethnic groups, namely the Hausa-Fulani in the North, Yoruba in the West and the Igbos in East. Ethnic conflict pulls down the expected high development, contributes to insecurity and youth unemployment in the country. "Nigeria exposes the rich and poor divide in every aspect of society. The masses continue to suffer more and more electricity outages. Access to clean drinking water is another example, where the masses suffer poor quality water. Nigeria, lack of constant electricity, good roads, hospitals and schools have become the norm. The security situation all over Nigeria has reached a critical level," Celine Akigwe told IDN in an emailed comment from London. According to interpretation, there are too many problems facing Nigerians that nothing short of a total rethink, revamp and reworking of every denomination of our civilisation is required to change the status quo. This broken society must be dismantled and rebuilt. From its very inception, the concept of Nigeria was doomed. The land that is referred to or called Nigeria was created by the British. It made colonising Africans easier for them to administer. Conclusively, Akigwe thinks Africans, or specifically Nigerians deserve that right. It has taken over 60 years for Nigerians to reach this point of agitation and Nigerians have suffered enough. It is time to leave the past behind and cease the administration of the colony not a former colony called Nigeria. Nigeria is an administrative convenience to ease the complications for the British. If Africans are totally honest with themselves, all of the borders that were drawn as a result of the Scramble for Africa should be erased. Integration simply means to continue to live in a state of denial of the past. Independence is not a myth but a reality that will happen now or in the future. If this generation is not ready for true independence, then future generations should do everything for that. This story was first and originally published by InDepthNews. Six civilians, including a pregnant woman, were killed in southern Mali when the ambulance they were travelling in struck a landmine, the health ministry said on Saturday. It was not clear who was responsible for laying the mine, but the incident on Friday represented a first for the southern Sikasso region, said Mama Coumare, the ministry's secretary-general. Militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State routinely attack soldiers and civilians in northern and central Mali, but the country's south has been largely spared. "The ambulance had left Yorosso to bring a pregnant woman to Boura," Coumare told Reuters. "All the passengers were killed - six deaths, mostly women." Military officers overthrew President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita last month, decrying, among other things, his failure to address worsening insecurity caused by the jihadists and ethnic militias. The violence has destabilised neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger too, despite the presence of thousands of French troops and United Nations peacekeepers in the semi-arid Sahel region. Eight civilians from the Dogon ethnic group were killed on Wednesday by suspected jihadist fighters in central Mali's Mopti region, local officials said. The attack followed a lull of several weeks in tit-for-tat killings between rival ethnic groups in central Mali that coincided with peace talks brokered by al Qaeda-linked militants. Negotiations about a transition back to civilian rule after the August 18 coup were due to wrap up on Saturday following consideration of a proposal calling for the ruling junta to appoint an interim president to govern for the next two years. Image: ANI Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the Congress, saying India's defence interests were compromised under its rule, and asserted nothing is more important to his government than protecting the country. Modi hit out at the opposition party, which headed the coalition government at the Centre during 2004-14, after inaugurating the strategically important 9.02-km Atal Tunnel, the world's longest highway tunnel which reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by four to five hours. He cited a number of strategically important projects, from Atal Tunnel to the air strip at Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh and Tejas fighter aircraft production, to assert that they were delayed or almost forgotten and questioned as to what "compulsion" and "pressure" might have been behind it, without directly naming the Congress. His government, the prime minister said, has deployed all its strength to develop border infrastructure, adding that never before has work been done at such a big scale, be it building roads, bridges or tunnels. For long, he said, border projects could never come out of planning stage and those which did got stuck or were kept on the back burner. The then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had inaugurated the approach road to Atal Tunnel in 2002 but the project was almost forgotten after his government was gone, Modi said, targeting the Congress-led UPA dispensation. Work on only 1,300 meters was completed by 2013-14, he noted, adding that the project would have been completed by 2040 by this pace before his government took charge in 2014 and speeded it up at an unprecedented rate. "Our govt increased the pace of construction from 300 meters/year to 1400 meters/year and completed the project in 2020," Modi said. In just six years the government completed the work of 26 years, he said. Just like the Atal tunnel, this treatment was meted out to several such projects, the prime minister said, adding that Daulat Beg Oldi air strip remained closed for four to five decades. "There was no political will. I can talk about dozens of projects that are important from the strategic point of view, but for years they were neglected," he said, hitting out at the previous Congress-led governments. "Nothing more important to us than the national interest and protecting the country, but the nation has seen an era when defence interests were compromised," he said, in an apparent swipe at the opposition party. In this context, he also referred to the Kosi mega bridge in Bihar which was envisaged by the Vajpayee government and inaugurated by him last month. The decisions of our government are a testimony to that it does what it says, he said. His government has undertaken major reforms so that defence equipment could be made under 'Make in India', he said, adding that fulfilling the defence needs are his government's top priority. Speaking of the Atal Tunnel inauguration, Modi said it is a historic day as not only has the dream of the former prime minister been fulfilled but the decades-long wait of people of the state is also over. The tunnel will be a lifeline not just for Himachal Pradesh but also for Leh-Ladakh, he said. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh highlighted on the occasion the strategic importance of the tunnel, saying it will make soldiers' deployment and movement of weapons and ration easier. It will also be a big help to people and tourism sector, he said. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and Union minister Anurag Thakur were also present on the occasion. Mithun Chakraborty was worried for his family as the the 'only earning member' during the pandemic India may be luckier than most other developing countries as it has a large capacity for manufacturing vaccines. If a vaccine from AstraZeneca-Oxford comes through, Serum Institute of India, Pune, which is partnering with AstraZeneca, has earmarked a significant part of its output for India. by Prabir Purkayastha As the pandemic continues to spread throughout the world, many countries seem to have given up the fight against COVID-19 and are now waiting for a vaccine to protect against the virus. With cases exceeding 32 million, and more than a million dead, the world economy has taken a bigger hit than at any other time since the end of the Great Depression of 1929-39. The U.S. and India are now showing the highest numbers of total and new cases of COVID-19. Both have stopped talking about how to stop the pandemic, and are only focusing on reopeningor as India calls it, unlockdown. Giving up on containing the COVID-19 pandemic is an admission that public health systems have failed. India, with a poor public health infrastructure, has one of the most privatized health care systems in the world. The U.S. has the most privatized health care system among wealthy countries, with poor outcomes. It is not surprising then that both these countries have failed in facing what is essentially a public health challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic shows the contradictions between the needs of capitalism and the health of the people. Capitalism requires ill-health for making profits: selling patented medicines, costly stays in hospitals, and expensive procedures. The objective of the public health system is to ensure that people stay healthy, robbing capitalists of the opportunity to make profits. The good news for the world is that 41 vaccinesmore accurately candidate vaccinesare currently under different phases of clinical trials, and another 151 are in the pipeline. Two of the vaccines currently in Phase 1/2 trials are being developed by Indian companiesone from Cadila Healthcare Limited and the other from Bharat Biotechand are set to start their Phase 3 trials soon. Bharat Biotech is also working with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis on a nasal route for delivering a vaccine. Normally, vaccine development and testing take from five to ten years, so it would be a significant achievement if we succeed in making effective vaccines available by the end of 2020 or early 2021. The progress so far also shows that we have the scientific capacity to develop a large number of vaccines for infectious diseases. The reason we have not done so for diseases other than COVID-19 is that such infectious diseases were thought to be the diseases of poor countries, and do not provide enough profits for global big pharma to invest in vaccines against infectious diseases. It required a public health emergency in the rich countries for vaccine development to take a front seat in medical science again. As immunity may not be permanent, unless we have herd immunity at the global level, we will continue to see outbreaks in different countries. The virus will not respect national boundaries. And while large parts of the global population have no guarantee of a vaccine, the rich countries with 13 percent of the worlds population have reserved more than half the vaccines from the leading vaccine manufacturers. India may be luckier than most other developing countries as it has a large capacity for manufacturing vaccines. If a vaccine from AstraZeneca-Oxford comes through, Serum Institute of India, Pune, which is partnering with AstraZeneca, has earmarked a significant part of its output for India. Cadilas and Bharat Biotechs vaccines are currently in clinical trials. They also have a significant capacity for vaccine manufacture. Dr. Reddys Laboratories, an Indian company, has partnered with Russias Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology for distribution of the Sputnik V vaccine. Contrary to some news reports, Russias Sputnik V was never authorized for the general population and is currently undergoing Phase 3 trials since August in various countriesRussia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico and possibly India. After the disaster of U.S. President Donald Trumps handling of the pandemic, he is desperate to claim success in some way or another before the November elections. He has been pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to give emergency authorization to some of the vaccines that the U.S. has invested in through its $11 billion Operation Warp Speed program. These vaccines have to provide evidence that they are safe and provide sufficient immunity by either preventing the disease or limiting it to a mild form. As some of these vaccines are two-shot vaccines and need at least two months after the final shot to be effective, there is no way that such an exercise can be done by the U.S. presidential election on November 3. After public criticism of the FDAs earlier emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma therapy, both of which turned out to be of little value, the FDA is cautious about making a third mistake, especially as vaccine skepticism is strong in the United States. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S., has termed the anti-vaxxers as a part of the anti-science movement that has gained significant influence in the United States. Anti-science, racism and a deep distrust of the government are driving the rightward shift in U.S. politics. A misstep on vaccines can cause significant damage in protecting people in the long run. We have also seen similar missteps in India, where the Indian Council of Medical Researchs (ICMR) director general issued a stern directive in his letter in July to 12 hospitals participating in trials for Bharat Biotechs vaccine Covaxin, demanding that all trialsPhase 1, 2 and 3should be completed within six weeks so a success could be announced on August 15, which is Indias Independence Day. After an outcry, the ICMR claimed that it was not a directive but a suggestion, with no explanation about why such a harebrained suggestion should have been made in the first place. Once a vaccine is found to be successful in the Phase 3 trials, it might appear that our problems would be over quickly. Not so fastwe then have the formidable challenge of making it available to at least 4 to 5 billion people for creating herd immunity. This means producing about 8 to 9 billion doses, as a number of these vaccines are two-shot vaccines. We then have the even more challenging task of setting up supply chains to provide vaccines to centers all over each country before people can be vaccinated. The CEO of Serum Institute, the largest generic vaccine manufacturer in the world, has already flagged that India will need about $10.7 billion to procure and deliver the vaccine, a further challenge to the governments finances. Several manufacturers in India have ramped up vaccine production capacity, so they may be able to produce the vaccines, even though they may not meet the requirements quickly. But an even more daunting task is to create the entire cold chain (temperature-controlled supply chain for all the elements of storage and distribution) for supplying the vaccines to the vaccination centers. In case of the old-fashioned inactivated viruses, or the more recent use of adenovirus as vector, the cold chain required is between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the cold chain requirement for most commonly used vaccines including those for the flu and polio. For Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, both of whom have developed mRNA vaccines, however, the temperatures required are between -94 and -112 degrees Fahrenheit, a far more difficult task even for countries like the United States. If the mRNA vaccines are the ones that prove to be the successful ones and the others are not, building up a supply chain for the vaccines that can provide the colder range of storage for most of the world will take far more than a year. The other challenge is that we have never vaccinated such large numbers in such a short time ever. In India, the pulse polio program uses oral drops and immunizes about 170 million children per year. This is still well below the required 1.5 to 2 billion vaccine shots for India, whether the AstraZeneca or the Gamaleya vaccine, both of which are two-shot vaccines. And for a two-shot vaccine, we have the added difficulty of tracking the people who have received the first shot so that they do not miss their second. Even if the major economies can solve their problems of procuring the vaccines by jumping the queue with money or captive production capacities, what about the rest of the world? For them, the only major alternative is the WHO-Gavi-CEPIs Covax platform, which requires at least $2 billion by December 2020. It has raised $700 million, and has commitments from 64 major countries for funds, but is still short by $700-800 million. The U.S., having pulled out of WHO, is not a part of any global effort for vaccines and says that it might help others only after it has helped itself. Russia and China are not a part of the Covax and are working out bilateral programs along with clinical trials for sharing their vaccines. If vaccine development was simply a scientific exercise, we should have been able to address the questions of when we should consider the clinical trial results satisfactory to start mass vaccination and which section of the people should get the vaccine and when, and at what cost. We would also have been able to discuss how to create the global and national infrastructure for all countries and all people to be safe. Instead, we see the ugly face of vaccine nationalism, with each country for itself, which will protect neither the nations nor their people. Weve seen tech and trade wars; here come the vaccine wars. This article was produced in partnership by Newsclick and Globetrotter. Prabir Purkayastha is the founding editor of Newsclick.in, a digital media platform. He is an activist for science and the free software movement. The holiday season will be sneaking up on us soon enough. In fact, in some cases its already here. Many retail companies will hire extra employees to help with one of the craziest times of the year, even though the 2020 holiday season may be a bit different from past years due to the coronavirus. Here are 10 retailers who have either announced they are hiring seasonal workers or started advertising positions for the holiday season. Amazon The online retail giant is expected to hire several thousand temporary workers for the upcoming holiday season, although details havent yet been released. There are also plans to hire 6,900 non-seasonal employees in New Jersey. Full- and part-time jobs are available. If interested, you can apply here. Best Buy The tech and electronics retailer has not officially announced its seasonal hiring plans, but already has started advertising positions on its website. If interested, you can apply here. FedEx The company announced plans to add more than 70,000 positions to prepare for the holiday season, with the majority being part of its FedEx Ground network. If interested, you can apply here. Kohls The department store announced its hiring seasonal associates for all its stores, distribution and e-commerce fulfillment centers across the U.S. If interested, you can apply here or text APPLY to 24508. Kohls will also host a virtual national hiring event Saturday from 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Click here to schedule a phone interview. Macys The department store has not yet announced its seasonal hiring plans, but positions are already advertised on its website. If interested, click here to apply. Michaels The arts and crafts retailer announced plans to hire over 16,000 seasonal employees across its U.S. and Canada stores, as well as distribution centers, for the holiday season. If interested, click here to apply. Nordstrom The department store has not yet announced its seasonal hiring plans, but positions are already advertised on its website. If interested, click here to apply. Target The company didnt disclose an exact number of employees it plans to hire for the holiday season, but Target said more full-time and seasonal warehouse team members will be hired throughout the U.S. compared to 2019. Seasonal employees will receive a minimum of $15 per hour, and a range of key coronavirus health and wellness benefits. If interested, you can apply here. Walmart The company announced plans to hire more than 20,000 seasonal associates for its e-commerce fulfillment centers across the U.S. to prep for the holiday season. The starting hourly rate for Walmart ranges from $15.75 to $23.75 based on location, position and schedule. Employment lasts through Jan. 1, 2021 but can potentially convert to regular employment. If interested, you can apply here or text FC to 240240. UPS The company announced it expects to hire over 100,000 seasonal employees to support its anticipated annual increase in package volume. The positions will start in October and run through January 2021, with the opportunity to turn into regular employment. Full- and part-time seasonal positions for package handlers, drivers, driver-helpers and personal vehicle drivers are available. If interested, you can apply here. RELATED STORIES ABOUT RETAIL AND SHOPPING: Heres what you can do with Bed Bath & Beyond coupons if your local store is closing Retail store closings 2020: The chains that have closed stores this year Amazon reveals Toys We Love List for 2020 holiday season: See the full list Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Nicolette Accardi can be reached at naccardi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter: @N_Accardi. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Burma Irrawaddy Business Roundup -- YANGON Myanmars government enforced stricter stay-at-home orders in Yangon on Monday and banned all but essential travel between townships. Those working in food distribution, health care and banks are using government-issued QR passes to move around. Amid the economic slowdown, the government said it is drafting a recovery and reform program to maintain economic reforms introduced by the National League for Democracy (NLD). Also during this week, one of Thailands largest banks announced that it would open in Myanmar after securing a Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) license. Cross-border trade with northern Thailand this week resumed normally after a two-week suspension due to COVID-19 restrictions. Elsewhere, Myanmars embassy in Beijing has announced that it plans to export high-quality traditional food to China to help independent businesses recover from the pandemic. Recovery program being prepared Myanmars government is drawing up a medium- to long-term economic recovery and reform program that aims to maintain the NLDs economic reforms, according to the Ministry for Investment and Foreign Economic Relations (MIFER). MIFER minister U Thaung Tun on Sunday wrote an article in the state media headlined: COVID-19 Crisis: We will recover and build back better. He detailed the governments latest measures and response plans to cushion the impact of coronavirus. U Thaung Tun said the Myanmar Economic Recovery and Reform Program will focus on comprehensive and inclusive recovery and reform. He said the program would prioritize environmental sustainability to create a truly sustainable recovery. Siam Commercial Bank to open in Myanmar One of Thailands largest banks, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), is to set up a bank in Myanmar after receiving a subsidiary business license from the CBM, according to the Bangkok Post. It said the move is a part of an ambitious plan to expand its offline and online platforms into the neighboring countries. The SCB fully owns the subsidiary registered as Siam Commercial Bank Myanmar Ltd. The bank said it plans to invest in retail and digital banking in Myanmar. Thai border trade resumes Border trade between Myanmar and Thailand has resumed nearly two weeks after COVID-19 restrictions were imposed. The Chiang Rai chamber of commerce announced that trade between Tachileik Township in Shan State and Mae Sai District in Chiang Rai Province resumed smoothly. The Thai authorities prohibited vehicles from Myanmar from crossing the border. The Thai side was accused of failing to discuss the restrictions with officials in Myanmar. In response, Myanmar imposed similar measures on Thai vehicles. Both sides agreed to revive trade after a series of bilateral discussions. China to buy quality food from Myanmar Myanmars Embassy in Beijing has announced that Chinese businesses are interested in buying high-quality traditional food from Myanmar after it launched a China-Myanmar Economic Cooperation and Development Forum in Chinas Fujian Province. The embassy said traditional snacks such as peanut butter, biscuits, coffee and other beverages would be exported to China. The embassy said it was looking to boost food exports to China as a part of Myanmars export promotion plan. You may also like these stories: Chinese Companies Flocking to Southern Myanmars Industrial Complex Megaproject Clothing Factories Forced to Close in Myanmars Ayeyarwady Region After COVID-19 Cases Myanmar, S. Korea Pledge to Step Up Cooperation on Trade, Investment, Energy Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe On Friday, September 19 in the early morning, Gloria Putnam's phone buzzed with an alert: "A wildfire is burning near Big Pines Highway and Highway 2. EVACUATION ORDER, LEAVE NOW." The Bobcat Fire, which has since burned through almost 115,000 acres and destroyed at least 80 homes, was in danger of destroying everything she had worked for. Putnam scanned her ranch. The 72 acres held her 60 goats, 50 laying hens, four fluffy Pyrenees, two roosters and two pigs. All throughout and around the property grew dense fiddleneck and chamise, the tall chaparral teeming with smaller fauna. The goats at Angeles Crest Creamery enjoy some well deserved R&R. (Jessica Hamlin for LAist) About a decade ago, Putnam, a physicist, was hosting farm-to-table dinners and cheese-making classes out of the Altadena home she shared with her then-partner. This wasn't your standard family home but the historical Zane Grey estate, where the house boasted eight bedrooms and four bathrooms situated on a little more than an acre of land. It was enough space for her to raise 20 goats. "Wow, this is so sustainable," her guests would comment. But the truth tugged at Putnam. She had the feed for the goats sent in and it was a menace on her conscience. She knew enough, by that point, to decide she should be raising ruminants on land where they could forage for their food. So she began imagining an agricultural project, one where she could establish a water-appropriate foodshed for Southern California's environment and didn't require her to fly in hay. She started looking for land and ended up in Valyermo, an unincorporated community along the northern edge of the Angeles National Forest, in what's considered the high desert of Los Angeles County. Angeles Crest Creamery in Valyermo. (Jaimie Sarra for LAist) In 2014, Putnam opened Angeles Crest Creamery, a 70-acre ranch with a barn that houses four milking stations, two classic Airstream trailers and a tiny, yellow homesteading cabin, complete with a porch and an outdoor clawfoot tub, for visitors. A self-proclaimed "serial educator," Putnam hosts the agri-curious, people looking to learn about farming, animals and nature. (Before COVID, agritourism was a popular niche in the travel industry.) At Angeles Crest Creamery, guests can milk goats, hike in the foothills alongside them as they forage and eat food prepared by Putnam from ingredients sourced almost entirely on the ranch colorful eggs, braised goat meat tacos, cajeta (goat's milk caramel), goat milk smoothies, goat cheese and jalapeno dip for tortilla chips. She also roasts her own coffee and has taught coffee roasting classes. As the Bobcat Fire approached her land, all of that threatened to go up in smoke. Moments before leaving, Putnam shot a video of the ranch with her iPhone. Although she's holding it together, her voice cracks as she narrates: "Alright, these are the last goats remaining. I'm about to leave in this thing." Putnam pans over to an orange utility vehicle. "I'm not coming back and this might be the last time that I see this place looking like this." Firefighters battle the Bobcat Fire, which burned through Angeles Crest Creamery in Valyermo. (Courtesy of Gloria Putnam) When I spoke with her in late September, Putnam said, "Every farm has an evacuation plan. We have a plan for if we have an hour and we have a plan for if we have 24 hours. Luckily, this was the 24-hour version." The day before she and the goats evacuated, she had sent her horses to Mea Ola's Place, a horse sanctuary in Phelan, 23 miles to the east. Because of biosecurity issues with moving birds around (i.e. Newcastle disease) she decided to leave the chickens in their metal structures in the barn. The firefighters were protecting the barn anyway, she thought. Putnam owns a horse trailer that fits up to 25 goats, and a dump trailer, the kind that brings your trash to the landfill, which can hold another 20. Several trips between Valyermo and her evacuation camp, located six miles downhill, brought her goats, safe and sound but skittish, to a large, empty lot with water and solar power. She hopped in the little utility vehicle with her hundred-pound Doberman, Reno, and joined her goats, pigs, Airstreams and a couple of friendly neighbors. Gloria Putnam joined other evacuees from the Bobcat Fire at this site. (Courtesy of Gloria Putnam) When Putnam bought these 70 acres in 2012, it was just her, 20 goats and one wheel of two-year-old gouda. Living here with the goats and eating the cheese she had made was satisfying and, more crucial for her, sustainable. But she had a larger question, "Is it scalable?" Her dream wasn't simply to make this feasible for one person, Putnam wanted to make this workable for everyone. Ultimately, she wants to give back as much as she takes from the land. "If there were enough people who wanted to do this, if you filled these mountains with goats and shepherds, could this be a foodshed for Los Angeles? I don't even know how to figure that out but it's kind of an interesting question," Putnam asks. It's a question that had pestered me since the day I met Putnam in 2018, when she said, "The earth has 50 more harvests." She was referring to soil erosion caused by pesticide-dependent farming techniques. In 2014, United Nations Food And Agriculture reported soil degradation was proceeding at such a rate that the planet had only 60 harvests left. The number is an average. Some countries, like the UK, had 30 to 40 harvests left while others, like the U.S., had closer to 90. Regardless of the precise figure, the message is clear: If humans don't change the way we farm, build and live, we will run out of soil to grow the food we need. The U.N. report spawned a sustainability movement among some farmers and food producers, including Putnam. I had come to Angeles Crest Creamery to learn about goats and cheese but I wound up learning about soil and that's exactly what she wanted. Each day since evacuating on September 18, Putnam has snuck back to her ranch to check on it. In the wake of the Bobcat Fire, the barn and cabin had survived but much of the shrubbery that the goats fed on had burned. The ranch's water structure had also been destroyed. "There's so much loss but I know it's rejuvenating. I know we need fire. There's just not enough room in my brain to process all this," Putnam says. On one of her trips, Putnam took note of what had survived, paying attention to what could still exist in this habitat. She noticed a beautiful joshua tree surrounded by its pups. She spotted a large juniper bush, full of the berries that are best known for flavoring gin. "A lizard. I saw a lizard. No ravens. A family of ravens live on the property but I haven't seen them. I saw quail on the ground looking for water. The water infrastructure burned down completely," Putnam says, ticking off items on her mental checklist. The Airstream trailer that Gloria Putnam would rent out to guests at Angeles Crest Creamery in happier times. (Jaimie Sarra for LAist) Since evacuating, Putnam has had to cancel and refund all of her Airbnb reservations, an important source of revenue for Angeles Crest Creamery. This comes after a series of events that had set her back financially. She took three years off to take care of her mother then returned to work before her mom passed away in November. In March, she had to cancel bookings at the ranch because of the coronavirus pandemic and had only started taking reservations in mid-August. Putnam says all her animals have adjusted well to the evacuation camp. Katie and Abby, the two pigs, who weigh in at a combined 500 pounds, were the hardest to haul but now they're settled and bored. They're stuck in the smallest pen they've ever had and spend their days eating, drinking and sleeping like a lot of people during the pandemic. The dogs are having trouble adjusting to the water at the evacuation site, which comes from a small company that provides water for a handful of households in nearby Llano. Because it's a shared source, it's heavily chlorinated. Putnam brought her own water trailer filled with 300 gallons of water, which she and her neighbors used in the first couple of days. Gloria Putnam milks one of her goats at a milking stand after evacuating Angeles Crest Creamery due to the Bobcat Fire. (Courtesy of Gloria Putnam) Putnam has been able to set up one milking stand but her access to refrigeration is limited so she can only milk and chill as much as she and her fellow campers can use for the day. Usually, she'd be able to keep at least a quart of milk and turn it into cajeta, which she sells on the creamery's website. The goats are fine, with their perky tails wagging, as long as they get their alfalfa. But Apple, an earnest white Nubian doe, spends all her time away from the herd, staring in the direction of the ranch. Until her goats can safely forage the land Putnam has been feeding her goats alfalfa. She gets it from a local feed store, Van Dam Farms in Littlerock, where her feedbill comes to $180 per day. To offset the costs, Putnam has launched a crowdfunding campaign that allows donors to purchase feed in $20 increments. On Monday, September 20, Putnam recorded a video of herself talking to Apple. She says, "So, Apple, listen. I know you've been pretty worried about what's going on but this morning. Jim drove up there and he was able to get a look at the ranch. And he said as far as he could tell, nothing had burned, really. Even most of the forage land was saved." She exhales and her voice cracks, again. "That's right, you're gonna get to go home. You're gonna get to go home and finish the food. On the land." Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worst after that video. Through a camera on the ranch Putnam was able to make out the smoke barreling through the land. Her porch furniture burnt to a crisp along with an old bus and then the water structure. Until further notice, Angeles Crest Creamery will remain closed while Putnam deals with the damage to the pump house/water structure, which is connected to her main living space (there's no water, and there were some electrical issues). The Bobcat Fire burns near Angeles Crest Creamery. (Courtesy of Gloria Putnam) On Saturday, September 26, when evacuation orders were lifted for Valyermo, Putnam and her goats returned to the ranch. Now, begins the arduous process of habitat restoration. Much of the area the goats once foraged has been burnt and the property has a huge red stripe painted across the center, a fire retardant called Phos-Check. "The way the Forest Service describes it is practically non-toxic," Putnam says, wincing at the word "practically." Even worse, the chickens were gone. Animal Control took them after the fire. Putnam worries about bringing them back to the ranch due to biosecurity issues. Because they were moved and no one knows what kind of temporary conditions they live in or whether they were housed with other birds, the chickens may have to be destroyed. A burned out bus at Angeles Crest Creamery after the Bobcat Fire. (Courtesy of Gloria Putnam) Putnam, her dog Reno, and her partner have moved into the tiny yellow home they once rented to agritourists. In the meantime, she continues to buy alfalfa from her local feed store. The need to purchase hay brings us back to the idea that launched this project in the first place. "Our current situation creates an economic hardship. I want to find food systems that are resilient against this," Putnam says. She goes on, "The last five years have been about living with the goats and allowing them to be their natural selves. I've learned by watching them. The next five years will be learning about fire ecology. Learn to do the right things to help the land recover without getting invaded. This is complicated but not good or bad," Putnam says. A goat at Angeles Crest Creamery. (Jaimie Sarra for LAist) I think of Phacelia, an herbaceous species of chaparral known as "fire followers" because they require fire to allow sunlight to reach them. Listening to Putnam, filled with angst from checking on the status of her ranch, the smell of smoke heavy in the air, there's grief and gratitude, yet she's still grappling with the same quandaries she was considering when I met her. Can we build a water-appropriate foodshed for Los Angeles? Can we make it scalable? Can it withstand fires? I don't know but, like Putnam, I want to find out. During the evacuation, it costs Putnam about $180 per day to feed her goats. If you want to help the ranch, you can "purchase" feed donations in $20 increments. Gaurav Kumar Gaurav Kumar is the founder of eAskme.com. He is the professional blogger, writer, motivational speaker and online. He the man behind "Blogging for money guide" and "complete domain name guide". eAskme will help you to become an online entrepreneur. You can learn SEO, Money MAKING, SEO, blogging and more. More About Me New Delhi: Realty giant Godrej Properties Ltd expects to monetise commercial properties worth about Rs 1,500 crore at Mumbai, Kolkata and Chandigarh over the next six months and reduce net debt, which now stands at Rs 3,278 crore. The company is also in discussion with potential partners to add new projects in its portfolio as part of the growth plan, its newly appointed Chairman Pirojsha Godrej said. Godrej Properties, the real estate arm of Godrej Group, last week announced a major reshuffle in leadership team with Chairman Adi Godrej assuming the Chairman Emeritus role, while Pirojsha was elevated to Executive Chairman from Managing Director and CEO position. "We expect to complete the monetisation of our commercial assets in next six months and the fund will be utilised to reduce our debt. We have sold about Rs 40 crore in BKC project, Mumbai during the December quarter," he told PTI. In September 2015, Godrej Properties had sold 4.35 lakh sq ft of office space at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai for Rs 1,479 crore. It has about 3 lakh sq ft of office space left in BKC project and about 1 million sq ft in Kolkata and Chandigarh, totalling worth about Rs 1,500 crore. The company's net debt rose to Rs 3,278 crore in the December quarter from Rs 3,006 crore at September-end. When asked how his elevation would affect the day-to-day operations of the company, he said: "I will still be deeply involved. I will now focus on long-term plan." In the management reshuffle, Mohit Malhotra has been appointed as the new Managing Director and CEO of the company. The company's sales booking rose by 15 per cent to Rs 693 crore during the October-December period of this fiscal compared with previous quarter despite demonetisation but sales were down 43 per cent from the year-ago period, Godrej said. "There was some impact of demonetisation. But our sales in Greater Noida and Pune projects were very good," he said. "We launched Greater Noida project in November where we sold over 7 lakh sq ft with a booking value of Rs 395 crore in last quarter," Godrej said. Godrej Properties achieved sales bookings of Rs 5,038 crore last fiscal, highest by any publicly listed realty firm. On new projects, Godrej said the company has added a project with 0.56 million sq ft of saleable area in Q3 of FY17 and is in discussion to acquire more projects in micro markets of the cities where the company already has presence. Last week, it reported a nearly three-fold jump in net profit to Rs 77 crore in the third quarter of this fiscal from Rs 27 crore in the year-ago period. Total income increased by 91 per cent to Rs 554 crore from Rs 291 crore in the period under review. Godrej Properties is developing residential, commercial and township projects spread across 129.56 million sq ft in 12 cities. Paris: Emmanuel Macron unveiled plans to ramp up the fight against "Islamist separatism" which he said is threatening to build a "parallel society" rejecting the rules of France. In a long-awaited speech delayed by the pandemic, the French president on Friday, local time, described Islam as "a religion in crisis all over the world today that is corrupted by radical forms". He said the Muslim community must free itself from "foreign influences" to become an "Islam of enlightenment" in the country of Voltaire and Diderot. French President Emmanuel Macron. Credit:AP France is home to an estimated five million Muslims, making Islam its second religion. Under a 1905 law, the country follows a strict form of secularism, known as laicite, which is designed to separate church and state. China threatens land confiscation, financial penalties for Christian converts Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Communist authorities in southwestern Chinas Yunnan province sent a notice to a village warning that any resident who converts to Christianity will face financial penalties or even the confiscation of their land. The notice sent to Huang Fei village in that provinces Yingjiang County, which is close to the China-Myanmar border, states that the residents of the Dai ethnic group are Buddhist and Christianity is an evil cult, according to the U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which says that converts in several other villages might've received similar threats either by notice or in-person. It adds that believing in Jesus Christ and other sects is a violation of the rules of the village and punishable with a financial penalty to the community, such as confiscating a pig weighing more than 299 pounds. For the residents, who are mostly farmers, its a hefty fine. This is not only the case in this village, but also in many other Dai villages in the surrounding area, including Ruili, although some rules are written down and some are unwritten, a source was quoted as saying. The notice, or the regulation, is titled, Supplement to Regulations of Huang Fei Village, and was passed by the village committee, according to China Christian Daily, which also reported that the penalties are as per the local Xizhaizi ritual sacrifice meant to punish those who go against Dais ethical principles and religious taboos. Normally an offender walks around the village on a specific day, carrying tribute (live pigs or children) while blaming himself aloud, the Daily said. After the walk, he should cook tribute food for all the people in the whole village. The offender needs to pay the total expense by himself. The activity is very intimidating, offering the severest punishment in dignity and property to the offender. Some recent social media posts in China also reveal that similar notices were also sent to the Li community in the southern island province of Hainan, CSW reported. The increased targeting of Christians in ethnic minority villages in the two provinces suggests that its a planned campaign, the group said. The Chinese Communist Party might be placing responsibility for the repression of religion on community and village leaders, which in turn is making Chinese citizens feel tense, CSW added. China has been cracking down on underground churches and Christian activists for years. In 2015, more than 1,000 crosses were removed from church roofs and entire church buildings were destroyed across the Zhejiang province. The Chinese government continued its campaign against Christianity during the countrys coronavirus outbreak by destroying crosses and demolishing a church while people were on lockdown. More than 60 million Christians live in China, at least half of whom worship in unregistered or so-called illegal underground churches. A few steps away from the chaos-riddled Ikorodu Road in Lagos, Nigerias commercial hub, Ikosi Fruit Market welcomes you, with a fading inscription, into its bowels-in all of its chaos, dirt and all. Two young men working as cart pushers sit behind an old wheelbarrow, their eyes fixated on people moving in and out of the market. Some other boys in tattered clothes saunter into the Banana section of the market, moving through dirty waters and muddy floors. At the main entrance of the market, there are women haggling prices with customers, their high-pitched voices a melange of insults and prayers. Few metres away from the traders stood a giant biogas plant, installed in 2013. The huge plant was at some point a source of electricity for the market, but has now been abandoned. Since the project failed, across stalls and kiosks in the market, traders scramble to charge their phones and power other appliances with electricity supplied through generating sets, unperturbed by the spectre of Covid-19 pandemic. From the banana section through to the orange section, the chaotic sound of generators engulfs the atmosphere, hindering communication among traders and their customers. We dont have light (electricity) here, says Biola Rasheed, a trader dressed in African fabric material at the Banana section. Thats why there is noise everywhere. Ms. Rasheed explained that their fruits easily rot due to the markets irregular electricity supply. Our bananas and pineapples often get spoilt after some days, because we dont have electricity to preserve them for a long period. If we had electricity, it would help boost our trade. For Tawa Ajenifuja, another fruit seller, irregular electricity supply contributes to the poor state of the market environment. Most of the fruits that get spoilt and are thrown away should ordinarily be up for sale, if well preserved, she said. Near Mrs Ajenifujas kiosk is a huge dumpsite, upon which rotten bananas and pineapples and other fruit leftovers are dumped. The trader argued that the huge amount of waste being dumped on the site was caused by a poor preservation system in the market, occasioned by irregular electricity supply. Lateef, a commercial truck driver, recalls how the biogas plant was a source of hope and power for the market traders when it was first built. We felt it was going to solve our electricity and waste management problems once and for all when they first came with the waste-to-energy idea, he says. We were very happy at the time, but the whole thing didnt operate for long. Ikosi Market Ikosi Fruit Market is one of the largest markets in Lagos. The market is popular among residents, who come here to buy and sell pineapples, bananas, paw-paw and oranges. Lagos, Africas largest city, generates over 15,000 tonnes of waste daily, of which only about 40% is collected by the municipal government. Like Ikosi, there are numerous other markets in Lagos, from which waste is generated and thereafter collected by the state waste management authority. The markets include Oyingbo, Tejuoso, Balogun, Aspamda, Alaba, Ikeja, among others. Over the years, as population skyrocketed, experts have called for more innovative and value-added means of managing Lagos waste. Against the backdrop of this call for innovation, in 2013, the state government partnered with Midori Environmental Solutions (MES) to look into the conversion of waste from the Ikosi Fruit market into electricity, via the biogas system. Midori is a Lagos-based environmental company, set up by Olumide Thompson and Aniche Phil-Ebosietwo young Nigerians who left juicy positions in the corporate world to follow their passion in renewable energy and waste management. The Ikosi Fruit Market produces over 5,000 tonnes of waste daily, and the idea is to transform the waste into wealth. Speaking to Vanguard newspaper in 2013, the duo said the project was initiated as a partnership with the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) to provide electricity to Ketu fruit market from waste generated from fruits. We have a 26,000-litre capacity biogas plant which can generate up to 9-10 KVA worth of electricity daily, they told Vanguard newspaper in 2013. We generate biogas from the waste, which we then use to power street lights and flood lights for the market, because they get their delivery at night []. This is a small initiative, theres so much more we can do. We use fruit waste because, in that particular market, they deal on fruits like pineapple, pawpaw, watermelon etc. We tend to use one or two of them, not necessarily everything, because the more fruits you mix, the more complicated the process becomes. PREMIUM TIMES findings revealed that the project was designed as a pilot study, which would be replicated in other markets across the State. In the autumn of 2013, the biogas project turned on the lights at the Ikosi market and traders jumped for joy. But despite the potential of the project, the joy was short-lived as the market plunged back into darkness after a few months. . Messrs Thompson and Phil-Ebosie would not comment on what actually went wrong as every effort to speak to them failed. The Lagos State Government, too, failed to comment. Advertisements However, an official who worked with Midori and the government on the Ikosi project explained that trouble began months after they inaugurated the Ikosi market biogas generator. According to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the project began to fail when the government asked the contractors to hand it over. The Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) took over the project with the promise that it would be replicated in other markets in Lagos but the promise never materialised. The project was eventually shut down and abandoned. When PREMIUM TIMES visited the market twice in August 2020, this reporter found that the facility had been abandoned. It is now surrounded by a new set of kiosks and shops being built by the market authorities after numerous other market stalls had been destroyed and pulled down. Efforts to have the Lagos government comment on the development were unsuccessful in August as this reporter was given the go around at the state secretariat. Officials of LAWMA too declined comment. Darkness in the middle of pandemic The COVID-19 crisis is causing upheaval and impacting individuals, businesses and economies across the world. On Friday, the total number of infections in Nigeria peaked at 59,127. At Ikosi market, more than any period in recent times, the importance of access to electricity has become clearer, as the effect of the pandemic bites harder. Access to electricity keeps people connected, protects vulnerable populations, powers vital food processing and preservation facilities, and ultimately ensures healthy living. With cleaner energy, reduction in indoor air pollution means less vulnerability to COVID-19 and the other risks associated with generating sets used by traders in the market. However, organisations providing grid and off-grid electricity connections are experiencing severe disruptions, with dwindling financial capacity. Many have already suspended operations or delayed activities, making consumers like Ikosi market traders and buyers alike vulnerable. For smaller and indigenous companies, the impact has been most severe. Yet in the absence of regular supply, Ikosi market women rely on generating sets to power their appliances, despite the air pollution and risk of Covid-19 infection in a congested market. The pandemic has also impacted consumer affordability and increased the risk for vulnerable households, artisans and trader like those in Ikosi to fall back into energy poverty. Goal 7 of the global sustainable development goals focuses on access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and mordern energy for all. By 2030, according to its targets, there is projection to increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix and double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency. However, Ikosi market women continue to grapple with these expectations in darkness. Traders, Customers lament As the bio-gas plant rots away, traders and customers alike continue to lament the darkness and noise pollution that have enveloped the market vicinity. A casual walk through the different sections of the market showed that the noise from generating sets constitutes environmental pollution that remains a threat to the health and well-being of both buyers and sellers. The noise is just too much; it is very dangerous for our health, says Kayode Babalola, a trader in the market. We complain everyday but there is little we can do to change the situation. Janet, an apprentice at a banana shop said the cost of fuelling their generator takes its toll on their businesses, and the pollutions increases risk of coronavirus infection. She added that it is more expensive to generate power from alternative sources. Another trader who declined to have his name in print said, like many other market people, he charges his mobile phone at the shop of a kiosk owner who generates power from a generator, defying risks of being infected with Covid-19. He also complained about the amount he pays to get his phone charged daily, adding that poor electricity supply affects his operations. Nigerias Electricity Woe The economic cost of power shortages in Nigeria is estimated at around $29 billion, according to a world bank report. The international organization noted that the cost is equivalent to two per cent of Nigerias Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and about 47 per cent of Nigerians do not have access to grid electricity. Analysts have submitted that even those who do have access endure regular power cuts. A United Nations projection says that for its population of about 200 million people, Nigerias energy need is estimated at 170,000MW. Yet the country presently boasts 7500 megawatts (MW) of available electricity generation, with an installed capacity of about 13,000MW, according to data from the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). In the same vein, the nations transmission wheeling capacity is estimated to be about 5000MW. Still, due to technical constraints, distribution capacity to homes and businesses is less than 4000MWh. Renewables as way out As part of measures to address the shortfall in supply, there has been a call for governments and private investors to tap into the potentials of renewable energy sources. Experts say renewable energy offers solutions to Nigerias chronic energy shortages and big opportunities for investment. The Nigerian government launched a $200 million Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP) in March. The project is meant to provide off-grid energy to over 500,000 people across 105,000 households in rural communities across the country. There have been similar initiatives geared towards deepening renewable energy investments in Nigeria. Adebayo Qadri, an energy consultant based in the city of Ibadan, Oyo State, noted that as Nigeria struggles with its energy sector, there is a need to tap into the potentials in renewable energy. He explained that, since proper waste management is a challenge that government authorities are still trying to solve, renewable energy sources should be used to kill two birds with one stone. He said: Renewable energy offers Nigeria the twin opportunities of cleaning our environment and providing electricity. These are areas we can channel our investment into, provide cleaner energy for our people and preserve the environment. In August, Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari approved the much-feared electricity tariff increase effective from September 1st, 2020. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had approved service reflected tariffs for the electricity sector and was due to commence July 1, 2020 after it was initially postponed from April 1. However, it was suspended after reports indicated Electricity Distribution Companies, DisCos, had pushed for a postponement until key areas of disagreement were sorted. In August, the distribution companies finally announced the increase amid outrage among Nigerians who complained of poor supply and high estimated billings. In the absence of stable electricity, many Nigerians power their generators with petrol-the price of which the government also increased in the first week of September. As Nigerians face the twin troubles of high electricity cost and fuel prices, renewable energy offers the best solution, Mr Adebayo noted. As the evening sun sets on traders at the Ikosi market, and darkness gradually envelops the environment, fear sets in for buyers and sellers alike. Some banana sellers were seen hurriedly parking their wares into their stores, so they could close their shops before it gets darker. Cart pushers collecting waste move around impatiently, struggling to navigate their ways through the obscured pathways that lead out of the market. The few young men collecting waste with wheelbarrows move aimlessly onto the Ikorodu road, in a bid to hurriedly drop the waste at the famous Olusosun dumpsite, located behind the Ikosi market. Although traders have devised traditional means of preserving their fruits by placing them in the open space, in the absence of electricity, most would still rot away. Mrs Ajenifuja says most of the fruit traders in the market are poor, and they cannot afford to seek alternative means of power to preserve their fruits. We only hope that an intervention like this [biogas plant] would be sustained to provide us electricity, she says, her voice a mixture of melancholy and hope. New Delhi: India has reiterated its "No First Use" (NFU) policy on Nuclear weapons, this time at the United Nations at a high-level meeting to commemorate the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. India's Foreign Secretary Harsh V Shringla said, "India espouses the policy of No First Use against nuclear weapon states and non-use against non-nuclear-weapon states." Shringla reiterated India's long-standing and unwavering commitment to universal, verifiable and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament leading to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. He explained, "We believe that nuclear disarmament can be achieved through a step-by-step process underwritten by a universal commitment and an agreed multilateral framework." He called for meaningful dialogue among all states possessing nuclear weapons for building trust and confidence. India has since 1998 tabled an annual resolution in the UNGA on Reducing Nuclear Danger that calls for immediate steps to reduce the risks of "unintentional and accidental" use of nuclear weapons. At the UN meeting, that coincided with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, India also called for "immediate commencement" of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty at the Conference on Disarmament, a multilateral disarmament negotiating forum based in Geneva. Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty calls for halting the production of key "fissile" elements for nuclear weapons. The terms of the treaty are still to be negotiated, but Pakistan has been blocking much of the movement, saying it the treaty will impact its nuclear weapon production. FS highlighted that "India is a key partner in global efforts towards disarmament and strengthening the non-proliferation order" hoping the international community will "mobilize global will towards a nuclear-weapons-free world." India adopted the NFU policy in 1998 after the nuclear tests in Pokhran. China is the other country to adopt NFU, which it did in 1964. Pakistan and the other states that possess nuclear weapons in the Indian subcontinent does not follow the NFU policy. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian nation lives its most decisive moments of its millennia-old history, ARMENPRESS reports Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in his October 3 address to the nation. He emphasized that the Azerbaijani-Turkish criminal armed groups do not pursue just military or military-political goals. Its not only Karabakh that has brought them here. They have not come to just occupy territories, villages or cities. Their target is the Armenian nation, their goal is the continuation of their policy of the Armenian Genocide. But today I want to say that the Armenians, the citizens of the Republic of Armenia, the citizens of the Republic of Artsakh will never again become death marchers of Deir ez-Zor. Today we are united like never to defend our identity, our Motherland and our rights, Pashinyan said. Editing and Translating by Tigran SIrekanyan Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday wished a speedy recovery to his US counterpart Donald Trump and first lady Melania who have tested positive for coronavirus. President Trump revealed his diagnosis on Twitter on Friday, with leaders across the globe sending their well wishes. "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! 74-year-old Trump tweeted, just weeks before the presidential polls. In a message to Trump, Xi, 67, said that after learning President Trump and Melania have tested positive for COVID-19, he and his wife Peng Liyuan extend sympathy to them and wish them a speedy recovery, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier, Chinese diplomats wished speedy recovery to the US President and his wife. Chinese Ambassador to US, Cui Tiankai said in a tweet: "My best wishes to President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS for a speedy and full recovery." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, "Saddened to learn President and the FirstLady of the US tested positive. Hope they both have a speedy recovery and will be fine," she tweeted. Leaders and prominent figures from around the world on Friday sent their best wishes to Trump and his wife. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind wished Trump and the first lady a quick recovery. "Wishing my friend @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS a quick recovery and good health," Modi tweeted. "Our prayers and best wishes are with you during this time," Kovind said. In a message posted on his official web page, Russian President Vladimir Putin wished Trump well, saying: "I am sure that your inherent vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus." British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who himself contracted the virus in late March, at the height of his country's pandemic, also sent well wishes. "My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady. Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus," Johnson tweeted. Trump and Melania were tested for COVID-19 hours after one of their close aides, Hope Hicks, tested positive for coronavirus. Hicks, 31, is the closest aide of the president to have tested positive with coronavirus. She had travelled with the president on Air Force One early this week. Trump, in an interview to Fox News on Thursday night, said he and the first lady spend a lot of time with her. Several White House staffers have tested positive with COVID-19 in recent months, including the National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary. Advertisement The world's oldest-serving aircraft carrier which once sailed as Britain's flagship during the Falklands War has made its final voyage to a ship graveyard in India - where it will likely be turned into motorcycles. The HMS Hermes entered active service in the Royal Navy in 1959, was due to be decommissioned in 1981, but was saved from the scrapheap to lead British forces to victory in the Falklands in 1982. She was then sold to India in 1986, renamed the INS Viraat, and remained in service until 2017, when she was officially decommissioned in Mumbai - 36 years after she was initially due to be scrapped. In August, having sat idle in the Naval dockyard since March 2017, she was sold for 5.1million as scrap to the Shree Ram Group at Asia's largest ship scrapyard in Alang, who said she will likely be turned into motorcycles. HMS Hermes, known as the 'Grand Old Lady' of the Royal Navy, set off on its final voyage to the western state of Gujarat, India on September 20. The HMS Hermes, Britain's flagship during the Falklands War (pictured sailing to the south Atlantic in 1982), will likely be turned into motorcycles after being sold off for scrap by the Indian navy - which bought her after the conflict The Hermes (pictured left during the Queen's silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977) had long been considered surplus by the Royal Navy and was very nearly scrapped in 1981, but was saved from the heap after Argentina attacked the Falkland Islands in 1982 - with the Hermes named flagship of the Royal Navy force sent to recapture the territory The Hermes was given a hero's welcome at Portsmouth (pictured) when she returned home following the Falklands War in 1982 HMS Hermes: By the numbers Laid down (construction begun): 1944 Launched: 1953 Construction finished: 1957 Entered service: 1959 Crew: 2,100 Weapons: Initially ten Bofors anti-aircraft guns, then two Sea Cat anti-aircraft missile systems Air wing: Initially, up to 12 Sea Vixen defence fighters, seven Buccaneer attack fighters, five Gannet bombers, and six Wessex helicopters After 1970, the air wing consisted of up to 28 Sea Harriers, and nine Westland Sea King helicopters Advertisement The decommissioned aircraft carrier was towed by two tug boats away from the Gateway of India as an Indian Navy helicopter circled overhead. The journey to Alang took two days by sea, and the decommissioned ship will now be dismantled over a period of 12 months before being sold as scrap 'to recover the cost.' '#Viraat Callsign "Romeo Two Two" - End of an era, a glorious chapter in the history of @indiannavy. 'She departs #Mumbai today for her final journey. Old ships never die, their spirit lives on,' PRO Defence Mumbai said. Other plans for the Viraat - which means 'Giant' in Sanskrit - would have seen her turned into floating museum or a hotel, but both schemes fell through. 'Once the ship docks at Alang, it will take us around 9-12 months to dismantle it and then we shall sell it as scrap to recover the cost,' Shree Ram Group chairman Mukesh Patel said. 'We have been approached by two motorcycle makers for using the steel from the warship to build bikes... But nothing has been finalised yet.' At the time of her decommissioning, the vessel had sailed more than 700,000 miles, roughly equivalent to 28 times around the globe. During the Falklands, the Hermes was considered too valuable to risk getting close to the fighting, and instead stayed at range, using her complement of Harrier jump jets to keep Argentine fighters and bombers which were attacking British ships and troops at bay. HMS Hermes, known as the 'Grand Old Lady' of the Royal Navy, set off on its final voyage to the western state of Gujarat, India on September 20. Pictured: The ship on a previous voyage After the war was won, the Hermes was welcomed back to Portsmouth as a hero, with Margaret Thatcher taking a tour of her alongside Captain Linley Middleton (pictured) Armourers are pictured moving torpedoes around on the Hermes' flight deck as the re-arm Sea King helicopters to use against the Argentine Navy during the Falklands War After the war the Hermes was retrofitted several times before falling into disuse, and was at last sold to the Indian navy in 1987 - where she was renamed the INS Viraat (pictured) British Royal Marines are pictured exercising on the Hermes' flight deck in 1982, as the ship sailed towards the Falkland Islands at the head of Royal Navy forces that were tasked with recapturing them While the ship never saw combat operations during her years in India, she still wrote her name into the history books - after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi allegedly used her to go on holiday alongside other prominent politicians. The claim was officially denied. The Viraat completed her last voyage under her own steam in 2016, when she sailed from Mumbai to Kochi, where her engines were stripped out. She was then returned to Mumbai for an official decommissioning ceremony before her weapons and combat systems were stripped out. She had sat idle at the port for months before heading on her final voyage to Gujarat. Crewmen stand alongside their Sea Harrier aircraft on board the Hermes as she cruises close to the Falklands, in 1982 The Hermes, known as the Grand Old Lady of the Royal Navy, was considered too valuable to risk in close-quarters operations against the Argentines, and so was used as a support vessel - including taking on wounded from the frontlines (pictured) The Hermes is given a hero's welcome as she arrives back in Portsmouth following victory over Argentina, accompanied by a flotilla of smaller boats and watched by hundreds of people from the dock Indian sailors remove the flag from the Hermes - then known as INS Viraat - in 2017, as she was officially decommissioned in Mumbai before being sold for scrap US President Donald Trump, in a video shared on Twitter on Friday evening, said he thinks that he is "doing very well" and thanked people for their support after he was tested positive with for COVID-19 a day earlier. I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support. I am going to Walter Reed hospital. I think I'm doing very well but we're going to make sure that things work out," Trump said in a short 18-second video that he tweeted moments after he arrived at the Walter Reed military hospital in Bethesda. "The first lady is doing very well. So, thank you very much. I appreciate it. I will never forget it," said the president. According to the White House, Trump will be working from the presidential office at Walter Reed military hospital over the next few days. Earlier, the president walked from his residence to take Marine One at the South Lawns of the White House to travel to Walter Reed hospital. President Trump remains in good spirts, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days, she said. President Trump appreciates the outpouring of support for both he and the first Lady, she added. Earlier, president's physician Sean Conley in a memo released by the White House said that as a precautionary measure the president received a single 8-gram dose of Regeneron's polyclonal antibody cocktail. He completed the infusion without the incident, he said. In addition to the polyclonal antibodies, the president has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin, Conley said. As of this afternoon the president remains fatigued but in good spirits. He is being evaluated by a team of experts, and together we will be making recommendations to the President and first lady in regards to next best steps, he said. Dr Conley said First Lady Melania Trump remains well with "only a mild cough and headache", and the remainder of the first family "are well and tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 today . Thank you for the love you are sending our way. I have mild symptoms but overall feeling good. I am looking forward to a speedy recovery, the first lady said in a tweet Friday afternoon. In an interaction with reporters, White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said the president and the first lady remain in good spirits. The president does have mild symptoms and as we look to try to make sure that not only his health and safety and welfare is good we continue to look at that for all of the American people, he said. He continues to be not only in good spirits but very energetic. We've talked a number of times this morning. I got the five or six things that he had tasked me to do like I do every single morning. And he is certainly wanting to make sure that we stay engaged, Meadows said. He said it is critically important the doctors continue to monitor the health of the president and first lady. The great thing about this president is not only is he staying committed to working very hard on behalf of the American people, his first question to me this morning was is how's the economy doing, how are the stimulus talks going on Capitol Hill, Meadows said. Vice President Mike Pence was tested negative for COVID-19. Earlier this morning under my care, Vice President Mike Pence tested negative for COVID-19, said Dr Jesse Schonau, his doctor. Under the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Vice President is not considered a close contact with any individuals who have tested positive for COVID, including President Donald J Trump. Vice President Mike Pence does not need to quarantine, he said. Vice President Mike Pence remains in good health and is free to go about his normal activities, Schonau said. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in her interaction with reporters, said the president had mild symptoms, but he is hard at work. We're having to slow him down a little bit. He's been on the phone with the Senator McConnell, Senator Lindsey Graham, been on the phone with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows talking about an emergency declarations four states as well as stimulus. So, he is hard at work despite the mild symptoms, she said. Also read: Donald Trump, Melania Trump test positive for coronavirus; PM Modi wishes 'quick recovery' ANN ARBOR, MI -- Ann Arbor residents and visitors may soon be able to find parking through a mobile application. Miami-based Prked, an online and mobile parking app that allows users to search for a spot or rent out their privately-owned parking spaces for an extra income, is expanding to Ann Arbor, although a date hasnt been announced yet. Opening up parking spaces helps reduce the time spent searching for spots and the need for added parking structures, according to a Prked news release. Ann Arbor has some of the worst traffic congestion in the nation due to its high population density and universities. That, mixed with the fact that the majority of parking spaces in the area are privately owned, makes Prked the perfect solution to ease congestion and make commutes more enjoyable for the whole community, the news release states. Prked also works with business owners to encourage them to list their parking spaces outside of office hours. Users can search the area theyre visiting through the app and book a space for as long as the owner allows. Available spots will show the cost, duration, reviews and instructions. They can also extend their reservation and view a description of whether the spot is gated, surveilled, has charging stations and more. Hosts wanting to rent spaces can set their preferred availability and parking rates and track the transaction history in real-time. They will receive 80-90% of the booking payment while 10-20% goes toward Prked, according to the companys website. But hosts will not be charged additional fees for their listings. Ann Arbor traffic on Maiden Lane to be detoured for construction Beyond Juicery + Eatery opens 2 stores in Ann Arbor, with another underway Om of Medicine employees claim they were fired for speaking against racism Dexter would hold elections to sell city-owned property if ballot proposal passes Washington: The Department of State on Saturday revoked the suspension of nearly 60,000 visas after a US judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's controversial executive order last week banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering America. The provisional revocation of visas under Trump's executive order has been reversed, and individuals with visas affected the executive action may now travel if the visa remains otherwise valid, the State Department said. The Department of Homeland Security has also stopped implementing key parts of the immigration order that a US judge in Washington State put under a temporary restraining order Friday, it said. The move from the two departments comes pending an appeal by the Trump administration against the order of a federal judge in Seattle who halted key provisions of the executive orders that banned immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Also Read: Trump lashes out at 'ridiculous' court ruling suspending travel ban, vows to get it overturned "In accordance with the judge's ruling, DHS has suspended any and all actions implementing the affected sections of the Executive Order," said Gillian M Christensen, Acting Press Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. "This includes actions to suspend passenger system rules that flag travellers for operational action... DHS personnel will resume inspection of travellers in accordance with standard policy and procedure," Christensen added. Christiansen added that the Trump administration will seek an emergency halt to the judge's order as soon as possible. "The Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the President's Executive Order, which is lawful and appropriate. The Order is intended to protect the homeland and the American people, and thePresident has no higher duty and responsibility than to doso," Christensen said. Related News: Majority of Americans disapprove of Trumps executive orders, want Obama back as President, suggests poll Meanwhile the State Department said it has revoked the suspension of visas. The government response comes after US District JudgeJames Robart in Seattle issued a nationwide restraining orderFriday blocking parts of the executive action that temporarily bars some immigrants and refugees from seven predominantlyMuslim countries. "The Department of Justice informed us of the Washington state court ruling barring the US government from enforcing certain provisions of Executive Order 13769, including those related to visas and travel," a State Department official said. "We have reversed the provisional revocation of visas under Executive Order 13769. Those individuals with visas that were not physically cancelled may now travel if the visa is otherwise valid. We are working closely with the Department ofHomeland Security and our legal teams," the official said requesting anonymity. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. On the eve of Myanmar general elections, Indian Army chief General MM Naravane and foreign secretary Harsh Shringla are headed towards Naypyidaw on Sunday to seal the much-awaited coastal shipping agreement to activate the Kaladan multi-modal project and cement security ties against insurgent groups. Gen Naravane and Shringla will meet senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi, the state counsellor of Myanmar, as last incoming foreign visitors before November 8 elections. According to South Block officials, both Gen Naravane and Shringla will comprehensively review ties with Myanmarese leadership so that there is no discrepancy in the exchange of views. The highlight of the one-day two-day visit will be the coastal shipping agreement that will allow Indian ships to reach Mizoram via Sittwe Port on the Bay of Bengal and through the Kaladan river multi-modal link. This project has been hanging fire for the past 20 years when it was envisaged by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. The two sides will also discuss strengthening security ties by making the India-Myanmar border impenetrable to the anti-India insurgents and drug smugglers. A large number of anti-India insurgents are based across the Moreh border in Manipur and across Vijayanagar salient in Arunachal Pradesh. The anti-India insurgents are armed with Chinese weapons with their leaders like Paresh Baruah of the ULFA based in Ruili in Yunnan province of China. The Indian-Myanmar border is also used to smuggle synthetic drugs like YABA and heroin. India and Myanmar will also discuss in increasing cooperation in the energy sector with New Delhi already investing more than $1.4 billion dollars into the development of hydrocarbon-rich off-shore blocks in the Andaman Seas. While there is a significant presence of China in Myanmar in the infrastructure, hydrocarbon, power and ports sector, Naypyidaw is keen to develop across the board ties with India. The Myanmarese leadership is clear that its ties with China cannot be at the cost of the bilateral relationship with India. During the visit of Indian top officials, the two sides will also discuss the issue of rehabilitation of the Rohingyas with India already discussing the facilitation of the refugees back to Myanmar. All three countries do not want Pakistan-based Islamist groups to infiltrate into the Rohingya refugee settlements on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and radicalize them. Already there is evidence that Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Bangladesh-based Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen group have sent their cadres to radicalize the Rohingyas. As India sees Myanmar as the key to develop and secure its north-east region, the dialogue with Naypyidaw will be comprehensive and discuss all aspects of the relationship, said a senior official. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON RALEIGH, N.C.: A federal judge has blocked updated North Carolina absentee voting rules that gave voters more leeway to fix witness problems and extended the period when elections boards could accept mailed-in ballots. U.S. District Judge James Dever issued a temporary retraining order on Saturday, halting the updated rules that were hammered out as part of a legal settlement with voting rights advocates. The revised rules allowed voters who returned absentee ballots with incomplete witness information to fix the problems by returning an affidavit, rather than starting the ballot over from scratch and having it witnessed again. North Carolina law requires one witness for an absentee ballot. Dever also halted an updated rule that would have allowed county boards several more days to accept mailed-in ballots that arrived after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by Nov. 3. Dever was presiding over lawsuits by state Republican legislative officials and President Donald Trumps campaign that argued the North Carolina State Board of Elections had usurped the power of lawmakers and diluted the voice of voters whod already cast ballots before the rules were updated. He ruled a day after the changes were approved by a state court judge as part of a consent decree. Meanwhile, another federal judge in North Carolina is also examining absentee ballot rules as part of another lawsuit and is holding a hearing next week. 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 By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Dozens of India's technology startups, chafing at Google's local dominance of key apps, are banding together to consider ways to challenge the U.S. tech giant, including by lodging complaints with the government and courts, executives told Reuters. Although Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, has worked closely with India's booming startup sector and is ramping up its investments, it has recently angered many tech companies with what they say are unfair practices. Setting the stage for a potential showdown, entrepreneurs held two video conferences this week to strategise, three executives told Reuters. "It's definitely going to be a bitter fight," said Dinesh Agarwal, CEO of e-commerce firm IndiaMART. "Google will lose this battle. It's just a matter of time." He said executives have discussed forming a new startup association aimed chiefly at lodging protests with the Indian government and courts against the Silicon Valley company. Nearly 99% of the smartphones of India's half a billion users run on Google's Android mobile operating system. Some Indian startups say that allows Google to exert excessive control over the types of apps and other services they can offer, an allegation the company denies. The uproar began last month when Google removed popular payments app Paytm from its Play Store, citing policy violations. This led to a sharp rebuke from the Indian firm's founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, whose app returned to the Google platform a few hours later, after Paytm made certain changes. In a video call on Tuesday, Sharma called Google the "big daddy" that controls the "oxygen supply of (app) distribution" on Android phones, according to an attendee. He urged the roughly 50 executives on the call to join hands to "stop this tsunami." "If we together don't do anything, then history will not be kind to us. We have to control our digital destiny," Sharma said. Story continues One idea raised was to launch a local rival to Google's app store, but Sharma said this would not be immediately effective given Google's dominance, one source said. Sharma and Paytm, which is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp, did not respond to requests for comment. Google declined to comment. It has previously said its policies aim to protect Android users and that it applies and enforces them consistently on developers. STRAINING TIES This week the U.S. company angered some Indian startups by deciding to enforce a 30% commission it charges on payments made within apps on the Android store. Two dozen executives were on a call on Friday where many slammed that decision. They discussed filing antitrust complaints and approaching Google's India head for discussions, said two sources with direct knowledge of the call. Participants included sports technology firm Dream Sports, backed by U.S. hedge fund Tiger Global, social media company ShareChat and digital payments firm PhonePe, the sources said. None of those companies responded to requests for comment. Google defends the policy, saying 97% of apps worldwide comply with it. Google already faces an antitrust case related to its payments app in India and a competition investigation into claims it abused Android's dominant position. The company says it complies with all laws. These spats strain Google's strong ties to Indian startups. It has invested in some and helped hundreds with product development. In July, its Indian-born CEO Sundar Pichai committed $10 billion in new investments over five to seven years. The conflict "is counterproductive to what Google has been doing - it's an odd place for them to be," said a senior tech executive familiar with Google's thinking. "It's a reputation issue. It's in the interest of Google to resolve this issue." Google looms over every aspect of the industry. Paytm on Saturday told several startup founders, in a communication seen by Reuters, that it was collating input on challenges to Google Play Store and its policies to submit to the authorities. To craft their attack, they are using a shared Google document. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Euan Rocha and William Mallard) CARLINVILLE In July, Circuit Judge April Troemper determined that Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Co. a private company started by Carlinville and a handful of smaller communities was created in violation of the law and is a void corporation. On July 22, the Secretary of State dissolved the corporation. Yet the city resisted, requesting a stay on the judges order as it continued to pursue the water project while the case is under appeal. But the stay was denied by both the circuit court and the appellate court. As a result, Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Co. no longer exists. We still have another case in the appellate court, so were not really at liberty to talk about whats going on right now, until we see what happens with the court, Carlinville Mayor Deanna Demuzio said. In October 2018 the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved a $24 million grant and $42 million loan to the private company to fund the project. The projects cost was estimated at $66 million by the citys engineering company, MECO-Heneghan. The status of these awards, now that the company no longer exists, is not known. Carlinville resident Bill Armstrong has been a critic of the citys choice to form Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Co. from the beginning. He regularly attends City Council meetings on the subject. The city risks running out of water, Armstrong said. Carlinville Lake is the citys existing source of water, he explained. It has not been dredged in decades, and is so silted in, that boating is no longer permitted not even canoes are allowed for fear they will stir up the mud. In the face of this problem, the city began searching for alternative water sources approximately eight years ago. The city of Litchfield, 12 miles away, offered to sell water to the city of Carlinville for $2.73 per 1,000 gallons, less than the city makes its own water and less than the rates estimated by the proposed private project. Litchfield offered a 40-year contract. All the city would have to do is run a pipe to Litchfield to pick it up, Armstrong said. Furthermore, the project was to get alluvial water from wells it would dig in Jerseyville, much farther away. Many residents supported this as a much simpler, quicker and lower-cost answer to Carlinvilles water problems, as did the Macoupin County Board and Prairie Farms Dairy Inc., the citys largest water user. But the city instead sponsored the creation of the now discredited Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Co. The legal problems started when the city decided to pursue the water project through a private corporation instead of through a water district, a water commission or one of other entities that the Illinois Constitution specifies. Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Co. Inc. leadership also prohibited the public from attending its meetings, including the citys own aldermen except for Alderman Cindy Campbell, who was appointed to represent the city on the companys board. Thereafter, a handful of aldermen said they felt excluded from information on the water project and they kept the issue alive in front of the public, Armstrong noted. In short order, Carlinville residents Camille and Wayne Brotze sued the city of Carlinville for creating a private company that was not subject to the states Sunshine rules to provide its water. The city is appealing the circuit courts decision, which will delay the resolution of Carlinvilles water problems and could put the city further behind in securing a reliable, sustainable water source. Additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police HC Awasthi on Saturday met Hathras victims family. They would be submitting their report to the chief minister upon returning, a government spokesperson said. This is a very sad and shocking incident. We met the family after the chief ministers directions. As report came, action was initiated and responsible officials have been suspended," ACS Home Awanish Awasthi said after the meeting. SIT is investigating the case. Statements of the family members being recorded," he said while adding that the security would be continued in the victims village. Meanwhile, Director General of Police HC Awasthi refused to comment on why the victims family was not allowed during the cremation. The decision as taken at the local level," he said. The Special Investigation Team has completed its probe into the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman after an alleged gang-rape, a Hathras administration official said on Saturday, as the case sparked protests across India and led to calls for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths ouster from the post. Amid country-wide outrage over the incident, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on Wednesday formed a three-member SIT which was instructed to submit its report by October 14, according to officials. The Hathras administration had on Thursday clamped prohibitory orders under CrPC section 144, which bars assembly of more than four people, in the district where political parties had reached and staged protest to demand justice for the young woman, who died earlier this week, a fortnight after her alleged gang-rape here. The administration has also lifted restrictions on the medias entry into the village, a day after outsiders, including politicians, were barred from meeting the victims family due to the ongoing SIT probe, the official said. Only the entry of media has been allowed into the village of the victim as the probe of the SIT has completed, Joint Magistrate Prem Prakash Meena told reporters. He also refuted allegations that the administration had confined the victims family and confiscated their phones. Speaking to the media after barricades were removed, the victims family alleged that the SIT is hand in glove with the accused. Rejecting the idea of a CBI probe as well, the family demanded a Supreme Court-monitored investigation. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-02 19:42:21|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Malaysian Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah speaks at a press briefing in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Oct. 2, 2020. Malaysia reported 287 new COVID-19 infections in the highest daily spike since the outbreak, the Health Ministry said on Friday, bringing the national total to 11,771. (Xinhua) KUALA LUMPUR, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia reported 287 new COVID-19 infections in the highest daily spike since the outbreak, the Health Ministry said on Friday, bringing the national total to 11,771. Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press briefing that none of the new cases were imported, all being local transmissions. Some 128 cases were reported from a cluster related to a prison in the northern Kelantan State. Health authorities have also detected two new case clusters. The official said that while the country had achieved some success against COVID-19, the public had become fatigued and are not following the standard operating procedures (SOP), undoing months of work after bringing down new cases to single digits. "So we can feel the fatigue, but not the virus. (The) virus, the moment we let down our guard, the virus will continue to spread," he said. Another 81 patients have been released after recovery, bringing the total cured and discharged to 10,095, or 85.8 percent of all cases. Of the remaining 1,540 active cases, 22 are being held in intensive care and four of those are in need of assisted breathing. No new deaths have been reported, leaving the total deaths at 136. Enditem President Nana Akufo-Addo has said with 65 days to Election Day, another reason to vote for me and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is that we have provided over 90,000 jobs in health sector. According to him, his government has also cleared a huge backlog of qualified but unemployed persons. For these reasons, the President says he deserves four more years to do more. During the launch of the NPPs 2020 manifesto, Deputy Health Minister Dr Bernard Oko-Boye said within his first term of office, President Akufo-Addo rescued the struggling National Health Insurance Scheme from the intensive care that it had been put in by the previous Mahama administration. The Akufo-Addo government resuscitated an NHIA that had been admitted to the ICU, Dr Oko-Boye said in the Central Region. The Ledzokuku MP added: Incontrovertibly, it has taken the strong Akufo-Addo-tailored economy to wake up structures that have been asleep and has used *929# to wipe out long queues that had choked out NHIA district offices all in pursuit of NHIS card renewal. This is the power of digital infrastructure, he said. Also, he noted that: 90,696 health personnel were recruited in the first term of the Akufo-Addo government. He added: Never in the history of this country have so many people been offered so much opportunity to serve in the health sector in so short a time. Concerning health infrastructure, Dr Oko-Boye said: The sick La General Hospital structure is about to be refurbished and expanded into an ultramodern 160-bed facility. The 44-year-old maternity and childrens block at KATH, a facility that has been abandoned for 44 years, more than my age, has, today, been awoken by the life-injecting Akufo-Addo touch and is today receiving the attention that will transform it into a 750-bed facility in 36 months. ---Classfm In the unlikely event that an ailing President Donald J. Trump were to withdraw from re-election, it would be up to a slimmed-down Republican National Committee to select a replacement almost certainly Vice President Mike Pence and a new candidate for his running mate, according to GOP rules. While such an occurrence would be historic, it would not be unprecedented that a top-of-the-ticket candidate in a presidential election were to drop out and be replaced. But in most states, including Connecticut, the time to change names on the ballot is almost past. Connecticut town clerks began sending out absentee ballot forms to voters on Friday. There would be only one more week to reprint ballots and get them out to voters in time for the Nov. 3 election, state election officials said Friday. So if Trump, Pence or Democratic candidate Joe Biden or U.S. Sen Kamala Harris, his running mate, were to drop out after Oct. 9, local voting officials in town and city halls throughout Connecticut could have to collect possibly tens of thousands of completed ballots, while simultaneously mailing out new, uncompleted ballots to tens of thousands of new applicants. Address stickers on new ballots, however, might not be read in computer tabulators, think state officials when asked about a scenario of laborious hand counting. But in practicality, Connecticut is a blue state and the likelihood of a Republican by any name, winning the states seven electors is low. Such a historic withdrawal of a presidential nominee would send ripples throughout the state and national election apparatus unlike anything ever experienced. In July 1972, two weeks after his nomination to be Sen. George McGoverns vice presidential running mate, U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri quit the Democratic ticket amid newspaper accounts of previously denied mental health issues, including his hospitalization for depression, which Eagleton and his wife had tried to keep secret. Amid the criticism of not vetting Eagleton properly, McGovern lost 49 of 50 states to Republican President Richard M. Nixon, who won 18 million more popular votes than the Democrat. But the withdrawal was early enough not to affect the eventual printing of ballots that included Sargent Shriver as McGoverns running mate. Under Republican National Committee rules, if Trump were to withdraw, three RNC members from each state - the state chairman, a national committeeman, and a national committeewoman - would cast ballots for a replacement. Back in Connecticut, it would be up to the local town clerks to print and reissue new election ballots, which was last done in 2018 when a minor-party petitioning candidate for Connecticut governor changed his lieutenant governor running mate. In 1912, during Republican President William Howard Tafts re-election campaign, Vice President James S. Sherman died six days before the election and was replaced by Nicholas Butler, the president of Columbia University. Taft and Butler lost the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson, only winning two states in a four-way race with Theodore Roosevelt leading the Progressive Party and Eugene Debs the Socialist Party. Wilson collected 39 percent of the votes in Connecticut that year, and Taft got 36 percent. Ronald Schurin, a professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, said Friday that if Trump was unable to pursue re-election, the choice of a successor candidate would be easy. I cant imagine if Trump were to drop out anyone other than Pence would be picked by the RNC, said Schurin. It would be a slam dunk. Schurin said that any eventual replacement candidates for vice president would likely depend on good-faith efforts to get their names on ballots. kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Josephs Healthcare are working through a massive backlog of 5,248 surgeries. St. Josephs estimates it will take up to eight months to clear. But a second wave of COVID-19 is bearing down and hospitals are getting overcrowded again. While St. Josephs estimates the pandemic has added four months to its surgical wait lists, Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) has seen the opposite. Our wait times have actually decreased somewhat, even though weve done less surgery, said chief of surgery Dr. Stephen Kelly. People just arent entering the system at the moment. Theyre not getting their screening test done and theyre not getting to see their family doctors as they were previously. Were waiting for those patients. We need to be prepared for that. The amount of postponed cancer screening alone is staggering. Nearly 155,000 Ontario women missed getting a mammogram from March 15 to May 31. The mere 4,065 seen by the Ontario Breast Screening Program represent a 97 per cent decrease from the same period in 2019. During that time, Pap tests plummeted 88 per cent which equals 192,810 women putting off screening for cervical cancer. Only 26,269 tests were done through the Ontario Cervical Screening Program. ColonCancerCheck saw a 73 per cent drop in fecal tests, meaning more than 103,000 were delayed during the first wave, when merely 38,000 tests got done. We understand this is a very difficult time and particularly distressing for people waiting to receive the cancer screening they need, Ontario Health said in statement. We will be able to catch up on routine screening over time, but it will depend on how long COVID-19 impacts the health-care system. A gradual restart of screening started May 27 and by July about 45 per cent of the usual number of mammograms and Pap tests were completed compared to 2019. Fecal immunochemical tests (FIT) have had a slower start at only 17 per cent. As patients are going for more screening, well start to see more diagnosis, said Dr. Anthony Adili, chief of surgery at St. Josephs. Im anticipating an uptick in demand. If that is the case, well have to, again, adjust how we prioritize our patients and do less of the truly elective and more of the time sensitive. It will be a fine balancing act as we go. Further postponements could be devastating for those who have already waited through the pandemic primarily for joint replacement and cataract surgeries. HHS did 3,700 fewer surgeries and procedures from April to August compared to the same time last year. For St. Josephs its 1,548. Even though they are elective they have a huge impact on patients quality of life, said Adili. They impact on their ability to participate in the workforce and generate an income, and their ability to enjoy life and recreational activities. The Conservative government is determined not to shut down elective care again earmarking $741 million to reduce surgery backlogs. We will be initiating a centralized wait list and a program to optimize the use of operating rooms and improve the use of existing resources, Health Minister Christine Elliott said Sept 25. Adili and Kelly didnt have details yet of how this would work. Our big issue is just having enough staff, said Adili. I could run ORs Saturday and Sunday but I wouldnt have nurses or anesthesiologists to staff those rooms because they are working Monday to Friday. There is only so much overtime you can ask people to safely do and still be confident the care you are providing is safe. Long-standing problems with overcrowding are also creeping back again. Nearly one in four acute care beds at the Charlton campus of St. Joes are taken up by a patient ready to be discharged. At HHS, 12 per cent of beds are blocked by those waiting for other types of care such as long-term care and home care. That is a significant percentage of our beds occupied by people who dont need to be in an acute care bed ... which affects our ability to triage people through the emergency department and drastically affects our ability to do surgeries, said Adili. It also pushes up occupancy at a time when the hospitals need to keep 10 per cent of beds free for COVID-19 patients. HHS had an occupancy rate of 101 per cent on Sept. 16, meaning it had more adult patients than funded medical and surgical beds. St. Josephs was also close to full at 95 per cent. Both hospital networks say they can free up beds within 24 to 48 hours. Ontario Health CEO Matt Anderson warned Sept 30 it will take far fewer patients to overwhelm hospitals in the second wave. The system would become strained with 150 to 350 COVID patients in the intensive care unit compared to 2,000 to 3,000 in the first wave. We are trying this time around to keep the rest of the health-care system up and functional as possible, said Anderson. Indicators like positive growth in the country's exports in September and increase in GST collections show that India will bounce back to high growth levels, Commerce and Industry Minister said on Saturday. The world now looks towards India as a trusted, reliable partner in the global supply chain, he said. The merchandise exports in September this year has recorded a growth of 5 per cent year-on-year, GST collections are up by 4 per cent over the corresponding period, and railway carried 15 per cent more freight, he said. The indicators show that "India will once again bounce back to high growth levels which is truly our destiny," he added. The minister was addressing representatives of Hindustan Chamber of Commerce. He also said that it is the collective effort of industry and the government that has helped in coming back to the recovery phase. (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.) Written by ACM *Strasbourg/Angelo Marcopolo/- EU Summit clearly Warned Turkey with Sanctions if it doesn't Stop Bullying EU Energy Sources at Eastern Mediterranean Member States Cyprus and Greece during the Next Few Weeks or Months, But Offered Ankara a "positive" Cooperation Partnership with the EU, (while Carefuly Avoiding the term "Candidate"), If it Behaves. ----------------------------------------- Simply Reading this EU Summit's Conclusions on Strategic Foreign Policy Issues, Agreed at MidNight in Brussels, after Long Discussions, mainly on Turkey, there are, at least 2 Key Observations, spontaneously, for any attentive observer and convinced European : --------------------------------------- (A) - First of all, Let's sincerely Hope that this EU Summit's Double-Track, Carrot and Stick, Approach on Turkey's Bullying over EU Energy Resources at Eastern Mediterranean, around EU Member States Cyprus and Greece, (See, inter alia, also at: ..., etc), Might, Indeed, Work well. - At any case, we shall all Know if it really works with Ankara, Already Long Before the "Latest" EU Time Deadline of December 2020... EU Council's President Michel clearly showed that he Finally Agreed with "Eurofora"s earlier practical Observation, while speaking with an EU Council's Senior Official, Yesterday (See: .., etc), that If the relevant Debate had been Delayed as much as to Limit it Only at ...a working "Diner", then, there was an Obvious Risk Not to have Enough Time for any "In Depth" and "Thorough" Discussion of such a Delicate Issue, unless to Extend Further OverNight, perhaps even up to Early Morning, (as it has happened too Often in Brussels in the Past). => Thus, Michel, Suddenly, took the Initiative to Drasticaly Advance the Hour for Starting that Debate, approximately about 3 Hours Earlier, around 5 pm., instead of 8 pm. However, Even this wasN't really Enough, since the Final EU Conclusions were Published after MidNight, i.e. After Many "Come and Go" between several UpDates of the Draft Text, until all involved had Agreed. (Certain Sources speak about 3 Successive Drafts). ----------------- >>> At its Final Text, the EU Summit, from one side, stresses that "the EU has a Strategic interest in a Stable and Secure Environment in the Eastern Mediterranean". => "An absolute Requirement in this regard" is "Pursuing dialogue in good faith and abstaining from unilateral actions which run counter to the EU interests and violate international law and the sovereign rights of EU Member States". For that purpose, "All differences must be resolved through peaceful Dialogue and in accordance with international Law", EU Stresses. "In this context", the EU Summit "reiterates its full Solidarity with Greece and Cyprus, whose sovereignty and sovereign rights must be Respected". + In particular, Nowadays, "the European Council strongly Condemns Violations of the Sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus which must Stop. The European Council calls on Turkey to Abstain from similar actions in the future, in breach of international Law. The European Council underlines that delimitation of the Continental Shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone should be addressed through Dialogue and negotiation in Good Faith, in full respect of international law, and Calls on Turkey to accept the invitation by Cyprus to engage in Dialogue, with the objective of settling All Maritime-related disputes between Turkey and Cyprus". => On the Crucial Issue of Sanctions, this 10/2020 EU Summit, "Recalling and reaffirming i.a. its previous conclusions on Turkey of October 2019, in case of reNewed Unilateral actions or Provocations, in Breach of international Law, the EU will Use All the Instruments and the Options at its Disposal, (See: ..., etc), Including in accordance with Article 29 TEU and Article 215 TFEU, in order to Defend Its (EU's) Interests, and those of its Member States. >>>Meanwhile, EU Leaders "will Continue to closely Monitor Developments and will revert accordingly, and take Decisions as appropriate". Such "Decisions" will be taken, "at the Latest, at its December (2020) meeting", fixed as Final Time Deadline for Turkey to behave (Comp. Supra). ----------------------- + At any case, on Cyprus' Issue, the EUC "supports the speedy Resumption of Negotiations, under the auspices of the UN, and remains fully committed to a comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem, within the UN Framework and in accordance with the relevant UNSC Resolutions, including UNSC resolutions 550 (on Protecting the Sealed City of Famagusta from Threats of Usurpation of Greek Cypriot Refugees' Homes and Properties) and 789, and in line with the Principles on which the EU is founded", and it "Expects the same of Turkey". Meanwhile, "EU stands Ready to play an Active role in supporting the negotiations, including by appointing, upon resumption, a representative to the UN Good Offices Mission. -------------- + From the Other Side, IF "Constructive efforts to Stop illegal Activities (of Turkey) vis-a-vis Greece and Cyprus are Sustained", (Comp. Supra), this Brussels' EU Summit Proposes "the development of a Cooperative and mutually beneficial Relationship with Turkey", (alias "CRT", Carefully Avoiding to Speak about any Controversial and UnPopular Claim for a so-called "Candidacy" of Ankara to ever Enter into the EU)... => Then, EUC "has agreed to launch a Positive political EU-Turkey Agenda, with ....emphasis on the Modernisation of the Customs Union and Trade facilitation, people to people Contacts, High level Dialogues, continued cooperation on Migration issues, in line with the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement. EUC Seeks to "develop a proposal for re-Energising the EU-Turkey agenda to this effect". - Meanwhile, EU Summit "Welcomes the recent (mainly NATO - related) Confidence Building Steps by Greece and Turkey, as well as the announcement that they will resume their direct exploratory talks, aiming at the delimitation of the Continental Shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone of the two countries", and considers that "these efforts need to be sustained and broadened" + Moreover, in Wider Terms, In Fine, the adopted Paper "calls for a Multilateral Conference on the Eastern Mediterranean", on the "Organisation" of which it wants to "engage in Talks", since Modalities, such as Participation, Scope and Timeline, will Need to be Agreed with All involved Parties". That MCEM "could address Issues on which Multilateral Solutions are Needed", as it Believes, "including maritime Delimitation, Security, Energy, Migration and economic Cooperation", it says. However, it's Not yet Clear what such a ..3rd East Med. Body might, eventualy, have Better, Compared to the Already Existing "East Med. Forum", Auto-Organized by the concerned Countries themselves, which wish to Help Develop South-Eastern Mediterranan's Energy Resources and Tranport to mainland Europe, according to the International Law of the Sea, (Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordany, Italy and soon France, Open also to EU and USA Participation), currently HeadQuartered at Cairo. As for the "Delimitations" of EEZ, Most of them have Already been Negotiated, Agreed, Signed and Ratified, often since Many Years, by those Concerned Countries, and, according to UNO's International Law of the Sea, those Bilateral Agreements are Enough, withOut Needing to absolutely Re-Start from scratch, just in order to Impose some (UnKnown yet) "Multi"--lateral Deals. ...Unless a main Aim might be to Impose there Ankara (currently Absent from it) ! ++ As for Turkish President Erdogan, he has, also, just Called to set up an "International Organisation of Eastern Mediterraean", in a Letter send to Brussels (Except EU Members Greece and Cyprus...), where he Explicitly Seeks to Impose, in an Inter-Governemental Body, the Presence of the illegal Break Away Regime of the Occupied Territories of Cyprus, stil Controlled by Turkey's Military Invasion/Occupation Troops, which has been Notoriously Condemned by the UNO, and Not Recognized by Any Country in the World... ---------------------------------------- (B) But, a Second "Hot" Key Point, in EU Summit's Foreign Policy Conclusions, is the Surprizing Lack of a Crystal-clear, Explicit and Strong Condemnation of what was just Proven to be the 1st Armed Invasion of Europe by Extremist Foreign "Jihadists" Mercenaries, notoriously Brought by Turkey in a Bloody Military Clash against Armenians, right from Syria, Libya, and/or elsewhere, these same Days. - Certainly, pointing at "the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict" with Azerbaijan, this Brussels' EU Summit, at least, "Calls for an Immediate Cessation of Hostilities", "a Lasting CeaseFire", and "the Peaceful Settlement of the Conflict", where "the Loss of Life and the toll on the Civilian Population are Unacceptable", and "there can be Not ...Any External Interference", as it stresses. But the, apparently, Hastily adopted Text, at around MidNight (Comp. Supra), does Not yet Specify What Kind of "Interference", How, and By Whom... >>> However, after Manifold Initial Suspicions, it has, Finaly, been reportedly clearly Documented, by Various Converging Sources, and even Officialy Denounced by mainstream Top Political Leaders, that, indeed, Turkey brought in to Fight against Armenians, several Hundreds or Thousands of Foreign Armed Extremist Islamist Gangs, Paid as Mercenaries, (See Infra). This is the 1st Armed Invasion of Modern Europe by Foreign "Jihadists". Armenia is part of Europe Both in Geography, Religion (one of the 1st Christianized States), Culture, and History. Turkey, Initially Started to abuse of Extremist Islamist Armed Gangs by Backing their Fight against Bashar Ashad's Government of Syria, between 2011-2015+. But, progressively, Ankara Continued by Abusing of them Also in order to Attack, Robb, Torture, Kill or Chasse Away even Syrian Kurds, Christians, Armenians, Yazidi People, etc. Turkey's Widely Systematic Backing of Deadly Extremis Islamist Terrorists, included even ISIL's Gangs Cowardly Targetting Innocent Civilian People, particularly by Offering them considerable Logistical Support, (f.ex., Militants' Transfert, Arms' Smuggling, Black Market Trade for Solen Cultural Heritage or Oil/Gas, Fake Passports/Falsified IDCards, Explosives/Rockets' provision, etc), has been Denounced and often Documented by Varous Sources, including Investigative Journlists, Human Rights NGOs, the Russian Defense Ministry, etc. +Since 2018, Started Also the Turkish Army's Military Invasions/Occupations to Systematical abuse of Various such Islamist Extremist Armed Gangs as "Proxies", f.ex. at Afrin, Followed by the North-Eastern Region of Syrian Kurds on 2019, and Even at FarAway Libya, in Northern Africa, etc, on 2020. => Nowadays, it's initially American Investigative Journalist Lindsey Snell who reportedly Started, Earlier, to Find the First Traces of Islamist Extremist Mercenaries prepared to be Send by Turkey from Syria against Armenia, closely Followed by London-Based "SOHR" Human Rights' Watchdog, (specialized on Syria), which Multiplied relevant Original Newstories, soon Joined also by "the Guardian", "Reuters" and "AFP" Press Agencies, the Armenian Government, the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov imself, and, these Days in Brussels, even French President Macron, (etc)... France and Russia are the 2 out of 3 Countries traditionaly in charge of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, the 3rd being the USA. Both reportedly Agreed that the Export of Armed Jihadst Mercenaries by Turkey at such a Deadly Conflict is an Unacceptable Fact. - Macron (Sure about Verified Facts) stressed that "Turkey crossed a Red Line", which is Incompatible even with its NATO Membership. + Meanwhile, anOther Worrying Revelation is that, as various Converging Testimonies prove, the Expedition of such Jihadist Mercenaries had, in fact, been Already Planned for much Earlier, and, Suddenly Postponed for Later, due to unknown reasons... In other words, it seems that this Deadly Conflict had been PreMeditated ! At any case, those who might find, perhaps, that the Caucasus Mountains would be Too Far Away from the EU in order to be Dangerous for us, are certainly in Error : - Who could have Guessed, just 2 Years Ago, that; f.ex., an Asian Pakistani Armed Islamist Terrorist woukd Suddenly Find himself at Afrin's ancient Historic Monuments on 2018, the Next Year on the Mountains of Norh-Eastern Kurdish Region of Syria on 2019, and, just a Few Months' Later, at Far Away, North-African Libya's SeaCoasts (2020), Shortly Afterwards Zig-Zaging to the European Caucasus' Mountain Tops at Nagorno-Karabakh (10/2020) ? => In Consequence, it's Easy to Imagine such Armed Jihadists Arriving, Soon f.x. at Evros River's Greco-Turkish Borders in Europe, (i.e. Just at the Other Side of Turkey...). Afterwards at italy's Sicilian Coasts, Facing African Libya (Comp. Sypra). Closely Followed by Nearby Corsica French Island's Beaches, Next Stop at Neighbouring Spain's Catalonia, etc., etc, etc... >>> If you don't pay Attention, it can Go very Fast !... (../..) ("Draft-News") Sudans government and key rebel factions agreed on Monday to a peace deal in a crucial step towards ending the brutal civil war in Darfur that has raged since 2003. According to the United Nations, the conflict has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million. The accord also covers the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. 2003: rebels take up arms Rebels in the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) take up arms against Khartoum, accusing it of marginalising the vast western region of Darfur. On February 26, 2003, rebels take the town of Gulu in northern Darfur. The state-backed Janjaweed a group of mostly Arab raiding nomads respond, leading to allegations of atrocities including murder, rape, looting and burning villages. 2007: international force A hybrid African Union-United Nations force called UNAMID takes over from an African force that has been in the region since 2004. In May 2008, more than 220 people are killed when JEM rebels thrust hundreds of kilometres (miles) from Darfur to Omdurman, just across the River Nile from the presidential palace in Khartoum. 2009: arrest warrants The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for then-president Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. It issues another warrant the next year for genocide. Late in 2010, after a lull in clashes that lasts several months, fighting resumes following the breakdown of an accord signed in 2006 with a faction of the SLM. More than 2,300 people were killed in 2010, according to the UN. 2011: Revolutionary Front In November 2011, Darfurs armed groups form an alliance the Sudanese Revolutionary Front committed to regime change in Sudan. Sudan accuses newly independent South Sudan of working with the JEM, a charge denied by Juba, which Khartoum also accuses of backing armed revolts in its South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. 2014: abuses In March, the UN criticises restrictions imposed on humanitarian workers in Darfur and an increase in the number of displaced people. The UN Security Council urges UNAMID to better protect the Darfur population. In November, Bashir calls for a planned withdrawal of the force, after the peacekeepers probe accusations of gang rape by Sudanese soldiers. 2016: ceasefire In a controversial April referendum, the division of Darfur into five states is maintained. The government in June declares a unilateral ceasefire. In August, negotiations break down between Khartoum and rebels on a cessation of hostilities in Darfur, the Blue Nile and South Kordofan. In early September, Bashir says that peace has returned to Darfur. That month, rights group Amnesty International accuses Khartoum of carrying out several chemical attacks, killing civilians in the west of the country. Khartoum denies the charges. 2019: Bashir ousted, talks On April 11, Bashir is ousted by the military and detained after four months of popular protests demanding he quit. In August, new Sudanese authorities entrusted with preparing the way for a civilian regime vow to restore peace to conflict-ridden regions, including Darfur. 2019: draft accord On December 22, Sudanese prosecutors open a probe into crimes allegedly committed in Darfur from 2003, targeting officials from Bashirs regime. On January 24, 2020, a coalition of rebel groups signs a preliminary agreement with the government after weeks of talks. On February 11, a top Sudanese official says Bashir will be handed to the ICC. 2020: Kushayb hands himself in In June, Janjaweed militiaman Ali Kushayb, wanted since 2007, turns himself in to the ICC where he is wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. On June 15, a Sudanese prosecutor says that Bashirs extradition to the ICC is not necessary. In July, UNAMID condemns what it says are deadly violent incidents in North Darfur. Peace accord On July 16, the government and rebels enter the final stage of peace talks, focused on the creation of a single army. On July 28, UNAMID calls on Khartoum to deploy security forces in Darfur as soon as possible, after a series of killings. On August 28-29, government and rebels initial the accord aimed at ending 17 years of civil war. The accord is officially inked during a ceremony on August 31 in Juba. Sorry! This content is not available in your region London, Oct 3 : More than 100 million infections of Zika virus within Central and South America and the Caribbean went undetected between 2015 and 2018, according to a new study. The researchers who conducted the study, published in 'PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases', said the results showed a need for improvement in the current infectious disease surveillance systems. The study also provides insight into the potential severity of future outbreaks and the current state of herd immunity of Zika in the West. "Fewer than 1 per cent of cases were actually reported and it shows our surveillance systems catch only a small percentage of actual infections," said the study's lead author Sean Moore from the University of Notre Dame in the US. "We need to think about how to improve surveillance systems to get a better sense of transmission, especially in cases of diseases that yield a high number of asymptomatic infections," Moore said. The first confirmed case of Zika in the Americas was reported in Brazil in 2015, with the infection spreading rapidly, reaching as far north as Florida and Puerto Rico. In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the epidemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The Pan American Health Organization, which serves as an international agency for the Americas and as a regional office of the WHO, totalled symptomatic infections of Zika at more than 800,000 between 2015 and 2018 -- a number far below the results of the Notre Dame study. Moore's team estimated 132.3 million infections across Latin America and the Caribbean, having collected data from 15 countries and territories in South America, Central America and the Caribbean with a combined total population of 507.1 million. "There are some similarities to the current situation with Covid-19," Moore said. "Between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of Zika infections are asymptomatic. Even when symptoms are present, they tend to be mild, so if the infection is not severe enough for an individual to seek medical attention, those cases can go undiagnosed," Moore added. According to the researchers, understanding the scope of underreporting is particularly important to gain an accurate sense of herd immunity in the region. Once infected, individuals who recover from Zika virus are believed to have lifelong immunity. While cases have dropped substantially since 2018, a remaining concern is the potential for future outbreaks. "Our research suggests a need for a better understanding of how much transmission is happening within a community," said Moore. A recent study co-authored by Moore and his colleagues at Notre Dame found that gaps in surveillance and limited testing resulted in more than 100,000 coronavirus infections in the US that went undetected in the early months of the pandemic. The introduction of ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) in central London earlier this year and other measures have led to dramatic improvements in Londons air quality since 2016, according to a report that was released on Saturday. Some challenges remain, but new modelling by experts from the Environmental Research Group at Imperial College of pollution in 2019 shows that, even before lockdown, measures implemented by mayor Sadiq Khan since 2016 have helped transform Londons air quality. The number of Londoners living in areas exceeding the legal limit for NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) fell from over 2 million in 2016 to 119,000 in 2019, a reduction of 94%. However, the challenges include most residents still facing particulate matter exceeding the limit set by the WHO. Besides, research shows that those exposed to the worst air pollution are more likely to be from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. There is also emerging evidence linking air pollution with an increased vulnerability to the most severe impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said. The ULEZ charge of 12.50 per car levied since April applies to pre-2015 diesel and pre-2006 petrol cars that fall foul of Euro 6 and Euro 4 standards, respectively. The ULEZ charge for heavier vehicles, including lorries and buses, is 100 per day. The report is likely to lead to the ULEZ being expanded to cover more areas because 24% of roads in inner London still exceed the legal limits for NO2. The challenge is greater for particulate matters since most of London does not meet WHO limits. The mayors office said that the ULEZ had contributed to a reduction of 44% in roadside NO2 in the central London zone. There are now 44,100 fewer polluting vehicles being driven in the central zone every day with 79% of vehicles in the zone now meeting ULEZ emissions standards. Khan, who faces the next mayoral election in 2021, said, I was elected (in 2016) on a mandate to deliver hard-hitting measures to tackle our toxic air crisis. Todays report confirms the transformative impact that my policies have had in just four years. However, air pollution remains a major public health challenge and its time for the government to step up, set ambitious national targets, and provide the powers and funding we need to consign air pollution to the history books, he added. Deputy mayor for environment, Goa-origin Shirley Rodrigues, said, The ULEZ is the centrepiece of our plans to clean up Londons air. We have and are implementing the boldest plans of any city on the planet and the ULEZ is exceeding expectations. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON By ANI WASHINGTON: American film producer Harvey Weinstein has been charged with six new forcible sexual assault counts, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced on Friday (local time). As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Weinstein was charged with six additional forcible sexual assault counts involving two victims stemming from incidents that allegedly occurred more than a decade ago, according to authorities. The new charges include an incident between September 2004 and September 2005 where Weinstein allegedly raped a woman at a hotel in Beverly Hills. The sex crime case previously filed against Weinstein was amended to add three felony counts each of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation, meaning the disgraced movie mogul now faces a total of four counts each of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force, involving five victims for crimes that span from 2004 to 2013. Weinstein, who is currently in prison in New York after being convicted of multiple sex crimes there -- also is accused of raping another woman on two separate occasions in November 2009 and November 2010 at a hotel in Beverly Hills. "I am thankful to the first women who reported these crimes and whose courage have given strength to others to come forward. The willingness of these latest victims to testify against a powerful man gives us the additional evidence we need to build a compelling criminal case," said District Attorney Jackie Lacey in a statement. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Weinstein was originally charged by the Los Angeles DA in January with sexually assaulting two women during alleged separate incidents in 2013. Then that complaint was amended in April to add a charge that he allegedly sexually assaulted a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in May 2010. Los Angeles prosecutors are seeking temporary custody of Weinstein from New York, with an extradition hearing set for December 11 in Buffalo, according to authorities. A Northern Territory man will face court accused of drink-driving in a car missing a tyre and at high speed towards oncoming traffic before crashing into a tree. Police say the 41-year-old was at the wheel of a Mitsubishi Outlander station wagon missing its rear left tyre on the wrong side of the road and heading towards Darwin on the Stuart Highway at Pinelands on Friday night. He was pursued by patrol officers to nearby Foundation Road, at which point his vehicle crossed onto the inbound lanes and continued at high speed through a set of lights. A 41-year-old man allegedly crashed into a tree after drink-driving in a car missing a tyre on the wrong side of the Stuart Highway (pictured) at Pinelands near Darwin on Friday night He then drove off the road and slammed into a tree near the Berrimah defence base. The man was the sole occupant and not injured. Throughout the incident a number of motorists had to take evasive action to avoid being struck. Police are particularly interested in contacting a motorcyclist, who may have been swiped by the wagon when it approached Foundation Road. The accused man has been charged with high range drink driving, unlicensed driving and driving in a manner dangerous during a pursuit. He will appear before court at a later date. With fewer games on the docket and more on the line, viewership for MLBs Wild Card game ticked up on Thursday. After three eliminations on Wednesday, Thursdays schedule had five games lined up. However, the Marlins-Cubs matchup on ABC was postponed due to rain, giving us a tight schedule of four games, all airing on ESPN. And you know what? Viewership for those four games wasnt half bad. The day started with Reds-Braves at noon Eastern, drawing 1.38 million viewers. White Sox-As was next up, and that drew 1.928 million viewers. In primetime, the wild Cardinals-Padres game drew 2.331 million viewers, and Brewers-Dodgers, airing in the late window, drew 1.848 million viewers on ESPN. The first hour and a half of that game aired on ESPN2 due to the St. Louis-San Diego game running long, and 1.011 people tuned in for the 90 minutes of action over there. Heres the updated viewership chart for the Wild Card round, which ends on Friday with Cardinals-Padres in primetime on ESPN. I dont know if you can draw much from that final average column. Both Yankees-Indians games aired in primetime, and its not a shock that those two games and last nights Cardinals-Padres game (which also aired in primetime) were the three most-watched games of the round. Furthermore, I think MLB has to be disappointed that for all their efforts at creating drama, only two of these eight series got to a Game 3 White Sox-As and Cardinals-Padres. Judging by the spike in viewership we saw for Game 3 of that Chicago-Oakland series (even though it was the only game on for much of Thursday afternoon), I think we could have seen some increased viewership for the other series if they went to three games instead of ending in two. All in all, has the expanded Postseason been a success for the networks? Thats tough to say. MLB got as many winner take all games this year as they did last year with the ten-team format. TBS has to be happy that it got both the Yankees and Astros, who both would have been on the outside looking in over a ten-team format, in the ALDS while also avoiding the Canadian viewership poison pill known as the Toronto Blue Jays. Fox is probably disappointed at losing the Cubs from the NLDS, but should be relieved at keeping both the Braves and Dodgers in the fold. Ross Cellino has paid tribute to his former law partner Steve Barnes, who died in a plane crash in upstate New York on Friday morning. The personal injury attorneys together founded Cellino & Barnes back in 1998, which quickly became one of America's most famous law firms, thanks to an iconic jingle played on television and radio. The duo dissolved the firm earlier this year following a long-running feud, but that didn't stop Cellino from issuing a heartfelt message following news of Barnes' death. Barnes, 61, was flying a single-engine Socata TBM-700 before it crashed into a wooded area near the town of Pembroke around 11.45am on Friday. The lawyer's 32-year-old niece, Elizabeth, was also on board and died at the scene. The pair were on their way to a birthday party in Buffalo for Barnes' mother when the plane crashed. In his public message released Saturday morning, Cellino stated: 'Steve and I worked together for many years at our firm. He was always a fearless advocate for his clients. His passing is a significant loss for the legal community.' He added: 'Equally heartbreaking is the passing of Elizabeth Barnes, daughter of Rich Barnes, Steve's brother and an attorney at our firm.' Steve Barnes is survived by his three children and his longtime partner, Ellen Sturm, who also worked as a lawyer at Cellino & Barnes. Ross Cellino (left) has paid tribute to his former law partner Steve Barnes (right), who died in a plane crash in upstate New York on Friday morning. Barnes, 61, was flying a single-engine Socata TBM-700 before it crashed into a wooded area near the town of Pembroke around 11.45am on Friday Barnes' niece, Elizabeth, 32, died in the crash alongside him Cellino and Barnes had been embroiled in lengthy legal dispute, which began back in 2017 when Cellino filed a lawsuit to try and break up their famous firm. In January of this year, Barnes finally agreed to dissolve the company. In an affidavit, Cellino wrote: 'After three years of needless, wasteful litigation, during which respondent Barnes has lost virtually every contested issue in this matter'... he 'now accepts the reality of this situation and has advised this court that he will consent to a dissolution. Three years ago, reports surfaced that there had been 'hard feelings' between the pair after Barnes refused to hire Cellino's daughter, Jeanna - a law graduate from University of Buffalo - in order to avoid nepotism. But a number of attorneys told DailyMail.com back in 2017 that their rift was actually part of a bigger problem over the direction of the firm which had been festering for some time. One local lawyer, who agreed to talk on condition of anonymity, told DailyMail.com: 'Stephen Barnes is a businessman, he is a shark. He is not a guy that takes no for an answer. 'He is far more aggressive, cold, and calculating than Ross Cellino who is a little bit more laid-back. The personal injury attorneys together founded Cellino & Barnes back in 1998, which quickly became one of America's most famous law firms, thanks to an iconic jingle played on television and radio 'Barnes is very aggressive. Ross Cellino, especially in the last couple of years, has become more: 'Do we really need to do that? Can we try to get along with people more?' 'They have had major blow-ups at the firm. I've heard from a couple of lawyers there about shouting matches taking place in conference rooms and that type of behavior. Vincent Scarsella, another lawyer, told DailyMail.com: 'Cellino is very personable and very friendly. In fact, after all of it was over he came to see me. He told me, 'No hard feelings, I understand you're just doing your job.' Barnes is the opposite: he is very hard-nosed.' Barnes is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and reached the rank of Major. In the 90s he was deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm Barnes was a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and reached the rank of Major. In the 1990s he was deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He attended law school and began practicing after his stint in the military. A colleague told Dailymail.com that Barnes is a skilled mountain-climber who has scaled most of the Himalayas except K2. Cellino & Barnes reportedly won more than $2 billion for their clients, making the eponymous lawyers millionaires in their own right. The firm eventually went on to open offices in Los Angeles and had more than 250 employees before its dissolution. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the first 2020 presidential campaign debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, held on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., September 29, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo Scott Adams, the creator of the "Dilbert" comic strip and a fierce supporter of President Donald Trump says he felt 'abused' after Trump failed to condemn white supremacists at the first presidential debate. After being asked to condemn white supremacy on Tuesday's debate, Trump danced around the question before telling the white nationalist group the Proud Boys, to "stand back and stand by." The Proud Boys have been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Adams said he'd vote for Trump if the president corrects his mistakes and denounces white supremacy. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Scott Adams, the creator of the "Dilbert" comic strip and a fierce supporter of President Donald Trump, said he felt "abused" by Trump after the president failed to condemn white supremacists at the first presidential debate. "I thought, it's so obvious what you should say in this situation, and then he just didn't," Adams said in a video posted on Twitter. Adams later said: "I took it personally. That wasn't politics anymore. That was me personally and I feel like he screwed me, personally." On Tuesday's debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump, "Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down?" Trump danced around the question, saying "almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not from the right-wing." After pushback from Wallace and Democratic nominee Joe Biden who specifically referenced the white nationalist group, the Proud Boys, Trump said: "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by." The Proud Boys have been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and regularly espouse anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and misogynistic views. Story continues In the video posted online on Thursday, Adams suggested that he has suffered financially for backing Trump. "I would say that my personal financial situation is way worse, way worse because of supporting the president. There's no question about that," he said. Adams said Trump lost his vote because he failed to resolutely condemn white supremacy, but said that if Trump were to correct his stance on the matter, the president could win back his support. "All he'd have to do is fix that. I mean how hard is that to fix it. Well apparently its pretty f-----g hard for him because he's taken three years since Charlottesville, and he hasn't fixed it yet" Adams said. "Easiest "f-----g thing he'd ever fix. I take it personally." In August 2017, Trump said there were "very fine people" on "both sides" and claimed "many sides" were responsible for deadly neo-Nazi violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. During that rally, a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters, killing one person. Read the original article on Business Insider A crucial Senate crossbencher with the power to decide the fate of the government's university funding reforms says he will reveal his position within days ahead of a potential vote on budget day. In a sign the Morrison government is eager to push the reforms to a vote in the Senate, the Job-Ready Graduates Bill is the first bill listed for debate when Parliament resumes on Tuesday, the same day as the federal budget. Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff says he will finalise his position on the government's university funding reforms in the coming days. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer The outcome of the bill hinges on the vote of Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff, from South Australia, who said on Friday the party was still in discussions with the state's universities and the government. "We're continuing to work with our local unis and discuss ways to improve the offerings for students," Senator Griff said. Sydney's property market may be in worse shape than the latest price data suggests on account of sellers withholding or delaying "bad" sales and auction results. Two experts told The Sydney Morning Herald values had likely fallen by as much as 5 to 10 per cent since April, obscured by a decrease in the level of sales data being published. The COVID-19 crisis may having a greater impact on property prices than anticipated. Credit:Peter Rae Stefan Trueck, co-director of the Centre for Risk Analytics at Macquarie University, estimated that Sydney property prices may have already fallen by up to 6 per cent since April - double the estimates from official price data. Professor Trueck said auction results were less likely to be reported during the COVID-19 crisis, and calculated about 60 per cent of results were made public in the past two months compared to almost 80 per cent in the October to November 2019 period. Unite Here Local 11 For 32 years, Glynndana Shevlin worked at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California, and through 29 of them, her spot was a concierge club called the E-Ticket Lounge. From 2 p.m. to 10:30 at night, Shevlin hosted guests on the 11th floor of a wing known as the Adventure Tower, serving continental breakfasts, chips and salsa, appetizers, and drinks. As a sommelier, she specialized in wine. I have long-term guests that have been calling me asking me, Hows it going during the pandemic? Shevlin said. My phones been off the hook. The calls picked up on Tuesday, after Disney announced they would be laying off 28,000 domestic workers, or Cast Members, at their theme parks. Shevlin got the news late that evening. She had been off-grid all day, on a hike with her daughter, whom shed visited in Oakland. Once they descended, she checked her email. I saw the message, Shevlin said. The way I feel is a little surreal. The email Shevlin received came from Josh DAmaro, Disneys chairman of Parks, Experiences, and Products. In a public statement on the layoffs, DAmaro blamed California Governor Gavin Newsom. The massive staff cuts, he wrote, stemmed from the prolonged impact of COVID-19 on our business... exacerbated in California by the States unwillingness to lift restrictions that would allow Disneyland to reopen. Gavin Newsom Ignores the Desperate Pleas of Hunger-Striking Disney Workers DAmaro was referring to the prolonged feud between Disney and Newsom over lockdown restrictions, which barred the parks from reopening until the state met its COVID-19 goals. Elsewhere, Disney resorts have been open for monthsDisney World in Orlando reopened back in June, just as Florida saw a surge in COVID-19 cases. By contrast, only a small section of the Anaheim park has resumed operation: the outdoor retail and restaurant strip known as the Downtown Disney District, where they have declined to implement on-site testing for staff. Last month, The Daily Beast investigated the districts failure to report and trace cases of COVID-19 among its workers. Disney doesnt want to test, one Cast Member wrote in a text message obtained by The Daily Beast, because it would show just how many of u r getting sick and theyd have to close. Story continues Gov. Newsom did not respond to a request for comment, deferring to the states Department of Public Health: The COVID 19 pandemic has impacted the health and livelihoods of too many workers across this country, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly wrote in a statement to The Daily Beast. Our Blueprint for a Safer Economy is driven by science to keep the risk of COVID-19 transmission low. Its a double-edged sword, Shevlin said. I want Disney to open, but at the same time, I want it safe. I want security. I am 60 years old. I dont care what anybody says, coronavirus is serious... I want on-site testing. I want temperatures taken. I want all precautions to be handled. I dont want to go back to avoid losing my job. I want to go back because its safe. Shevlin has wanted to work at Disneyland since 1970, when she tuned in to an installation of the TV anthology series The Magical World of Disney. At the time, Shevlin was living with her mother in St. Louis, Missouri, and obsessed with the show. (I would always say, We cant go out on Sunday nights, we gotta watch Disney.) In this particular episode, a young Kurt Russell explored the Anaheim parks Haunted Mansion alongside family musical group the Osmond Brothers. Donny [Osmond] is maybe a year older than me, so hes my age group. He was so cute, being an 8-year-old girl, Shevlin said. I thought: I want to be a Disney worker. Shevlin later moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and spent her teen years with her father. But just months shy of her 18th birthday, she reunited with her mother in Orange County. They celebrated at Disneyland. This was one of my favorite moments with my mother, Shevlin said. We were watching the [Disney Main Street] Electrical Parade and she bought me this huge big Mickey Mouse. We had to put it in plastic because it started rainingmore like a drizzle. But we watched the Electrical Parade and we were dancing. It was a highlight of my life. I still remember it. A decade later, Shevlin saw a newspaper advertisement for a position at the Disneyland Hotel. She drove over immediately to apply and interview. It was 1988. At that time, they had answering machines, Shevlin said. When I walked in the door [after the interview], the light was blinking. They told me to show up for orientation two days later. Unite Here Local 11 It was a solid union job, Shevlin said, with healthcare, free meals, and an hourly wage well above the state minimum. Those conditions changed over the years. Before the pandemic, Shevlins hospitality union, Unite Here! Local 11, had negotiated an hourly rate of $15.95. Im one of the union leaders, she said. When Im at lunch and I meet the new workers, I always tell them, Dont hesitate to come and sit down and Ill explain a lot of things and help you through your employment. Things like that. So they have my number and they call me. After hearing the news of layoffs, Shevlin, alongside many of her union colleagues, pinned their hopes on a bill in the California legislature. Assembly Bill 3216, which passed the states Senate and Assembly, would have offered hospitality and airport workers the right to be rehired if and when their employers resumed regular business. Tuesday evening, the Right to Recall bill was sitting on Newsoms desk, where he would either sign or veto it in less than 36 hours. Some of Shevlins coworkers had caravanned to the capitol that day to urge him to pass it. The bills author, Assembly Member Ash Kalra of San Jose, fasted for 50 hours in solidarity. Workers Reveal Disney Is Covering Up Its COVID Cases The thing Im counting on, Shevlin said on Wednesday, is that Gavin Newsom right now sign AB3216. I know that if were going to be laid off, it will start on Nov. 1, and right now I do have health care. But I dont know more than that. Health care is a big, big deal for me right now, because Ive been having dental work. Im 60 years old. Im not someone who needs a lot of help, but it is important at my age. I take several medicationsLipitor to keep my cholesterol down, so Im not diabetic. I just hope my health care stays. I live alone in my little apartment that I rent out behind a houseits a mother-in-law quarters. I have my own kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Its really nice. But rent is expensive. Food is expensive. I just need the security. Im sorry, Im rambling, but I need it. Health care and AB3216 are important to me. But that evening, Newsom vetoed the bill. The governors office did not respond to comment, but his rationale may have come from the California Chamber of Commerce, which placed the legislation on its annual job killers list. Disney did not comment on the veto. When asked whether the company planned to rehire former staff post-pandemic, a Disney spokesperson said they look forward to providing opportunities for cast to return to the Company when the impact of the pandemic has passed. Many factors will ultimately determine how and when that might happen, they wrote. For Cast Members covered by a collective bargaining agreement, we look forward to continued conversations with their unions. Shevlin was at home when she heard, catching up on the presidential debate from the night before. One colleague got word from Sacramento and let her know. Three more colleagues sent her texts. Over the next two days, Shevlin would get more than 50 calls from colleagues asking about their future. Former guests rang from Florida, Washington, and Canada. Im heartbroken that [Newsom] didnt protect us and the airline workers, Shevlin said. Other than maybe crying, I dont know what else to say. Im just a single person, living in a neighborhood, waiting to see if Ill have a job. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Credit: CC0 Public Domain For one low-income woman, not having a car meant long commutes on public transit with her children in tow, sometimes slogging through cold or inclement weather. But after buying a subsidized car through a Maryland-based nonprofit, she was able to move to a home located farther from bus stops, send her children to better schools and reach less expensive medical services. "So many different things open up to a person that is mobile," the woman told Nicholas Klein, assistant professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University. In "Subsidizing Car Ownership for Low-Income Individuals and Households," published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Klein reports insights from interviews with 30 people who gained access to inexpensive, reliable cars through the nonprofit Vehicles for Change (VFC). He found that the cars conferred wide-ranging benefits, not only shortening commutes and opening opportunities for higher-paying jobs, but also dramatically improving quality of life. The recipients of subsidized cars spent more time with family, visited doctors they preferred, shopped for groceries more efficiently, attended more school events and enrolled kids in previously inaccessible after-school enrichment programs. "For a lot of families, it's a really transformative moment that allows them to move up the economic ladder, to access all sorts of sort of social benefits and to just make their lives easier," Klein said of the access to subsidized cars. "It permeated everyone's lives in all sorts of different ways." Transportation planners and scholars have debated subsidizing car ownership for decades, and VFC, which has provided more than 6,000 cars in Maryland and Virginia since 1999, is one of only a handful of such programs across the country. Critics say subsidizing cars on a large scale would exacerbate environmental pollution, traffic congestion and sprawl, and impose new cost burdens on car owners. Klein said his research took a longer, more nuanced view that suggested such answers are "not so clear-cut." Beyond interviewees' experiences with a subsidized car, he also learned about their personal and car-ownership histories. Most had owned cars before and planned to purchase cars again, typically through used car dealers that Klein called "pernicious." The interviewees had typically paid significantly more for used cars that were less reliable than those provided by VFC, which cost less than $1,000 and passed thorough inspections (through a job training program for formerly incarcerated individuals). Considering that context, Klein said, scholars and policymakers should be asking not only about the benefits and consequences of having a car, but about the consequences of not making subsidized car ownership available to low-income families. "What I see is that a lot of low-income households are going out and spending quite a bit more on unreliable used cars, and those cars may be polluting much more," he said. Klein concluded that subsidized car ownership should be implemented more broadly, along with complementary programs providing subsidized repairs or replacement of older, more polluting and less efficient cars. Such programs shouldn't come at the expense of longer-term investments in public transit and infrastructure expanding alternatives to cars, Klein said. But that infrastructure takes time to build and can't support everyone living in suburban or rural areas. "In the meantime, these families are struggling, and we can think about ways to help them while also investing in high-quality public transit, and biking and walking infrastructure," Klein said. Klein said his research relying on interviews proved valuable in a transportation field that emphasizes quantitative methodsfor example, to measure economic outcomes such as how car ownership affects income or employment. "When we only do that, we miss a lot of important nuance and details and we miss people's voices and stories," he said. "Qualitative research lets us understand the broader scope of effects that we might miss if we only rely on what's in the data, allowing us to see a broader range of possibilities." Explore further Designing a city without carsfor the sake of the kids More information: Nicholas J. Klein, Subsidizing Car Ownership for Low-Income Individuals and Households, Journal of Planning Education and Research (2020). Nicholas J. Klein, Subsidizing Car Ownership for Low-Income Individuals and Households,(2020). DOI: 10.1177/0739456X20950428 NAE announces winners of 2020 Simon Ramo Founders and Arthur M. Bueche Awards Washington D.C., October 02, 2020 -- On Sunday, Oct. 4, during the 2020 annual meeting, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) will present two awards for extraordinary impact on the engineering profession. The Simon Ramo Founders Award will be presented to Frances S. Ligler for her research contributions and leadership in engineering. The Arthur M. Bueche Award will be given to Arden L. Bement Jr. for his contributions to technology research, policy, and national and international cooperation. Frances S. Ligler is the Ross Lampe Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University and the School of Medicine and College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ligler is being recognized with the Simon Ramo Founders Award "for the invention and development of portable optical biosensors, service to the nation and profession, and educating the next, more diverse generation of engineers." The award acknowledges outstanding professional, educational, and personal achievements to the benefit of society and includes a commemorative medal. Prior to joining the joint department in 2013, Ligler was at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for 28 years, serving since 1995 as the U.S. Navy Senior Scientist for Biosensors and Biomaterials. Earlier in her career, she was successively a principal scientist, project leader, and group leader for cellular immunology at DuPont. She has served on the board of trustees of Furman University and currently serves on the academic advisory board for Plaksha University, a new engineering college in India. Ligler is currently working in the fields of biosensors, microfluidics, tissue-on-chip, and regenerative medicine; she has also conducted research in biochemistry, immunology, and analytical chemistry. She has over 400 publications, including 35 U.S. patents and four books, and has served on editorial boards for nine journals. Her inventions have been directly commercialized in 11 biosensor products used in food production plants, clinics in developing countries, pollution cleanup sites, and areas of concern for military and homeland security. She has mentored numerous university faculty and over 60 postdoctoral fellows, and co-published research with approximately 200 undergraduates. Ligler was elected to the NAE in 2005 and has served on the NAE Council from 2014 to 2020. She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the SPIE, and the National Academy of Inventors. In 2017 she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) for her inventions seminal to portable optical biosensors. She actively supports NIHF's Collegiate Inventors Competition and signature program for K-6 students, Camp Invention. In 2003 Ligler was recognized by the Christopher Columbus Foundation with its Homeland Security Award (Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Field) and by President George W. Bush with the Presidential Rank of Distinguished Senior Professional. In 2012 she was honored with the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Senior Professional by President Obama. Arden L. Bement Jr. is the David A. Ross Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering in the College of Engineering, Purdue University. He will be presented the Arthur M. Bueche Award "for contributions to science and technology advancement, international relationships, policy development, and Academies studies, from executive positions in government, industry, and academia." The award recognizes an engineer who has shown dedication in science and technology as well as active involvement in determining U.S. science and technology policy, and includes a commemorative medal. Bement was a joint professor of nuclear materials in the departments of Nuclear Engineering and Material Science and Engineering at MIT from 1970-1976. He began his tenure at Purdue University in 1993 as the Basil S. Turner Professor of Engineering with joint appointments in the Metallurgical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments. He became head of the School of Nuclear Engineering in 1998 and chief global affairs officer in 2010. Working for the government, he has held appointments under six U.S. presidents: director of the Office of Materials Science, DARPA (1976-1980), deputy undersecretary of defense for research and advanced technology (1979-1980), director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (2001-2004), and director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) (2004-2010). At NIST he oversaw the definitive investigation of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, and at NSF he expanded networking services for academic science and engineering research. He also served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO as co-chair of the Science and Technology Committee from 2004 to 2009. In his industrial career, Bement was a senior research fellow at the AEC Hanford Laboratories operated by General Electric Co. (1954-65), manager of the Metallurgy Research Department and Fuels and Materials Department at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory operated by the Battelle Memorial Institute (1965-70), and vice president for technical resources and chief science and technical officer for TRW (1980-93). For his achievements in academia, government, industry, Bement has received several national and international honors and distinctions. He received the White House Distinguished Federal Executive Award (1980), the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal (1980), and the Department of Commerce William C. Redman Award (1995). He is a member of the NAE (1993) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. ### The mission of the NAE is to advance the well-being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshaling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology. The NAE is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to provide objective analysis and advice to the nation on matters of science, technology, and health. CONTACT Brandon Green Communications/Media Specialist National Academy of Engineering PHONE 202.334.2226 BGREEN@NAE.EDU This story has been published on: 2020-10-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. UPDATE: Man in standoff abandoned crashed car with guns and drugs inside, Palmer cops say An Allentown man wanted on a felony drug warrant in Palmer Township surrendered after a four-hour standoff with police Friday in Monroe County, authorities said. Stroud Area Regional police acting on a tip that the suspect, 19-year-old Emir Christopher Justiniani, was in their jurisdiction found him about 9:26 a.m. Friday in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express on West Main Street in Stroud Township, the department said in a news release. Justiniani was reported to be armed with a handgun and AK-47-style rifle, according to police. Responding officers reportedly found him in the passenger seat of a vehicle, with a female occupant behind the wheel. As police approached the vehicle, the female complied and exited the vehicle, Stroud Area Regional police Chief Jennifer Lyon says in the release. "Justiniani refused to exit the vehicle, was not cooperative, and was in possession of a handgun. Justiniani never pointed the handgun at officers and was threatening self-harm. Officers surrounded the scene and removed bystanders from the immediate area for their safety. The departments SWAT team and crisis negotiators responded, and officers on scene were eventually able to talk Justiniani into putting down the gun and existing the vehicle, according to the release. He was taken into custody without incident at about 1:30 p.m. No one was injured. Palmer Township police got a warrant for Justinianis arrest Sept. 22, stemming from an incident Sept. 13 in the township. He is charged in that incident with felony drug possession with intent to deliver, misdemeanor drug possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, unauthorized use of a vehicle, hit and run, careless driving, reckless driving and driving under suspension, according to court records. Details of the Palmer Township incident were not immediately available. Lyon in the release thanked Palmer Township police, the Monroe County Sheriffs Office and county detectives for their assistance Friday. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. New Delhi: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday claimed to have busted an international module of drugs trafficking with the arrest of four Afghanistan nationals and seizure of about 380 gm of heroin. The agency said the contraband was seized from a parcel that arrived at a courier company in Delhi from Afghanistan on September 30 and contained a metal piston. Further investigation resulted in the arrest of four Afghan nationals who were staying as refugees in Delhi," NCB zonal director KPS Malhotra was quoted as saying in a statement. They were doing the drug business in the disguise of language interpreters," he said. The handler or the kingpin of the heroin trafficking racket is based in Afghanistan and has created a multi-layer of identities so that the person handing over the parcel did not know the identity of the next one, Malhotra said. The four accused are now in judicial custody and further probe is on, the NCB officer said. Since lockdown (that was imposed in March to contain the spread of COVID-19), drug traffickers based in Afghanistan have taken a new route to traffic heroin through courier parcels." Earlier they used to send human couriers who swallowed heroin and transported it to India," he said. Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor Three Australian best friends have made $1million by selling a cannabis clay mask and are preparing to release two more products in the range to help acne-sufferers. Alex Roslaniec, 25, Fedele D'Amico, 24, and Ollie Watts, 25, are the founders of Hey Bud Skincare and the popular $49.99 hemp facial mask which claims to fade pigmentation, dark spots and scarring. The trio came up with the idea of selling cannabis skincare after Fedele's mother, a beauty therapist, ordered hemp seed oil products from the United States in 2018. Three Australian best friends have made $1million by selling a cannabis-filled clay mask and are preparing to release two more products in the range to help acne-sufferers Alex Roslaniec, 25, Fedele D'Amico, 24, and Ollie Watts, 25, are the founders of Hey Bud Skincare The Hemp Clay Mask ($49.99) 'She found that hemp seed oil perfectly moisturised her face and also noticed a drastic decrease in redness around her most sensitive spots. At this point in time, it was very difficult to source any Australian based hemp products,' Alex told FEMAIL. 'After doing extensive research and understanding the benefits of hemp for the skin, we set out with the idea to bring high quality hemp skincare to Australia. 'We partnered up with one of Australia's most experienced chemists to source our first sample. From there, the brand exploded with many customers loving our natural, vegan mask.' Hemp seed oil contains a powerful omega-6 fatty acid called Gamma-Linolenic acid Hemp seed oil contains a powerful omega-6 fatty acid called Gamma-Linolenic acid. Because it is an essential fatty acid, it means that your body doesn't produce it and needs to derive it from external sources. While promoting new cell generation and skin growth, Gamma-Linolenic acid also has anti-inflammatory properties. This soothing effect on the skin helps prevent irritation, which can lead to a decrease in acne and psoriasis, all while restoring the skin's moisture barrier. While promoting new cell generation and skin growth, Gamma-Linolenic acid also has anti-inflammatory properties Hey Bud, which was launched in August 2019, saw a 1,160 per cent sales increase in the six month period between March 2020 and August 2020 Hey Bud, which was launched in August 2019, saw a 1,160 per cent sales increase in the six month period between March 2020 and August 2020 when the nation was in a coronavirus lockdown, selling out twice. 'We noticed a huge influx of new customers during the pandemic with the rise of the self-care movement and we were delighted to support our customers during a hard time, making their wine and Netflix night feel that little bit better with a face mask,' Ollie said. They attribute their product being purchased by 26,000 people to the fact it does what it says it will - tightens pores and leaves skin oil-free. They attribute their product being purchased by 26,000 people to the fact it does what it says it will - tightens pores and leaves skin oil-free 'We make sure to have a customer-centric approach. We believe in fostering a really strong community where everyone who uses our product is part of the Hey Bud family. Our team focuses heavily not only on the products we offer, but also the whole customer experience,' Alex said. 'We also have a Facebook group dedicated to our customers who share their latest tips and tricks, results and transformations. 'This transparency with our customers has provided us with invaluable insight, which has allowed us to improve our product and services tenfold.' The clay mask contains key ingredients like kaolin clay, almond oil, avocado oil, matcha, goji extract and aloe vera, which are known to help diminish fine lines and spots. The brand has just released a Hemp Face Oil and Hemp Moisturiser to create a full face routine, and are looking to expand in the US and UK. Journalists were finally allowed to enter the Hathras gang-rape victims village, Boolgarhi, and interacted with her family members after at least two days during which the village had remained out of bounds for reporters and politicians. The family members of the woman alleged they were pressured, especially the father, who said with tears, that he was not sure if the body that was cremated was his daughters. The alleged forcible cremation of the victims body in the dead of night has added to the national outrage over the alleged gang-rape and brutalisation that led to the womans death. Further alleging that they couldnt even see her face before the cremation, the family said they wanted justice and not money. The state government has already announced Rs 25 lakh ex gratia, a job for a family member and a house for the family of the victim. We requested not to conduct the cremation at night, but no heed was paid. In fact, we do not know if it was our daughters body, they said. Also read: UP CM Yogi Adityanath recommends CBI probe in Hathras gang-rape case The village and our house were heavily guarded by the police. We want justice, not money. It was totally unjustified to deny a respectful cremation. We asked for cremation in the daytime, but it was done at night forcibly, the victims mother said. We lay down in front of the ambulance, but we were removed and the cremation was done by force at night, the family alleged. The victims mother denied undergoing a narco-analysis test. She also denied having asked for a CBI inquiry into the case. Journalists had been kept out of the village for the last two days as the authorities said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was conducting the probe. Also read: State must protect the family, says Rahul Gandhi in Hathras Meanwhile, Hathras subdivisional magistrate (SDM) Prem Prakash Meena said section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code was still in force in the village prohibiting the assembly of four people or more. The video of the DM (district magistrate) going viral is fake and edited he added. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped by four dominant caste men earlier this month. The victim was admitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of Aligarh Muslim University after she was left partially paralysed. She was later moved to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi where she died on Tuesday. (Photo : Find car pictures via Twitter (@carpics8) / Buick) (Photo : Find car pictures via Twitter (@carpics8) / Buick) (Photo : (Photo by Steve Fecht for General Motors)) General Motors reveals its all-new modular platform and battery system, Ultium, Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at the Design Dome on the GM Tech Center campus in Warren, Michigan. The classic vehicle in General Motor's line-up, the sleek and classy Buick, is now getting electrified with the all-new 'Buick Electra' crossover with the mammoth Ultium Battery, capable of producing a 400-mile range for the electric vehicle. The return of the Buick Electra now justifies its name and designation to be an electric vehicle for General Motors. Thirty years after the Buick Electra's last production took place, GM is now reviving the classic, boxy vehicle, formerly hiding a V-block internal combustion engine in its hood. 1990 saw the last of Buick Electra, but GM's revival now gives it the appropriation to its name. The vehicle was recently unveiled by GM's Chinese partner SAIC-GM, according to Electrek. According to the American car manufacturer, the 'Buick Electra' is only a concept vehicle as of the moment, and prototypes will soon follow. Despite the vehicle debuting in Shanghai, China, GM says that this is a 'global version' of the car and will be what the company will give to the world. The vehicle is now a sleek-designed electric vehicle crossover, bidding farewell to its boxy sedan heritage. The electric future of the Buick Electra will be the latest addition to GM's long line of commitment to going fully-electric shortly. The venture started with the Hummer Electric Vehicle SUV, a concept car that paved the way for GM's EVs platform. The Buick Electra will soon be joining the sales of EVs among the company in the foreseeable future. ALSO READ: Tesla's Autopilot: Was European Safety Assessment Rightful to Blame the Car for Drivers' Lack of Attention? Buick Electra: Ultium Battery's Top Notch General Motors and Buick's venture and commitment to a zero-emissions future are finally coming to fruition with affiliate and subsidiary brands under its belt are having its very own electric vehicle. The rowdy Buick that was thought to be one of America's V8-exclusive cars will now have its fully electric version, revived from the namesake of the Buick Electra 225. GM is now boasting its recently released Ultium Batteries and its flexible platform that complements the new tech. The new platform is a flexible battery pack that can be stacked vertically or horizontally. The flexibility of the battery pack will complete the vehicle for all of GM brands' needs. Ultium Batteries are 50-200 kWh in capacity, depending on the vehicle and the company's specification and energy options. The battery boasts a 400-mile range for all platforms, and even more, according to GM. The new platform will also cater to several drive layouts, including rear-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, and performance AWD. The battery also boasts that it can achieve 0-60 mph within or less than three seconds on a full charge. However, this does not take into account the vehicle's mass and make. GM's Buick Electra, Lyriq, and Hummer Trio Leads Electric Ventures GM promises its future of zero-emission vehicles to be affordable, luxurious, and a high-performance machine. GM partners up with LG to create the battery and supply its vehicle with affordable and long-lasting packs for every electric vehicle outed by the company. The trio in luxury brands and performance-driven vehicles, Buick, Caddilac, and Hummer, are all bringing forth its very own electric vehicle makes for the world market. Two of these are crossovers, the Buick Electra and the Caddilac Lyriq, while Hummer's new EV nicknamed 'crab' will be a pick-up truck. ALSO READ: Tesla Rolls Out Software Update to Let Cars Automatically Hit Drive in Straight Green Lights This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Isaiah Alonzo 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Judge blocks Tennessee law requiring doctors to inform mothers about abortion pill reversal Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A federal judge struck down a Tennessee law requiring abortion providers to inform women who undergo a drug-induced abortion that the process can be reversed to save the baby. On Tuesday, Judge William Campbell sided with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the ACLU, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, all of which filed a lawsuit against the law on Aug. 31, by putting it on hold. The plaintiffs contended that the law violates the First Amendment as well as the 14th Amendments Equal Protection Clause. Campbell, a Trump appointee, ruled that Plaintiffs have demonstrated a strong or substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims that (the law) violates the First Amendment by requiring abortion providers to convey a mandated message that is misleading. In a medical abortion, women are given two drugs: mifepristone (RU-486), and misoprostol. Mifepristone works by blocking the effects of the natural pregnancy hormone progesterone. Misoprostol induces contractions and a miscarriage. The abortion can be reversed after taking mifepristone and before taking misopristol. The law would require abortion providers to post signs in their clinics explaining that women have the option to reverse the abortion before taking the second pill if they change their mind. In addition to the signs, abortionists themselves would also be required to inform mothers that their abortion could be reversed. Failure to comply with the law could lead to a fine or up to six years in prison. In response to the ruling, Samantha Fisher, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Attorney Generals office, explained that the temporary restraining order merely preserves the status quo until the district court can hold a preliminary injunction hearing. That hearing will take place on Oct. 13. Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Utah also have laws requiring abortionists to inform mothers that they have the ability to reverse their medication abortion. Tennessee is one of three states where such a policy has been put on hold by a court ruling. The others are North Dakota and Oklahoma. Sue Turner, director of Physicians for Life, previously told The Christian Post that if a pregnant woman who has taken the first of two abortion pills decides shes made a mistake and wants to keep her baby, she would have a relatively high chance of delivering a healthy baby if she was to undergo the reversal. Turner cited a U.S. study that showed a 64% to 68% success rate of delivering a healthy baby after a woman has been given the natural hormone progesterone thats essential to maintaining a healthy pregnancy. CP previously reported on that study and its results here and here. If the mifepristone is blocking the progesterone we give a pregnant woman more progesterone to rise above that limit, Turner said, then she should get enough progesterone to hold the baby in place. Natural progesterone has been used for decades to stop miscarriages. The doctors will give the mother natural progesterone to stop her from having contractions and help hold the baby in place until she gets closer to her due date. That was why they used it in the first place, Turner explained. Requiring abortionists to inform mothers about the option to try an abortion pill reversal was just one provision of a larger pro-life law that Tennessee passed earlier this year. Another provision of the law banned abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Campbell struck down that provision in July. Tennessee is one of many states that has passed such laws, often referred to as a heartbeat bill. Heartbeat bills in Mississippi, Georgia, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas and North Dakota have also been struck down as unconstitutional. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the alleged rape and murder of a 20-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras district of the state. The order came as Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met the victim's family. The recommendation for CBI probed comes within hours of Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police H C Awasthi meeting the victim's family at her home. Reacting to the announcement, the family members of the victim said they want a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry, reported news agency PTI. "Chief Minister Shri @myogiadityanath ji has ordered the CBI to conduct a probe into the entire Hathras case," his office tweeted on Saturday evening. {mosimage} ALSO READ: Hathras gangrape case: SIT probe finished, media allowed entry to victim's village The victim was allegedly raped and assaulted by four men on September 14. She suffered severe injuries and was taken to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital after her condition deteriorated. She succumbed to her injuries on Tuesday. She was cremated in the dark of night on Wednesday. Her family alleged that local police forced them to conduct her last rites in the middle of the night. Local police officials dismissed the allegations, claiming that the last rites were performed as the family's wishes. On October, Hathras Superintendent of Police, Deputy Superintendent of Police and station inspector were suspended by the UP government over mismanagement of the incident. ALSO READ: Hathras case: Clashes between Valmiki community members, police officers in Agra Meanwhile, outrage and protests over the heinous incident erupted across the nation. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were finally allowed to meet the family members of the victim on Saturday. Media was also allowed entry to the victim's village a day after outsiders were barred from entering by the local administration. Restrictions were lifted a Special Investigation Team completed its probe in the matter. "Only the entry of media has been allowed into the village of the victim as the probe of the SIT has completed," Joint Magistrate Prem Prakash Meena. He also refuted allegations that the administration had confined the victim's family and confiscated their phones. (With agency inputs) ALSO READ: Hathras rape case: UP police deployed at Delhi border ahead of Congress delegation's visit Police set up controls and stopped cars on major roads into and out of Madrid on Saturday as the city went back into lockdown due to surging coronavirus cases. Some 4.8 million people are barred from leaving the capital area, while restaurants and bars must shut early and reduce capacity by half. The new restrictions, which started on Friday evening, are not as strict as the previous lockdown in March, when people were barred from leaving their homes. A local police officer checks a driver's identification in a traffic checkpoint, to control people's movement in Madrid today Spanish policemen stand guard in a roadblock in the Moncloa district of Madrid, Spain today Residents in the Spanish capital of Madrid will be barred from leaving the area under the new coronavirus restrictions imposed by the Government. Pictured: A traveller walks through Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas international airport. However, authorities advised residents not to move around unless absolutely necessary. Travel is banned except for work, school, health or shopping. 'There are fewer people then we're used to, shops are empty, bars are empty, there's a feeling of sadness,' said Valerio Rojo, director of the Circulo de Bellas Artes cultural organisation. 'We had reservations but a lot of people have called to cancel them,' said Macarena Molina, who works in a hostel in central Madrid. 'Today, we had a reservation through Booking and they cancelled just an hour before saying they were not going to travel because of the restrictions.' The latest measures ordered by the Socialist-led central government were reluctantly imposed by the conservative-led Madrid government, which said they would cripple the economy. Health workers from the Madrid Emergency Service (SUMMA) carry out antigen tests for residents in Vallecas, Madrid Police in Madrid stand at check points through the city as the capital enters another lockdown Madrid's bars and restaurants must close at 11pm instead of 1am, while restaurants, gyms and shops must cut capacity by half. Gatherings of more than six people remain banned. Near the Plaza Mayor square, usually packed with tourists on a Saturday lunchtime, waiter Luis stood, menu in hand, trying to drum up business. 'No one is walking past here,' he said. 'I don't know how much longer we are going to keep our jobs.' 'Nothing has changed, it's just like any other day in the neighbourhood,' shrugged Martinio Sanchez on a busy street in Madrid. 'They should have done this in August and maybe we wouldn't be where we are right now,' said this 70-year-old as he walked his dog through the eastern neighbourhood of Ciudad Lineal. A man looks at the arrivals screen at Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas international airport as the city prepares to go into a local lockdown A team of health workers prepare to take swabs from people in Vallecas, Madrid, as the capital records a rising number of coronavirus cases Under the new restrictions, the city's borders closed to non-essential travel and gatherings will be limited to six people. Pictured: People queue for an antigen test in Vallecas, Madrid Some 4.5 million people are affected by the closure, which came into force at 10:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Friday as the region battles the highest rate in the European Union. 'It affects me because because I work outside Madrid and I cannot move around with the freedom I'd like to,' 45-year-old sales manager Alberto Sanchez told AFPTV, saying the regional government should have acted much earlier. 'It could have been different if the Madrid region had done its homework and started hiring contact tracers four months ago and following advice from Europe and the government,' he fumed. But inside the city, little appeared to have changed with life largely carrying on as normal on a brilliant October morning with a sharp autumnal chill in the area. 'Everything's open and you can't see police anywhere. We can move around Madrid but you can't go out to the nearby villages or to the mountains,' says Feliza Sanchez, 78. 'I don't know how this is going to change the situation we have at the moment.' A waiter disinfects a table at a bar terrace in Leganes, Madrid, Spain today Sitting on a bar stool nursing a beer and a slice of Spanish omelette, Jorge Alvarez said the restrictions wouldn't have much impact on his life. 'In principle, nothing will change. I will continue to live a normal life because you can't lock yourself up inside your house and not work,' said Alvarez, a 49-year-old metal worker. 'Who knows if it will stop the virus spreading? But obviously people in the bar and restaurant industry are going to lose a lot of money,' he said. For those in the bar and restaurant sector, who must reduce their indoor seating capacity by half and close by 11.00pm, the new rules are a huge blow, particularly in a country where people tend to socialise late into the night. 'It's going to affect us terribly,' said Baldomero Cubas, 50, who manages the Cerveceria Santa Ana in the city centre. 'With this measure many bars will think about closing, because if we were struggling before, now we can only have 60 percent seating capacity outside and 50 percent inside. And on top of that, with closing by 11, we're looking at a loss rather than breaking even.' And some fear they simply won't survive, such as Jorge Luis Ortega Pina, who owns the Degustando tavern, a tiny but popular bar in Ciudad Lineal with counter seating for barely 15 people. 'I will almost certainly have to close,' the 50-year-old says, standing behind a gleaming counter. He adds that he has done everything possible to try and create distance between customers. 'With these restrictions I will be lucky to bring in 1,500 euros ($1,750) a month and we are a family of four. I've no idea how I'm going to manage.' People, he said, had been brought to their knees by the economic devastation caused by pandemic which had left many people struggling to survive, even with financial help from the government. 'There are going to be riots in the street,' he warned, saying even the charity sector was struggling with the sheer numbers of people in need. 'Caritas is overwhelmed, the Red Cross is overwhelmed, everything is just falling apart,' he said With 850 cases per 100,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, the Madrid area has Europe's worst rate. Spain had 789,932 coronavirus cases as of Friday, up by 11,325 since Thursday, and there have been 32,086 fatalities. Daily deaths are around their highest levels since early May although far below the late March record of nearly 900. New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian has warned the state border with Queensland may not reopen on the promised date of November 1. Her Queensland counterpart Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on Friday she would relax the harsh restrictions and reopen the border to all of NSW residents. Thousands of holidaymakers would be allowed to freely travel into the state ahead of Christmas in a massive boost to the local tourism industry. But Ms Berejiklian said she her momentary excitement lapsed when she learned the November reopen date was still based on a 28-day-free community transmission policy. If there is just one 'unlinked' community transmission case recorded in NSW the border reopening could be pushed back . New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian has warned the state border with Queensland may not reopen on the promised date of November 1 (pictured, cars queued at the Queensland and New South Wales border) 'After having a second of excitement, because somebody had told me at the press conference that the border was coming down on the first of November,' Ms Berejiklian said on Friday.. 'It was then brought to my attention that it's pretty much just a reiteration of the 28-day-free period of community transmission. Their definition hasnt changed.' Ms Palaszczuk has promised to reopen the border as long as NSW goes 28 days without any 'unlinked' cases of community transmission of COVID-19. NSW is currently on its seventh consecutive day of zero community transmissions. But the good run was placed in jeopardy on Friday after a passenger on a Melbourne to Sydney flight tested positive to COVID-19. Thousands of holidaymakers would be allowed to freely travel into the state ahead of Christmas in a massive boost to the local tourism industry (pictured, beachgoers at Byron Bay in New South Wales) Though Ms Berejiklian said she held back her excitement when she learned the November reopen date was based on a 28-day-free community transmission policy (pictured, officers patrol the Queensland and New South Wales border on October 1) The remaining passengers on the Jetstar Flight JQ510 could have been exposed to the virus and most of them are in isolation. Ms Berejiklian has openly criticised the 28-day policy as a 'pretty tall order'. To add insult to injury, the state premier said she only learned of the November reopening date through a press conference. Communication between Ms Berejiklian and Ms Palaszczuk has deteriorated as the two premiers war over the closure of the state border. Ms Berejiklian has constantly insisted Queensland lift its border closure while Ms Palaszczuk has remained firm on her policy to keep it shut. In September, Ms Berejiklian said the pair had completely lost communication with each other and only spoke about the border issue at National Cabinet. Ms Berejiklian now says she has becoming increasingly frustrated with 'hard' border states like Queensland and Western Australia. New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian (pictured) has openly criticised the 28-day policy as a 'pretty tall order' NSW must go 28 days without community transmission of COVID-19 before residents can holiday in the Sunshine State. Pictured: Beachgoers are seen on the Gold Coast in April 'We came off a low base; it's frustrating to me that Western Australia and Queensland keep lumping us in with Victoria. 'What happened in NSW was not what happened in Victoria.' Australia's Deputy Prime Minister has also demanded state leaders open their borders in time for Christmas. Michael McCormack said it's 'not good enough' that Australians still can't travel within the country despite daily coronavirus cases continuing to plummet. 'We want the Premiers of those states who have still got very tight lockdowns to ease those restrictions,' he told Sunrise on Monday. 'People want to travel, particularly as we approach the warmer months where people want to go on holiday and they want to catch-up with their loved ones over Christmas. 'It's not good enough that we've got tight border restrictions that are preventing many people from travelling where they want to be around this great nation.' Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 16:08:15|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close by Xinhua writer Hu Xiaoming NEW DELHI, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Representatives from various Indian organizations called for friendship and peace between China and India in a recent virtual meeting with Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong. "People need friendship and peace, not war, so it is the duty of each and every friend to work hard to strengthen people-to-people friendship between India and China," said V Bhaskran, general secretary of the Karnataka India-China Friendship Association (ICFA). "People may change, rulers may change, but the friendship shall never change," Bhaskran said at the video conference. "It will grow from strength to strength." On the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Indian representatives from various organizations expressed their congratulations and good wishes, and extended their appreciation for China's achievements in various fields and its successful fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. This annual event is rare since the Chinese National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival are celebrated on the same day, Oct. 1, this year, said Das Bikash Kali, general secretary of the Pondicherry ICFA. "India and China are both ancient civilizations and there have been cultural exchanges for more than 2,000 years," Das said, adding that cultural and educational exchanges between India and China have been carried out at various levels through different channels and with a rich content. Inderjit Singh, director of the Dr. Kotnis Acupuncture Health and Education Center, said it is well known that India and China are Asian neighbors sharing a long and similar history in the fields of medicine and culture. Singh, also a doctor who has been practicing acupuncture for the past 45 years, said acupuncture is a key component of traditional Chinese medicine acting as a bridge of friendship serving mankind. "There should be more and more people-to-people exchanges for the sake of medical knowledge, cultural exchanges and values and opening-up of joint research centers," he said. The Indian representatives recalled the historical exchanges between the two great civilizations, and hoped India and China could continue to promote people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and enhance mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. They expressed the hope that bilateral relations will be brought back to the right track of healthy and sound development, and that India and China can join forces to realize the so-called Asian Century. Praising the role of friends from the ICFA in promoting friendship between the two countries, Sun said as China-India relations are facing challenges, it is all the more important for people of the two countries who support and care about the China-India friendship to play a positive and bigger role in cementing public opinion and accumulating consensus on bilateral relations. Sun noted that this year, people-to-people exchanges have been affected by the pandemic and other factors. However, the history of friendly exchanges between the two peoples lasting more than two thousand years will endure despite the pandemic or temporary difficulties in bilateral relations. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and India. "Over the past 70 years, China-India relations have forged ahead against all odds," the Chinese ambassador said. "China-India relations go far beyond the bilateral scope and have great regional and global significance." Sun stressed that over the years, no matter how bilateral relations have changed, ICFA has always adhered to faith in the China-India friendship, spread the positive energy of friendship to the Indian society and people, and made significant contributions to enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. Quoting a Chinese saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, the ambassador said promoting the China-India friendship needs to start small and also needs the participation of more people of insight. Enditem Sign of the times amid the pandemic and, for once, some interesting content behind a local paywall as an influential city hall operator seems to realize that the future of municipal influence involves public health work. More info here for subscribes . . . She's endured a few heavy years after revealing a difficult multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2019. But Selma Blair looked to be in great spirits as she stepped out in Los Angeles on Saturday morning. The 48-year-old actress rocked a funky floral blouse with denim shorts while out and about in the San Fernando Valley. Out and about: Selma Blair looked to be in great spirits as she stepped out in Los Angeles on Saturday morning Selma's lavender hued shirt featured a host of colorful flowers, which she tucked into a pair of jean shorts. The Cruel Intentions star added even more style to the casual ensemble with a pair of red velvet slippers. She made sure to protect herself and others from the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic with a hot pink face mask. Looking great! The 48-year-old actress rocked a funky floral blouse with denim shorts while out and about in the San Fernando Valley Selma has shared her battle with MS for years, highlighting both the ups and the downs. The actress underwent chemotherapy and stem cell transplants during her journey to regain her health even though she was warned to 'make plans for death.' Earlier this week, with the temperatures scorching once again in LA, Selma jumped into her pool to cool off. She donned a wet T-shirt with 'For better days' across the front over a bikini top and nude-colored bottoms. Swimmer: Earlier this week, with the temperatures scorching once again in LA, Selma jumped into her pool to cool off 'For BETTER days ahead! for all ... I was trying a classic pool exit but my kid kept laughing,' she captioned the snap. 'So we jumped in again!' 'For BETTER days ahead! for all ... I was trying a classic pool exit but my kid kept laughing,' she captioned the snap. 'So we jumped in again!' Blair reignited her romance with Ron Carlson in January 2020 after the couple dated in 2017; she previously dated David Lyons. The Legally Blonde actress shares her nine-year-old son Arthur with ex-partner and fashion designer, Jason Bleick. B oris Johnson has said he is "pretty optimistic" about the prospects of striking a trade deal with the European Union. The Prime Minister is due to take stock of the negotiations in a conference call with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday following the final scheduled round of talks between Brussels and the UK. Ms von der Leyens remarks that talks need to intensify have sparked speculation that an agreement could be reached before Mr Johnsons deadline of the EU Council meeting on October 15. According to Financial Times, both sides are set to agree to further last-ditch discussions dubbed the tunnel in London as they look to finalise an agreement. In an interview with the Telegraph, Mr Johnson said the chances of a deal are very good if everybody just exercises some common sense and looks at the deal that is there to be done. Boris Johnson wearing a face mask leaves Downing Street / Getty Images He added: The UK has always been very clear what we want we want a Canada-style relationship. We have been members for 45 years, and I dont see why they cant have the same deal with us, so Im pretty optimistic. But, in a pointed warning to Brussels, he kept his threat of leaving without a trade deal on the table, arguing that Britain would be fine under an Australian agreement with the EU a Downing Street code term for a no-deal arrangement. Asked about the prospect of failing to do a deal, Mr Johnson, reportedly adopting an Australian accent, replied: Australia holds no terrors for us, mate. We say: Good on yer, no worries, no wukkas. Speaking at a news conference in the Belgian capital on Friday, Mrs von der Leyen said she believed a deal was still possible but warned that time was running out. She said the most difficult issues including fisheries and state aid rules still had to be resolved if they were to get an agreement in place by the end of the Brexit transition period at the end of the year. It is good to have a deal but not at any price, she said. We have made progress on many, many different fields but of course the most difficult ones are still completely open. But overall, where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations because it is worth working hard on it. We are running out of time around 100 days to the end of the year so it is worth stepping up now. Downing Street made clear Mr Johnson still believed there needed to be a deal by the time of the next EU summit in two weeks time on October 15, otherwise it will be too late to implement before the transition ends. The UKs chief negotiator Lord Frost was less upbeat than the Prime Minister about the level of progress made so far. In a statement issued after his meeting with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Friday, he said that while the outlines of an agreement were visible, there were still familiar differences to be overcome. Lord Frost added that there had been some limited progress on state aid while the gap over fisheries was unfortunately very large and may prove impossible to bridge. I am concerned that there is very little time now to resolve these issues ahead of the European Council on October 15, he said. Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, who briefed other EU leaders with Mrs von der Leyen on the state of the negotiations, said it was highly unlikely there would be an agreement by October Council meeting, although there would need to be significant progress in the coming weeks. Additional reporting by Press Association. Biden tests negative Speaking at a campaign stop in Michigan on Friday, Biden, who wore a mask during the entire speech, said he had tested negative for COVID-19 twice before the event. He added that a second campaign-related stop that day had been canceled due to crowd size estimates and the event being held indoors. Biden has a 6-point edge over Trump in Wisconsin, according to an aggregation of polls by FiveThirtyEight.com. His campaign recently resumed knocking on doors after eschewing the practice because of the pandemic. State Democratic Party officials did not respond to requests for comment Friday about how Trumps diagnosis will affect campaigning going forward. Republican strategist Brandon Scholz said the lack of rallies means the Trump campaign will need to quickly think about the assets it will deploy in the final stretch of the campaign, such as sending out campaign surrogates or beefing up paid advertising. Time is of the essence, particularly as more than 430,000 of about 3.6 million registered Wisconsin voters have already returned their ballots. The mother of the 19-year-old woman raped and murdered in Hathras says she cant get two images out of her head -- one is her desperate attempt to cover her injured daughters naked lower body with her saree, and the other of being unable to lift her semi-conscious teenage daughter. Until then, I didnt even know the word, rape (in English). Today, I am having to prove that my daughter was raped, the mother told Hindustan Times at her home after the Uttar Pradesh Police allowed the media to visit Bul Garhi village on Saturday. At around 7.45am on September 14 , the mother, along with her daughter and son, set out, sickles in their hands, to find fodder for their five buffaloes. In an hour, we cut a lot of grass and I sent back my son with one heap..., she said. WATCH | UP DGP meets Hathras victims family, no comments over cremation controversy Also Read | Hathras gangrape: Community being targeted, say kin of accused It was around 9am that she suddenly realised that her daughter wasnt responding to her calls. For a while, she believed that her daughter had returned home, but then she found one of her slippers by the side of the road. That meant she was around, but something was wrong, I couldnt spot her other chappal, she recounted. Moments later, she was wading into the maize fields. I found the fields trampled and sensed that my daughter was in the fields. After about 20 metres she spotted her daughter, her chunni around her neck. She was almost unconscious. Her lower clothes were thrown aside and she was bleeding from her private parts..., the mother said, adding that her daughter was also bleeding from her chin and tongue, and her eyes were bloodshot. The mother let out a shriek, drawing a young Thakur boy into the fields. My first instinct was to cover her lower body with my saree, but I couldnt. The Thakur boy ran into the village to call her brother for help even as the mother put on the pyjama on the victim and tried to carry her to the village. I just couldnt lift her, I cried helplessly. Soon, her brother arrived at the scene and the mother-son duo sandwiched the victim between them on a motorcycle and took her to the local police station, about two kilometers away. At the police station, the woman was made to lie down on a cement slab as her brother was asked to submit a written complaint. My mother was with my sister and I wrote whatever I knew. My mother didnt have the heart to tell me that my sister was raped, said the victims brother. The local police, meanwhile, realised that the victim was in a bad condition and urged the family to rush her to the district hospital. About four hours later, the victim was in an ambulance to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in Aligarh. By that time, the Hathras police had registered a case of attempt to murder and named Sandeep as the suspect. According to the victims family, on September 17, the woman regained consciousness and mentioned the gang rape and the names of the other suspects. When I was alone, she hesitatingly told me about four men raping her, the mother claimed. The victims two brothers said that the same day, they submitted a written complaint at the office of the Hathras superintendent of police. But we got no receipt, her brother said; the family couldnt produce a copy of that complaint. This claim by the family contradicts the police version that no mention of rape or gang rape was made until September 22. The family alleged that after they filed the rape complaint on September 17, police officers met the victim to seek her statement. In any case, the victims allegations of gang rape were officially recorded only on September 22 in front of a magistrate and her medical examination for rape conducted after that -- a delay that could prove crucial. HT couldnt reach the Superintendent of Police and Uttar Pradeshs director general of police for their response. When Brahm Singh, the circle officer, was contacted, he said he wasnt aware of any such complaint. I was posted here after the crime took place. The victim succumbed to her injuries in Safdarjung Hospital on September 29, two days after she was moved there from the Aligarh hospital. The body was brought back to her village in Hathras the same night even as her family returned separately after a brief protest in Delhi. The police agreed that we would get to cremate her at 6am, but suddenly they went ahead and cremated her at 2.30am itself, said her brother. The family then locked themselves inside their house in the hope that the absence of any relative would dissuade the police from cremating her. But that was not to be. Prem Prakash Meena, the joint magistrate of Hathras, said that the cremation was done in the presence of the victims family. There is video evidence to show that her grandfather and uncle were among half-dozen of her relatives who attended the cremation, said Meena. The victims family contested that claim. My grandfather passed away in 2006, said the victims brother. The family alleged that the days following the death were traumatic as they were insulted and threatened by the authorities even as the police occupied their house and abused them for leaking videos to media. Speaking to the media later on Saturday, Awanish K Awasthi, additional chief secretary, said that the SIT will work to ensure strict action against the culprits. The concerns you are raising were raised by the family as well. The SIT will look into each of those points, Awasthi told journalists. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON As New Hampshire leaders of both political parties sent their best wishes to President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump after they tested positive for COVID-19, the presidents close friend and adviser said the challenge will make a Trump victory on Nov. 3 "that much sweeter." Corey Lewandowski, the presidents senior campaign adviser and former campaign manager, told sister station WMUR-TV in a Friday morning interview that he was with Trump on Wednesday in Minnesota. He said that he had tested negative for COVID-19 before being with the president on the trip. After Lewandowski spoke, he planned to have another test to confirm those findings. See the full interview: Lewandowski talks about his friend, President Trump Lewandowski said he had planned to be on Air Force One on Friday flying to Florida and then on to Wisconsin for rallies. Lewandowski said that when he last saw Trump on Wednesday, There was no indication at all that he was ill. Also on the trip was close Trump adviser Hope Hicks, whose positive test for COVID-19 was announced on Thursday night shortly before the announcement about the president and first ladys positive test results. As of Wednesday, I cant speak directly to how Hope Hicks was feeling but the president was in great spirits, Lewandowski said. "This president is going to continue to fight for the American people," Lewandowski said, "and just because he is inside the White House does not mean hes going to stop working and I think I speak for everyone around the country in wishing him and the first lady a speedy recovery. "This shows that nobody nobody is immune to this virus. We know a lot more about the virus today than we did in March. But even with all the protocols that are put in place in the White House, which is that everyone is tested before meeting with the president, anything can happen." He said he did not know how Trump and the first lady contracted the virus. Hicks, he said, "is a close adviser to the president and has been a friend to the president and the family for a long time. I dont know if she is the direct cause of how he contracted this. "Its speculation that she is the cause. But we dont know the answer yet, and everybody who has been in close proximity with him is getting tested and retested. "She admitted to feeling sick and having signs late Wednesday as she headed to the rally. They quarantined her on the way back from Minnesota. This is a president who loves to go out and campaign and loves to be with people and see them, Lewandowski said. But this means that for the next two weeks, he will isolate, Lewandowski said. He will do his job from the White House, where he has all the communications tools to run the government and has the best physicians in the world treating him and the First Lady. And then after all the appropriate measures are taken, he will beat Joe Biden. "This is just one more fight," Lewandowski said. "Weve been fighting for four years. This is another fight put in front of us to make victory that much sweeter." President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center by helicopter, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Trump Fever-Free, in Good Spirits at Walter Reed, Doctors Say President Donald Trump has been fever-free around 24 hours and is in good spirits as he battles COVID-19, doctors said on Saturday. This morning, the president is doing very well, Dr. Sean Conley, the presidents physician, said at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland on Saturday. The team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made. Trump had a mild cough, nasal congestion, and fatigue, but all the symptoms are resolving and improving, Conley told reporters at a press conference. Dr. Sean Dooley, a Walter Reed pulmonologist, said Trump is receiving multidisciplinary care. We are monitoring him very closely for any evidence of complications from either the coronavirus illness or the therapies that we are prescribing to make him better, Dooley said. Dooley said Trump is in exceptionally good spirits and told doctors, I feel like I could walk out of here today. The big plan for today since hes in such great spirits and doing well is to encourage him to eat, to drink, to stay hydrated, to be up out of bed, and to be working and doing the things that he needs to do to get well, added Brian Garibald, another Walter Reed doctor. Trump, 74, tested positive on Oct. 1, along with First Lady Melania Trump, 50, following a positive COVID-19 diagnosis of White House aide Hope Hicks, 31. Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, talks to the media about President Donald Trumps health after the president was hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 3, 2020. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo) Walter Reed, the nations largest joint military medical center, is about 15 miles northwest of the White House. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. Trump has been given a dose of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail, at least one dose of Remdesivir, and zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and aspirin. Polyclonal antibodies are a collection of antibodies produced by different B cells. Antibodies help protect the human body against foreign substances. New York-based Regeneron said this week that initial data from a clinical trial showed the cocktail reduced viral load and the time to alleviate symptoms in non-hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Zinc has shown success in COVID-19 treatment, particularly when combined with the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, an antibiotic. People deficient in vitamin D should take it to protect against the new virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said last month, a recommendation backed by doctors and studies. Rubber stoppers are placed onto filled vials of the investigational drug remdesivir at a Gilead manufacturing site in March 2020. (Gilead Sciences via AP) White House physician Sean Conley (at podium) gives an update on the condition of President Donald Trump, outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 3, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) Famotidine is a heartburn medicine. Melatonin is used to regulate sleep cycles. Aspirin is a blood thinner and anti-inflammatory. Prior to Saturdays update, Conley had written three memos regarding the health of the president and the first lady. Conley said Oct. 1 that the couple had tested positive for COVID-19. They are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence, he wrote in the first memo. In an update the next day, the doctor disclosed the treatments Trump had been receiving. He said Trump was given a dose of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail. Trump remains fatigued but in good spirits, the doctor said, adding that the rest of Trumps family had tested negative for COVID-19. Conley said later Friday that he recommended moving the president to Walter Reed for further monitoring. The doctor said Trump was doing very well and did not need supplemental oxygen but was given a dose of Remdesivir, an antiviral made by California-based Gilead Sciences. President Donald Trump supporter Richard Potcner, drinks a coffee at the main gate of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, early Oct. 3, 2020. (Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo) President Donald Trump leaves the White House for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Oct. 2, 2020. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have both tested positive for the CCP virus. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Trump said in a video recorded in the White House, I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out. He thanked supporters for thinking of him. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was working throughout Friday. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days, she said in a statement. Trump has spoken over the phone with a number of people since being diagnosed, including Republican congressional leaders. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said late Friday that he had spoken with Trump. He was upbeat and told me that he appreciates all the prayers and support from everyone, McCarthy said in a tweet. Our president is strong and will beat the virus! The White House on early Oct. 3, 2020. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo) A number of top Republicans have tested positive since Trumps diagnosis, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). The first lady remains at the White House, where she is resting. The White House said she has mild symptoms. Symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, aches, and chills. While COVID-19 can kill, the vast majority of patients recover, according to federal health data. A significant percentage show no or mild symptoms. Others require care in hospitals. Employers will be given more than $1 billion in new subsidies to take on 100,000 apprentices in a federal budget plan to prevent an "explosion" in the number of young people with no work or skills. The sweeping budget measure aims to fix a growing crisis as companies go broke or cut staff, putting thousands of apprentices out of work and creating a future skill shortage. Jayden Fleischer is a fourth year carpentry apprentice who has lost jobs during COVID lockdown but has found another one to continue his apprenticeship. Credit:Peter Rae The wage subsidy will be worth 50 per cent of salaries for new apprentices, in a bid to support 100,000 younger workers, and is worth at least $1 billion. But the new spending may not be enough to make up for a fall in total investment in vocational education and training since the Coalition came to power in 2013. By Michael Nienaber BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany expects the European Union to impose new sanctions against Russia over the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny with an internationally banned nerve agent, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Saturday. Navalny emerged from a coma in early September after suddenly falling ill during a flight in Siberia on Aug. 20 and later being airlifted to Berlin for treatment. German doctors say he was poisoned with Novichok, a Russian nerve agent. Germany, France and other Western countries have demanded an explanation from the Kremlin for Navalny's illness. Russia says it has seen no firm evidence he was poisoned and denies involvement in any attack on him. "I am convinced that there will be no longer any way around sanctions," Maas told news portal t-online in an interview. "Sanctions must always be targeted and proportionate. But such a grave violation of the International Chemical Weapons Convention cannot be left unanswered. On this, we're united in Europe," Maas added. Germany currently holds the rotating presidency of the 27-member bloc. EU leaders will discuss their reaction and possible sanctions against Russia at their next summit on Oct. 15-16. "If the result of the German, Swedish and French laboratories is confirmed, there will be a clear response from the EU. I'm sure about that," Maas said. Germany has sent samples taken from the Russian opposition politician to the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague for additional tests in their labs. Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday the German Foreign Ministry had sent its embassy in Berlin a refusal in response to an embassy request to have access to Navalny. It also called on those who inspire a "campaign of demonizing Russia" to stop. A German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman pointed to earlier remarks from a ministry spokeswoman, saying Berlin had forwarded the Russian request for consular access to Navalny and that they had informed the Russian Embassy about this step on Sept 23. Story continues But it was up to Navalny himself whether he wanted to be visited by Russian officials or not, the spokeswoman added. The Navalny case has worsened relations between Moscow and a number of Western countries. Germany has faced calls to halt the nearly-completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is meant to bring more Russian gas directly to Germany. Asked if European sanctions against Russia should include Nord Stream 2, Maas said there were more than 100 European companies involved in the project, half of them in Germany. "So many European workers would suffer from a construction freeze," Maas said. Nord Stream 2 is led by Russia's state gas giant Gazprom, with half of the funding provided by Germany's Uniper and BASF's Wintershall unit, Anglo-Dutch company Shell, Austria's OMV and France's Engie. (Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Editing by Louise Heavens and Frances Kerry) According to party spokesperson Anshu Awasthi, police personnel have been stationed outside Ajay Kumar Lallu's house and he is not being allowed to venture outside Lucknow: UPCC president Ajay Kumar Lallu has been put under house arrest in Lucknow ahead of the scheduled visit of senior leader Rahul Gandhi to Hathras on Saturday, the party said. According to party spokesperson Anshu Awasthi, police personnel have been stationed outside Lallu's house and he is not being allowed to venture outside. The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Ajay Kumar Lallu has been placed under house arrest at his residence in the state capital, Awasthi said. The step has been taken to prevent Lallu from joining Rahul Gandhi who is scheduled to visit Hathras, he added. By doing so, the state government is only exposing itself. It has removed all doubts from people's minds that it has resorted to gundagardi and is blatantly standing with the criminals of Hathras, he said. A tweet by Uttar Pradesh Congress said, "Our state president Shri Ajay Kumar Lalluji, our district heads and more than 500 workers have been placed under house arrest. Yogiji don''t stop those who fight for justice." Click here to read the full article on SPIN. The cast of Dazed and Confused is the latest to reunite for a good cause. On Oct. 11, Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, Jason London, Joey Lauren Adams, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Rory Cochrane, Marissa Ribisi, Cole Hauser, Deena Martin, Esteban Powell, Christine Harnos, Wiley Wiggins, Michelle Burke, Mark Vandermeulen, Sasha Jenson, Jeremy Fox, Christin Hinojosa, Catherine Morris and Nicky Katt will all come together virtually for a table reading of the 1993 stoner flick. Patton Oswalt will moderate a Q&A following the reading. The event will be part of the get-out-the-vote initiatives in Texas and plans to raise money for the Voto Latino Foundation and March for Science. The historically red state wont allow voters to use COVID-19 as a reason to vote by mail. With a pandemic raging during an election year, this country should be investing in every possible measure to keep voters safe, Voto Latino managing director Danny Friedman said in a statement. No one should be forced to choose between their health and their vote. Unfortunately, the state of Texas does not allow COVID-19 to be used as a reason for mail-in voting. Voto Latino Foundation has registered 215,964 voters in Texas, and each one of them will be making their voices heard in November, despite the states intransigence. Now more than ever, we need science-informed policies and practices to protect the public and defend our democracy, March for Science president Matt Tranchin added. As a Texan who is not allowed to vote by mail during a pandemic because of our states short-sighted election laws, its a powerful reminder that we need elected representatives who will embrace science and listen to public health officials. Earlier this week, it was announced that This Is Spinal Taps cast would be virtually reuniting on Oct. 14 for a fundraiser to benefit Democrats in Pennsylvania. That event will also be hosted by Oswalt. To see our running list of the top 100 greatest guitarists of all time, click here. After meeting the family members of the Hathras gang-rape victim on Saturday evening, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the state government must protect the grieving family. I stand with the family. It is the responsibility of the state government to ensure their safety, the Congress leader said after the meeting that continued for over 30 minutes. The family needs protection, said Priyanka Gandhi, who had a one-on-one chat with the victims mother when the Gandhis were inside the house of the victim. The family couldnt see their daughter for the one last time. UP CM Yogi Adityanath should understand his responsibility. Till the time justice is delivered, well continue this fight, Priyanka said. Also Read: Will continue to fight till justice is served: Priyanka Gandhi after meeting Hathras gang-rape victims family Following a series of dramatic incidents, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reached Hathras on Saturday evening at around 7pm. Security was beefed up around the residence of the gang-rape victim who died in Delhis Safdarjung Hospital on September 29, after being alleged gang-raped by four upper caste men. This was their second attempt to meet the family members, the first one being thwarted by Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday, on the pretext of Section 144. On Saturday noon, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi started for Hathras by road. At least 35 other Congress leaders, including some MPs, were also on their way to Hathras. The Congress cavalcade met a heavy deployment of security personnel on Delhi-Noida border where it was decided that Rahul, Priyanka and a few Congress leaders will be allowed to enter Uttar Pradesh. Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury accompanied the Gandhis. The Gandhis visit to Hathras comes a day after a Trinamool delegation was stopped by the Uttar Pradesh police, drawing flak from even veteran BJP leader Uma Bharti. The BJP leader from AIIMS Hrishikesh where she is admitted for Covid-19 treatment tweeted, urging Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to allow opposition leaders in Hathras as UP police conduct was earning bad name for the BJP government and UP government as well. On Friday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the suspension of Hathras superintendent of police Vikrant Vir and three other police officers for their handling of the case.The government also decided that narco-analysis polygraph tests would be conducted on everyone involved in the case, including the victims family. Executive Associate (Human Resources), Kathmandu, Nepal Organization: World Health Organization (WHO) Country: Nepal City: Kathmandu, Nepal Office: WHO Country Office in Nepal Grade: G-7 Closing date: Monday, 12 October 2020 Executive Associate (Human Resources) ( 2003717 ) Grade : G7 Contractual Arrangement : Fixed-term appointment Contract Duration (Years, Months, Days) : Two years Job Posting: Sep 28, 2020, 6:30:48 AM The objective of the WHO Nepal Country Office is to implement the Country Cooperation Strategy by supporting the Nepal Government in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of national health policies, strategies and plans and developing and managing WHOs technical cooperation programmes at the country level. WHO provides guidance and technical support in organizing the humanitarian health response and in revitalizing the capacity of the health sector to rebuild and recover from emergencies in appropriate and sustainable ways. The Country Office develops collaboration with the Government of Nepal and relevant stakeholders in support of their efforts of achieving national health goals; of ensuring the attainment of universal health coverage and of contributing to global and regional public health action by providing need-based technical assistance in national level policy formulation, setting norms and standards, improving knowledge dissemination and management, monitoring country health situation and building sustainable institutional capacity, to play a greater leadership role in different national level policy and technical forums. Within this framework, the immediate Unit, Administrations objective is to facilitate programme delivery by providing timely managerial and administrative services to programme delivery collaborators, staff and consultants in all aspects of administrative and financial operations including budget and finance, human resources, fellowships, procurement, travel, ticketing and transportation, logistics, building management, safety and security of staff, information technology including GSM operations, telecommunications and Protocol. Furthermore, to provide accurate guidance, information and practices which lead to full compliance and accountability with the Organizations established rules and regulations.This specific position will co-ordinate and deliver a full range of HR support services for the entire HR operations of personnel administration and recruitment offline and online in GSM in response to the HR requirements of WHO collaborative programmes and country office operation and to exercise internal quality control to ensure HR policies and procedures of the Organization. DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES Under the overall guidance of the WHO Representative (WR) and direct supervision of the Administrative Officer (AO), the incumbent as HR Focal Point will provide HR functional support offline and online to the WHO Country Office for Nepal by performing the following duties: Be the primary focal point responsible for all Human Resource matters offline and online, including daily correspondences at the country level, SEARO & GSC, Leave and PMDS administrators, processing entitlements of both active staff and retired staff, coordinating with staff for making arrangement of entry/exit, periodic examinations and separation from services. Be the primary focal point responsible for the whole process of staff recruitments and contract extensions offline and online in line with the relevant HR policy and procedures. Assist the Selection Committee for the recruitment process of FT/TA/SSA/Consultant in arranging the Committee Meetings, written tests and interviews, preparing and compiling selection documentations. To act as key person for verifying completeness and accuracy of personal documents submitted by selected candidates. Advise Hiring Units for raising IPOs for recruitment of SSA/Consultants, including providing the Hiring Units with operational advice, screening proposals for accuracy and completeness, preparing submission documents for obtaining offline approval at SEARO and follow up if necessary. Be responsible for internal HR quality control by performing compliance check on policies and procedures of the Organization for recruiting staff, retired staff, SSAs, and Consultants, ePMDS, leaves, overtime and medical/hospitalization entitlements. Assist AO/WR in handling staff grievances & conflict according to WHO policies. Liaise with staff members, SSA holders, supervisors, Head of Hiring Units and other Units relating to HR matters. Liaise with HRM/SEARO and GSC as well as with UN system at the country. Preparation and monitoring of HR Workplan and Salary Workplan, periodically reviews the HR/Salary Plan as well as on-going contracts of staff, take timely action for new recruitments, contract extension/termination, in close coordination with HRM/SEARO and GSC. Follow-up with the Government/national authorities for government concurrence for International Professional Officers/International Consultants. Be the primary focal point responsible for the WHO Internship Programme, processing WHO Internship request including providing the Programme Units with operational advice for accuracy and completeness of documents. To maintain confidentiality and safekeeping of personnel files for all categories of staff and non-staff. Ensure confidentiality of selection related documentation when under process as well as recruitment decisions. Coordinate with Staff Development Learning Committee (SDL) to arrange Career and Staff development prograrmme as well as learning/training activity for the staff. 15. Take actions to assist staff/dependents in medical emergencies/hospitalization through SHI/SEARO. 16. Assist Administrative Officer (AO) in compilation of Risk Register Table and Internal Control Self-Assessment Check list for country office. 17. Represent WHO to the UN LSSC (Local Salary Survey Committee), UN HR Task Force (housing survey, place to place survey etc.), UN Cares, UNLPE examinations, UN Examining Physicians, UN Traineeship Programme. 18. Represent WHO to the Operation Management Team (OMT) and other Ad-hoc meetings in absence of Administrative Officer (AO). 19. Performs other duties as assigned by the supervisor. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS Education Essential: Completion of secondary school education. Desirable: Training certificates and/or courses in personnel administration and recruitment. University degree would be an asset. Experience Tags computer applications housing human resource management human resources information technology internship logistics physician procurement quality control safety and security separation from service support services technical cooperation universal health coverage Essential: At least 10 years progressively responsible experience in human resource management work. Desirable: Relevant working experience with WHO and/or other UN agencies would be an asset. Skills 1. Thorough knowledge of WHO HR Rules, Regulations and procedures and GSM usage in HR Modules.2. Good knowledge of computer applications and software including MS Office applications (specifically excel, word and ppt.).3. Ability to draft reports/correspondence concisely and clearly, etc.4. Ability to maintain good working relationships. WHO Competencies Teamwork Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences Communication Producing results Use of Language Skills Essential: Expert knowledge of English. Expert knowledge of Nepalese. Desirable: The above language requirements are interchangeable. REMUNERATION WHO offers staff in the General Services category an attractive remuneration package, which for the above position includes an annual net base salary starting at NPR 1,709,119 (subject to mandatory deductions for pension contributions and health insurance, as applicable) and 30 days of annual leave. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION This vacancy notice may be used to fill other similar positions at the same grade level Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted. A written test may be used as a form of screening. In the event that your candidature is retained for an interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review. Any appointment/extension of appointment is subject to WHO Staff Regulations, Staff Rules and Manual. Staff members in other duty stations are encouraged to apply. For information on WHOs operations please visit: http://www.who.int. WHO is committed to workforce diversity. WHOs workforce adheres to the WHO Values Charter and is committed to put the WHO Values into practice. WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco. This post is subject to local recruitment and will be filled by persons recruited in the local commuting area of the duty station. - Yasmeen seemed excited as she urged her fans to grab their copies of the True Love Magazine October issue - Just recently, Yasmeen was unveiled as Indomie Kenya's official Brand Ambassador - Her fans were impressed by her feature on True Love Magazine and duly congratulated her PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB When God decided to bless his people no one can block that, and this has been evident in the lives of many people who rose from grass to grace. Maria actress Yasmeen Said was excited to land on the page of a popular Magazine. Photo: UGC Source: UGC This, celebrated Maria actress Yasmeen Said knows perfectly well after experiencing it first hand. Before her big break on TV, Yasmeen was just your ordinary girl trying to chase her dream. However, the gods smiled on her when she landed her role on the popular Maria show as she became an instant celebrity. From garnering millions of fans in a short span of time to bagging countless endorsement deals, Yasmeen has indeed outdone herself, for a person of her age. The riveting actress has given her fans yet another reason to be happy for her after making to the cover of the popular True Love Magazine. TUKO.co.ke has learnt True Love Magazine featured the young actress on the October issue which has already hit the market. Not only did the magazine feature her story inside, but also plastered her adorable photo on the cover. The cover photo had Yasmeen looking all glamorous in an Orange dress and nicely done curled hair, which made her radiate with a charming feel. Yasmeen celebrated her feature by inviting her followers to grab their copies for a chance to know more of her. ''October Get your copy of True Love EA October issue and know your girl more,'' she wrote. Clearly, her latest achievement impressed many of her fans and Kenyans in general who camped on the comments section of her post to congratulate and wish her a glittering future. Many urged the sky is not the limit for her but just the beginning of her long journey to massive success. The feature came barely a month after she landed her first her biggest endorsement deal. TUKO.co.ke understands the actress was recently unveiled as the Brand Ambassador for Indomie Kenya, a feat she celebrated on social media with her fans. PAY ATTENTION: Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme - https://www.patreon.com/tuko Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly. I have infected multiple men with HIV, my entire family hates me -Kiki wa Nge'ndo | Tuko TV Source: TUKO.co.ke Andrew Weissmann. Jeff Mitchell/Reuters Insider held a wide-ranging interview with the former special counsel Robert Mueller's lead prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, following the release of his book, "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation." Weissmann discussed the most challenging aspects of working for Mueller; how prosecuting Enron executives and New York mobsters made him uniquely qualified to investigate Donald Trump; and whether Russia was successful in its efforts to destabilize US democracy. Weissmann said Russia's election interference in 2016 was "arguably much worse" than the attack on Pearl Harbor, and that he had "grave" concerns about the politicization of intelligence under Trump. He also skewered Attorney General William Barr over his decisions related to the president and his allies, saying it was dispiriting to see whats happened at the Justice Department under his leadership. Scroll down to read the full interview. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Andrew Weissmann, who served as the special counsel Robert Mueller's right-hand man during the FBI's Russia investigation, released a book this week titled, "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation." The memoir offers the most detailed window yet into the inner workings of Mueller's team as it conducted an unprecedented investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and whether the sitting president's campaign conspired with a foreign power to tilt the race in his favor. Weissmann had a reputation as a no-holds-barred prosecutor even before joining Mueller's office and was once described as the special counsel's "legal pit bull" because of his scorched-earth tactics. He rose to prominence in the 1990s as an assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of New York. In 1992, he successfully convinced Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the underboss of the Gambino crime family, to flip and testify against his boss and the US's most powerful mobster, John Gotti. Several years later, Weissmann's team pulled Gravano out of witness protection and convinced him to flip again and testify against Gotti's rival, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, the head of the Genovese crime family. Story continues Weissmann again made headlines in the early 2000s as the head of the FBI's Enron Task Force, which was formed while Mueller was FBI director. The team, under Weissmann's leadership, employed many of the same tactics he'd used to fight organized crime, which included getting lower-level employees to flip against bigger fish. The investigation was the most complex white-collar criminal probe in FBI history and resulted in the convictions of 22 people, including Enron's CEO, COO, CFO, and others. Insider conducted a wide-ranging interview with Weissmann about the most challenging aspects of his job; how tackling financial fraud and organized crime made him uniquely qualified to delve into the Trump-Russia controversy; whether Russia was ultimately successful in its efforts to destabilize American democracy, and more. Read the interview below, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity. You documented a slew of factors, both external and internal, that you said hampered your work. What was the most challenging aspect of the job for you? There are two things that were really challenging, because they were things that neither I, nor anyone else, had ever experienced in conducting a criminal investigation: the president had the power to fire us, and the president had the power to pardon people. One of the most dramatic moments in the book and in real life was bringing the case against [former deputy Trump campaign chairman] Rick Gates and the process of getting his cooperation. We realized there was a huge tug-of-war, where people were whispering in his ear, "Even though there's a strong case against you, on the other hand, you may get pardoned." And normally, you don't have that kind of challenge. That was the last time we really won that battle in terms of convincing somebody to cooperate in spite of the pardons being dangled. Another challenge was the president's ability to fire us, and how that affected a decision early on about whether we were going to do a full financial investigation of the president and ties he might have to Russia. It's useful for people to think about the trade-off which I agreed with that special counsel Mueller had to make early on: do you go forward with that type of investigation at the risk of being fired? Instead, Team R, the Russia team that [Mueller prosecutor] Jeannie Rhee led, had these two incredible indictments that proved what Russia was doing by trying to interfere in the election and supporting Trump. And our team, Team M, shared that [former Trump campaign chairman] Paul Manafort was giving internal Trump campaign polling data to a Russian operative. And that's because of a trade-off we made in terms of risking getting fired. But we needed to revisit that decision as the investigation went forward. At some point, it was necessary if it was up to me, which it wasn't to do a financial investigation, even though we could have been fired. Because at some point, you just have to say, if we're fired, we're fired. The decision not to conduct a financial investigation was especially surprising because you write in your book that Mueller voiced a suspicion, after Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, that Trump had financial interests linked to Russia. When you think about why people do things, money can be a motivator. That seemed like a logical thing to explore. And if we were not going to look at it, our report should have been clearer as to what we did and did not look at. One of the things we had to deal with going back to your first question about what challenges we faced was that once we handed in our report, the attorney general severely mischaracterized it. He was able to give the impression that we, for 22 months, had done an exhaustive search and investigation of everything. And I think it would have been harder for him to say that if we had been clear about what we didn't do. That's part of the reason why I wrote the book. I wanted to be clear-eyed about the challenges externally, and also hold up a mirror to what I did, what our successes were, how we met those challenges, and things that we could do differently. There were several high-profile cases you worked on that you mentioned in your book, like the Enron investigation and the cases against John Gotti and Vinny Gigante. How did they shape your approach to the Russia probe? That's a great question, no one's asked me that. When I think about Enron, it's really easy to say that case is about Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling and Andrew Fastow, the three leaders of the Enron Corporation, and their wrongdoing. And it's true they did a lot of terrible things and they were held to account. But I think the bigger picture is how they were able to get away with that, given all of the people who were supposed to be watchdogs, whether it's accountants, lawyers, compliance people, and other people at Enron. The big picture lesson was about enablers: people who were either complicit or closed their eyes. And that was very much an analogy that could be used in connection with the situation we're in now. We're seeing that a lot of the guardrails that we thought protected our system of checks and balances are more norms than things that are written in stone. So that's one reason why I talk about Enron. The other is to point out a tool that we didn't have in the special counsel's investigation. Normally as a US attorney, you have the authority to look at all of the crimes that somebody committed, and very often, your toehold into a case is not direct. I did a case involving the Colombo family where our first real leverage into the case was somebody who committed a drug crime that was unrelated to the Colombo war that was going on. In Enron, one of our big breaks was discovering that Andrew Fastow's right-hand man committed crimes unrelated to Enron. That gave us the ability to charge him and use that to gain his cooperation. The relevance to the special counsel investigation is that in the appointment order from the acting attorney general [establishing Mueller's office], we didn't have that kind of authority to look at things that might be unrelated to the core mandate. I had a little bit more authority in Team M, because the way the appointment order read, I could look at any crimes related to and I'm paraphrasing Mr. Manafort's work in Ukraine because of its connection to Russia. So I had more ability to use the traditional tools that had been successful in making cases against Enron executives and mobsters. Do you think Trump will pardon Manafort after the election? I don't know. The Constitution says the president has the power to pardon. But I don't know, and I'm not going to speculate about what the president's going to do. It's public that Mr. Manafort was released to home confinement, purportedly because of the pandemic. I think there's some issue as to whether he met the criteria for that release that may lessen the present concern over a pardon, but that's not my issue to speculate on. You wrote in your book that the work Team R did investigating Russia's interference in 2016 was the most important thread of the inquiry. How, if at all, do you think Russia's tactics have changed this time around? I was floored by the work that Jeannie's team did. It was amazing. And in terms of the lasting legacy of the special counsel investigation, it was so important to have documented what Russia was doing and how it was doing it, to say that in black and white. I don't want to get into the details of how I think foreign governments may be changing their approach because I don't think that's helpful to our ability to thwart that interference. I tried very hard in my book to explain what was done and how, but you don't want to give up methods and means because it makes it easier for an adversary to know how to avoid detection. Do you believe that Russia has been successful in its efforts to destabilize American democracy? That's a complicated question because causality is a really hard thing to determine. Russia definitely has contributed. And there obviously would have to be receptivity within our own society to those messages. So it could be a situation where they're taking advantage and exploiting and exacerbating something that's already there. But the extent of that is something I don't have an answer to. Do you believe it's something that the president is enabling? I think there are a lot of people who are not doing enough to combat foreign interference in our elections. Recent media reports have said that intelligence about Russia's ongoing interference is being suppressed or manipulated because of Trump's sensitivity on this issue. What are the risks associated with that? One of the grave things that's happened in the last few years is the politicization of intelligence agencies and information. When I was at the FBI under Director Mueller, one of the palpable things you felt was just how apolitical the institution was. It didn't matter whether somebody was a Democrat or Republican, didn't matter whether you were rich or poor, it was just about the facts. During the special counsel investigation, the first and most important part of our work was to document what Russia had done in attacking our election. That's something that everybody should be able to get behind. I analogized it to Pearl Harbor. Obviously, Pearl Harbor had a loss of life, and I'm not trying to say that's comparable, but in terms of the effect and undermining our democracy, it's arguably much worse. And that, unfortunately, has been tied to the second issue, which is, did anybody in the United States conspire or were they complicit in that effort. The second question should not affect the first one. It's wrong to think about being attacked by foreign government in light of whether that undermines someone's legitimacy as president. That's not the issue. The issue is how do we protect our democracy from foreign interference, something which the founders were very concerned about and in the cyber age, we need to be vigilant about. Domestic disinformation is on the rise right now and a lot of it is coming from the president himself. How big of a threat do you think that is to the upcoming election? Is it something the DOJ and FBI should focus more on? That's a little outside my purview and outside of what we did in the special counsel investigation. But one thing I write in my book, as an aside, is that it's against the law to lie in a material way to federal investigators, but it's not a crime for politicians to say something false to the press. I'm not saying the law should be different. There are a lot of First Amendment issues at play and you don't want prosecutors to be the arbiters of that kind of political discourse, and there's a judgment that can be made at the ballot box. But as a prosecutor, it's curious that you have that difference. I understand why it's not illegal for politicians to do that, but it's become a consequence that something that can be more pernicious doesn't have a natural check, other than the intelligence and wisdom of the electorate. And I'm not addressing that to any particular politician because it's a systemic issue. Since the special counsel's office issued its report, the DOJ under Barr's leadership has tried to dismiss its own case against Michael Flynn and sought a more lenient sentence for Roger Stone. What was your reaction to these developments? There are a number of things that are extremely concerning about the rule of law at the Department of Justice. It's part of the reason for the title of my book. The concern I have with what the attorney general's done in the Flynn case and in the Stone case, or even just releasing Manafort under a standard that's different for other people, is that he's not applying the rules equally to everyone, whether the person is a friend or foe of the White House. No one is saying the attorney general doesn't have the power and ability and right, if he thinks something's wrong, to overrule people who work for him. The issue is what he's doing. In the Flynn case, for example, the legal standard that the government put forward there with respect to materiality is directly contrary to the materiality standard that the government argues for every other case. That is the antithesis of the rule of law. And as somebody who worked with the Department of Justice for over 20 years, under Republicans and Democrats who I completely respect, it's very dispiriting to see what's happened. Read the original article on Business Insider As senator Kamala Harris Vice Presidential ticket makes her the first Black woman and first vice-presidential candidate of Indian American origin, the 2020 US Presidential election is witnessing the democratic party endorsing a bid to woo the support of the 1.3 million Indian-Americans voters. Several Indian-American Members of Congress on the US Senate and House of Representatives are tugged in a Presidential election race majorly in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio which has a sizable presence. List of major Indian-American candidates Vice President nominee Kamala Harris The 52-year-old attorney general Kamala Harris became the first Indian American with her roots in Chennai to get elected to the US Senate in 2016. At an Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Caucus meeting earlier, Vice president nominee Harris said in a televised address said that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has "pledged to appoint more AAPI judges than all previous administrations combined. .@BarackObama, can't wait to get together and talk about what's at stake in this election and why voting early is so important. Get your tickets now to join our grassroots fundraiser: https://t.co/rHnHcVXM09 https://t.co/dXMwffRva7 Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 1, 2020 Krishna Bansal: Republican Party Indian-American entrepreneur Krishna Bansal ran for the 11th Congressional District of Illinois from Trump's Republican Party. Bansal hails from the Chicago metropolitan area and his policies comprised free enterprise, fiscal discipline, and foreign affairs. However, Bansal who was in the 2020 Presidential race lost the Republican primary on March 17, 2020, to Rick Lab. [Photo Credit: Twitter/@KrishnaBansalUS] Amerish Babulal "Ami" Bera: Democratic Party Indian American US House representative, Ami Bera has been the US Representative for California's 7th congressional district since 2013. The congressman represents the east of Californias capital city, Sacramento, and lies entirely within Sacramento County. Bera is currently on House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation. Bera is Vice-Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and a Leadership Member for the New Democrat Coalition. [Photo Credit: Twitter/@AAAFund] BREAKING: The House has passed my bipartisan Grid Security Research and Development Act to protect our countrys electric grid from future cyberattacks and natural disasters. pic.twitter.com/G6oXyJk3DL Ami Bera, M.D. (@RepBera) September 29, 2020 Read: Trump Gets Experimental Drug For COVID-19 Read: Trump Doing Well, Undergoing Remdesivir Therapy: White House Doctor Sara Gideon: Democratic Party The 48-year-old Sara Gideon, a Speaker of the Maine State Assembly of the Indian-origin is the Democrats candidate for the Maine state Senate race who was also previously backed by the 44th President Obamas administration. Senator Gideon was up against the Republican Senator Susan Collins at 39 percent while Gideon was 44 percent. Upon her election, Gideon would have made the second Indian-American in the US Senate. Her father Vasant Gideon hails from India and her mother is a second-generation Armenian American from Rhodes Island, US. [Photo Credit: Twitter/ @SaraGideon] Manga Anantatmula: Democratic Party Vouching for the Hindu community's support in the US, Indian American with roots from Andra Pradesh Manga Anantatmula will run from the 11th Congressional district of Virginia and will be the first-ever House of Representatives presumptive nominee from the District of Virginia in the US. Congresswoman Manga was a former federal government contractor in defense acquisitions program management, and in the 2020 November, Congressional elections seek to defeat the six-term incumbent Congressman Gerry Connolly. [Photo Credit: Twitter/@4_va11] Pramila Jayapal: Democratic Pary Pramila Jayapal, a US Representative for Washington's 7th congressional district since 2017 was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. She is an active financial analyst and member of the Washington state senate 2015-2016 elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress. Her district includes Seattle as well as suburban areas of King County. [Photo Credit: Twitter/ @PramilaJayapal] Ro Khanna: Democratic Party Indian American Ro Khanna from Congressional District in Silicon Valley will woo Indian American presence from the tech and digital industry in the district where Apple, Tesla, and eBay are headquartered. Ro Khanna, a Representative from California was born in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County. He was elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress (January 3, 2017-present). Raja Krishnamoorthi: Democratic party Raja Krishnamoorthi, a US Representative from Illinois of Indian origin was born in New Delhi, India. He's US Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district since 2017. His district includes the west and northwest suburbs of Chicago. Raja serves on the Oversight Committee, for which he is also the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, as well as on the House Intelligence Committee. [Photo Credit: Twitter/@RajaForCongress] Read: White House Virus Protocol Not Changing Despite Diagnoses Read: Donald Trump's Campaign Manager Bill Stepien Tests Positive For COVID-19 Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 23:05:36|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close JAKARTA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian Navy said Saturday that it has seized two Vietnamese-flagged fishing vessels on the North Natuna Sea in the Riau Islands province. On the seizure made on Friday, Dato Rusman, commander of the marine combat force of Fleet Armada Command I, said in a statement that Indonesia will take stern measures against any violations of the law in the country's territorial waters. The foreign vessels were accused of catching fish in the Indonesian waters without the necessary legal documents and using fishing gears banned by the prevailing rules, according to him. According to Abdul Rasyid, the commander of Fleet Armada Command I which oversees the waters in western Indonesia, they will further examine the two fishing vessels and question their crew members who illegally operated foreign-flagged vessels in Indonesia's exclusive economic zone. Enditem Not possible to source gun on the run, Sohrabuddin, Prajapati encounters fake says CBI Sohrabuddin encounter: Was too scared to name cops, politicians, re-examine me says witness Bodies of slain trio in Shopian fake encounter exhumed India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Srinagar, Oct 03: Bodies of three men from Rajouri, killed in an alleged fake encounter by Army in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir in July this year, have been exhumed and handed over to their families, officials said on Saturday. The exhumation was done late Friday night at an unidentified location in north Kashmir -- hours after Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh said the legal process to exhume and handover the bodies was on and would be completed soon. Civilian injured at encounter site passes away The bodies of the three persons were exhumed and then handed over to their families, the officials said. They said the families of the three men were called from Rajouri district in Jammu region and taken to the spot where the trio was buried. The families will take the bodies to their native village to bury them, they added. The DGP had on Friday said that the legal process to exhume the bodies had been started and will be completed soon. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News On September 30, inspector general of police (IGP), Kashmir, Vijay Kumar said since the DNA samples matched with the family, the three bodies will be exhumed and handed over to families after due process of law. On July 18, the Army claimed three militants were killed in Amshipura village in the higher reaches of south Kashmir's Shopian district. However, the Army initiated an inquiry after social media reports indicated the three men were from Rajouri district in Jammu and had gone missing at Amshipura. The families of the trio from Rajouri who worked as labourers in Shopian had also filed a police complaint. The Army completed the probe in record four weeks and on September 18, the force said it has found "prima facie" evidence that its troops "exceeded" powers under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act during the encounter and initiated disciplinary proceedings. The police also launched its investigations and collected the DNA samples of the families to match with the slain persons. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 12:41 [IST] The former headquarters of the Los Angeles Times is seen next to L.A. City Hall in 2013. (Los Angeles Times) To the editor: Of all the labels I've used to describe my identity, "Angeleno" is perhaps the one to which I most closely connected. To me it encapsulates not only a sense of place, but a sense of time and being. I can feel the city as part of me, and I believe I understand it for what it is and what it is not. Reading the editorials and reports on the Los Angeles Times' history of racism has brought back a flood of emotion and forced some introspection. I appreciate the desire by elements of the minority white population of our city to atone for generations of deliberate and racist segregation and repression. However, I cannot help but feel like we've been here before. While Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong's remembrance of his own experiences in apartheid South Africa added welcome context to the L.A. Times' soul searching, I could not help but think that what marked apartheid was not only physical segregation based on race, but more importantly the overwhelming economic and entrenched political domination exerted by the white minority. To a great extent, this same situation exists now in Los Angeles and the rest of California, and there is no sign of real change on the horizon. I hope that this time, we see greater effort toward building a more just and equitable future, but honestly I have my doubts. Felix Nunez, San Gabriel .. To the editor: Thanks for reporter Teresa Watanabes article acknowledging the existence of Asian Americans. As a fellow third-generation American of Japanese ancestry, I can relate to everything she wrote. Many years ago, I was a journalism major at Cal State Dominguez Hills with dreams of writing for your paper. A job at The Times wouldve been proof that I had made it. However, seeing hardly any Japanese American bylines, I switched majors and gave up trying to become a journalist. A decade after that, in the year 2000, I was working at an organization dedicated to teaching the stories of the World War II veterans of Japanese ancestry who bravely fought for this country while their families were behind barbed wire in internment camps. Story continues This is an American story that all Americans should learn; however, coverage of our organizations efforts to tell it appeared mostly in Rafu Shimpo, a publication based in Little Tokyo, and other small local papers. We always knew the chances of getting our story into The Times was slim. Watanabe was our contact at the paper, and I remember a wonderful article she wrote during my tenure at the organization. Being on the pages of The Times seemed to legitimize us. I was grateful for the article, but something else infuriated me. Why was it so hard to get our story out? I knew the answer, but I hated to admit it: The story was not important in the eyes of white America. Asian American stories are American stories. They should not be viewed only as cultural stories, because we are part of this melting pot. Many of us are from families that have been here for several generations. Our stories deserve to be heard by everyone. Thank you, Ms. Watanabe, and thank you to The Times for what I hope will be a shift in your view of your fellow citizens. J.M. Hirata, Torrance .. To the editor: Thank you for your commitment to be better. Yes, 80 years later, we remember L.A. Times support for the wrongful imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. Thats three generations of scars. We all need to do better. So, please encourage the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. County Sheriffs Department to apologize for terrorizing this city and to stop. Susie Ling, Monrovia .. To the editor: This is my first letter to the editor, but I felt compelled to comment on your series of articles on the L.A. Times' reckoning with racism. When I read the initial pieces, I almost gave up because there were so negative and divisive. But I kept on because I wanted to see why they were being published. I have been so moved by the individual articles particularly the one by columnist Sandy Banks on her experience being a young Black reporter in Los Angeles who had just moved here from Cleveland that I want to thank the writers for sharing their perspectives. Those journalists' pieces have given me much better insight into how people think and feel, and how they react to the things that happen to them. They have helped me understand what is meant by systemic racism, and to become aware of its prevalence in our society. Through their eyes and their stories, I can now see how much systemic racism has framed my views of society and our communities, and how it did so just by reading this newspaper over these many years. We need to hear many voices and views. Katherine Pene, Porter Ranch .. To the editor: I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every member of the staff at the Los Angeles Times for daring to have integrity in a sensationalized world. I am a product of Los Angeles County's foster system. I was fortunate that I was adopted into a loving extended family who challenged me to discover who I am, for I was the only Black child in an all-white family. I never knew what it meant to be Black. Now, I am a 40-year-old proud gay Black man, but it wasn't always this way. For the longest time I denied by own Blackness for fear of rejection by my peers. It took a lot of soul searching and the influence of my adopted city of Oakland for me to fully grasp what it means to be Black. To be Black in Oakland is an incredible experience. When I walk down the street, I am greeted as a brother with handshakes and smiles, and I feel accepted for the first time in my adult life. Restorative justice is not an easy process for anyone to undertake, so it warms my heart when an institution such as yours dares to admit its past transgressions against the pursuit of truth and sets out to fix them. Robert Stinson, Oakland .. To the editor: Thank you to reporter Greg Braxton for telling his painful story of employment at the L.A. Times, and thank you as well to the L.A. Times for printing it. After thinking for years that I as a white person was not a racist because of the diversity of my friends and my beliefs, I am now in my 80s beginning to understand systemic racism and how it invades so much of our culture. Braxton's story of covering the 1992 riots successfully and then being returned afterward to his former unremarkable suburban reporting post touched me profoundly. I am sorry that he bore this hurt for so many years before finding some peace. The L.A. Times deserves praise for finally airing its dirty laundry. Thank you. Suzanne Darweesh, Fullerton .. To the editor: Your long editorial on the L.A. Times' history of racism was truly amazing and soul searching. Publishing this when you did, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, seems particularly apropos. For 60 years my husband, Gerald Rosen, began his day reading the L.A. Times cover to cover. For 40 years he taught minority group relations at Cal State Fullerton and frequently used articles from your paper in his class sometimes to praise, but often to challenge. He would have turned 77 this week. I wish you had published this one year ago so he could have been with us to thank you for this birthday gift. I only hope that other newspapers will follow your lead and recognize their history. Barbara Rosen, Fullerton .. To the editor: As a longtime reader and subscriber to the Los Angeles Times, I want to express my gratitude for your editorial and your owner's piece committing to changes at the paper. My wife and family believe in the promise of America and in the critical role that news, information and quality journalism play in the maintenance of our democracy. Although the process of democracy will continue to unfold filled with conflict, tension, progress and setbacks your self-reflection has given me a renewed sense of hope and faith in the Los Angeles Times and the American dream. Every year, my wife and I evaluate our budget, and we take stock of the waste that is created by the home delivery of the newspaper and the value of continuing our subscription to the Los Angeles Times given the alternatives. I want you to know that your articles on diversity and your efforts to strengthen our democracy (beginning with your own organization) have renewed my belief in and my support for the Los Angeles Times for now, and for as long as the current ownership, the editorial board and the rest of your staff continue to strengthen our community on its quest for truth. John Keisler, Long Beach .. To the editor: I let my L.A. Times subscription lapse a while ago, partly out of frustration with the digital platform but mostly because compelling stories seemed to be in short supply. Your series on the paper's reckoning with racism has been a bold move in the right direction. Entries this week from columnist Sandy Banks and others are stories that need to be heard. These personal tales shed light on a painful past, but the honesty, patience and persistence of these gifted reporters offer us the hope of a better future. I'm glad to be back with the L.A. Times. Keep up the good work. Steve Wright, Huntington Beach .. To the editor: As someone who's been reading the Los Angeles Times my entire reading life, I thank you for your editorial facing up to your own failures in the matter of previous racist coverage of significant events. It is valuable, for example, that you remind your readers of the paper's shameful stance on Japanese internment and the Zoot Suit riots. I also write as a historian of California, so I know something about Harrison Gray Otis and his often malign influence on local and state politics a century ago. Your editorial is courageous, and it is also good, accurate history. Glenna Matthews, Laguna Beach .. To the editor: I am learning so much from this series and I applaud your plans to do better. Now, please really follow through on them and stay alert, because white supremacy culture is very resilient. But if your efforts are done well and sustained, I can't imagine a better legacy for Soon-Shiong and the many journalists of color who have fought for years for a better L.A. Times. Cynthia Freeman, Los Feliz .. To the editor: Reading the articles about diversifying the Los Angeles Times took me back to 1956. I was a young, white, male high school teacher from the Midwest, new to Los Angeles, but somehow knowing which paper to subscribe to when I moved here. Fast-forward to today, 64 years later, still a subscriber to the L.A. Times. But look at all the changes. Now, instead of an all-male staff, you have reporters, columnists and editors who are female, Black, Latino and Asian. Your new owner is from South Africa. All I can say is, good for you. I have changed along with the paper. Instead of voting Republican as I used to, for the past 40 years I have called myself a proud liberal. Keep up the good work, and keep up with the changes that reflect our pluralistic society. Robert Carrelli, Thousand Oaks .. To the editor: Thank you, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and the rest of the L.A. Times, for an honest evaluation of how and why the newspaper has contributed to systemic racism. I have been a faithful reader for more than 50 years, and I can say that this examination is powerful and honest. What more can we ask than to admit when journalism may be a part of the problem and strive to change? I will join you in the journey as we do the work of making kindness, mercy and justice not just words, but the experiences of people's lives. Karen McGlinn, Costa Mesa This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A man driving a motorcycle died early Saturday when he collided with a freeway entrance sign in southeast Houston. The motorcyclist crashed around 4:15 a.m. into a concrete median near the 12000 block of Interstate 45, said Sgt. David Rose of the Houston Police Department. He had been attempting to enter the Gulf Freeway from the service road but failed to maintain lanes, Rose said. The man, who was not identified by Saturday morning, died at the scene. He was not wearing a helmet. Police believe the motorcyclist had been drinking at a bar before the crash. BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: Get your Houston breaking news alerts delivered to your Inbox No one else was involved in the collision. The department's vehicular crimes division is investigating the crash. (File image: News18) A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi were headed to Hathras on Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped. Priyanka Gandhi was driving a silver Toyota Innova with her brother Rahul Gandhi sitting next to her. They were headed to the DND toll plaza. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor also posted a picture of him driving a car and said he was headed to Hathras, about 180 km from the national capital. There was heavy police deployment on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with barricades on Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway and scores of policemen deployed. "Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year old-daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted & murdered," Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal tweeted. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman. In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable to me. No Indian should accept this." Rahul Gandhi asserted that "no power in the world can stop me from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and share their pain". Hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi said the UP government is "morally corrupt". "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test," she said in a tweet in Hindi. "This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family," she said. The party alleged that the woman and her family have been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in their attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four upper caste men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". Twitter is pledging to remove tweets rooting for President Trump's death in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis. The social media site's communications department made the vow Friday evening, just hours after the Commander-in-chief was airlifted to hospital amid reports that he was having trouble breathing. 'Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed. This does not automatically mean suspension,' an official statement from the company read. Twitter is pledging to remove tweets rooting for President Trump's death in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis. The President is pictured on Thursday - one day before he tested positive to the contagious virus Twitter's communications department made the vow Friday evening, following a wave of sick tweets posted by users Trump confirmed he had tested positive to the virus earlier in the day, prompting thousands of Twitter users to share sick messages in which they delighted at the news and wished for the worst possible outcome. Such posting are a violation of Twitter's rules and policies regarding abusive behavior, which were last updated in April. According to those guidelines, the company does 'not tolerate content that wishes, hopes or expresses a desire for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against an individual or group of people.' 'This includes, but is not limited to: Hoping that someone dies as a result of a serious disease e.g., "I hope you get cancer and die."' The news came as a shock to Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who replied to Twitter's statement with a GIF in which a woman stated 'Excuse Me?' Like Trump, Omar is a divisive political figure who frequently receives death threats and messages hoping for her death via Twitter. The news came as a shock to Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who replied to Twitter's statement with a GIF in which a woman stated 'Excuse Me?' Some users appear to be provoking Twitter and poking fun at the company for their failure to keep their promises Despite pledging to remove such messages, the company has struggled to do so. In a statement to Motherboard on Friday night, a Twitter official admitted that they 'won't take enforcement action on every Tweet.' 'We're prioritizing the removal of content when it has a clear call to action that could potentially cause real-world harm,' they stated. Indeed, some users appear to be provoking Twitter and poking fun at the company for their failure to keep their promises. 'Listen, I don't think Twitter is really enforcing it, so I hope Trump dies,' one person wrote. That tweet received more than 1,700 likes and was still up on the site almost 12 hours after it was posted. 'Watch nothing happen,' the gleeful user later added. Earlier on Friday, a number of high profile public figures - including former Hillary Clinton Spokeswoman Zara Rahim - came under fire for their distasteful Twitter posts. 'It's been against my moral identity to tweet this for the past four years, but, I hope he dies,' Rahim wrote. Trump remains at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland where he is being monitored by doctors 'out of an abundance of caution'. Voters in Kyrgyzstan -- the only democracy in Central Asia -- will go to the polls on October 4 to vote in parliamentary elections. Following the revolution in 2010 that ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev, the countrys constitution was rewritten, transforming the country from a presidential to a parliamentary system of government. Kyrgyzstan has a unicameral parliament with 120 seats, of which 30 percent are supposed to be filled by women. According to the party lists presented to the Central Election Commission on August 24, there were 1,209 candidates (though some have dropped out and others were disqualified since then) from 16 parties competing. All deputies are elected through party lists and a party must receive at least 7 percent of the overall vote to make it into parliament. The most seats one party can win in the elections is 65. Here is a snapshot of all 16 parties: The (Broadly) Pro-Government Parties The Birimdik (Unity) party was founded in 2020. The partys leader is Marat Amankulov, who recently was at the center of a scandal over his comments about Kyrgyzstan becoming part of Russia. Among its candidates are President Sooronbai Jeenbekovs younger brother, Asylbek; Labor Minister Ulukbek Kochkorov; Deputy Labor Minister Aliza Soltonbekova; and deputy parliament speaker Aida Kasymalieva (a former journalist for RFE/RL) The Mekenim Kyrgyzstan (My Homeland Kyrgyzstan) party was founded after the parliamentary elections in 2015. In August, the Ata-Jurt party, which currently has seats in parliament as part of the Respublika/Ata-Jurt union, merged into Mekenim Kyrgyzstan. Mekenim Kyrgyzstan is believed to be receiving financial support from Raimbek Matraimov, a former deputy chief of Kyrgyzstans Customs Service who is alleged to have used that position to make hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten wealth. Among the partys candidates are Matraimovs brother and current parliament deputy Iskender Matraimov, former Bishkek Deputy Mayor Mirlan Amanturov, and deputy speaker of parliament Mirlan Bakirov. A September 10 report from kloop.kg noted 221 of the 1,209 candidates on party lists have prior convictions and among those, Mekenim Kyrgyzstan had the most: 29. The Kyrgyzstan party was founded in 2015 and won 18 seats in parliamentary elections that year. The partys leader is Kanat Isaev. In the 2015 elections, the Kyrgyzstan party was seen as a stalking horse for the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, but with the recent disintegration of that party, Kyrgyzstan has emerged as the veteran pro-government party. The Ordo (The Center) party was founded in 2019. The partys leader is Mirlan Miyarov. Ordo in comprised mainly of young people. The Kabar media outlet said of Ordo partys candidates: "there are practically no publicly known personalities on its party list." The Opposition Parties The Butun (United) Kyrgyzstan party was founded in 2010. It competed in the 2015 parliamentary elections but failed to win any seats. Among its candidates are party leader Adakhan Madumarov, former deputy chief of Kyrgyzstans Security Council Omurbek Suvanaliev, the former Communist Party head Iskhak Masaliev, and former Jalal-Abad Governor Bektur Asanov. The Respublika party was founded in 2010 by businessman Omurbek Babanov, who later served as prime minister. Babanov made an unsuccessful run for president in 2017 and fled the country due to dubious charges against him. He returned after vowing to leave politics, though he has released campaign advertisements for Respublika in the run-up to elections. The partys leader is Mirlan Jeenchorov. The Meken Yntymagy (Homeland Security) party was founded in 2010. The party is led by Temirbek Asanbekov, who ran for president in the 2011 election. Meken Yntymagy participated in the 2010 and 2015 parliamentary elections, failing to win any seats in those elections. On the partys list of candidates, under the category of occupation, the third, fourth, and fifth candidates (Sharali Tabyldiev, Jaynagul Nurmambetova, and Azamat Aytbekov, respectively) are listed as unemployed, as are nine other candidates in the top 20. The Yyman Nuru (Ray of Faith) party was founded in 2020 by Aybek Osmonov, but he stepped down as party leader and Nurjigit Kadyrbekov, a young religious leader who studied in the United States and Japan, took over as Yyman Nurus head going into the elections. The Chong Kazat (Great Crusade) party was founded in 2012. The current leader is Maksat Mamytkanov, a former member of Kyrgyzstans State Security Committee. Chong Kazat is seen as a nationalist party. The Mekenchil (Patriotic) party was founded in 2010. The partys leader is Sadyr Japarov, but he is currently in prison for his role in fomenting unrest in the northeastern town of Karakol in October 2013. The current leader is Kamchyek Tashiev, the former leader of Ata-Jurt. The Party of Afghan War Veterans and Participants in Local Conflicts was founded in 1994. The partys leader is Akbokon Tashtanbekov. The party won two seats in the 2000 and 2005 parliamentary elections. The Zamandash (Contemporary) party was founded in 2007. The partys current leader is Jenish Moldokmatov. The party was originally created to support Kyrgyz migrant laborers in Russia. Among Zamandashs candidates are former Deputy Interior Minister Melis Turganbayev and Almurza Satybalidiev, a former prosecutor-general, later adviser to former President Kurmanbek Bakiev. Satybalidiev was convicted for the deaths of protesters in the 2010 revolution but was released in 2016. The Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party was founded in 1992. The partys leader is Omurbek Tekebaev, a former parliamentary leader and veteran opposition politician. Tekebaev will not participate as a candidate in these elections, however. The top spot on the partys list was given to young politician Janar Akaev, a former presidential press secretary and current parliament deputy (and former RFE/RL employee). The Reforms party was founded in 2020. The party is led by a former judge in the Supreme Courts constitutional chamber, Klara Soronkulova, but most party members are young activists and academics. Reforms candidates have the second lowest average age (38). Reforms has relied on crowdfunding for much of its finances, including the 5 million soms (about $63,000) needed to register for the elections. The Bir Bol (Stay Together) party was founded in 2010. The partys leader is Altynbek Sulaymanov. It is one of the three parties competing that have seats in the current parliament (12), but prior to the party congress in August the party restocked itself with young members and its candidates for the 2020 elections have the lowest average age (37). Ending months of speculation, the forensic team of AIIMS Delhi, which was looking into the autopsy report of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, has now asserted that it was a suicide. There were no injuries over the body other than hanging. There were no marks of struggle/scuffle in the body and clothes of the deceased, Dr Gupta told ANI. The findings of the team led by Dr Sudhir Gupta have created a stir and evoked several reactions. Anil Deshmukh: Maharashtra home minister, NCP leader Anil Deshmukh raised questions over the delay in the CBI probe. The investigation carried out by Mumbai Police in the Sushant Singh suicide case was done professionally & ethically. It has also been confirmed by the Honble Supreme court & AIIMS report, Deshmukh tweeted. Sachin Sawant: Congress leader and Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant demanded an SIT probe into the conspiracy being hatched against the Maha Vikas Agadhi government. After the confirmation of AIIMS panel , the Conspiracy of Modi govt to defame Maharashtra is exposed. We demand SIT probe to nab the mastermind of the Conspiracy, he said. After the confirmation of AIIMS panel , the Conspiracy of Modi govt to defame Maharashtra is exposed. We demand SIT probe to nab the mastermind of the Conspiracy. pic.twitter.com/nlWl70Kd1O Sachin Sawant (@sachin_inc) October 3, 2020 Pratap Sarnaik: Shiv Sena spokesperson Pratap Sarnaik blamed the opposition for besmirching Mumbai Police. With the AIIMS report, opposition parties have been exposed. Henceforth they should not drag Mumbai police into politics and let the cops do their job in a professional manner. . . Pratap Sarnaik (@PratapSarnaik) October 3, 2020 Vikas Singh: The lawyer of Sushant Singh Rajputs family has called the report inconclusive. Since the team did not actually examine Sushants body but relied on photographs, the report could not be treated as conclusive. AIIMS report is not conclusive and CBI in its charge sheet can still file a case of murder in Sushant Singh Rajput death case, he said. Satish Maneshinde: Rhea Chakrabortys lawyer Satish Maneshinde blamed media for speculation against Rhea Chakraborty. I have seen the statement of the Doctors from AIIMS concerning SSR case. The official papers and report are only with AIIMS and CBI, which will be submitted in court once investigations are over. We await the official version of CBI. We on behalf of Rhea Chakraborty have always said that Truth cannot be changed under any circumstances. The speculations against Rhea in some quarters of the Media are motivated and mischievous. We remain committed to Truth Alone. Satya Meva Jayte, read his statement. His family complained to cops about the threat to his life way before he died, he wanted to live but quit films, he wanted to settle in Coorg but who blackmailed him? Who cornered him in a way that dying was easier than living? Morally and legally abetment of suicide is a murder. Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) October 3, 2020 Kangana Ranaut: Young and extraordinary individuals dont just wake up one fine day and kill themselves. Sushant said he was being bullied and outcast, he feared for his life, he said movie mafia banned him and harassed him, he was mentally affected by being falsely accused of rape..is family complained to cops about the threat to his life way before he died, he wanted to live but quit films, he wanted to settle in Coorg but who blackmailed him? Who cornered him in a way that dying was easier than living? Morally and legally abetment of suicide is a murder, the actor tweeted. Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead on June 14 in his Mumbai residence. The Mumbai Police called it a suicide after preliminary investigation. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is now probing the case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is looking into a money-laundering angle and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is investigating into a drug angle both related to the case. At least two homes in the St. Helena city limits are known to have burned in the Glass Fire. The city is aware of two houses that have burned, along with a garage at a third property, said City Manager Mark Prestwich. There are also reports of at least one additional property that has burned, but authorities have been unable to confirm because it is behind a locked gate, Prestwich said. One of the destroyed houses was located off Howell Mountain Road in an area where the city limits extend east of Silverado Trail. Another is on the west side of town. As of late Friday, the entire city remained under either mandatory evacuation orders or advisory evacuation warnings. Heavy smoke has pushed St. Helenas air quality well into the very unhealthy range. After extensive power outages from Sunday through Tuesday, power has been restored to all of St. Helena except the northeast corner, where PG&E will not restore power until its deemed safe to do so. An extensive dozer line has been established west of St. Helena, running along the north-south perimeter close to the city limits, Prestwich said. Those lines behind the Sylvaner and Sulphur Springs areas were "holding strong," with no additional threat to St. Helena, the city reported Friday afternoon. Cal Fire officials have warned that the fire could spread during high winds that are forecast for late Friday and into Saturday morning. The fire destroyed the citys three water tanks outside the city limits at Meadowood, eliminating water service in the Meadowood and Madrone Knoll areas. Prestwich said city representatives have talked to county and state emergency services officials about installing portable tanks to restore water service in those areas. Customers in the Meadowood area will receive a "Do Not Drink Water / Do Not Boil Water" notice. The water in the rest of the city's system is safe to drink, according to a press release issued Sunday by the city. "There have been no leaks or depressurization in the City distribution system outside of the Meadowood area," the press release stated. "All water distribution samples collected have met state and federal water quality requirements. Therefore, the water is safe to drink with the exception of the Meadowood area." "As a precaution, the City is testing for volatile organic compounds, including benzene and will report these results as they are obtained. The City is also implementing knowledge and experiences from other communities subjected to wildfire and are developing sampling plans based on both our specific situation and the lessons learned from their experience." According to preliminary assessments, the City of St. Helena has incurred more than $2 million in damage to city facilities and the cost of emergency response. On Friday the City Council ratified an emergency declaration issued Sunday by Prestwich. The declaration will help the city seek local, state and federal reimbursement for costs associated with the fire. As of Friday morning, the Glass Fire had burned 60,148 acres and was 6% contained. Cal Fire has assigned more than 2,500 personnel to the fire. Watch Now: Firefighters race to save homes from wildfire You can reach Jesse Duarte at 967-6803 or jduarte@sthelenastar.com. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The city says it has launched a review of how unredacted personal information ended up in a police board document and remained on the municipalitys website for nearly a year. That same information but not including as much personal details as the citys website was the subject of councils integrity complaint against the chair of Hamiltons LGBTQ advisory committee. This week, councillors admonished Cameron Kroetsch for the privacy breach that involved sharing an advisory committee motion with wording that went against the clerks advice via social media in May. He has done wrong and he has done something that he should not have, Mayor Fred Eisenberger said Wednesday during a discussion about the integrity commissioners findings. Rather than remove him from the committee over the Twitter post, council opted to issue Kroetsch, whos also a Pride celebration organizer and outspoken critic of police and elected officials, a formal reprimand. On Friday, in an open letter to council, the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic called the integrity probe a heavy-handed, public, and unnecessary response against a prominent member of the queer community. Open Letter to Council Re: Integrity Commissioner Report Councils action against Kroetsch will undoubtedly cause others to fear speaking out or question becoming involved with civic affairs during a time of rocky relations with the queer community, Hugh Tye, clinic executive director, and Michael Blashko, queer justice project lead, argued in the letter. Eisenberger and other council members have maintained their use of the integrity commissioner normally a tool for residents complaints against elected officials wasnt meant to muzzle critics. What wasnt made clear during Wednesdays meeting was that Kroetschs Twitter post didnt include the name of police board member Fred Bennink or the name of then-IT staffer Marc Lemire, who eventually left the city amid an uproar over ties to white supremacists. Kroetschs tweet included a version of the advisory committees motion that referred to a former auxiliary police officer recently appointed to the citizen seat of the police board and a well-known figure in the Canadian extremist white supremacist movement employed at the city. Another version of the motion that still included the names of Bennink and Lemire was posted to a police board document in October 2019 and remained there until Wednesday, when the city became aware of it. In an emailed response, the city said it learned the unredacted personal information had been entered into police board meeting software and subsequently made available on the citys website. City manager Janette Smith has contacted the citys privacy lead and begun a review of the situation with the aim of bringing back a full report to council and recommendations within 30 days. Once it was brought to my attention that a document posted in October of 2019 should have been redacted, the information was immediately removed and replaced with the redacted version, police board administrator Kirsten Stevenson said via email. The LGBTQ advisory committee motion revolved around a dispute over last years Pride flag-raising ceremony and related issues, a matter Kroetsch and a colleague presented to the police board. At the time, Lemires long tenure with the city had stoked public outrage. Another point of contention was councils appointment of Bennink to the police board after advocates calls to widen the diversity of its mostly white male membership. In Fridays letter, the legal clinic letter demanded council make a public apology to Kroetsch and the queer community and remove restrictions on advisory committee members to discuss their work in public. After the tragedy, the decision was made not to salvage the Estonia and give the victims a land burial, but instead to leave the ship on the seabed with the bodies interred inside. Swedish authorities then planned to entomb the ferry in an underwater mausoleum by covering the wreck in a 12-inch layer of concrete, but the plan was abandoned after families of the victims objected. (CNN) President Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19 and is quarantining with first lady Melania Trump. Here's what happens if he begins to show symptoms and gets too sick to fulfill his role as President. The Constitution lays out rules for succession When Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, was hospitalized with Covid this year it underscored that there was no formal succession procedure in the UK and raised serious questions about who was leading the country. Johnson called on his foreign secretary to be deputized if he was fully incapacitated. In the US, there are specific guidelines both in the Constitution and in federal law that dictate who takes over if Trump can't do his work. (Here's the line of succession.) But the first step is determining that a President is incapacitated -- and on this point there is very little clarity. According to the 25th Amendment, he could make that determination himself and, with a letter to the Senate, formally hand power to Vice President Mike Pence, who would then govern until Trump informed the Senate that he was taking power back. Here's how that looks in the 25th Amendment: "Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President." Ronald Reagan did this when he had cancerous polyps removed from his colon and George W. Bush did it twice when he had colonoscopies. In both cases, when the presidents were under anesthesia, they handed over power for a few hours, although Reagan disputed it was an intended use of the 25th Amendment. The New York Times reporter Mike Schmidt recently reported that Pence was on standby to temporarily assume the powers of the presidency in 2019, when it was possible Trump would have to undergo a procedure requiring anesthesia at Walter Reed hospital, although very little is known about that situation and the White House has been guarded about details. The Cabinet can step in There is another clause in the 25th Amendment that's worth considering. If the President were incapacitated to such a degree that he could not temporarily transmit power, the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could, technically, take it from him. If the vice president and a majority of the cabinet disagree, a supermajority of Congress and the Senate could vote to take it from him permanently. This clause had in mind a President who was in a coma or suffered a stroke. The Reagan administration drafted, but did not sign or transmit, letters to the Senate that would have taken power from Reagan after he was shot in 1981. You can see them at the Reagan Library's website. Dwight Eisenhower, for instance, suffered a debilitating heart attack while in office in the 1950s. That was before the 25th Amendment, so there was no constitutional rule. Instead he came to an agreement with Vice President Richard Nixon about handing over power. What if many people in the line of succession get sick? The other element to consider is that since Covid has infiltrated the White House, it's possible, although not likely, the virus could incapacitate multiple members of the administration. Trump has been in close contact with Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has been in contact with House speaker Nancy Pelosi. His Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has been working out of the White House and traveling to Capitol Hill to meet with senators. The Presidential Succession Act is a law that's been in place since 1948 and it lays out a very long line of succession for the presidency "If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President." First up is speaker of the House, although he or she would have to resign from Congress. Then comes the most senior US senator. Then it moves to the Cabinet. And beyond plans for succession, the US has gamed out plans to keep the government functioning -- it's call continuity of government -- in all sorts of eventualities. Obama administration Department of Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem said on CNN Friday that people should not worry about the government failing to function. "Given the likelihood that statistically that the Trumps will be okay, they might be out of commission for a couple days I think the consequences will be more political than anything else," she said, pointing to the contingency of government planning. "The systems are in place, they appear to be working. You're nervous because this is a time to be nervous, but in terms of the fact that Trump is not the presidency, nor is he the United States, we have plans for whatever contingency may occur." What about the election? One contingency that would be unprecedented in modern times is if a presidential nominee gets too sick to carry on a campaign. Both Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden are on the ballot. People are already voting by mail and absentee, and the election will go ahead as planned. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Here's what happens if Trump gets too sick to govern" Kellyanne Conway, a former top advisor to President Donald Trump and a New Jersey native and resident, announced on Friday night that she has tested positive for COVID-19. The news comes after Trump was flown to Walter Reed Military Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland to be treated for the coronavirus. Conway, who left the White House at the end of August, said she is experiencing a light cough but is otherwise feeling fine. She announced the news on Twitter, after her daughter Claudia Conway made a series of complaints on Tik Tok about her mothers actions, and revealed the diagnosis. Tonight I tested positive for COVID-19. My symptoms are mild (light cough) and Im feeling fine. I have begun a quarantine process in consultation with physicians. As always, my heart is with everyone affected by this global pandemic. Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 3, 2020 Conway is now the latest person who has had recent contact with the president that has announced a COVID-19 diagnoses since Thursday night. That list, according to Vox, also includes First Lady Melania Trump; White House advisor Hope Hicks; U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; U.S. Sen. Thom Thillis, R-North Carolina; University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins; a White House press staffer and three journalists from the White House press corps. Many of the people on that list, including Conway, were at the White House last Saturday when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Conway was one of multiple people who helped Trump prepare for Tuesdays presidential debate against former Vice President Joe Biden, according to USA Today. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also participated in Trumps debate prep; Christie said Friday he was being retested for the coronavirus. Christie noted to ABCs George Stephanopoulos that nobody had been wearing masks in the room with Trump during the debate preparation. Conway, 53, grew up in Atco and now lives in Alpine. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Miscommunication and a confusing reporting system have left thousands of COVID-19 tests missing from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reports to the public. Though the undercount that has come to light in recent weeks is small enough that agency leaders say it doesn't affect how the state responds to the pandemic, the missing entries could impede DHEC's efforts to investigate cases and measure tests each day. DHEC says it has been telling labs and health care groups for months to report their results. Some providers say communication from state and national officials has been uneven. Just a few parties run the majority of COVID-19 tests in South Carolina: the state's public health lab, major out-of-state labs Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and the Medical University of South Carolina. No major issues have been reported from those labs. But on Sept. 22, DHEC said it got word of 15,000 previously unreported tests from Augusta University Healthcare in Georgia. Three days later, the agency said it received another 7,000 results from Doctors Care, an urgent care chain. "We do want people to understand that the overwhelming majority of labs and facilities are reporting their positive and negative results to DHEC as required," state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said. Labs and health care providers have never had to report such vast amounts of information, and to multiple agencies, Bell said. DHEC has also never had to track this volume of reports. The number of missing tests is likely a small portion of the 1.4 million total tests between March 1 and the end of September, Bell added. DHEC is still crunching the numbers, but the agency doesn't believe the missing tests significantly affect the state's percent positive a key metric that indicates how fast the virus is spreading. But if the agency isn't hearing of positive test results, it can't conduct contact tracing. "We don't have a good way of knowing what we're not getting," Bell said. Missing negatives For months, a number of labs and hospitals were not reporting COVID-19 tests if they came back negative. During normal times, that is standard practice. But given the crisis, public health officials want to track how many tests are being done in total. Diatherix, a laboratory in Alabama that has been running some South Carolinians' tests, was among those not reporting negative results. The lab is owned by Eurofins Scientific, a publicly traded, Luxembourg-based conglomerate. Diatherix is now working with South Carolina officials to report all of its results, retroactively. Eurofins said in a statement it was only notified of the need to report both positive and negative tests in the last month. Federal health authorities passed a rule Aug. 25 that required all labs to report both positive and negative results. Companies that failed to comply by mid-September are subject to sanctions and fines. "Most state agencies have had varying reporting requirements during the course of the current pandemic," the company's investor relations team said in a statement. State health agencies are "heavily taxed" with shifting reporting requirements, "and all have done their best to respond to the public need for accurate data," the company added. Contacted by The Post and Courier, two South Carolina hospitals declined to say why they weren't reporting all results to DHEC. The state agency instructed Bon Secours St. Francis in Greenville to report both negative and positive tests, according to emails to the hospital provided by DHEC. The hospital failed to do so. Bon Secours did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Anmed Health in Anderson did not answer a question about why the hospital system was not reporting negative results to the state health agency. As a result of the problem, thousands of the hospital's test results didn't appear in DHEC counts. The spokeswoman did say between March and the end of August, Anmed Health's negative tests totaled about 6,600. Inconsistencies Even as thousands of tests went unreported, state leaders say they are reaching for a goal of testing 500,000 South Carolinians per month. A state ranking by Johns Hopkins University puts South Carolina 31st in testing efforts. Marshall Taylor, acting director at DHEC, told state senators last week the agency reminded labs of the need to report their numbers in early September, not long after WYFF-TV reported thousands of missing results. Taylor said the issue was "everybody is not on an electronic system tied directly to their state health department." Whatever the exact problem, labs and providers say they have received mixed messages. DHEC reported the 15,000 missing test results from Augusta University Healthcare, just over the state border in Georgia, on Sept. 22. A spokeswoman for the hospital said they had been submitting test results to DHEC for the past six months but only heard in mid-September that the agency wasn't receiving them. Testing by lab in S.C. DHEC provided a list of each lab's number of COVID-19 tests to The Post and Courier. The information, which reflects data between March 1 and A spokeswoman for Doctors Care said the urgent care chain had a process in place to report some of its tests, but not others, resulting the delayed reporting of thousands of tests. Requirements for reporting tests have also shifted during the pandemic, the spokewoman said. "We have a longstanding relationship with DHEC and respect the work they are doing to serve our states public health needs," she said. "Our organization continues to make every effort to respond to reporting changes." The quick clinics are now automatically reporting all tests on a daily basis. Other labs said they have conducted more tests than a DHEC report provided to The Post and Courier reflects. A founder of Vikor Scientific, a lab in Charleston, said the company has run an average 3,773 tests per month the DHEC report shows just 379 between March 1 and July 16. Palmetto Primary Care Physicians, which began offering a rapid COVID-19 test in Charleston in mid-June, initially reported all results to DHEC, a spokeswoman for the practice said. But then word came from DHEC that it was only necessary to report positive results, which they did for two months this summer. The spokeswoman said DHEC reversed course in late August, again instructing Palmetto Primary Care Physicians to report both positive and negative results. The health agency recorded 22 positive tests in one month from the practice. The reality was 703. In an announcement Wednesday, DHEC said it is improving its electronic reporting system. In the meantime, whether more labs' information could be missing is difficult to say. Seanna Adcox contributed to this report. (CNN) The short list is secret, as are the nominators, and documents revealing the juicy details are sealed from public view for 50 years. The Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry and Medicine are the acme of scientific achievement honoring great minds and life-changing discoveries. But predicting who will be summoned to Stockholm and win the accolades, which are announced next week, is easy to get wrong. That doesn't mean that people don't try. Some look at which scientists have won so-called predictor prizes like the Lasker Awards for medical science, others analyze the fields of study favored by the Nobel Committee and tally how many years pass before a specific field is honored. Just five fields out of 114 different scientific disciplines account for more than half of Nobel Prizes awarded from 1995 to 2017, according to one recent analysis -- particle physics, atomic physics, cell biology, neuroscience and molecular chemistry. Complicating matters is that the Nobel selection committee, according to the rules laid down by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in 1895, can only honor up to three people -- something that is getting harder given the collaborative nature of much scientific research. Pandemic medicine Unlike the peace prize, which often raises some eyebrows, the science prizes tend to honor achievements that have withstood the test of time -- last year's prize in chemistry recognized research in the development of lithium batteries from the 1980s that included honoring the oldest winner ever. The distinctions in science are thus less likely to generate controversy. This means that it's highly unlikely that the fast-moving scientific research into Covid-19 will be featured, although many think that a drug to treat the disease or vaccine to stop its spread is a potential future winner. That said, Gilbert Thompson, professor emeritus of clinical lipidology at Imperial College London, thinks that the committee could honor two scientists, Max Cooper and Jacques Miller, whose discovery about the organization and function of the human immune system, in particular B cells and T cells, is underpinning vaccine research. "That work took place a long time ago but it just happens that it's highly appropriate to what's going on right now," said Thompson, who has written a book on the achievements of Nobel Prize winners. "It's conceivable that the Nobel Prize committee will latch onto that." Eman Ghanem, membership director at Sigma Xi, a global association of around 30,000 scientists that includes some 200 Nobel prize winners, is hopeful that there will be a female Nobel Laureate in science after an all-male lineup in 2019. Last year, the Nobel Committee asked nominators to consider diversity in gender, geography and topic. Citations David Pendlebury, a senior citation analyst at Clarivate Analytics, since 2002 has made 54 correct predictions (though not usually in the right year) by analyzing how often a scientist's key papers are cited by peers. Out of some 50 million scientific papers indexed since 1970, only 5,700 (or 0.01%) have been cited 2,000 or more times, and this is the pool from which his prediction are drawn. "We're not saying that these particular people are going to win in a particular year," Pendlebury said. "We're saying these people are Nobel class and are likely to win a Nobel prize at some point. For the physics prize, one of three contending groups Pendlebury lists is Carlos Frenk of Durham University, Julio Navarro of University of Victoria in Canada and Simon White, former director at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, for their work into galaxy formation, cosmic structure and dark matter. However, Pendlebury said a win this year is unlikely because last year's physics prize for the first discovery of planets outside our solar system, led by Princeton astrophysicist James Peebles, was from the same field. "It's highly cited, essential work, but I think it will probably be a few years till they return to a prize in cosmology," he said. "Though they could prove me wrong." Conservative choices The CRISPR gene-editing technology, is often mentioned as a candidate for the chemistry prize, but Pendlebury said it was a potential minefield for a Nobel Committee that likes to play it safe. While worthy, he said several groups of scientists have been collaborating on gene editing, making it hard to narrow it down to three names. Moreover, the technology had until recently been tied up in patent wrangles. (And that's notwithstanding the ethical concerns that have dogged the technology in the wake of Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who was jailed for creating the world's first gene-edited babies.) "I think they are making conservative choices on the significance of the science," he said. For medicine, Pendlebury's picks include Yusuke Nakamura, a Japanese geneticist, whose contributions in pioneering whole genome sequencing gave birth to the field of personalized medicine that has revolutionized cancer treatment; and Lebanese scientist Huda Y. Zoghbi, for her work on neurological disorders including the genetic origins of Rett syndrome, a rare genetic neurological disorder that occurs primarily in girls. She was the 2017 winner of a $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences -- founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg. "She's a very good example of someone who's likely to get Nobel recognition because of the awards she's been getting," Pendlebury said. "It's not just the accumulation of citations. Receiving these top prizes, which are chosen and selected by your peers, you get a stronger and stronger signal of how important this work has been." This story was first published on CNN.com Why it's so hard to guess who's going to get a Nobel Prize Truly significant project will improve Black, Asian and minority ethnic education resources in Wales This article is old - Published: Saturday, Oct 3rd, 2020 A Truly significant project will help improve Black, Asian and minority ethnic education resources in Wales To mark the start of Black History Month, Education Minister Kirsty Williamsn has updated on a project that aims to improve the teaching of themes relating to Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and experiences across all parts of the school curriculum. In July the minister confirmed Professor Charlotte Williams OBE had accepted an invitation to lead a new working group the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnicities (BAME) Communities, Contributions and Cynefin in the new curriculum. This week the Kirsty Williams MS has confirmed the working groups membership and set out the groups objectives and key milestones for delivery. The group includes: Abu-Bakr Madden Al-Shabazz, Cardiff University Centre for Lifelong Learning Angela Heald, head teacher of St Josephs Cathedral Primary School, Swansea Clara Seery, Managing Director of Central South Consortium Humie Webbe, National Training Federation Wales Dr Marian Gwyn of Bangor University Professor Martin Johnes of Swansea University Nia Williams of Ysgol y Preseli Nicky Hagendyk, Humanities Lead, EAS Consortia Rajvi Glasbrook Griffiths, deputy head at High Cross Primary School, Rogerstone Dr Shehla Khan, a lecturer at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David The group will review the learning resources currently available to support the teaching of themes relating to BAME communities, their contributions and experiences; advise on the commission of new learning resources; and reviewing and report on professional development to support teaching in these areas of learning. Education Minister Kirsty Williams said: I am pleased to announce the publication of Terms of Reference for the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities, Contributions and Cynefin in the New Curriculum Working Group. The group will work in the spirit of the Curriculum for Wales guidance, considering the strategic and broad principles and direction required, ensuring what is important in delivering a broad and balanced education across each of the areas of learning and experience. I expect the group to report on their initial findings, including recommendations for new resources for the forthcoming academic year by mid-autumn, with a final report presented in spring 2021. I am also pleased to note that the members of the Working Group, chaired by Professor Charlotte Williams OBE, reflect a wide range of experiences and specialisms. The Group is well placed to take full account of the histories, contributions and experiences of BAME communities in their work, and to deliver recommendations which will result in both the commission of robust and meaningful learning resources and constructive support for teaching practitioners to increase their skills in this very important area of learning. Professor Charlotte Williams added: This is a truly significant project. Our vision is that every pupil, as ethical and informed citizens of Wales and the world, should explore the diverse experiences and contributions of Black, Asian and minority ethnic peoples in Wales, past and present. Our vision would see every teacher in Wales, in every area of Learning and experience, equipped and resourced to meet these expectations in the design of their curriculum and in their pedagogical practice. A school trustee has resigned after provocative comments surrounding Orange Shirt Day, according to a statement from the Grand Erie District School Board. Christina Speers, a trustee in Brant County and Norfolk County, tendered her resignation two days after a Facebook post she published about Orange Shirt Day, a day to mark the tragedy of residential schools. The Grand Erie board said it acknowledged her resignation without hesitation. We denounce the views expressed by Ms. Speers as they do not align with Grand Eries commitment to equity as seen through our multi-year plan and our focus on promoting practices that help students, families and staff feel safe, welcome and included, the statement said. Screenshots sent to the Star show a post from Speers that says: I chose not to wear an orange shirt today, and for the kids as well. We are going to need to release pantone colours by the time we get to every groups demands on our (public school) children. Just yesterday they were reminded in these super stressful times that Terry Fox died of cancer that took his leg. Speers wrote that these were heavy stories to ask our children to carry while being sent to school for math, science and English. Instead of an orange shirt to show the world I actually do care about Indigenous people and their assimilation and brutal attack and the taking away of their lands and ways, I take my kids to their land to thank them and to seek a better balance. Immerse yourself in understanding it takes more than a shirt. In 2013, Orange Shirt Day was created as an annual event to educate and bring awareness in Canada to the residential school system and the impact it continues to have on Indigenous communities across the country. Speers did not respond to requests from the Star for comment. Aleria McKay, who attended a school thats part of the board, pinned a letter to her blog Thursday addressing Speerss post. In an interview, the Anishinaabe woman from Six Nations said the purpose of the blog was to use this as a teachable moment to explain why the comments were hurtful. Her words in particular I thought were important because she was in an important position within the board, who has many Indigenous students who would agree that they do not do enough for their native students and dont do enough to address the racism that still persists within schools. McKay attended Brantford Collegiate Institute back in 2013, and through her five years she said she never saw any change being implemented to address racism within the school. Since her blog post, McKay said shes received a lot of positive feedback from the community. Ive gotten a lot of former students and current students contacting me about their experiences within the schools and how theyve dealt with racism and how its still pervasive and people dont do anything about it. Libaan Osman is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Reach him via email: losman@thestar.ca Technavio has been monitoring the clinical mass spectrometry market and it is poised to grow by USD 1.70 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 6% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201002005043/en/ Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Clinical Mass Spectrometry Market 2020-2024 (Photo: Business Wire). 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=IRTNTR44340 This Report Addresses: The market size from 2020-2024 Expected market growth until 2024 Forecast of how market drivers, restraints, and future opportunities will affect the market dynamics Segments and regions that will drive or lead market growth and why Comprehensive mapping of the competitive landscape In-depth analysis of key sustainability strategies adopted by market players 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 end-user, which is the leading segment in the market? Healthcare facilities and pharma and biotech companies are expected to be the leading segment based on end-user in the global market during the forecast period. What are the major trends in the market? Increasing demand for clinical mass spectrometry in personalized medicine is one of the major trends in the market. At what rate is the market projected to grow? Growing at a CAGR of almost 6%, the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be USD 1.70 billion. Who are the top players in the market? Agilent Technologies Inc., Bruker Corp., Danaher Corp., Hitachi Ltd., JEOL Ltd., Kore Technology Ltd., PerkinElmer Inc., Shimadzu Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., and Waters Corp. are some of the major market participants. What are the key market drivers and challenges? Rise in geriactric population is one of the major factors driving the market. However, the high cost of instruments will restrain market growth. How big is the Europe market? The Europe region will contribute 30% of market growth. The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Agilent Technologies Inc., Bruker Corp., Danaher Corp., Hitachi Ltd., JEOL Ltd., Kore Technology Ltd., PerkinElmer Inc., Shimadzu Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., and Waters Corp. are some of the major market participants. The rise in geriactric population 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. Clinical Mass Spectrometry Market 2020-2024: Segmentation Clinical Mass Spectrometry Market is segmented as below: End-user Healthcare Facilities and Pharma and Biotech Companies Research Labs and Institutes Geography North America Europe Asia ROW Clinical Mass Spectrometry 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 clinical mass spectrometry market report covers the following areas: Clinical Mass Spectrometry Market Size Clinical Mass Spectrometry Market Trends Clinical Mass Spectrometry Market Analysis This study identifies increasing demand for clinical mass spectrometry in personalized medicine as one of the prime reasons driving the clinical mass spectrometry market growth during the next few years. Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Technavio's in-depth research has direct and indirect COVID-19 impacted market research reports. Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports. Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform Clinical Mass Spectrometry Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024 Detailed information on factors that will assist clinical mass spectrometry market growth during the next five years Estimation of the clinical mass spectrometry market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the clinical mass spectrometry market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of clinical mass spectrometry 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 End-user Market segments Comparison by End-user Healthcare facilities and pharma and biotech companies Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Research labs and institutes Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Market opportunity by End-user Customer landscape 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 by geography Market drivers Market challenges Market trends Vendor Landscape Overview Vendor landscape Landscape disruption Vendor Analysis Vendors covered Market positioning of vendors Agilent Technologies Inc. Bruker Corp. Danaher Corp. Hitachi Ltd. JEOL Ltd. Kore Technology Ltd. PerkinElmer Inc. Shimadzu Corp. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Waters Corp. 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/20201002005043/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/ But how much can a koala bear? On the final day of school, circa 1967, one of the lads dressed up impressively in a Sydney Girls uniform and hid in a clump of vegetation in the middle of the SGHS playground area, staying there until recess. Meanwhile, my informant relates, a gaggle of SBHS lads gathered on the flat on their side, and when the girls emerged stormed the ramparts to and crossed the demilitarised zone into the confines of SGHS, and then captured the screaming cross-dresser and transported her/him at shoulder height back through the fence, across the flat and into a room underneath the Great Hall. When the teacher on duty courageously launched a counter-raid to retrieve she who had been kidnapped, it was to find only the remains of her uniform on the floor. It took, as you might imagine, some time to sort out! In the late 60s, the boys of Sydney Boy's High got inventive with their muck-up day fun. Credit:SMH One of life's mysteries Its like my favourite old-time conundrums. Why do they have expiry dates on cartons of sour-cream? And why do mozzies sound louder in the dark? In the wake of President Trump putting the Proud Boys in the news by seeming to give them a nod in the presidential debate, here is this weeks conundrum: Why is it that so often members of white supremacy groups are, ummm, you know, so the least impressive members of the "white race"? Of all people claiming supremacy, why these pasty patsies, these bone-ignorant blobs? Torch-bearing white nationalists rally around a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville in 2017. Credit:New York Times Social Media Samaritan Yup, on a bad day social media can be as ugly as a hatful. But on a good day, lovely things happen. Last Monday lunchtime for example, Helena Blackstock turned right at the Seaforth traffic lights to go down to the Spit Bridge, entirely unaware that her husbands surfboard on the roof-rack was unfastened. As she turned she was oblivious as it flew off into the bus lane and were only made aware by a friendly motorist. By the time her husband could race there from home it was gone. No worries. Explaining the situation on the Balgowlah Heights Community Facebook page, she finished with: I wonder if the Good Samaritan who has the board could contact me please. Fingers crossed!" Meantime, the person who had retrieved the board in the middle of whizzing traffic, Francee Drew, put up her own post independently seeking to find the boards owner. Someone put the two together, the board was back by sundown, and they all lived happily ever after. Gotta love this city. Losing a surf board in traffic approaching the Spit Bridge is asking for trouble. Credit:James Brickwood Joke of the Week The population of this country is veeery roughly 20-odd million. Six million are either retired or toddlers. That leaves 14 million to do the work. There are 8 million in school or uni, which leaves 6 million to do the work. Of this, there are 3 million employed by the federal government leaving 3 million to do the work. Half a million of those are in the armed forces, border force, police and the like. This leaves 2.5 million to do the work. Take from the total the 1.5 million people who work for state and local governments and that leaves 1 million people to do the work. At any given time, there are 380,000 people in hospitals, leaving 620,000 to do the work. Now, there are 619,998 people living overseas, in prisons, appearing in reality shows, on the dole or elected politicians. That leaves just 2 people to do the work: you and me. And there you are sitting on your bum reading jokes. Nice, real nice Best Exchange of the Week Joe Biden, upon Donald Trumps tenth blustering bully of an interruption, shakes his head and says Will you shut up, man? American writer and lawyer Jill Filipovic tweets: I so feel for Hillary right now because Im positive she wanted to say that and couldnt. Whereupon Hillary Clinton herself instantly responds with: You have no idea." Tweet of the Week That debate was the worst thing I have ever seen, and I was in the Star Wars Holiday Special. - actor Mark Hamill. Quotes of the Week That was a hot mess inside a dumpster truck inside a train wreck! - CNN pundit Jack Tapper, immediately after the first presidential debate on Wednesday. The debate was a joke, a low point, a shame for the country. Roaring, insults, two over-70s who interrupt each other like 5-year-olds and a moderator who loses all control. The trigger, of course: Trump's uncouth, undignified behaviour. - Markus Feldenkirchen of the German news magazine Der Spiegel on Twitter. I picked a lot of hit records when I was supposed to be the hottest disc jockey in town. Records that no one else would think of playing. We all played the American hits but no one [else] would have been game to play A Pub with No Beer, which probably became one of the greatest Australian hits of all time. - Bob Rogers, now retiring after 78 years in radio, on the secret of his success. His last stint finished midnight last night. It leaves John Laws as the last man left standing, of the radio titans. Ironically, while we do have to be cautious about the fire season ... Im also told to brace ourselves for floods [and] extreme conditions over the next few months. - Gladys Berejiklian with the good news about summer. There is no dispute that the bread supplied by Subway in its heated sandwiches has a sugar content of 10 per cent of the weight of the flour included in the dough, and thus exceeds the 2 per cent specified. - from a ruling by Irelands Supreme Court that bread sold by the fast food chain Subway contains so much sugar that it cannot be legally defined as bread. Eventually, when there is needing to be more runways and more infrastructure built at Western Sydney Airport, theyll look back and theyll say, probably, what a bargain that was. The $30 million, yes, its a lot of money, but in time it will be a very good investment. - Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack saying that taxpayers got a bargain in spending $33 million to buy part of a dairy farm near the Western Sydney Airport that was later valued at $3 million. Can the government, perchance, point to an under-bidder that made an offer of $29 million? Our rivers are poisoned with copper, our homes get filled with dust from the tailings mounds, our kids get sick from the pollution. Every time it rains, more waste washes into the rivers, causing flooding for villages further downstream. Some communities now have to spend two hours a day walking just to get clean drinking water because their nearby creeks are clogged up with mine waste. - Theonila Roka Matbob, a traditional landowner who has recently been elected to the Bougainville parliament, speaking out against Rio Tinto. More than 150 Bougainville residents are petitioning the Australian government to investigate Rio Tinto over claims its failure to clean up millions of tonnes of waste from its former copper mine on the island has caused severe environmental damage and human rights violations. 1. Yes. Too many kids are staying home. They need a virtual learning option to keep up. 2. Yes. Teachers are out sick and subs cant handle the load. Online learning is needed. 3. No. Its too late in the school year to make a wholesale switch in teaching platforms. 4.No. Many parents arent in a position to stay home while their kids learn virtually. 5. Unsure. It may seem like a good idea from a health standpoint, but it has shortcomings. Vote View Results San Francisco: An Indian-American student has found an easier and cheaper method to convert salt water into drinkable fresh water and his research has caught the attention of major universities and technology firms. Chaitanya Karamchedu from Portland, Oregon, is turning heads across the country all because of a science experiment that began in his high school classroom. The Jesuit High School Senior told KPTV that he has big plans of changing the world. "1 in 8 people do not have access to clean water, it's acrying issue that needs to be addressed," said Karamchedu. He made up his mind to address the matter himself. "The best access for water is the sea, so 70 per cent ofthe planet is covered in water and almost all of that is theocean, but the problem is that's salt water," said Karamchedu. Isolating drinkable water from the ocean in a cost effective way is a problem that has stumped scientists for years. "Scientists looked at desalination, but it's all still inaccessible to places and it would cost too much to implementon a large scale," Karamchedu said. Karamchedu figured it out, on his own, in a high school lab. "The real genesis of the idea was realising that seawater is not fully saturated with salt," he was quoted assaying. By experimenting with a highly absorbent polymer, theteen discovered a cost effective way to remove salt from oceanwater and turn it into fresh water. "It's not bonding with water molecules, it's bonding to the salt," said Karamchedu. "People have been looking at the problem from one viewpoint, how do we break those bonds between salt and the water? Chai came in and thought about it from a completely different angle," said Jesuit High School Biology Teacher Dr. Lara Shamieh. "People were concentrated on that 10 per cent of water that's bonded to the salt in the sea and no one looked at the 90 per cent that was free. Chai just looked at it and said if 10 per cent is bonded and 90 per cent is free, then why are weso focused on this 10 per cent, let's ignore it and focus onthe 90," Shamieh said. It is a breakthrough that is estimated to impact millions of lives if ever implemented on a mass scale. "What this is compared to current techniques, is that it's cheap and accessible to everyone, everyone can use it," said Shamieh. Scientists across the country are taking note. He won aUSD 10,000 award from the US Agency for International Global Development at Intel's International Science Fair and second place at MIT's Tech Con Conference where he won more money to continue his research. "They were very encouraging, they could see things intoit that I couldn't, because they've been working their whole lives on this," said Karamchedu. Back in January, Karamchedu was also named one of 300Regeneron Science Talent Search Semifinalists. The STS is thought to be one of the most prestigious competitions in thecountry for high school seniors. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. HERRIN The Orthopaedic Institute of Southern Illinois announced this week that Justin D. Harris has been named as its new chief executive officer. Justin has a wealth of experience in the health care field and brings a new level of expertise to OISI, said Dr. Treg Brown, president of OISI and team physician at Southern Illinois University and Rend Lake College. He has demonstrated leadership and a goal-oriented attitude since arriving here. He has already enacted several changes to OISI that will reap rewards for our patients, staff, and providers well into the future. Before joining OISI, Harris spent the past couple of years focusing his efforts on new hospital acquisitions both as a CEO and COO. Harris has more than 10 years of health care experience, serving aspects of health care including not-for-profit, for-profit, and governmental organizations, according to a news release from OISI. Harris previously served in management consulting roles in health care operations. Prior to consulting, Harris worked in various administrative roles in both Kentucky and Tennessee under the parent company Community Health Systems, a large national for-profit hospital chain. I am excited to move to the area and join the team at The Orthopaedic Institute of Southern Illinois, Harris said in the news release. It is comforting to know that I am joining a group of highly qualified, esteemed medical providers who provide high quality care, 100% of the time. As the leader of our organization, our team members are committed to providing a safe place for orthopaedic care. Harris earned a master of science in health administration and a master of business administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Harris is originally from Kentucky and is married to his wife, Kaitlyn; and they have identical twin girls, Kyleigh and Amelia. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The federal and provincial governments have jointly committed $120 million over eight years to provide direct support to low-income households with the greatest housing need across Nova Scotia. Halifax MP Andy Fillmore made the announcement about the new Canada-Nova Scotia Targeted Housing Benefit (CNSTHB) Thursday. What this benefit will do is its going to provide money directly into the pocket of those in the greatest housing need in the amount of between $200 and $450 a month, he told The Chronicle Herald. And whats unique and different about this compared to any other previous housing subsidy is that its not going to a unit or an affordable housing dwelling unit, its not going to a landlord to reduce rent, its going directly to the human being who is in housing need. Fillmore said a total of 6,000 households in Nova Scotia will receive the benefit.This includes about 1,700 new eligible renter and homeowner applicants and about 1,000 households who will be transitioned to the new program when their existing rent supplement expires. In the first year, about 2,700 households are expected to be assisted under the new program. The province is responsible for administering the program and handling applications. Renters will be invited by Housing Nova Scotia to apply for the CNSTHB or will be identified by a housing support worker as eligible for the benefit before receiving an application. Homeowners can get the application form through Housing Nova Scotias website, in person from their housing authority or by mail after phoning their housing authority. The CNSTHB builds on the Canada-Nova Scotia Bilateral Agreement under the National Housing Strategy, which will provide more than $400 million to protect, renew and expand social and community housing, as well as to support Nova Scotias housing priorities, according to a news release. Fillmore said the CNSTHB modifies the Canada Housing Benefit to be a made in Nova Scotia approach. It uses $60 million from the National Housing Strategy and $60 million from the provincial government for a total of $120 million of funding over the next eight years. Both levels of government understood it was time to stand up and to set up to the acute need that people are feeling, Fillmore said, adding COVID-19 has exacerbated housing affordability challenges among low-income households in Nova Scotia. Fillmore noted there is no single answer to solving housing affordability, but said the new CNSTHB is the beginning of recognizing the provision of housing as a fundamental human right. This is going to help 6,000 households across the province to have access to safe, secure, affordable, dignified housing, he added. And housing is the very first thing people need in order to get educated, keep their families healthy, keep themselves healthy, find employment all of that is contingent on having safe and secure housing. Read more about: Delhi workers, along with members of party-affiliated Auto Taxi Union, on Saturday staged a protest here against the over "arbitrary challan of vehicles. Some of the protesters including Delhi vice president Jaikishan and Veer Singh Dhingan were detained by police near Chandgi Ram Akhara, party leader Parvez Alam said. "The government agencies including traffic police are arbitrarily issuing vehicle in the garb of the Amended Motor Vehicle Act. The protesters demanded Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to provide relief to auto and taxi drivers from theses challans," Alam said. The detained protesters were taken by police to the Maurice Nagar police station. (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.) Hello fellow travelers , We are a group of 4 couples looking to travel in Feb 2022 to NZ for the first time. We will have about 7 days to explore and would really appreciate advice as to the 'must do' places/activities. Would you recommend flying into the South Island first then flying to the north? We will be coming from the USA or Australia not sure which one just yet. We enjoy being active although have some knee issues, we enjoy wine, the water, history and natural beauty. So far from our research, Queenstown looks like the place to experience a jet boat ride and although we are not all thrill seekers it does look fun. Auckland appears to be a good jumping off spot to go to the Hobbiton movie set, black water rafting the Waitomo caves vs a cruise through them and enjoying Polynesian spa thermal springs and geothermic activity in Rotorua. For the North island it looks like Napier is a fun place to experience the Art Festival in February and Coromandel for the cathedral cove and hot water beach at low tide. We know that 7 days isn't alot of time so we really appreciate everyone's experience to help us maximize our visit. TIA for any tips and or advice! The governors office reported on Friday there have been 460 new cases of the coronavirus in the state. The new cases were found among 33,808 new tests a positivity rate of just under 1.4 percent. On Thursday, the state reported 192 new cases out of 10,372 tests for a 1.8 percent positivity rate. Three more people have been hospitalized for the illness, with a total of 110 now hospitalized in Connecticut, according to Fridays data. Connecticut also recorded three more deaths attributed to the virus, bringing the death toll in the state to 4,513. Connecticuts 460 cases reported Friday pushes the seven-day rolling average of daily cases to 244, or just under 70 cases per million people per day. Thats a jump from where the state has been over the last two weeks in the range of 40 to 50 per day per million people. But its still far lower than the national rate, which is hovering around 128 cases per million. Its also well below the threshold of 100 cases per day per million thats considered a warning level. The more closely watched figure percentage of tests showing a positive result stands at 1.1 percent over the last seven days well in line as one of the nations lowest rates of the illness. The 460 cases reported Friday came with an asterisk, as part of a cache of 33,808 that were done earlier but not previously reported. In short, two days of very large test numbers pushed Connecticut higher in total cases but the rate of illness remains low. The state has had five days of more than 400 cases since July, as overall averages have remained much lower. The larger concern is hot spots such as Norwich, a municipality of around 39,000 residents in New London County, where public health officials said there has been a spike of 84 new cases between Sept. 13 and 26. That brought the daily case rate in Norwich to 24 per 100,000 the highest rate in the state. Residents of the city are being told to limit trips outside their homes, wear masks when they do venture out, and avoid gatherings. Dante Dicks, a junior at Harding High School in Bridgeport, wouldnt call himself a fan of wearing a face mask. They are a bit uncomfortable, Dicks concedes. But Im fine with it, he quickly adds in a direct message to a reporters question. I know that they protect me from COVID-19 and it creates a safe environment for me and my fellow classmates to work in. With some exceptions, that seems to be the sentiment of students returning to socially distant classrooms across the region. A Hartford superior court case notwithstanding, mask wearing has been called part of the price of returning to the classroom as long as the pandemic is a threat. In Hartford, Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher has been asked to weigh in on the legality of requiring students to wear masks. A lawsuit filed on behalf of parents in Manchester, Wallingford, Niantic, Marlborough and Farmington argues that the state lacks the authority to create the mandate and is violating the constitutional rights of students by imposing it. Oral arguments began in the case last week. State school reopening guidance directed all schools to adopt policies requiring the use of face coverings for all students, ages 3 and up, and staff when they are inside any school building. It further directs districts to be prepared to provide a face covering to any student or staff member who does not bring one with them to the school on any given day and be prepared to deny entry to individuals who arrive at school without a face covering. The directive calls the wearing of face coverings one of the most important strategies to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in school populations. It is not out of line with what other states have done. Staff and/or students must also wear masks in Alaska, California, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Ohio, Utah and Washington. Some bus drivers frustrated The states mask mandate extends to outdoors in instances where there is outdoor instruction, extracurricular activities, during the daily admission and dismissal process and on school buses. In Trumbull, where school bus drivers are engaged with a contract battle with Durham Bus Company, drivers and monitors on three routes have reported issues with students who either pull their masks down once they get on the school bus or refuse to wear them getting on, union officials said. A lot of kids think its a joke, said Lydia Hernandez, a school bus monitor and shop steward in Trumbull. Hernandez said one school bus driver headed to a Trumbull middle school on Thursday, literally had to pull the bus over when a large group of students pulled down their masks. The drivers recourse, Hernandez said, was to write the kids up. Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media Then nothing happens, alleged Mustafa Salahuddin, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1336, which represents Trumbull school bus drivers. Jonathan Budd, an assistant superintendent in Trumbull said the district has talked to all principals and that none have reported any issues with face masks, including reports that they are not being worn on school buses. To be proactive, both principals continue to remind students and parents in various formats about the importance of mask-wearing, Budd said. Salahuddin said the union has requested all drivers be equipped with face shields. So far only three drivers have received them, he added. Even then I feel for the other kids (on the bus), Salahuddin said. The buses are not at full capacity but there are enough coughs and sneezes to make drivers worry, the union head said. The only ventilation is cracking windows. ... When temperature drops, someone is going to get sick, he said. In Bridgeport, Schools Superintendent Michael Testani told his board he has heard of only one or two small incidents with students not wearing masks on school buses and that the district is working with those families. Superintendents report overall compliance Before schools reopened this fall, there was some concern in Connecticut that students, especially young ones, would not tolerate wearing masks for a full school day. Some parents cited that fear in opting for remote learning instead of in-school instruction. State Department of Education officials point out that their directive calls for mask breaks and allows for medical exemptions. The department is not keeping track of who is following the rules and who is not. Some local districts are. School chiefs from around the region report general compliance with the mandate. The kids are so compliant, Bethel Superintendent Christine Carver said. School board policy states that students and staff would face disciplinary action if they refused to wear masks, but Carver said so far, they have not had a problem of students refusing to wear them. contributed In Shelton, Interim Schools Superintendent Beth Smith said she has schools tracking compliance with all mitigation strategies, including mask wearing over the nose and mouth. Most schools, Smith said, have reported 100 percent compliance. There are few exceptions where principals have recorded 95 or 98 percent, Smith said. To my knowledge there have been no disciplinary consequences due to mask wearing. Most times a simple reminder suffices. Shelton allows accommodations to mask wearing for students after a verification process and notes from their medical providers. In some cases that amounts to additional mask breaks instead of a license to go mask-free. In Fairfield, the school system recently surveyed all of its schools on mitigation strategies and reported strong evidence of compliance across all grades, and among staff, said Andrea Clark, a district spokeswoman. Clark said it helps that at the elementary level, students are on a half-day schedule and need to be in school and wearing a mask for only three hours daily. Very few students qualify for the medical exemption based on state guidance, Clark added. In Stratford, Schools Superintendent Janet Robinson said time spent outlining the mask-wearing requirement at the beginning of the year appears to have paid off. Students and staff are adhering to the mask requirement quite well, Robinson said We have not authorized any exemptions, and have only had one student who refused to wear a mask who was then sent home. Stratford handed out two cloth masks to every student and has disposable masks on hand should they forget or misplace theirs during a mask break. Greenwich, too, has a supply of disposable face masks at each school in case a student shows up without one. As a district, we are very proud of how our students and staff have been wearing their masks and following the safety protocols in place, Greenwich Superintendent Toni Jones said. In Bridgeport, Testani told his school board the mask mandate has been extremely successful, based on staff feedback and his own observations. Prior to opening people were saying there is no way our kids cant do this, the superintendent said last week. They come to school, they wear the mask. ... They understand the importance. They follow the rules. Some Bridgeport teachers, however, said some students still need to reminded to wear masks correctly. Pre-K through 8 (there are) many noses hanging out and unmasked parents picking up students, said one teacher who asked not to be identified. General rule is: the younger they are, the harder it is to maintain the rule, the teacher said. Contributed / Joe DiBacco In Ansonia, Schools Superintendent Joseph DiBacco said students are doing an exceptional job with mask wearing. I am not aware of any students needing exemptions or students being defiant. ... Knock on wood, DiBacco said. To help in the effort, Ansonia purchased masks with the districts Charger logo, for both staff and students, DiBacco said. Masks that are not allowed In some districts, while masks are required, they cant be used as a platform to express opinions. Before school even opened, teachers in Bridgeport got a email from Denise Dixon, executive director of human resources, warning that masks of a political nature would not be allowed in schools. At this time NO masks referring to Black Lives Matter, Make America Great or even Voting will be allowed at this time, the email stated. Recognizing that everyone has a right to his/her political or personal beliefs, displaying such such on facial masks worn at school cannot and will not be allowed. Dixon concluded: Failure to abide by this can result in discipline. There have been no reports of the directive needing to be enforced. A similar mask message ban is in effect in Fairfield. Masks are subject to the same school dress guidelines that apply to any other clothing, said Clark. The idea is to minimize distractions. Clothing that promotes or depicts substance abuse, violent behavior, or sexually explicit or suggestive words or pictures is prohibited. Staff writer Julia Perkins contributed to this report. Includes prior reporting by The Associated Press. Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has cut short his 4-day campaign tour of the Greater Accra Region and is currently to the North East Region to commiserate with victims of devastating floods that hit three communities in the West Mamprusi Municipality on Thursday. Dr Bawumia's campaign was due to end today October 2, 2020, but he had to visit his home region to ascertain the extent of damage and provide support for the thousands of flood victims. Four villages, Gaagbini, Dimia, Tinkaya and Banawa have been the hardest hit. Yesterday the villages were submerged in flood waters following massive torrential rains that forced the banks of three dams to break, allowing the water from the dams to rush onto the villages. Thousands of acres of farmlands and homes have been submerged while livestock has been carried away by the flood waters. It has been confirmed by officials of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) that a three-year child has died. The Municipal Chief Executive of West Mamprusi, Arimeyaw Somo Lucky, has been left helpless and has called for support. The timely visit by Dr. Bawumia, a native of the region, is expected to bring much relief to the victims who are currently being housed in public schools and offices of the Municipal Assembly. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Type address separated by commas Your Email: The Congress in Assam on Saturday invited all other Opposition parties to join hands with it in order to achieve the composite target to beat the ruling BJP in next year's Assembly elections amid the birth of two new regional parties by organisations opposed to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). "No political force can dethrone the BJP in Assam without the assistance of the Congress. If these parties truly feel that the BJP is the principal enemy of the people of Assam and their interests, then they should join hands with the Congress and fight the electoral battle of 2021 together," senior Congress leader and leader of the Opposition in Assam Assembly, Debabrata Saikia said. Saikia's call came at a time two new regional parties formed by the influential All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and Akhil Gogoi-led Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) decided to contest the elections but maintaining equal distance from the BJP and the Congress. Read: All Assam Students' Union to start new party from anti-CAA protests The Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), formed by the AASU and the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) are planning to contest in at least 80 of the 126 seats while the Raijor Dal, another party formed on Friday by the KMSS and a few other local organisations are also planning to field their candidates with CAA as their main poll plank against the ruling BJP and its allies. The announcement by the parties that they would not join hands with the BJP or the Congress made leaders of the ruling party happy saying division of the anti-CAA votes would help them to retain power. The KMSS, AASU, AJYCP and several other organisations had led the massive anti-CAA agitation that rocked most parts of Assam in December-January. The agitation left the BJP a little worried fearing that the sentiments of the Assamese people against the CAA could turn into votes against it. Grand Alliance in the making? With the new anti-BJP regional parties unwilling to join hands ahead of polls, the Congress is trying hard to give shape to the "Mahajot or Grand Alliance" with Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front, Left parties and all others opposed to the CAA and the BJP. Ajmal has "in-principle" agreed for the alliance and is discussing the modalities. Stating that the Congress was open for adjustments with all anti-BJP forces, Saikia said, "The new parties should not tar the Congress and the BJP with the same brush as enemies of Assam and thereby mislead the electorate," he said in a statement. Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale on Saturday said there should not be any politics in the name of atrocities on Dalits which he claimed to have been going on during successive governments in Uttar Pradesh. What has happened in Hathras is most terrible. The incident of rape on a Dalit girl is a very serious issue, he said. Athawale, who said he will be meeting Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, stated, On the Hathras case, I have to say that there should not be politics in the name of atrocities on Dalits. It is not right to propagate about atrocities on Dalits during Yogi government. It is right that atrocities are taking place but it had been so during the Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and Akhilesh (Yadav) governments also, he added. Backing CM Adityanath on the steps taken by him in the case, the Union minister said the manner in which the womans body was cremated was wrong and he would be taking up the issue of action on other officials. He said the reason behind such atrocities on Dalits is casteism and it will continue till people have casteist mindset. Athawale said he wanted to go to Hathras on Friday but could not do so as the district administration had barred the entry of outsiders while adding that he would try to go next week, if allowed. By Associated Press BETHESDA: President Donald Trump went through a very concerning period Friday and the next 48 hours will be critical" in his care as he battles the coronavirus at a hospital, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Saturday. Meadows comments contradicted the rosy assessment of Trumps condition offered by his staff and doctors, who took pains not to reveal the president had received supplemental oxygen at the White House before his hospital admission. Were still not on a clear path yet to a full recovery, said a weary Meadows. It was a dramatically different picture than the one painted by the White House staff since Trump revealed his diagnosis as well as by his doctors, who updated the public at a press conference at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The briefing by Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley and other doctors raised more questions than it answered as Conley repeatedly refused to say whether the president ever needed supplemental oxygen, despite repeated questioning, and declined to discuss exactly when he fell ill. Conley also revealed that Trump began exhibiting clinical indications of COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon, earlier than previously known. Thursday no oxygen. None at this moment. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen, Conley said. But according to a person familiar with Trumps condition, Trump was administered oxygen at the White House on Friday before he was transported to the military hospital. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, Conley said Trump's symptoms, including a cough and nasal congestion, are now resolving and improving, and said the president had been fever-free for 24 hours. But Trump also is taking aspirin, which lowers body temperature and could mask or mitigate that symptom. Hes in exceptionally good spirits, said another doctor, Sean Dooley. Trump is 74 years old and clinically obese, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has infected more than 7 million people nationwide and killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S. White House officials, including Meadows, had insisted Friday that Trump had only mild symptoms" as they tried to project an image of normalcy. President Trump remains in good spirts, has mild symptoms and has been working throughout the day, said press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She said Trump had only been sent to Walter Reed as a precaution. Trump's administration has been less than transparent with the public throughout the pandemic, both about the presidents health and the virus' spread inside the White House. The first word that a close aide to Trump had been infected came from the media, not the White House. And aides have repeatedly declined to share basic health information, including a full accounting of the presidents symptoms, what tests hes undertaken and the results. In a memo released late Friday, Conley did report that Trump had been treated at the hospital with remdesivir, an antiviral medication, after taking another experimental drug at the White House. ALSO READ: US presidents and health, history replete with secrecy, lies Conley declined to say when Trump had last been tested before he was confirmed to have COVID-19 late Thursday. He initially suggested that Trump was 72 hours into the diagnosis which would mean that he was confirmed infected Wednesday. Conley later clarified that Trump was administered an accurate test for the virus on Thursday afternoon, after White House aide Hope Hicks was confirmed to be positive and Trump exhibited unspecified clinical indications of the virus. The White House said Trump was expected to stay at the hospital for a few days and would continue to work from the hospitals presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties. In addition to accessibility to tests and equipment, the decision was made, at least in part, with the understanding that moving him to the hospital later, if he took a turn for the worse, could send a worrying signal. On Saturday, Conley said Trumps blood oxygen level is 96%, which is in the normal range. The two experimental drugs he has received, given through an IV, have shown some promise against COVID-19. On Friday, he was given a single dose of a drug Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. is testing to supply antibodies to help his immune system fight the virus. Friday night, he began a five-day course of remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug currently used for moderately and severely ill patients. The drugs work in different ways the antibodies help the immune system rid the body of virus and remdesivir curbs the virus ability to multiply. Were maximizing all aspects of his care, attacking the virus in multiple ways, Conley said. I didnt want to hold anything back if there was any possibility it would add value to his care. At the same time, the White House has been working to trace a flurry of new infections of close Trump aides and allies. Attention is focused in particular on last Saturdays White House event introducing Trumps Supreme Court nominee. That day, Trump gathered more than 150 people in the Rose Garden, where they mingled, hugged and shook hands overwhelmingly without masks. There were also several indoor receptions, where Trumps Supreme Court pick, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, her family, senators and others spent time in the close quarters of the White House, photographs show. Among those who attended who have now tested positive: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, the president of the University of Notre Dame, and at least two Republican lawmakers Utah Sen. Mike Lee and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. Despite its failure to protect the president and senior staff from infection, the White House still did not appear to be taking the highly infectious disease as seriously as possible. Meadows, the chief of staff, accompanied the president to the hospital on Marine One, the kind of small, enclosed space where experts say the virus easily spreads. And while Vice President Mike Pence is currently off the campaign trail preparing for the coming weeks vice presidential debate, he and his staff are operating under a business as usual approach. Hes still planning to travel to Arizona on Thursday, Indiana on Friday and Florida on Saturday for events instead of isolating himself after potential exposure and to protect himself from contracting the virus anywhere else. Waste solutions company Brightmark is converting plastic waste into fuel at its plant in Indiana. The company is aiming to process 100,000 tons of plastic next year, its first year of full-time operation. Studies show that by 2050, there will be more plastic waste in the ocean than fish - a trend Brightmark hopes to reverse. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Milk cartons, Styrofoam cups, grocery store bags - a new plant in Ashley, Indiana, wants them all. Brightmark's facility is the first of its kind in the US. It converts plastic waste into wax and eco-friendly fuels on a commercial scale, a process Brightmark hopes will revolutionize the plastic industry when it opens full time in 2021. "We take a whole array of mixed waste that, until now, was not easily recyclable and reusable, and create circular economy solutions to some of our biggest environmental issues," founder and CEO Bob Powell told Business Insider Today. In its initial year, the plant will process close to 100,000 tons of plastic - about the weight of 600 blue whales - from waste management companies, manufacturers, and environmental groups. The full conversion process is a company secret, but it begins with breaking bales of plastic apart, then shredding the plastic into small pellets. "We've got employees that are basically refinery operators," plant manager Jason Sasse added. "So they take the plastic pellet and they convert that into our finished products." Finished products include ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel, and companies like BP are already placing orders. "The BPs of the world, who've been very forward-thinking and are looking to a net carbon-zero future, find our products to be really helpful," Powell said. "And it's much better than pulling crude oil out of the ground to make diesel." Brightmark hopes to process 100,000 tons of plastic in its first year of operation. Erika Celeste for Business Insider Today Critics of plastics-to-fuel technology say these types of plants can release harmful emissions of their own when plastic is heated during conversion - not to mention diesel's own contribution to air pollution. Story continues But Brightmark argues that its method is still better than what's happening now. Studies show that if the global plastic industry continues as it is, then by 2050 there will be more plastic waste in the ocean than fish. "We need to change this, and it all starts right here in Ashley," Powell told Business Insider Today. "So that by 2050, we can look back and say we changed the course of this issue we had with plastics." Similar companies are already operating in Europe and Asia. Before now, access to materials, the price of equivalent fuels, and operational costs have stopped them from reaching their potential in the US. Brightmark is hoping it's solved this equation. Demand for its solutions is high, and the company plans to build more plants across the country. "We've had literally almost thousands of communities say, 'We would like for you to help solve the plastic problem in our community,'" Powell said. "The day that we ran out of plastics to put into our facilities would be a great day, because it means we've changed the waste problem in the world." EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in October 2020. Read the original article on Business Insider As the Chief Medical Officer for Arvinas, a biopharmaceutical company, Cheshires Ron Peck became concerned when the first cases of the coronavirus started popping up in China last year. It took only a couple of months for the pandemic to directly impact him and his family. As Connecticut instituted their lockdown to combat COVID-19 back in March, Peck started feeling the same symptoms that he was reading about and seeing on TV. It started with fevers, sweats, and chills, reflected Peck, who coughed up blood at one point and experienced breathing issues. My biggest problem was that I was nauseous and vomiting. I couldnt hold down food. Within two or three days of getting a fever, Peck got tested and learned that he had been diagnosed with coronavirus. I think that I was one of the first Cheshire people with a documented infection, stated Peck. It got to the point where I thought I would be dehydrated and need to go to the hospital. At that point, you dont know, if you are brought to the hospital, when you will see your family again. While he didnt end up having to leave his home, Peck spent two weeks isolated in his bedroom. During the scary time, his fellow alums from Georgetown University came up with a way to show their support musically. Since Pecks favorite band is the Beatles, his college friends decided to sing the song Hey Jude for him. When the video get-well card was posted online and became a viral hit, the story caught the attention of People Magazine, who did a feature on Peck after he recuperated from his illness in April. I was overjoyed that my friends had done this for me, said Peck, who received many phone calls and text messages to wish him well. I dont ever remember being that sick before. Everybody was really concerned, but, thankfully, I got better. Friends John Alagia and John Lyons spearheaded the project and played piano and guitar, respectively, in the video that runs for just over five minutes. Back in college, they played in a band, Idle Minds, with Edward Laborde, who plays guitar with his son in the tribute. Another band member, Ismael De Diego, was filmed holding up cards in the video. When we have reunions, the band gets back together again. Ive sat in on a couple of songs, since I play piano, said Peck, who graduated from Georgetown in 1986. In college, I helped with the band, like moving their equipment. Like Peck, all of the band members love the Beatles. Hey Jude is my favorite song, so they figured that they could sing it and get other people to do it, too, explained Peck. John Alagia is a big producer who has worked with (musicians) Jason Mraz, John Mayer, and the Dave Matthews Band. Pecks wife Susan, who also graduated from Georgetown, was pleasantly surprised that the band wanted to make the video. These are dear friends of ours who weve known for 30 years, said Susan Peck. John Lyons asked for phone numbers from people, but didnt tell me why at first. Along with Georgetown alums, Cheshire residents Luben and Abbi Beaucejour also danced in the video. Luben is a pastor who leads a mission program called BEM Haiti. After participants had filmed their clips and sent them to be put together, the video was sent to Susan Peck with instructions. I got the video over email, but was told to not watch it because our friends wanted to see our reaction together, Susan Peck explained. Over a FaceTime call, the Peck family was blown away by what their friends had done. It was overwhelming when we all saw it. I cried, recalled Susan Peck. While Georgetown alums were working on the video tribute, the Peck family teamed up to battle coronavirus at home. I have three daughters (Caroline, Emily, Isabel) and they really stepped up, explained Peck. At one point, my wife got a fever for three days and had to be quarantined. Eventually, his daughters also became ill in the house. The family suspected that Emily was patient zero for the virus. There was an outbreak at Colgate (University) before she got home, said Peck. During his illness, Peck spoke two to three times daily with his internist. During the time waiting for the test results, I took Tamiflu (antiviral medicine), recalled Peck. It didnt do anything, but then my internist prescribed some nausea medicine. He never gets sick, so for our daughters and me to see him that ill was very hard, reflected Susan Peck. The rest of us had symptoms, but he was very sick. Through his experience with COVID-19, Peck gained an appreciation for his daily life. Sometimes, you take the simple things, like getting up and going to the refrigerator to get breakfast, for granted, explained Peck. Since my daughters were home from school, they helped to get food for my wife and I. In an unforgettable moment, Peck recalls the first time that he went outside since the onset of his illness. His wife took a picture of him sitting in a chair and it ended up appearing in People Magazine. I had a four-week-old beard and was so grateful to be out in my backyard, Peck recalled. I was so happy that I had turned the curve. I wasnt able to do anything for myself up to that point. One of the Georgetown alums in the video, Rich Battista was the person who set up getting Pecks feature in People Magazine. Battista previously worked as the CEO of Time Magazine. I was copied on an email that was sent to a high-level executive. It was fun that they wanted to do a story on this, Peck said. Two weeks after his fever went away, he spoke with a reporter about his experience. The piece appeared online back on April 29. I figured that this would be my 15 minutes of fame. In a video, they show me being interviewed, along with John Lyons and John Alagia, said Peck. At work, they found out that I was in it (the magazine) and they circulated the link. I was getting a lot of jokes from people saying that I was famous now. Peck hopes that his story can help people take the coronavirus seriously. It is obviously scary. It is not a hoax, explained Peck. People, who are older and have underlying conditions are at more risk, but younger people can get this virus, too. We need to listen to the doctors and follow the science. Even after recovering from the virus, he enjoys how his friends record Beatles songs and text them to him. At Georgetown, I made really good friends who Ive kept close with over the years, reflected Peck, who roomed with Lyons in college. I met my wife there, and those guys were part of my wedding. Peck looks forward to attending his next reunion and getting back together with his band friends. I think Hey Jude is going to be a standard song for the group, said Peck. I promise that I can be behind the piano for that song. U.S. President Donald Trump, in quarantine on Friday after being tested positive for COVID-19, has underplayed the pandemic for months, eschewing masks, criticizing others who wear them and holding large rallies with unmasked supporters against the advice of public health professionals. While facing sharp criticism for his response to an outbreak that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States alone, the president has touted his management of the crisis. Here is a timeline of some of his comments: - Jan. 22 to CNBC: We have it totally under control. Its one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. Its going to be just fine." - Jan. 24 tweet: "China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!" - Feb. 23 to reporters: "We're very much involved. We're very very cognizant of everything going on. We have it very much under control in this country." - Feb. 27 at the White House: Its going to disappear. One day, its like a miracle, it will disappear." - March 10 after meeting Republican senators: "This was unexpected. And it hit the world. And were prepared, and were doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away." - March 13 to reporters: "Yeah, no, I don't take responsibility at all, because we were given a - a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time." - March 15 at a White House briefing: This is a very contagious virus. Its incredible. But its something that we have tremendous control over." - March 18 tweet: I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the borders from China - against the wishes of almost all." - April 3 at a White House briefing: With the masks, its going to be really a voluntary thing. You can do it, you dont have to do it. Im choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it and thats OK ... As I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens ... I dont see it for myself, I just dont." - April 23 at a White House briefing: I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so itd be interesting to check that." Pressed later about the issue, Trump said he was not encouraging people to ingest disinfectant and portrayed his remarks as sarcasm. - May 21 on a Ford plant visit: I wore one (a mask) in the back area. I didnt want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it." - July 12 before publicly donning a mask for the first time: "When you are in a hospital, especially in that particular setting when you are talking to a lot of soldiers, people that in some cases just got off the operating table, I think its a great thing to wear a mask." - July 21 announcing a change of heart at a White House briefing: We're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, they'll have an effect and we need everything we can get... I will use it, gladly ... Anything that potentially can help ... is a good thing." - Sept 29 at a presidential debate, after producing a mask from his pocket: "I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks." Ridiculing Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing them regularly, he said: "I don't wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen." - Sept 29, when asked during the debate whether he was worried about the disease spreading at his rallies: "Well, so far we have had no problem whatsoever. It's outside - that's a big difference according to the experts. And we do them outside, we have tremendous crowds, as you see.... We had no negative, no negative effect. We've had no negative effect, and we've had, 35 40,000, people at some of these rallies." Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! 08:07 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate Atal Tunnel at Rohtang in Himachal Pradesh at 10 am on Saturday. 'Fulfilling Atal Ji's dream of top quality infrastructure. Will be in Himachal Pradesh tomorrow to dedicate the #AtalTunnel in Rohtang to the nation. This is an iconic infrastructure project built at a height of 10,000 feet,' Modi tweeted on Friday. 'The #AtalTunnel will solve a major problem of connectivity in the region. It has several salient features and will further 'Ease of Living' for local citizens. Will also join public programmes in Sissu in Lahaul Spiti and at Solang Valley,' he said in another tweet. The 9.02-km long tunnel, the longest highway tunnel in the world connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley throughout the year. Earlier, the valley was cut off for about six months each year owing to heavy snowfall. The tunnel reduces the road distance by 46 kilometres between Manali and Leh and the time by about four to five hours. The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) from the Mean Sea Level (MSL).KP Purushothaman, Chief Engineer, Border Roads Organisation said the hard work by Border Roads Organisation (BRO) in these many years has paid off and it is a very 'proud moment' for everyone. "This is a very proud moment not only for BRO but for the whole country. The hard work put in by BRO in the last 10 years is reaching the final stage. This tunnel is an example of Atmanirbhar Bharat," Purushothaman told ANI. The South Portal (SP) of Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 metres, while the North Portal (NP) of the tunnel is located near village Teling, Sissu, in Lahaul Valley at an altitude of 3,071 metres. It is horseshoe-shaped, single tube double lane tunnel with a roadway of eight metres. It has an overhead clearance of 5.525 metres.Also, it is 10.5-metre wide and has a 3.6 x 2.25 metres fire-proof emergency egress tunnel built into the main tunnel itself. "There are 18 egress tunnels where after every 500 metres there is an opening in case of emergency. If any fire incident happens so the first thing is how the people trapped are to be rescued. For that, there is an entry at every 500 metres. The tunnels are clearly marked and one can easily find out where is the egress tunnel," Purushothaman said. Atal Tunnel has been designed for traffic density of 3,000 cars per day and 1,500 trucks per day with a max speed of 80 km/hr. It has the state of the art electromechanical system including semi transverse ventilation system. The tunnel has ample safety features built into it including telephone connections at every 150 metres for emergency communication, fire hydrant mechanisms at every 60 metres, auto incident detection system with CCTV cameras at every 250 metres, air quality monitoring at every 1 km, evacuation lighting/exit signs and broadcasting system throughout the tunnel among others. Speaking to ANI, S Paramasivan, Managing Director, AFCONS, which was the main construction company for the tunnel, said it is of very great importance both from the national defence angle and also from the international arena because this is the longest tunnel at this altitude in the world. The historic decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken on June 3, 2000, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. Officials said the BRO worked relentlessly to overcome major geological, terrain and weather challenges that included the most difficult stretch of the 587-metre Seri Nalah Fault Zone. The breakthrough from both ends was achieved on October 15, 2017. The Union Cabinet decided in 2019 to name the Rohtang Tunnel as Atal Tunnel to honour the contribution made by the former Prime Minister. After attending the inauguration function of the Atal Tunnel at South Portal, Manali, PM Modi will also be participating in public functions at Sissu in Lahaul Spiti and at Solang Valley. -- ANI The Mumbai police's probe stands vindicated with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) ruling out murder in the actor case, city police commissioner Param Bir Singh said on Saturday. Some people with "vested interests" targeted without knowing anything about the investigation, he told PTI. The medical board on Saturday stated that Rajput died by suicide and it was not a murder. Reacting to the news, Singh said the city police's probe was professional, and doctors at the Cooper Hospital in the city who performed autopsy had also done their job thoroughly. "We all stand vindicated by these findings of AIIMS," the police commissioner said. The Supreme Court had upheld transfer of the FIR lodged by Bihar police in the Rajput case and not the Mumbai police's investigation, Singh said. "The court didn't find any fault with our investigation," he said. Singh further said that the city police had submitted investigation report to the apex court in a sealed cover and it was seen by only six persons -- the investigating officer, senior police inspector, deputy commissioner of police, commissioner of police, advocate general of the state and the judge. "Without knowing anything about our investigation and without having seen our report some vested interests criticized our investigation," he said. Rajput (34) was found hanging at his flat in Mumbai on June 14. A section of media had hinted that it could be a murder. The CBI had taken over the probe from Bihar Police into the alleged abetment to suicide case filed by the actor's father K K Singh in Patna against Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) by Xinhua writers Liu Xi, Gao Yang, Li Liangyong BEIRUT, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Jia Fei, soldier from 19th batch of Chinese peacekeeping forces to Lebanon, has not spent China's traditional Mid-Autumn Festival with his parents for nine years during his military service. This year, Jia is farther away from his parents as it is the first time for him to go abroad for the peacekeeping mission as a guard squad leader. "My son has been 14 months and 23 days. I only spent some time with him when he was born," said the man from east China's Shandong Province, as he fought back tears, adding that he really missed his son and wife. The Mid-Autumn Festival overlaps with the National Day this year, which both fall on Oct. 1. However, Chinese peacekeepers are far away from their motherland and family members, performing the peacekeeping mission in a foreign country with danger risk. "Dear, we are about to see our new baby. I am so excited but also sorry for my absence. Thanks for your contributions to our family," said Mao Pan in a phone conversation with his wife as he prepared to go to the minefield near the Blue Line, a border demarcation drawn in 2000 by the United Nations after Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon. Mao arrived in Lebanon in August as a mine-sweeping soldier for Chinese peacekeeping forces while his wife's expected delivery date is in October. Cao Yijie, a mechanical operator who has been a new father, chatted with his wife in an online video call, staring at his 3-day-old daughter with a big smile. "Although it is a pity that I cannot wait for the birth of my daughter, I should earnestly complete the peacekeeping mission and make my daughter proud of having a father who is a peacekeeping warrior," said Cao. Chinese peacekeepers have improved the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon recently notified that officers and soldiers from several troop-contributing countries have contracted the virus. Zhang He, the head nurse of the hospital of Chinese peacekeeping forces, has been busy at the pre-inspection and triage post all day long in sweat-soaked isolation gown. "For everyone's safety, no matter how hard and tired I am, I have to make sure that there is no problem at the 'first checkpoint' of the prevention and control of the pandemic in the hospital," she told Xinhua. Wang Jianbin, a doctor with experience in fighting against the coronavirus, disinfects the camp of the Chinese peacekeepers to Lebanon three times a day in a protective gear and with a load burden of 16 kg under the scorching sun. It took half a day to finish the disinfection work but Wang refused other colleagues' help, saying that "the pandemic is severe and I have more experience. I should do this job alone." The Chinese peacekeeping forces to Lebanon also organized evening parties and cultural activities in the camp to celebrate the National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Chef Li Jiesheng spent a week preparing hand-made mooncakes for peacekeepers with the taste of the hometown. "I am here for the peacekeeping mission," the loud voices of the Chinese peacekeepers resounded through the camp, expressing their commitment to the mission to defend peace and stability. A protest was organised in London against Chinese government who is committing atrocities against people of Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet on the occasion of 71st National Day of the People Republic of China. People were seen holding flags of Hong Kong, Tibet and Turkistan to mark their support. The protesters, who were in large numbers, were opposing the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) enforcement of the Hong Kong National Security Law and persecution of the Chinese people. Some of the banners read: Free Hong Kong, Free Tibet and China Close the Uyghur Camps. Meanwhile, a protest was organised in Canada outside the Chinese Consulate in Toronto by members of the Hong Kong, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Taiwanese and other communities whose freedom is under attack from the Chinese Communist Party. Members of Indian diaspora also participated in this protest on Thursday. In Hong Kong, police arrested at least 69 people for allegedly participating in an unauthorised pro-democracy demonstration on Chinas National Day on Thursday and around 20 were fined for alleged violations of COVID-19 social distancing regulations. Several protesters chanted anti-police slogans and revolution of our times, the second half of a popular protest slogan that begins with Liberate Hong Kong. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter The United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on two individuals and four legal entities involved in building the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and the occupied Crimea. A corresponding notice was released on the website of the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, part of Her Majesty's Treasury. The sanctions were imposed on Alexander Ganov, General director of the JSC TC Grand Service Express which operates railway service between Russia and the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula, and Leonid Ryzhenkin, Deputy general director for infrastructure projects at Stroigazmontazh (SGM) who since 2015 had supervised the construction of the bridge over the Kerch Strait. In addition, four legal entities Federal State Unitary Enterprise Crimea Railway, First Crimean Insurance Company, Joint-stock company Lenpromtransproyekt, Joint-stock company The Berkakit-Tommot-Yakutsk Railway Lines Construction Directorate - were added to the consolidated sanctions list. These two individuals and four legal entities are now subject to an asset freeze in the territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As noted, failure to comply with financial sanctions legislation or to seek to circumvent its provisions is a criminal offence. On 15 May 2018, the Russian Federation opened the vehicle section of the Kerch Bridge, and the railway part opened on 23 December 2019. As reported, the European Council added two individuals and four entities to the list of those individuals and entities subject to restrictive measures in respect of actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. ol First Lady Melania Trump is reportedly 'doing well' following her COVID-19 diagnosis. 'Mrs. Trump is doing well. Her symptoms have not worsened and she continues to rest,' Melanias chief of staff Stephanie Grisham shared with DailyMail.com. She is in touch with her husband Donald Trump as he's undergoing treatment at the Walter Reed hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. 'She is thinking of all who are ill and wishes them a speedy recovery,' Grisham added. First Lady Melania Trump is reportedly 'doing well' following her COVID-19 diagnosis announced early Friday. Pictured with Donald Trump at the presidential debate Tuesday evening Melania was suffering lighter symptoms than the president, reporting a headache and cough. Pictured above wearing a mask on Tuesday in Cleveland, Ohio at the presidential debate The rest of the First Family, including Trump's son Barron who lives at the White House, have tested negative for coronavirus. Trump, Melania and Barron pictured in August Early Friday just before 1am, Trump, 74, announced that he and Melania, 50, tested positive for COVID-19 after top aide Hope Hicks tested positive for the contagious virus, just weeks before the presidential election. The rest of the First Family, including Melania and Trump's son Barron who lives at the White House, have tested negative for coronavirus. Trump tweeted Friday: 'Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!' By Friday evening the president was flown to Walter Reed hospital for a several days long stay to undergo treatment 'out of an abundance of caution' after reporting symptoms of fever, cough and congestion. He also reportedly was having 'trouble breathing'. A Trump advisor told CNN Friday that there was 'reason for concern' as the president's symptoms were regarded as 'serious' but White House officials said there was no reason for the public to be worried. Donald Trump pictured waving to reporters before boarding Marine One outside the White House to be taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be treated for COVID-19 Friday evening Trump pictured boarding Marine One to be transported to Walter Reed hospital Melania tweeted Friday that she was experiencing 'mild symptoms' and she and her husband are 'feeling good' despite their diagnosis On Friday night Donald Trump tweeted an upbeat message from the hospital saying: 'Going welI, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!' The President's physician said that he is 'doing well' and is undergoing a range of treatments including a polyclonal antibody cocktail made by Regeneron that is not available to the public, remdesivir - an ebola drug that has already been shown to work against the virus. He is also taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine (the generic name for Pepcid AC), melatonin and daily aspirin. Melania tweeted Friday that she was experiencing 'mild symptoms' and she and her husband are 'feeling good' despite their diagnosis. Joe Biden tested negative twice for the virus on Friday after joining Trump on the presidential debate stage on Tuesday. He wore a mask as he continued his campaign trail, stopping in Grand Rapids, Michigan 'As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together.' 'Thank you for the love you are sending our way. I have mild symptoms but overall feeling good. I am looking forward to a speedy recovery,' she added. White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah confirmed that Trump had not transferred power to Vice President Mike Pence, despite his hospitalization. 'The president is in charge,' she said. The president's diagnosis comes after months of refusing to wear a mask in public except on rare occasions and his repeated questioning of the effectiveness of face coverings. At Tuesday's turbulent debate he mocked Joe Biden for always wear a mask saying: 'I dont wear masks like him. Every time you see him, hes got a mask.' Biden tested negative twice for the virus on Friday after joining Trump on the presidential debate stage. The Democratic nominee wore a mask as he continued his campaign trail, stopping in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Friday. Nine people have now tested positive for coronavirus, after attending Saturday's Rose Garden event. They are 1: Donald Trump, 2: Melania Trump, 3: University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, 4: Senator Mike Lee, 5: Senator Thom Tillis, 6: Kellyanne Conway, and Hope Hicks (not pictured) Republicans on Capitol Hill vowed to press forward with the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett despite her coming into contact with President Donald Trump on Saturday First lady Melania Trump, who tested positive for COVID-19 in results made public Thursday, was seated next to one of Barrett's children Vice President Mike Pence tested negative for COVID on Friday morning and is at the Naval Observatory where he lives. Nine people who attended Amy Coney Barrett's ceremonial nomination to the Supreme Court last Saturday on September 26 have now tested positive for COVID-19, giving rise to fears that it was a 'super-spreader event'. The event attracted around 100 people - many of them not wearing face masks; all sitting close to each other. Attendees were photographed hugging, shaking hands and chatting without face masks. Kellyanne Conway on Friday night confirmed her positive COVID-19 test and said she was 'feeling fine' Lee tweeted that he took a Covid-19 test Thursday and that the 'test came back positive.' He did not say precisely when he got the results it or why he got tested Thursday Effusive, and maskless: This was Sen. Mike Lee on September 26 hugging other attendees of the nomination ceremony - now he is quarantining after testing positive for coronavirus Donald Trump, his wife Melania, Hope Hicks, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, two senators - Mike Lee from Utah and Thom Tillis from North Carolina - plus the president of Notre Dame university, John Jenkins, have now all tested positive for COVID-19. Axios reported that Barrett tested negative for the coronavirus Friday morning, as GOP aides told the publication that Barrett's confirmation process will continue as scheduled. She battled the virus earlier this year. On Thursday Hope Hicks, counselor to the president, reported feeling ill during a trip with the president to Minnesota on Wednesday and tested positive for the virus. That same evening Trump announced he and the First Lady were getting tested and isolating in the White House and he announced the positive result hours later, just after midnight early Friday. NASA launched its commercial cargo spacecraft named after Kalpana Chawla - the first Indian-born woman to reach low earth orbit, on Thursday. The spacecraft is meant to commemorate the deceased NASA astronauts unparalleled contributions to human spaceflight. Bound for the International Space Station (ISS), the S.S. Kalpana Chawla was launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The spacecraft will arrive at and be attached to the space station two days later. The spacecraft, named Cygnus by make, has been manufactured and launched by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems as part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program. The S.S. Kalpana Chawla will deliver approximately 3,630 kilograms of cargo to the ISS. Northrop Grumman Antares rocket with SS Kalpana Chawla spacecraft launches to the International Space Station on Oct. 2, 2020 (Image: NASA) Some of this payload includes a biologic drug test that can possibly be used for the treatment of leukaemia, refined radishes for future crops in space, a compact toilet for deep-space exploration as well as a 3D camera to film the future spacewalks of the ISS crew. Expanding on this list, Robyn Gatens, acting director of the International Space Station at NASA headquarters said, "We have an advanced particulate monitor to measure airborne particulates and several things than that. That's going to help us enable future exploration missions. We also have science experiments. So we have, we have cancer research going on on this on this flight rehab. We have refined radishes. In our advanced plant habitats. And then we have outreach." Remembering Kalpana Chawla Northrop Grumman, an American aerospace and defence technology firm and the maker of the satellite, said that this mission commemorates Chawla, who died with her six crewmates aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. "It is the company's tradition to name each Cygnus after an individual who has played a pivotal role in human spaceflight," said Northrop Grumman. Astronaut Kalpana Chawla aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia (Image: NASA) Born in Karnal, Haryana, India, Chawla moved to the United States for higher studies, eventually beginning her career at NASA, conducting research in fluid dynamics at the Ames Research Center in California. Chawla became a NASA astronaut as a member of "The Flying Escargot," NASA's 15th class of trainees. She took her first spaceflight in 1997 aboard the STS-87, a 15-day shuttle mission that was dedicated to science flying. Chawla made the ultimate sacrifice in service during her second spaceflight, STS-107. Following 16 days in orbit, space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon its return to Earth, resulting in the death of all seven crew members on February 1, 2003. The launch of the spacecraft marked a special moment for many, including Kalpana's husband. In an interaction with ANI, Jean Pierre Harrison said "I would say that Kalpana would be very flattered that this rocket is named after her." He highlighted that the launch had a larger context, that "Indians can compete with the rest of the world to be successful." A Schenectady City Council member is being sued in state Supreme Court in Buffalo on accusations that he sexually abused two children under his care in the early 1970s. Ed Kosiur, a councilman since at least 2014, is accused of abusing the children in lawsuits filed in August under the states Child Victims Act, a law passed in 2019 which allows lawsuits that were once time-barred to be filed by 2021. Kosiur's lawyer says they'll fight the claims, which she called a "money grab." Kosiur, 64, a Democrat, who lives in the citys Woodlawn section, is a one-time minor league umpire who became a youth worker with the Schenectady Girls and Boys Club and later, an elected official at the county and city level in Schenectady. He was a vice chairman of the Schenectady County Legislature and member of the Board of Education. The plaintiffs, both born in 1962, alleged in their suits that Kosiur was an an adult male who was looked up to by the young children in 1973 and 1974. Kosiur, who is married, would have been a teenager at the time of the incidents. The lawsuits alleged that Kosiur abused children at two addresses in Buffalo, including the basement and garage of a home, as well as at the side of railroad tracks. The suits alleged sexual assault and battery, negligence and infliction of emotional distress. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The suits were filed in state Supreme Court in Erie County by John Lloyd Egan Jr. The story was reported earlier Friday by The Buffalo News. Kosiur is being represented by Cheryl Meyers Buth in Buffalo and in the Capital Region, for now, by Paul DerOhannesian. These claims should be thrown out. My client was a teenager in the 1970s when they say this happened, she said late Friday in an email. He started his own successful plumbing business after high school and eventually became an elected official. He has a stellar record of dedicated public service. People will see this for what it is nothing more than a money grab. Well do whatever it takes to defend him. When Kosiur ran for City Council in 2014, his campaign literature stated: As I have told folks on many occasions, You can pave every street, replace every sidewalk and curb, however, if we do not support the Schenectady City School District, we will be in dire straits. Our youth and school district must be a top priority for our City if we expect to attract young families to invest and most important, live in our City. Glenn Payette/CBC News A convicted serial rapist will keep his dangerous offender status after an appeal to provincial court to remove the title was denied Wednesday. Sofyan Boalag was convicted on several charges including three counts of sexual assault with a weapon, two counts of robbery and resisting arrest in September 2016. During his trial, three females, two women and a child, testified Boalag raped them in separate incidents in 2012, often threatening to kill them if they retaliated. Boalag was designated a dangerous offender in November 2017. The designation carries an indefinite prison sentence until the Parole Board of Canada decides he can be relased. Boalag argued against both the dangerous offender designation and the indefinite sentence in his appeal, saying the judge in his previous trial erred in her assessment of the danger he poses to the public. Boalag also argued evidence considered in the case wasn't relevant to the decision made by the trial judge. According to the appeal documents, Justice Gale Welsh said she believes Boalag was rightfully designated as a dangerous offender in 2017. "I am satisfied that applying the correct standard leads to the same conclusion, and that no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice resulted," Justice Welsh wrote. "Further, there is no basis on which to conclude that the trial judge erred in imposing an indeterminate sentence." An Algerian national, Boalag will be deported if he is ever released from prison. Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador Visibility of COVID-19 will be important for cruise lines as they seek to resume operations, since cruise ships saw severe outbreaks early on. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters President Donald Trump announced Friday morning that he had contracted COVID-19. The market tumbled early on Friday in response, and industry experts think the cruise industry could be negatively impacted. Paul Golding, an analyst at Macquarie, told Business Insider that an event raising the visibility of the virus could potentially alter the timeline for full resumption for the cruise lines. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. As the news of President Trump's positive COVID-19 test slumped the market early on Friday, industry analysts predict cruising could also be negatively impacted. Although experts don't predict any major impact on travel, the possibility of a new presidential administration could affect the cruise industry. Plus, any event that spotlights COVID-19 risks could deal a blow to cruise lines' reopening plans impacting both customer demand and company willingness to restart operations, Macquarie analyst Paul Golding told Business Insider. "Any increased visibility around the seriousness and pervasiveness of COVID, whether it's a second wave or politically related likely [has] a negative impact in our view on cruising demand and supply," Golding said, adding that "we would expect that to potentially alter the timeline for full resumption for the cruise lines." Additionally, anything that increases the likelihood of a new administration in January including increased visibility of infection rates or another COVID-19 wave could negatively impact cruise supply and demand, Golding said. A new administration would likely be less sympathetic toward cruise lines reopening without a vaccine, Golding said, and be "more keen to follow doctor, scientist, [and] expert recommendation." That's a particular focus this week, given that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pushed to extend the existing no-sail order on cruising until February. The White House intervened to overrule that plan, Axios reported, and the expiration date was instead set for October 31. Story continues But it's still unclear what effect, if any, Trump's diagnosis will have on the public's appetite for cruising and travel more generally. "I don't believe the president getting COVID will affect travel in a material way," Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, which focuses on the global travel industry, told Business Insider. It's also not clear if news of Trump's COVID-19 contraction will change public perception of the virus, especially as it pertains to peoples' interest in cruises. Business Insider has reached out to Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian to learn if they have seen any evidence of a shift in customer willingness to take a trip, and if they are taking any steps to reassure potential customers about the safety of cruising during a pandemic. Representatives for the companies did not immediately respond at the time of publishing. Share prices for Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian plunged after the news, reflecting the overall state of global markets in the aftermath of Trump's announcement. Stocks closely linked to the economy's reopening including cruises, airlines, and casinos were hit especially hard. The cruise industry hasn't faced a challenge like COVID-19 in decades, experts say, but industry watchers don't expect the pandemic to destroy cruising either. "There's really too much money to be made in this business for the business to go away," Bob Levinstein, CEO of Cruise Complete, a service that allows cruise customers to compare prices, told Business Insider earlier this year. The discussion was about Carnival in particular both the largest cruise company in the world and the subject of many disastrous COVID-19 headlines in 2020. Cruise ships saw some of the most severe coronavirus outbreaks early on in the pandemic, leading the Centers for Disease Control to halt cruise operations back in March. The industry has remained at a standstill since, with the current extension on the no-sail order lasting through the end of October. Read the original article on Business Insider The 11th CEO in Fords 117-year history officially took the wheel Thursday. Ford's Plan for Growth: New Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) CEO Jim Farley plans on turning Ford around. The plan outlined by the company is: Turn around automotive operations; allocate capital to Fords strongest franchises and high-growth opportunities; produce compelling, uniquely Ford electric vehicles at scale; and stand up new AV-enabled businesses. The operational metrics outlined during a virtual town hall with employees include top-line growth, operational excellence, high quality customer satisfaction, sustained adjusted EBIT margins of 8% and strong automotive adjusted free cash flow. Farley put an emphasis on improving quality, reducing costs and accelerating the restructuring of underperforming businesses. Ford's New Regional Business Units: Ford announced the creation of three regional business units: The Americas and International; Europe; and China. The new regional business units are being created to drive decision-making and accountability, according to Ford. Ford Management Changes: John Lawler, a Ford veteran, was named as CFO. He replaces Tim Stone, who is leaving the company to join an AI startup. Lawler has experience leading autonomous vehicle efforts and was also once the head of Ford China. Plans were announced to add a new CIO and CMO for Ford. One person is currently handling chief marketing efforts and running the Lincoln brand; the job will now become two roles. Ford Electric Vehicles: The town hall included discussion on Fords commitment to electric vehicles. Farley said Ford needs to offer compelling Ford electric vehicles at scale. This includes the Transit, F-Series trucks, Mustang, SUVs and the Lincoln brand. Ford had previously committed $11.5 billion through 2022 to electric vehicles. The company has spent half of this amount. By the end of 2020, Ford hopes to have 15 electrified vehicles. Story continues Whats Next: Ford could outline more details on its plans soon. The company has what it calls a strong lineup of vehicle releases coming in the short-term, including the new F-150, the top-selling pickup in America, the electric Mustang Mach E and the Bronco. F Price Action: Shares of Ford were up 2.07% at $6.89 at the close Friday. Shares have fallen 27% in 2020. Ford shares lost 40% of their value under prior CEO Jim Hackett. New Ford CEO Jim Farley. Courtesy photo. See more from Benzinga 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. In support of charities that provide refuge and hope for some of the most vulnerable people on earth, the Ride for Refuge is taking place today. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us In support of charities that provide refuge and hope for some of the most vulnerable people on earth, the Ride for Refuge is taking place today. The event will begin in front of Clark Hall at Brandon University at 11 a.m. and is hosted by the Brandon University World University Service of Canada Local Committee. Participants will set out to walk five kilometres in support of the National Student Refugee Program. The program supports more than 130 refugee students per year through partnerships with campuses across the nation. Brandon University has been sponsoring students through the program for more than 40 years. As of Friday nights deadline, the local effort had raised more than $900, with donations pledged online at rideforrefuge.org. The Brandon Sun Steve Barnes, a personal injury attorney known for the catchy TV jingle advertising for the law firm Cellino & Barnes, died in a small plane crash shortly before noon Friday in western New York. Barnes, a registered pilot, died along with his niece, Elizabeth Barnes, his longtime law partner told The Associated Press. "His passing is a significant loss for the legal community," Barnes' law partner Ross Cellino said. "He was always a fearless advocate for his clients." Cellino and Barnes appeared together in TV advertisements featuring an old-time jingle which put the firm's phone number to a tune. It was so catchy that it became a viral challenge and was featured on Saturday Night Live. The firm started in Buffalo, New York but has became well known beyond the New York region for its advertising. Recently the two lawyers had a falling out, including court battles amid the split of the firm. Stephen Edward Barnes has been registered as a private pilot with the FAA since June 2010, according to the agency's Airmen Certification database. A helicopter circles the site of a small plane crash near Pembroke N.Y., Friday, Oct. 2, 2020. Two people aboard the aircraft died. Attorney Stephen Barnes and his niece were killed in the crash. According to Genesee County Sheriff William Sheron, a witness called 911 shortly before noon Friday to report seeing a plane disappear from the sky over a wooded area. The witness subsequently heard a crash and then a fire boom. The Buffalo-based plane left Manchester, New Hampshire, about 10:18 a.m. Contact with the plane was lost at 11:18 a.m. The plane is scattered over a large, heavily wooded area, Sheron said. The Federal Aviation Administration is on the scene and the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to arrive Saturday. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Steve Barnes, attorney in Cellino & Barnes jingle, dies in plane crash Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 22:42:22|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- An officer of Yemen's police forces was killed by suspected al-Qaida gunmen in the country's southern province of Abyan on Saturday, a government official told Xinhua. "Masked gunmen suspected of being al-Qaida members opened fire and killed a police officer in Lawdar district, east of Abyan," the local government source said on condition of anonymity. He confirmed that the police officer named as Saleem Marmi was killed while he was passing through a main street in Lawdar. The assailants escaped immediately to unknown locations after raining the police officer's body with a barrage of bullets, according to the official. A statement released by the police department in Abyan's province blamed the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch of assassinating their officer, but gave no details. Sporadic armed attacks are targeting the military checkpoints as well as the police officers of the pro-government forces stationed in Abyan's areas. The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula network, which mostly operates in eastern and southern provinces, has been responsible for many high-profile attacks against security forces in the country. Enditem In 2012, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court appointed a Committee of Administrators Pendente Lite (APL) to administer the estate of Priyamvada Birla, setting the stage for things to come. Over the past year, much of the focus has been around the committee and its decisions, taken by a majority, to not support resolutions pertaining to reappointment of Harsh Lodha as chairman of M P Birla group companies; first, in July 2019 to the boards of Vindhya Telelinks and Birla Cable and again in July 2020, to the boards of Birla ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Re: site seeing help in route to Yellowstone 5. Re: site seeing help in route to Yellowstone Well, maybe instead of us fishing around you could elaborate on your plans a bit more information? -Do you have reservations in the Yellowstone area? If so where and for how many nights? Asking this to get a feel for your trip. -Are you leaving out of Casper or somewhere else? -How many nights exactly do you have? This time of year can be iffy weather wise. It's been a warm fall but may change quickly and become very winter-like overnight. You'll need to keep an eye on the weather and if it turns, you'll need to keep an eye on road closures within Yellowstone. Weather: Roads in Yellowstone: Bring jackets and base layers if you have them. Bring lightweight gloves and warm hats. Bring closed toe shoes. Pam Trump Covid-19 diagnosis 'bracing reminder' to take it seriously: Biden 79,476 new cases take India's tally to 6,473,544 10 new cases push Covid-19 tally of Andamans to 3,858 Hindustan Times With months into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world still reeling under its devastating impact. According to the John Hopkins figures, more than 1,026,600 people have succumbed the deadly virus. While the number of global infection stands at 34,495,372. Click here for full Covid-19 coverage In the United States, nation with highest cases of Covid-19 infection, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania contracted the virus. In India, the death toll surpassed the 100,000 mark on Friday, a grim milestone that comes exactly seven months from the day the first batch of cases were reported in the country. After US, India is the second country to have the highest number of cases. Read highlights here: Franco-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah has been temporarily released from prison and is currently in Tehran with an electronic bracelet, her lawyer told AFP on Saturday. Adelkhah "was released with an electronic bracelet. She is now with her family in Tehran," attorney Saeed Dehghan said, adding that "we hope that this temporary release will become final." Irans judiciary upheld in June her five-year jail sentence, handed down the previous months for security charges including conspiring against national security. A research director at Sciences Po university in Paris, Adelkhah was arrested in 2019 and has been in custody ever since. She is a dual French-Iranian citizen, a status Iran does not recognise. Her French colleague and partner Roland Marchal, who was detained around the same time while visiting her in Tehran, was freed in March in an apparent prisoner swap. Marchal was freed after France released Iranian engineer Jallal Rohollahnejad, who faced extradition to the United States over accusations he violated US sanctions against Iran. Adelkhah and Marchals cases have been a thorn in relations between Tehran and Paris for months. (FRANCE 24 with AFP) Yorta Yorta woman Sheena Watt is set to become Victorian Labor's first Indigenous parliamentarian, filling the vacancy left by former health minister Jenny Mikakos. Ms Watt has been endorsed by the socialist left faction of the party and on Saturday sent out an internal statement to say she was 'honoured'. The Brunswick resident and trade unionist said she was a proud Yorta Yorta woman with a background in the health and community sectors. Yorta Yorta woman Sheena Watt (pictured) was announced as Victorian Labor's first Indigenous MP on Saturday 'I am a lifelong fighter for the most vulnerable in our community,' she wrote in the letter seen by AAP. 'Jenny Mikakos leaves a powerful legacy from her 21 years serving the diverse communities in Northern Metropolitan Region. 'It would be my honour to be her successor.' The ALP national executive will close nominations for the vacant seat on Monday. 'I will have more to say once the party completes its preselection process,' Ms Watt wrote. Prue Stewart, who works in the office of Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gabrielle Williams, was tipped as the frontrunner for preselection in the Northern Metro seat but withdrew on Saturday. 'That outcome fills me with joy for Sheena and the Aboriginal community, and I have rung her to congratulate her on this important moment for Labor in Victoria,' she said. Ms Watt replaced former health minister Jenny Mikakos (pictured). She said Ms Mikakos 'leaves a powerful legacy' Overseas travellers arrive for hotel quarantine in Melbourne. Premier Daniel Andrews told the state's hotel quarantine inquiry that Ms Mikakos' department was ultimately responsible for the botched program Premier Daniel Andrews on Friday called on his party to select an Aboriginal person from the 'outstanding' field of candidates. On Saturday he brushed off criticism he'd become too involved in the process, saying his intervention showed leadership. 'There's a moment there and we've seized it,' he told reporters. 'This is a really, really good outcome ... and I'm pleased to have got involved.' Former health minister Jenny Mikakos quit her portfolio and parliament last Saturday after the premier told the state's hotel quarantine inquiry her department was ultimately responsible for the botched program. Ms Mikakos congratulated Ms Watt on Twitter, saying 'it's fitting that a progressive woman of diversity succeeds me'. The Federal Court found the charges were between between 2003 and 2015 ANZ has been slugged with a $10million fine after wrongly charging 69,000 of their customers more than $3million in fees. The Federal Court on Friday ruled ANZ had incorrectly charged non-payment and transaction fees for periodic payments between 2003 and 2015. ANZ was not permitted to charge these fees for payments made between accounts held in the same name of customers. ANZ Bank will have to pay a $10 million fine after wrongly charging 69,000 of their customers more than $3 million in fees between 2003 and 2015 (stock image) The massive fine follows an investigation by the Australian Investments and Securities Commission (ASIC) who found the conduct of ANZ 'unconscionable' The court found ANZs lawyers in 2011 advised it 'may not have been allowed' to charge the non-payment and transaction fees to customers - but the bank continued to do so until September of 2015. The court also heard ANZ engaged in 'unconscionable conduct' by not compensating affected customers until a later date. ANZ has since paid compensation of $2.5million to its customers. The Australian Investments and Securities Commission (ASIC), who filed the legal action against ANZ, said the massive penalty sent a clear message that the conduct was deceitful and unacceptable. The bank will also be forced pay ASICs legal fees, estimated to be around the $1million mark. ANZ is one of Australia's official 'big four banks', alongside National Australia Bank (NAB), Commonwealth Bank and Westpac. Sorry, no valid subscriptions were found for this Publication. Please select from an option below to start a subscription. SUBSCRIBE TODAY! 24 Hour Access Heavy police deployment has come up on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border in Noida on Saturday, ahead of a scheduled visit of a Congress delegation that plans to meet the family of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras who died after allegedly being gang-raped. Barricades were installed at the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway, where scores of policemen, including senior officers, were present in anti-riot gears since noon, even as CrPC section 144 remained imposed in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar. "The border is not sealed but checks have been intensified at the Delhi-Noida border," according to a local police official. Scores of Congress and the party's youth wing workers reached the DND flyway around 2 pm, even as some party workers were allegedly detained by the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police. "Some of Congress and Youth Congress workers have been detained in Gautam Buddh Nagar and put under house arrest, including our district president Manoj Chaudhary. But we have gathered here at DND and would go to Hathras with our leaders today," Indian Youth Congress (IYC) national secretary Deepak Bhati told PTI. When contacted, police officials, however, refuted the allegations of detention. Dozens of vehicles has been caught up in the traffic snag on the DND route, causing inconvenience to commuters. A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi has decided to go to Hathras on Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the young woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped, a senior party leader said. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the Uttar Pradesh police in Greater Noida and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the young woman. Congress leaders and workers were also booked in multiple cases for allegedly violating restrictions imposed under the CrPC section 144 because of COVID-19 outbreak and under the Epidemic Diseases Act, among others, according to officials. The Congress has alleged that the woman and her family have been "denied justice" and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in its attempt to "hide the truth" of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police had forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". On the Frontline Against China, the US Coast Guard Is Taking on Missions the US Navy Can't Do Competition with China has drawn more Pentagon resources to the Pacific, but the most visible U.S. military presence there... Buck Meadows, CA A tragic ending after a week of searching for an elderly missing Mariposa man. As reported here last month, 92-year-old Lewis Schluchter was last seen at his home in Buck Meadows near the Tuolumne County line and reported missing to sheriffs officials about a week later. He was known to hike alone near the Yosemite Ridge Resort in Buck Meadows. Sadly, sheriffs official relay that on Sept. 25th a search and rescue teams located his body. An exact location was not given as sheriffs officials informed that additional details will be released once the coroner investigation is complete. At the time of his disappearance, the sheriffs office turned to the public for help to locate the elderly man. Over 50 searchers and multiple agencies assisted in combing the areas near Schluchters home and the resort around the clock. The resources included a CHP H40 Helicopter, CARDA- California Rescue Dog Association, California Civil Air Patrol Air, and many other Law Enforcement agencies. Canada has announced an investigation into the allegations that Azeri forces are using Canadian drone technology in the fight against ethnic Armenian forces in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Project Ploughshares, a Canadian peace research institute with a focus on arms trade and security technologies, had said that the video of airstrikes released by the Azeri air force indicates the use of drones equipped with imaging and targeting systems made by L3Harris WESCAM, the Canada-based unit of L3Harris Technologies. In regards to the Canadian military equipment that may have been usedthe minister of foreign affairs has launched an investigation into what exactly happened, Trudeau told reporters on October 2. The two former Soviet states are in an armed stand-off for years over the Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, and heavy clashes re-erupted on September 27, prompting fears of an all-out war. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan but it remains disputed because the region is controlled by ethnic Armenians. Armenia has accused Turkey of meddling in the conflict by sending thousands of mercenaries from Syria, a claim swiftly rejected by Ankara. Read: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Putin, Armenian PM Discuss Worsening Situation Read: Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Turkish President Opposes Foreign Interference Report on tech use Last month, Project Ploughshares had urged Canada to ban the export of technologies which is "integral" to Turkey's drone program. In a special report, the arms control group said that Canadas export of WESCAM sensors to Turkey poses a substantial risk of facilitating human suffering, including violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Project Ploughshares has collected evidence...that strongly indicates that WESCAM EO/IR sensors, mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have been used extensively by Turkey in its recent military activities, read the report. Trudeau stressed it is extremely important that the terms of Canadas expectations of non-violation of human rights are always respected, adding that he was extremely concerned by the fighting. However, Project Ploughshares said that the dramatic rise in exports of WESCAM systems to Turkey has persisted despite Canadas 2019 accession to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Read: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Armenia Ready For Ceasefire Talks With International Mediators Read: Azerbaijan Claims 2,300 Armenian Troops Neutralized In Nagorno-Karabakh Region New NCRB crime data reports 59,853 crimes against women from UP in 2019, the highest among states On a day that governments and government servants are called upon to renew their commitment to peace and the nations progress, rising caste crimes and back-to-back rapes in Hathras, Bulandshahr, Azamgarh, Balarampur and now Bhadohi have together come as a terrible reflection on governance, law and order, and society. Amid the resulting outrage and claims of police destroying evidence in Hathras and Balarampur in order to hasten the closure of the particular cases Smriti Iranis praise at the UN of Indian laws as strong enablers of women does not sound credible. Save for the Prime Minister who issued a call in general terms for strict action in the case there has not been a single statement from the home minister who is set to resume political work in poll-bound West Bengal or from any women leaders in the government. When the erstwhile government, which returned to power in 2019, said Beti Bachao, it was perhaps not a slogan. It was a warning. Following the controversial midnight cremation of the Hathras rape victim against the wishes of her family, the UP police is claiming that she had not been raped and that the matter is being twisted to stir caste tension. Even while the specific nature of the offence remains moot following the stealthy cremation precluding a second autopsy, how does this glib desexualisation of the crime lessen its severity the victim had been permanently disabled or its essential egregiousness? Also pertinently, how does this or theories of a dispute over cleaning a drain show that it is not a caste crime, rather than prove it otherwise? A relative has reported being told by police that there was no monetary relief to be given to the family after the death of its prospective earning member who contributed valuable labour. But should a caste atrocity be proved to have been committed on the girl, her kin are entitled to full compensation under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. This sly spin doctoring by police of the case thus only goes to lay bare their sexist mindset the fact that they did not value her life and its promise as well as their bad work ethic of staying on the right side of the local caste dynamic and protecting their jobs instead of serving the citizen. New NCRB crime data reports 59,853 crimes against women from UP in 2019, the highest among states. This includes not only rapes, but also dowry deaths, crimes against a minor, domestic abuse and so on. Rights denials, which lie at the core and crux of all these offences, are no doubt outside the ambit of this classification. However, rape also being a caste crime, data shows that nine states in India, including Uttar Pradesh, accounted for 84 per cent of all crimes against dalits the same year; yet the conviction rate of offences under the Atrocities Act was only 32 per cent, with the pendency rate an alarming 94 per cent. Hate crimes against dalits went up by seven per cent in 2019. The ruling party at the Centre and the state has accused the Opposition of playing politics in Hathras. But what else is the Opposition supposed to do in the face of such blatant condoning of criminality as we witness in case after case? Nevertheless, as members of the victims family continue to remain in effective house arrest, the borders of Hathras district have been sealed, Section 144 of the CrPC imposed for a month, and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi detained and roughed up by police on their way to the victims home. Taking suo motu cognisance of the case, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court issued notices to the Uttar Pradesh government. This newspaper upholds the rights to fair trial of the accused and to justice for the victim. Lene Andersen says its hard to feel optimistic about Ottawas plans for Canadians living with a disability after waiting months for emergency funding that was promised, but never came. Thats something Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough takes personally. Its so unacceptable and its been so frustrating because of how quickly we identified this need, said Qualtrough, adding that the government is only weeks away from having the money being dispensed. It has taken way too long, and it will not happen again, she said during an interview with the Star this week. Andersen, a Toronto-based author and advocate who lives with rheumatoid arthritis, is one of millions who lives with a disability in Canada and who the government had in mind when they promised emergency funding four months ago. Shes lived in a wheelchair for decades, writes a blog on her website called The Seated View, and writes books for people who are struggling with chronic illness. In June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged funding in a one time, tax-free payout of up to $600 for people holding a Disability Tax Credit certificate. At the time, he acknowledged significant challenges faced by people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thats still not in anyones bank account, Andersen said. Shes someone who fell through the cracks of the system when the pandemic shook the country in March. She wasnt eligible for CERB and doesnt have support through a disability benefit because she has an income. As a self-employed author with a disability, Im in that grey zone of not bad enough off that I have to apply for benefits, but not to the point where I can actually be as comfortable as I would like to be, Andersen said. The emergency funding is not a huge amount, but it is certainly something that would be welcomed, she added. It feels a little bit like people with disabilities are yet again the last on the list, and optional at that. For advocates, people with disabilities and the federal government, the pandemic has laid bare systemic issues that have been in place in the country for a long-time. Maureen Haan, president of the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work, says people with disabilities in Canada already live life at the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to social supports. But the pandemic has made that evident in an easy to grasp dollar amount, she said. When the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) came, eligible Canadians could apply for $2,000 per month if their jobs were impacted by the pandemic. Millions of Canadians qualified. For people with disabilities on supportive income, in normal times, they get $1,000 per month on average, Haan said. So, the average person whos contributing to society, theyre worth $2,000. But a person with a disability, theyre worth $1,000, she said. When the next pandemic hits, or if theres a huge second wave, we cant be in the position where the federal government cant get money to people with disabilities. Qualtrough acknowledged its been embarrassingly hard to effectively distribute the funding the government promised. It comes down to not having a comprehensive list of people with disabilities, she said, like ones they have for seniors on Guaranteed Income Supplement or Old Age Security. To get money to seniors, they could just fire off payments to everyone on those lists since theres a delivery system in place, Qualtrough said. What we knew going in, and what has really been highlighted, is we dont have necessarily that kind of system for people with disabilities, she said. Partially because disability supports have historically been so very much delivered by the provinces, and partially because our disability policy in this country is very much driven by tax policy. In order to direct payments to Canadians with disabilities, Ottawa tried to use the list of people with a Disability Tax Credit certificate, but that doesnt capture everyone. Officials looked at lists from Veterans Affairs and people on the Canada Pension Plan with disabilities, but there was a lot of overlap or different data collecting processes, she said. However, the process is almost done and Qualtrough said they tried to capture as many people as possible as theyve prepared to finally distribute the funds. In September, the governments throne speech pledged even more in support for Canadians with disabilities, including a national employment strategy, a new Canada Disability Benefit, and a revamp in how eligibility is determined for programs and benefits. When they restructure the eligibility side of things, Qualtrough said it wont be a function of tax policy, meaning theyll be able to identify people through the new eligibility criteria for programs and then directly help them. Andersen said shell wait to see details of the plans outlined in the throne speech. People with disabilities and anything involving people with disabilities is, honestly, I think its based on a charity model, she said. Its framed as being something that people do because its a nice thing to do. So it becomes more about the privilege and more about something we do if we have extra money. New Delhi, Oct 3 : Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday made it clear she'll make sure she meets the family of the Hathras girl who died on Tuesday at any cost. Speaking to IANS after leaving the Congress headquarters here along with Rahul Gandhi in the Tata Safari vehicle, she said, "I will visit Hathras at any cost even if the police does not allow us." Priyanka herself drove the Tata Safari vehicle, with her brother and former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi sitting next to her on the front seat. Along with the two leaders, dozens of Congress MPs including Shashi Tharoor are also travelling to Hathras. Speaking to IANS, Tharoor said, "It is a terrible incident and we have to show our respect for the girl. Whatever has happened, nothing worse can happen in this country." Following the travel plan of the Congress leaders to Hathras, the Uttar Pradesh Police has made adequate arrangements at the Delhi-Noida-Directway (DND) here. Since morning, heavy police deployment has been made to stop the Congress leaders to enter Uttar Pradesh. On Friday, Priyanka Gandhi visited Delhi's Valmiki temple to attend a prayer meeting for the girl who died on Tuesday at a government hospital in Delhi. Priyanka has said that the family of the victim should not feel alone at this point of time. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi was roughed up by Uttar Pradesh Police personnel and pushed to the ground when he was marching towards Hathras after their vehicles were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway in Gautam Budh Nagar. Other Congress leaders were also detained and a case registered against them under the Epidemic Diseases Act. Congress leaders on Thursday alleged that the police resorted to lathi charge on them when they tried to march towards Hathras. The Uttar Pradesh government has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the the death of the 19-year old girl. The Uttar Pradesh government also suspended several officials on Friday evening. Uttar Pradesh Police personnel had sealed the village barring the entry of any mediapersons for the last two days. However, the media was allowed to enter the village earlier today. -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Close Marine One takes off as Trump is transferred to Walter Reed medical center Donald Trump gave a thumbs up and waved to well-wishers as he walked to Marine 1 to begin hospitalisation at Walter Reed Medical Centre on Friday afternoon following cold-like symptoms of a fever and cough. A White House spokesperson said it was a precautionary measure, while Trump's doctor said the president was taking a mix of drugs, including Regeneron's polyclonal antibody cocktail as well as aspirin, zinc, vitamin D, famotidine and melatonin. Trump's campaign staff cancelled all in-person events for the first family, with Mike Pence to step in. Joe Biden, meanwhile, flew to Michigan to continue his campaign after testing negative, saying he sends prayers for Trump's 'health and safety'. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load Members of Ethiopia's largest ethnic group gathered Saturday under heavy security in Addis Ababa for a scaled-back version of their annual thanksgiving festival against a backdrop of unrest and political division. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government said it was restricting attendance for the Oromo group's Irreecha festival to around 5,000 people to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, just as it did for an Orthodox Christian holiday last week. But some Irreecha attendees said the regulations were designed to prevent anti-government protests at a time when Oromo opposition politicians are behind bars and security forces stand accused of using heavy-handed tactics against civilians in the Oromo region surrounding the capital. "When people get together they may reflect on what is going wrong in the country. For fear of that they have restricted us," said Jatani Bonaya, a 26-year-old student. "What the government is doing is not right," he added. Irreecha marks the end of the rainy season and the start of the harvest season. It is traditionally held in the city of Bishoftu, located in Oromia some 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa. In 2016 the use of tear gas and firearms by security forces sparked a stampede in Bishoftu that killed dozens, some of whom drowned in a nearby lake. The government put the death toll at 55, though Human Rights Watch later said it could have been in the hundreds. The following year Irreecha turned into an anti-government protest, part of a broader movement that brought Abiy, Ethiopia's first Oromo ruler, to power in 2018. People in traditional clothing pose for pictures during the Oromo people's thanksgiving holiday, in Addis Ababa. It comes against a backdrop of unrest and political division.. By EDUARDO SOTERAS (AFP) Last year Abiy allowed a separate Irreecha celebration to take place for the first time in Addis Ababa and hundreds of thousands turned out. On Saturday a much smaller crowd led by chanting Oromo traditional leaders gathered at pools of water in central Addis Ababa, where they dipped flowers and sprayed themselves in a gesture symbolising gratitude and renewal. Pop star's killing Tensions between Abiy and Oromo nationalists have been on the rise in recent months following the June killing of Hachalu Hundessa, a pop star who gave voice to Oromo feelings of marginalisation. More than 160 people were killed in ensuing violence, and more than 9,000 people were caught up in subsequent mass arrests including journalists and prominent Oromo opposition politicians. Chaltu Lemma, a 22-year-old cousin of Hachalu's, attended Saturday's ceremony and said she hoped it would not be tainted with politics. "This is our culture, and our culture is independent of religion and politics," she said. Members of the Abagada (1st row), the Oromo traditional leadership, give their blessing during the Oromo people's thanksgiving holiday, in Addis Ababa. By EDUARDO SOTERAS (AFP) "We are sad as a family and as a nation that Hachalu was killed. He shouldn't have died. But human beings are born and die... This government will also pass, but Irreecha will outlive all of us." Abiy's government was clearly worried about security this year. On Wednesday police staged a military-style parade at which Abiy, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, declared Ethiopia "will not kneel to any enemy in its quest for prosperity". And on Thursday police announced the arrest of 503 people "intending to cause harm to Irreecha festival-goers", saying they had confiscated more than 100 weapons including grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Saturday's ceremony appeared to unfold peacefully. A larger Irreecha ceremony is expected Sunday in Bishoftu. A prominent lawmaker from Britain's ruling Conservative Party has claimed that China is pressuring Barbados to remove Queen Elizabeth as head of state. The Caribbean island nation's Governor-General Sandra Mason announced the move as she opened a new session of the Barbadian Parliament last month, saying it was time to "fully leave our colonial past behind." "Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state. This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving. Hence, Barbados will take the next logical step towards full sovereignty and become a republic by the time we celebrate our 55th anniversary of independence" in 2021, Mason told lawmakers in Bridgetown. Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told The Times of London newspaper last week that "China has been using infrastructure investment and debt diplomacy as a means of control for a while, and it's coming closer to home for us." "Today, we're seeing it in the Caribbean. Some islands seem to be close to swapping a symbolic queen in Windsor for a real and demanding emperor in Beijing," Tugendhat said. Barbados signed up to China's Belt and Road Initiative last year. Many analysts say that while China has been investing heavily in the region in competition with Western nations, claims that Beijing has forced Barbados' decision to become a republic are wide of the mark. "I don't think China's the reason Barbados is changing who's going to be the head of state," Scott MacDonald, a senior associate at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a recent Skype interview with VOA. "China's role in the Caribbean is large. They have economic statecraft. They come with a large checkbook. But as one Barbadian ambassador said to me, 'You know, if nothing else fails, blame the Chinese.'" Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, agreed. "I think it's unlikely that there's been significant foreign influence over this, from China or anywhere else," Murphy told VOA. "There's been a growing consensus in Barbados behind moving towards a republic for about 20 years. The question is whether the ruling party has the constitutional mandate to do that. And the Barbados Labor Party now has that." New York State Police A Plattsburgh man is accused of working with others in an international kidnap and ransom scheme in which an elderly Franklin County husband and wife were held for two days in Quebec, federal authorities said. According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Graigory Brown, 50, of Plattsburgh,who was charged Friday, and his co-conspirators forced their way into the couple's Moira home on Sept. 27 and kidnapped them. By Jennifer Moses The president of the United States tested positive for COVID-19. Wow, no one saw that coming. JOKING. Almost the entire world saw that one coming. The First Lady has tested positive for the virus, too. Wasnt it just a few days ago that the non-surprising proof of the presidents tax evasions hit the front pages? It was. But in concert with the ongoing circus of scandal, ineptitude, fraud, thuggery, deceit and self-dealing that pours out of the White House with volcanic force, Fridays October surprise POTUS + COVID is no surprise at all. After all, some half dozen of his inner circle have already been infected, including Katie Miller, press secretary to the vice president and wife of the odious Stephen Miller; Robert OBrien, who is currently serving as Trumps fourth national security advisor; Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Juniors girlfriend and a top GOP fundraiser who was briefly famous for the tight red dress she wore and bright red vindictive she spewed during the GOP convention; Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who tested positive for the virus Wednesday but didnt say so until Friday, and presidential Communications Director Hope Hicks, who has not only travelled repeatedly on Air Force One and Marine 1 but who has been photographed wearing nothing on her face at a recent Trump rally in Ohio. And these are the folks who, unlike you and me, get tested daily. And yet the mask-free, crowded and largely indoor rallies must go on! Why? Because, as Trump put it during the 90-minute televised temper tantrum he had on Tuesday night, his rallies have produced no negative effect. Really? Because I seem to remember that GOP stalwart Herman Cain died from the virus after attending an indoor Trump rally in Tulsa. The day after he made his preposterous claims on national television, Trump flew off to attend a rally of non-masked thousands in Duluth Minnesota, where, by the way, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson begged him to stay away, saying that he was coming into my community, disregarding the laws of health and safety for Minnesotans. At least here in New Jersey were safe from that kind of crazy. Except were not. Just after the White House learned that Hope Hicks was symptomatic, Trump and his buddies flew to New Jersey for a fundraiser where the president, harboring the virus, came into close contact with dozens of his fans. That was Thursday. But at a certain point, actions have consequences. Call it karma. Call it just deserts. Call it hubris. The president has consistently whistled past graves. Since the virus first appeared on our shores and Americans lost jobs, income, health, loved ones, and the illusion of safety, Trump has downplayed the pandemics dangers, countermanded his own medical specialists, scoffed at medical recommendations, encouraged reckless behaviors (and not just regarding masks), blamed China, refused responsibility and claimed that testing for the virus was the cause of the uptick in positive cases and that without such testing there would be less illness. Which makes sense in the same way that most conspiracy theories make sense, in that such a twisted equation conforms to paranoid hatred. Hes also insisted not once but 34 times that soon the virus will go away. Why? Because he said so, thats why. Meantime, the daily death count climbs. As of this writing, more than 7.3 million Americans have been infected, and more than 208,000 citizens have died from COVID-19. Which is more than all who died in combat during World War I, Korea, Vietnam and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Yet according to a statement made by Trump in late September, the pandemic affects virtually nobody. But not to worry. As Trump claimed in front of a packed audience of supporters in late September, our early and aggressive action saved millions of lives. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to nowhere that Id like to sell to you. The problem of course is that millions do believe him. Why? Beats me. All I do know is that demonizing minority groups while feeding fear and hatred to what used to be called the proletariat --- also known as the have-nots is historically a sure way to gain traction for immoral, violent and sometimes murderous causes. The virus thats infecting America isnt only, or even primarily, COVID-19. Lets all pray that Democracy itself doesnt succumb. Jennifer Moses is the author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction, with numbers six and seven to be published in 2020. She lives in Montclair. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. The Star-Ledger/NJ.com encourages submissions of opinion. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. CRUNCH talks on the future of Shannon airport have been held between the mayors of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary, alongside airport bosses. At this months full council meeting, Mayor Michael Collins told members that an alliance to talk on the viability of Shannon has been formed. We have a lot of effort made already to keep Shannon where it is and further develop Shannon for the mid-west region, he said. The intervention comes with Shannon arguably the worst-impacted of Irelands airports in terms of Covid-19 with passenger numbers still down 87% year-on-year, despite the re-entry of Ryanair into the base. Theres uncertainty around the future of the Aer Lingus base in Limericks local airport, and the treasured connection to London Heathrow. Fianna Fail councillor Kevin Sheahan saw a notice of motion passed unanimously urging an alliance be formed to lobby the government to ensure the future prosperity of the base. Its heartbreaking at the moment if you drive into Shannon Airport and see the car parks empty. You get a very clear message of the lack of activity in that international airport. There's only a handful of staff around. There are no people, no customers nothing happening, the former mayor said. However, the veteran councillor added that he remembers a time, two decades ago, when Shannon was in similar dire straits. Then, politicians from across the region united, and a rally was held in OConnell Street. Cllr Sheahan aid: It's vitally important local authority members become involved and initially, the mayors and the chairs and impress on government, opposition and everyone in the Houses of the Oireachtas what we've always said: Shannon Airport is the lifeline of national activity in the mid-west. We need to make strategic decisions which will ensure that Shannon Airport gets fresh thinking outside the box. Our international airport must not be lost. If it's lost once, we may never have it again, he warned. Labour councillor Elena Secas described Shannon as of critical importance to the Mid-West economy, and urged government support. Independent councillor Emmett OBrien added: There is a cultural thinking in this country that anything outside the pale is just to be left abandoned. Shannon is on its own, there is no national strategy to develop Shannon and keep it as an international airport. A senior minister needs to be in the region to give Shannon a voice in cabinet, he argued. Sinn Fein councillor John Costelloe suggested the return of Shannon Airport to the auspices of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA). Taking Shannon out of the DAA left it with no bargaining power whatsoever. The result is that Cork Airport, which is still with the DAA is puling ahead of Shannon in terms of passenger numbers. He criticised the wording of the motion, saying its akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burns. They say the train has left the station. Unfortunately, I'd say the plane has left the airport. Its far too little, far too late Cllr John Egan said he cannot understand Sinn Feins negativity, and suggested Junior Ministers Niall Collins and Patrick ODonovan be brought before council to face questions from members. New Delhi, Oct 3 : Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Gangwar on Saturday said that the new farm laws and labour reform codes will benefit farmers and workers immensely. Elaborating on farmer-friendly initiatives of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, the minister informed that the budget of the agriculture ministry has been increased 11-fold to Rs 1.34 lakh crore from Rs 12,000 crore in 2009-10 during the UPA regime. This, he said, reflects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment for the welfare of farmers in the country. Speaking at a national conference organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce through video conference, Gangwar said that the new farm laws are aimed at providing marketing freedom to farmers for selling their produce anywhere in the country. Gangwar emphasised that farmers would now be able to sell their produce at better prices in other states as well. The minister also brushed aside apprehensions about scrapping of MSP saying there has been considerable increase in the crops' support price compared to the UPA regime. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have been protesting since the two Houses of Parliament last month passed The Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 during the monsoon session. Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a leader of NDA ally Shiromani Akali Dal -- which enjoys significant support among the Sikh peasantry in Punjab and Haryana -- had resigned from the Union Cabinet, hours ahead of voting in the Lower House on the two earlier Bills on September 17. On the benefits of major labour codes to workers, Gangwar said that these reforms would help workers become self-reliant in coming days. He stated that in addition to promoting unprecedented labour welfare and gender equality these labour codes would also help increase ease-of-doing business adding that industry and workers complement each other and therefore they have to work together in tandem with changing times. He emphasised that these reforms are pathbreaking and game changers as some of the archaic laws awaiting reforms have been in existence for more than 73 years. Besides the code on wages which was enacted last year, three more major codes - Code on social security, code on industrial relations and code on occupational safety health and working conditions - were passed by Parliament and enacted recently. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-04 01:56:22|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Photo taken on Oct. 3, 2020 shows the newly-discovered ancient coffins in the Saqqara necropolis, Giza province, Egypt. Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry on Saturday unveiled 59 newly-discovered well-preserved ancient coffins in Giza Province near the capital Cairo. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa) CAIRO, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry on Saturday unveiled 59 newly-discovered well-preserved ancient coffins in Giza Province near the capital Cairo. "It is a big discovery in the Saqqara necropolis, which is a world heritage site ... there are still tens of coffins in the site's burial shafts," Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anany told Xinhua on the site of the discovery. He added that the discovery is important because the colored coffins are all sealed and in a very good state of reservation. "We have just opened two coffins now and found two intact mummies inside them," the minister said. "The coffins belong to priests and officials, and I can say that the site is very promising." Meanwhile, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri, who headed the Egyptian mission that made the discovery, said the mission unveiled three burial shafts at different depths ranging from 10 to 12 meters, with 59 colored wooden coffins inside. "The coffins were found stacked in two layers," Waziri said, adding that the coffins date back to the 26th Dynasty of the sixth century B.C. "Dozens of statues, including a bronze statue of ancient Egyptian god Nefertum, were also found at the burial sites," Waziri said. A number of archaeological discoveries have been made in the Saqqara necropolis in the past few years, in addition to the reopening of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, which is the oldest stone construction in history. The recent discovery marks the largest number of coffins found in one burial place since the discovery of the Asasif Cachette, where 30 ancient coffins were discovered in October 2019 at the Asasif necropolis in Upper Egypt's Luxor Province. Enditem The AP PGECET exam is conducted by the Andhra University on behalf of Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) AP PGECET 2020 | The Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, has released the answer key for the AP PGECET 2020 examination on its official website. Candidates who had appeared for the entrance exam can check their answer key online at sche.ap.gov.in. The AP PGECET exam is conducted by the Andhra University on behalf of Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) and was conducted from 28 to 30 September. The test was held in two shifts. The first shift was from 10 am to 12 pm, while the second shift was from 3pm to 5pm. The exam is conducted for admission to various M.Tech./M.Pharm./ Pharm.D(PB) courses in University Engineering/ Pharmacy colleges and their affiliated colleges that are approved by the All India Council for Technical Education. As per the official notice, "The Question paper along with the response will be placed in the website www.sche.ap.gov.in/pgecet. The candidate can download the respective question paper along with the responses. The objections, if any, on the preliminary key must be sent to appgecet2020objections@gmail.com only on or before 04-10-2020, 12.00 noon. Objections sent to any other mail will not be considered." The official notification has also given the format in which objections must be submitted and stated that objections raised after the prescribed date and time will not be entertained. Here's how to check the AP PGECET 2020 answer key: Candidates need to visit the official website sche.ap.gov.in and on thehomepage, visit the AP PGECET section and click on the link, Exam Papers and preliminary keys. They will be redirected to a new page where they need to click on the subject of their choice. Candidates need to download the AP PGECET answer key 2020 that will be displayed on the screen and take a print out for future reference. Here is the direct link to check the APPGECET 2020 answer key: https://sche.ap.gov.in/pgecet/PGECET/PGECET_ExamPaper.aspx For every right answer, candidates can give themselves one mark on the answer key. The PGECET is a 120 marks exam with multiple choice objective questions. There is no negative marking. Students need to score at least 25 percent marks to pass the exam. HEMLOCK, MI Gods Helping Hands of Hemlock & Merrill is hosting a drive-thru food giveaway on Saturday, Oct. 17, at Zion Lutheran Church in Hemlock. Operation Polar Drop 2020 is scheduled to take place from 9 a.m. until supplies run out at the church, 17927 Dice Road in Hemlock. Participants will receive free groceries, clothing, schools supplies and more. Event organizer Paul Bohn of Gods Helping Hands of Hemlock & Merrill said the food is coming from the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan and he expects to supply 300 families with groceries. He said several other Operation Polar Drop events are taking place across the state that same day. Everybodys welcome, we dont turn anybody away," Bohn said. Those seeking donations are asked to stay in their vehicles when they arrive. They pull up, we put the boxes in the cars, and they drive off, he said. Gods Helping Hands of Hemlock & Merrill also operates a food pantry at Zion Lutheran Church twice a month. It is open from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. the second and fourth Saturday of every month and all are welcome. Find Gods Helping Hands of Hemlock & Merrill on Facebook or visit www.operationpolardrop.com for more information. Read more on MLive: Whitmer order creates council to tackle Michigans food insecurity problem Unemployed Michigan workers can get extra 20 weeks of benefits, state announces 5 signs Michigans economy had a strong August and 8 numbers that cause concern Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated Atal Tunnel in Rohtang, which is the highest altitude tunnel in the world and has strategic significance. The historic decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken on June 3, 2000 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The Union Cabinet decided in 2019 to name the Rohtang Tunnel as Atal Tunnel to honour the contribution made by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Rohtang in persian means a pile of dead bodies. Atal Tunnel: A few facts about this engineering marvel 1) The feasibility study for the Atal Tunnel was first done in 1990. The foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 6, 2002. The first blast took place in 2010 and the last blast in 2017. The tunnel was constructed using drill and blast NATM (New Austria Tunnelling Method) techniques. 2) The 9.02 km long tunnel connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley throughout the year. Earlier the road remained impacted for about six months every year owing to snowfall. The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas at an altitude of 3000 metres (10,000 feet) from the Mean Sea Level (MSL). 3) It reduces the road distance by 46 km between Manali and Leh and the time by about four to five hours. The hard work put in by Border Roads Organisation in the last 10 years is reaching the final stage. 4) The South Portal (SP) of Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 metres, while the North Portal (NP) of the tunnel is located near village Teling, Sissu, in Lahaul Valley at an altitude of 3,071 Metres. 5) It is horseshoe-shaped, single tube double lane tunnel with a roadway of 8 metres. It has an overhead clearance of 5.525 metres. Also, it is 10.5-metre wide and has a 3.6 x 2.25 metres fire-proof emergency egress tunnel built into the main tunnel itself. There are 18 egress tunnels where after every 500 metres there is an opening in case of emergency. If any fire incident happens so first thing is how the people trapped are to be rescued. For that there is an entry at every 500 metres. 6) Atal Tunnel has been designed for traffic density of 3000 cars per day and 1,500 trucks per day with max speed of 80 km/hr. It has the state of the art electromechanical system including semi transverse ventilation system. 7) The tunnel has ample safety features built into it including telephone connections at every 150 metres for emergency communication, fire hydrant mechanisms at every 60 Metres, auto incident detection system with CCTV cameras at every 250 metres, air quality monitoring at every one Km, evacuation lighting/exit signs and broadcasting system throughout the tunnel among others. 8) Officials said the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) worked relentlessly to overcome major geological, terrain and weather challenges that included the most difficult stretch of the 587-metre Seri Nalah Fault Zone. The breakthrough from both ends was achieved on October 15, 2017. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! Donald Trumps White House physician, Sean Conley, insisted Saturday that the president is doing very well at the hospital. But his effort to paint a rosy picture of Trumps condition and his clear attempt to be vague about a few details left lots of open questions about how the commander in chief is really doing. Conley said Trump has not had a fever over the past 24 hours and that his team is cautiously optimistic, adding that the president is doing great at Walter Reed. But even as Conley tried to paint a positive outlook, a White House source told pool reporters that some of Trumps vital signs had been very concerning over the past 24 hours. The source, who asked not to be identified, said the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of Trumps care, reports Reuters. (Update: The unnamed person was later revealed to be Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Conley said the president is not currently on oxygen. But what should have been a simple question about whether he had ever been on oxygen ended up being an exercise in obfuscation as Conley refused to give a clear answer and seemed to be making an effort to phrase his words in a way to give himself some wiggle room. Initially, he repeatedly said the president was not on oxygen at the moment. He then said: Thursday, no oxygen. None at this moment. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen. That seemed to leave open the possibility that the president was put on oxygen at the White House at some point. Advertisement Advertisement There are also questions about timing. Conley said the president is 72 hours into his diagnosis. The White House only confirmed to reporters that Trump had tested positive for the coronavirus early Friday morning, 35 hours before Conleys briefing. Conleys timeline means Trump could have been diagnosed as early as Wednesday. A White House official later said that Conley meant to say Day 3 rather than 72 hours. Conley refused to get into when Trump last tested negative for the coronavirus. Advertisement Advertisement A White House official clarifies Dr. Conleys timeline. He says Conley meant to say its Day 3, not 72 hours inthe diagnosis was made Thursday nightand that Garibaldi meant to say its been two days, not 48 hours, since the Regeneron was administered on Thursday night. Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) October 3, 2020 Another physician, Dr. Sean Dooley, claimed Trump said I feel like I could walk out of here today, which Conley characterized as an encouraging comment from the president. Local Opinion: PCC's next board member should be Cat Ripley Two former PCC faculty members share why they believe Cat Ripley is the choice for PCC's board Some of the largest wildfires ever recorded are raging across the west. Millions of acres have burned in California, Oregon and Washington. Smoke has reached as far as Europe. Firefighters like Michael Seaton, who lost his home in the deadly 2018 Camp Fire, have worked more than a month straight. "So you're out on the line for two days and you're sleep deprived out there. So I've seen people standing up with their eyes closed and they're basically asleep," said Seaton, a CAL FIRE engineer. "All of this is on the heels of wildfire emergencies in 2019, 2018 and 2017 that points to the pattern of how climate warming is predisposing large landscapes to unprecedented fire activity," said Doug Morton, Chief of NASA's Biospheric Sciences Laboratory. Heat waves and drought have left a thick layer of dry vegetation easily sparked by people and lightning. Although nearly 85% of wildland fires in the U.S. are caused by humans, people continue moving to fire-prone areas in droves. "How are we as a country spending our money? Are we going to have an F-35 dogfight with the Russians or the Chinese? Maybe, but the more likely thing is we're going to continue to burn our citizens over," said Graham Kent, a seismologist who runs a system of cameras that help quickly assess fires. A large and growing number of Chinese parents are cancelling or at least suspending plans to send their children to study abroad a strong signal that wealthy and middle-class Chinese families are becoming less interested in sending their kids to study overseas. Xinhua-Yonhap The two leaders continued discussing the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, the Kremlin said in a statement. They expressed serious concern over the incoming information on the involvement in hostilities of militants of illegal armed units from the Middle East. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned on Wednesday that the mercenaries pose long-term security threats for all countries in the region. The Islamist mercenaries have reportedly been recruited by Turkey in Syria and sent to fight in Karabakh on Azerbaijans side. Ankara denies that. Speaking with Putin, Pashinian condemned Turkeys extremely destabilizing behavior. According to his office, the Armenian leader again accused Ankara of being directly involved in the fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. The Kremlin statement also said: Vladimir Putin again emphasized the need to immediately stop the hostilities and resume political and diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict in line with the Statement made by the presidents of the countries co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, France and the US) on October 1, 2020. The Armenian Foreign Ministry welcomed that statement earlier in the day. It said Yerevan is ready to engage with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries to reestablish a cease-fire regime. Both Azerbaijan and Turkey rejected the mediating powers joint appeal for an immediate halt to the violence. They said the war will continue until the end of the Armenian occupation of Karabakh. It was Putins and Pashinians third phone conversation since the September 27 outbreak of the large-scale hostilities along the Karabakh line of contact. Putin has still not spoken with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The Karabakh conflict was also reportedly high on the agenda of a meeting between Nikolay Patrushev, the influential secretary of Russias Security Council, and the U.S. National Security adviser, Robert OBrien, held in Geneva on Friday. A spokesman for Patrushev was quoted by the TASS news agency as saying that the two men noted their countries convergence of approaches to the problem. They also reaffirmed the need for a quick launch of a peaceful politico-diplomatic process of settling the Karabakh conflict, he said. Kathie Lee Gifford claimed that her friend and former co-star Regis Philbin was feeling depressed in his final months. The 67-year-old Live! With Regis And Kathie Lee star opened up about spending time with the television icon before his death in July at age 88. The host and actress told the ladies of The Talk on Friday that Regis' depression seemed to have been brought on by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Feeling down: Kathie Lee Gifford, 67, claimed that her longtime friend Regis Philbin was depressed by the pandemic in the final months leading up to his death in July at age 88; shown in 2012 'He had been depressed in the weeks and months earlier, because of [the pandemic],' Kathie Lee said. According to her, the isolation of the pandemic left the longtime television staple without the stimulation and socialization he craved. 'Regis couldnt perform anywhere, nobody was out and about. He couldnt be Regis for people, and it broke his heart,' she continued. Adding to his possible depression at the time was a sense of loss after a friend died from COVID-19. Out of his element: 'Regis couldnt perform anywhere, nobody was out and about. He couldnt be Regis for people, and it broke his heart,' she explained; still from Single Parents Near and dear: Kathie Lee said that Regis' wife Joy Senese told her that 'one of his dearest friends had just recently died of COVID, so he was pretty much in a depression' Kathie Lee said that Regis' wife Joy Senese told her that 'one of his dearest friends had just recently died of COVID, so he was pretty much in a depression. 'Regis just lived to make people happy. He certainly made me happy for the 35 years that we were great friends,' she said. The Then Came You star also sounded touched to learn how important her final meeting with Regis had been. 'Later after he passed, two weeks later, Joy told me that that was the last time she heard him laugh, was when he was at my house,' she explained. 'So, that was a sweet gift from God to me that he blessed that friendship even at the very end. There was nobody like him ever, and there will never be another like him, ever.' Good times: 'Later after he passed, two weeks later, Joy told me that that was the last time she heard him laugh, was when he was at my house,' she said; shown with Joy Senese in 2016 Incomparable: Kathie Lee called that final meeting a 'gift from God,' adding that, 'There was nobody like him ever, and there will never be another like him, ever' During the interview, Kathie Lee also reiterated a statement she made shortly after Regis' death that he had seemed particularly frail the last time she saw him, a departure from their previous meeting. The two starred together on the morning talk show Live! With Regis And Kathie Lee from 19882000. After she left the series, the longtime television staple hosted it for a year on his own with a rotation cast of guest hosts, before settling on Kelly Ripa for a replacement. The two hosted the series together until his departure in 2011, and she currently hosts with Ryan Seacrest. Changes: Regis and Kathie Lee hosted their morning talk show from 19882000. He hosted for a year with guest hosts before Kelly Ripa became the full-time replacement; shown in 2015 Though she's best known as a TV personality, Kathie Lee recently showed off her acting chops in the romantic comedy film Then Came You, which she stars in opposite Craig Ferguson. She stars in the film as a new widow traveling with her late husband's ashes. Her trip is complicated after she makes a stop in Scotland and falls in love with an inn keeper (Ferguson) who happens to already be engaged. The film is currently available on VOD. KEY HIGHLIGHTS: India and South Africa moves WTO to waive off TRIPS protection to fast track COVID-19 care Move, if approved, may suspend patent, copyright, design, data protection rights on COVID-19 related innovations Asks TRIPS Council to recommend the waiver to WTO members Last week, pharma MNCs made a pledge to make COVID-19 products affordable and accessible to avoid such a decision India and South Africa have requested the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to waive off certain key provisions under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to speed up the prevention, containment and treatment efforts against COVID-19 pandemic. The two countries argue that in the absence of a waiver, existing protection for intellectual property rights (IPR) such as patents, industrial designs, copyright and protection of undisclosed information, may create barriers to timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and medicines or to scaling-up of research, development, manufacturing and supply of medical products essential to combat COVID-19. In a joint submission to the TRIPS Council on October 2, the countries wanted the the Council for TRIPS to recommend, as early as possible, to the General Council of the WTO, a waiver from the implementation, application and enforcement of Sections 1, 4, 5, and 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19. While Part II of the Agreement defines the standards concerning the availability, scope and use of IPR, the sections specifically talks about copyright and related rights (Section 1), industrial designs (Section 4), patents (Section 5) and protection of undisclosed information (Section 7). TRIPS agreement provides for 50 years of copyright protection, 10 years of protection from unauthorised use of industrial design by third parties and 20 years of patent protection. While medical device and diagnostic equipment makers use protection on industrial design to ward off competition, patents allow medicine makers exclusive rights to prevent third parties from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing their patent protected products. The protection of undisclosed information clause under TRIPS requires member countries to ensure that the data (including clinical trial data) submitted by the holder of the rights is not used for unfair commercial use (like approving a generic product on the basis of the data). "There are several reports about intellectual property rights hindering or potentially hindering timely provisioning of affordable medical products to the patients. It is also reported that some WTO Members have carried out urgent legal amendments to their national patent laws to expedite the process of issuing compulsory/government use licenses. Beyond patents, other intellectual property rights may also pose a barrier, with limited options to overcome those barriers. In addition, many countries, especially developing countries, may face institutional and legal difficulties when using flexibilities available in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement)," the joint letter said. India and South Africa also say that for countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity the requirements of TRIPS and the cumbersome and lengthy process for the import and export of pharmaceutical products that follows are a major concern. "Internationally, there is an urgent call for global solidarity, and the unhindered global sharing of technology and know-how in order that rapid responses for the handling of COVID-19 can be put in place on a real time basis," the letter said. The two countries want the waiver to continue until widespread vaccination is in place globally, and the majority of the world's population has developed immunity. They have proposed that the waiver shall be reviewed by the General Council not later than one year after it is granted, and thereafter annually until the waiver terminates. Incidentally, 16 global pharmaceutical and medical device makers and the philanthropy Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have recently come out with a joint commitment to fight COVID-19 and address the access issues. The signatories of the partnership are AstraZeneca, Bayer, bioMerieux, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Gilead, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co (SD), Merck KGaA, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The industry attempt is seen as an effort to dissuade WTO members from taking the TRIPS waiver route as it can impact their business interests in COVID-19 care. Also read: US, EU, Canada question India's agriculture support practices at WTO Also read: Gates Foundation, 16 pharma MNCs to make COVID-19 care accessible worldwide The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) plans to launch a nationwide drive from January to raise funds for the Ram Temple construction in Ayodhya. VHP vice president Champat Rai said the plan was expected to get a final nod from VHPs decision-making body soon. He added Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Surat, and Jaipur would be some of the main centres for the drive. Rai said some other centres might also be considered as per the need. Gaurav Jaiswal, a VHP functionary, said the donations would purely be voluntary. He [Rai] also informed us that some specially-prepared literature would be distributed by our volunteers during the drive that would be undertaken across all localities and villages, he said after a VHP meeting here. Also read: Babri judgment sharpens political divide The responsibility of preparing the literature has been entrusted to Sanskar Bharti an organisation working in the field of promoting Indian art and culture. The material would then be made available to all the states from Delhi that is becoming the centre of this initiative. It would then be translated into various local languages before distribution. This fund collection campaign will also be widely advertised in all prominent dailies. Before January, all details of the campaign would be finalised after duly taking suggestions in this regard into consideration. Local units have been asked to complete all details of the campaign so that as soon as the details at the national level are taken, the campaign can be launched on the ground in a well-organised manner, said Jaiswal. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR K Sandeep Kumar K Sandeep Kumar is a Special Correspondent of Hindustan Times heading the Allahabad Bureau. He has spent over 16 years reporting extensively in Uttar Pradesh, especially Allahabad and Lucknow. He covers politics, science and technology, higher education, medical and health and defence matters. He also writes on development issues. ...view detail The former British royal says that he didnt fully understand racism until he married his wife Just as Black history month begins in the United Kingdom, former British royal Prince Harry reveals hes had an awakening as it relates to racism. Harry and his wife Meghan Markle addressed the issue with Englands The Evening Standard in a Zoom call, reports People. He admitted that, as a member of the British royal family and distant heir to the throne, hed been sheltered from racism and the experiences of Black people in London and beyond. (Evening Standard via Twitter) Because I wasnt aware of so many of the issues and so many of the problems within the U.K. and also globally as well. I thought I did but I didnt, Harry said on the call. Read More: Meghan Markle reportedly pitching doc about BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors as part of $100M Netflix deal You know, when you go into a shop with your children and you only see white dolls, do you even think: Thats weird, there is not a black doll there? And I use that as just one example of where we as white people dont always have the awareness of what it must be like for someone else of a different colored skin, of a Black skin, to be in the same situation as we are where the world that we know has been created by white people for white people, he said. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (L) and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex arrive to attend the annual Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey on March 9, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) According to People, this was Harry and Meghans first joint interview with a British outlet since they made their exit from Britain in March just before the coronavirus hit. The two remain the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but are no longer working British royals who have to follow the protocol of royal family members. Despite their move to California, they continue to support charitable organizations in the U.S. and the U.K., recently signing a Netflix deal to advance those efforts. Read More: Meghan Markle applauds Black Lives Matter peaceful protests as a beautiful thing Meghan and Harry conducted the interview from their Santa Barbara, California home and were dressed casually, Meghan in an asymmetrical brown top with brown leather pants while Harry wore a blue button-down shirt and grey pants. Story continues The couple, who have shown support for the Black Lives Matter movement, also penned an article for the Standard, expressing more of their sentiments about race. For as long as structural racism exists, there will be generations of young people of color who do not start their lives with the same equality of opportunity as their white peers. And for as long as that continues, untapped potential will never get to be realized, the two wrote. As for baby Archie, who will turn two next May, Meghan said hes enjoying life in America. We are doing well. [Archie] is so good, Meghan told the Standard. We are very lucky with our little one. He is just so busy, he is all over the place. He keeps us on our toes. We are just so lucky. Have you subscribed to theGrios podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now! The post Prince Harry reveals his awakening on racism during UK Black history month appeared first on TheGrio. CHICAGO - Universal COVID-19 testing of children who are having procedures requiring anesthesia promotes efficient use of personal protective equipment (PPE), according to research being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2020 annual meeting. Testing can rule out children who would otherwise be suspected of having COVID-19 based on symptoms or possible exposure to the virus. Ruling out COVID-19 prevents unnecessary use of the extensive PPE recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC-recommended PPE for treating COVID-19 positive patients includes a respirator mask, such as an N95 or PAPR, and a gown, in addition to the standard PPE of surgical mask, eye protection and gloves, which are always worn by health care workers during procedures requiring anesthesia. Although early in the pandemic it appeared that children were rarely affected, their numbers have been growing and today children comprise more than 10% of COVID-19 cases. "This study links the importance of universal testing for COVID-19, increased safety of staff and efficient use of PPE, especially items such as N95 face masks, which are in low supply," said Lenard Babus, M.D., lead author of the study and attending pediatric anesthesiologist, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "If universal testing were used outside the hospital, outpatient facilities and other treatment centers could experience similar PPE and safety benefits." Hospitals frequently verbally screen patients for COVID-19 using three criteria: travel history, close contact or exposure to the disease, and symptoms such as fever, cough or shortness of breath. However, a positive screen doesn't guarantee the presence of COVID-19. Conversely, a patient may have no symptoms of the virus or apparent risk for COVID-19, but may still have the virus. For the study, researchers analyzed results of COVID-19 testing in anesthesia procedures performed at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia between March 26 and May 11, 2020. Patients required anesthesia for a wide range of procedures, from MRI testing to cancer surgery and appendix removal. All children were tested for COVID-19 using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test prior to receiving anesthesia. They then compared the test results to those who were suspected of being infected, based on the verbal screening method. Overall, 1,033 children were included in the study and 146 children verbally screened positive for at least one of the three criteria. Without COVID-19 PCR testing, health care providers treating all 146 children would have been required to wear expanded PPE, including an N95 mask or respirator. However, because their COVID-19 PCR test was negative, 102 of the 146 patients received care with standard PPE, a reduction of 70%. They also found that 10 children who verbally screened negative for the disease actually tested positive for COVID-19, and may have otherwise been overlooked, increasing health care workers' risk of exposure. ### THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific society with more than 54,000 members organized to raise and maintain the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology. ASA is committed to ensuring physician anesthesiologists evaluate and supervise the medical care of patients before, during and after surgery to provide the highest quality and safest care every patient deserves. For more information on the field of anesthesiology, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists online at asahq.org. To learn more about the role physician anesthesiologists play in ensuring patient safety, visit asahq.org/WhenSecondsCount. Join the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2020 social conversation today. Like ASA on Facebook, follow ASALifeline on Twitter and use the hashtag #ANES20. (Newser) Kayallah Jones had a good reason to dance, and she sure did. The Atlanta woman broke into what ABC7 calls "a happy dance" after a September job interview at a restaurant called The Spot. Surveillance cameras captured Joneswho had endured two years of homelessnessbreaking free in the parking lot. "When I got outside I didn't know that the cameras caught me," she tells CBS46. Dakara Spence, the manager who interviewed her, said Jones had "a great energy, I felt it when she walked in, she seemed really positive. I called her phone and I said, 'I'm going to hire you and I seen your happy dance, so you can continue dancing' and she was just screaming through the phone. It was a beautiful moment for me." story continues below Jones, who lost multiple jobs during the pandemic, put it this way: "Ms. Dakara didn't know but I was going through so much, and at that point, when she gave me this chance and this opportunity, I was elated, excited and so overwhelmed to the point where no one understood how happy and accomplished I felt at that moment." Jones is now serving at The Spot in Decatur, Georgia, and the video has been viewed millions of times worldwide. (Read more uplifting news stories.) Honduran migrants hoping to reach the United States rest in Entre Rios, Guatemala, after crossing the border from Honduras on Thursday. (Johan Ordonez / AFP/Getty Images) As a new caravan of about 2,000 Honduran migrants pushed north through Central America toward the United States this week, people throughout the region were asking a question: Why now? Some political analysts and government leaders are suspicious of the caravan's timing a month before the U.S. presidential vote given that a similar mass migration weeks before the 2018 midterm elections became a major campaign issue used by President Trump and other Republicans to drive immigration-wary supporters to the polls. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that there might be political motives behind the new caravan, though he acknowledged he did not have "all the elements" to support that belief. "Its a matter that I believe is linked to the U.S. election, Lopez Obrador told journalists at his daily news conference. It is very weird, very strange that the caravan set out on the eve of the vote." Many people are openly toying with opinions about the caravan, including an academic who questioned whether Honduras' ruling party might have played a role in organizing the caravan and members of the Honduran government who have blamed diverse forces, including liberal nonprofits, criminal groups and the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. There is no public evidence that the latest caravan or any earlier iterations were organized by people or groups trying to influence U.S. elections. Several migrants said speculation about their timing or motives distracts from the reasons that they are fleeing Honduras: entrenched poverty, endemic violence and overt government corruption all of which have grown worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. This isn't a political movement, and we dont care about the elections in any other country," said a caravan member named Ariel, who is an administrator of the WhatsApp group in which migrants have organized themselves. Were dying of hunger and are just looking for a country that can offer us life with dignity." Story continues On Thursday, members of the latest caravan maneuvered past immigration officials to enter Guatemala before beginning the several-day trek toward the Mexican border. Ariel, a 26-year-old who asked to be identified only by his first name because he fears retribution from authorities back home, said he decided to join the caravan because he was kidnapped for ransom five months ago by police officers. He said he learned about the caravan forming on social media. As for its timing of the caravan, he said migrants left this week because until a few weeks ago, the country's borders were closed as a coronavirus precaution. Just days after Honduras confirmed its first cases of COVID-19 on March 10, President Juan Orlando Hernandez ordered a near-complete lockdown of the country, closing its borders and issuing a curfew that required people to stay in their homes except for a few hours each week. Those swift actions may have spared Honduras from a mass outbreak the nation has seen just over 2,380 coronavirus deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. But human rights advocates say officials in Honduras have used the curfew to justify a military crackdown, and more than 63,000 people have been arrested for breaking curfew in recent months, including journalists and activists. Many businesses have closed, hunger is widespread, and evictions have spiked, forcing families into the streets. Hernandez, who several years ago admitted that his campaign had been funded in part by millions of dollars stolen from the countrys Social Security Institute, and who was recently named by U.S. prosecutors as a co-conspirator in a drug trafficking case against his younger brother, has been linked to another corruption scandal. A recent government audit of the Honduran agency tasked with procuring medical supplies to fight the coronavirus found tens of millions of dollars wasted. "Where's the money?" read large banners that have sprung up across the country in recent months. Migrants have been leaving the country in large groups since at least 2017, inspired in part by annual "Stations of the Cross" processions in Mexico, where activists marched during Lent to bring attention to that country's harsh immigration enforcement. They say that there is safety in numbers and that traveling together means they don't have to pay smugglers for protection. The caravans didn't capture widespread U.S. attention until 2018, when Trump began frequently tweeting about them, saying they proved the U.S. needed to build a border wall. When a group of 7,000 mostly Central American migrants headed north shortly before the midterm elections, Trump seized on the issue and sent soldiers to the border. Many of the migrants in that caravan ended up stranded in Tijuana and other border cities after the Trump administration issued a rule requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their immigration court cases in the U.S. Some headed back to Honduras, while others built lives in Mexico. It is unclear whether the current caravan will make it into Mexico. Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei said in a video address Thursday that migrants who are apprehended will be deported. "The order has been given to detain all those who entered illegally, and return them to the border of their country, Giammattei said. We will not allow any foreigner who has used illegal methods to enter the country to think that they have the right to come and infect us and put us at serious risk. While Lopez Obrador said Mexicans do not want confrontation," his immigration agency released a statement Thursday saying the migrants represent a health risk and warned that any foreigner who threatened public health could be imprisoned. Lopez Obrador, who had advocated a more humane approach to migrants, adopted much harsher tactics after Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Mexican imports if Mexico didn't stop the migrants. In January, when a different caravan approached the Guatemala-Mexican border, National Guard troops in riot gear blocked their way and fired tear gas canisters, and hundreds of people were put on planes and buses back to Honduras. Itsmania Platero, a migrant activist in Honduras, said the January caravan was proof that the caravans are not connected to U.S. politics, although she acknowledged that there are interest groups that try to take advantage of them. "People on all sides use them," she said of the migrants. "These poor people have become cannon fodder." Times staff writer Linthicum reported from Mexico City and special correspondent Cerrato from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Sri Lankan authorities have embarked on an innovative initiative to promote the Ceylon Tea brand during the global Covid-19 pandemic by distributing tea dyed face masks to the international business community. According to the Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB), the face masks which have undergone a value addition process with the usage of the Ceylon Tea dye, a by-product of iced tea manufacturing, is reusable upto 30 washes, reports the Daily Mirror newspaper. The masks are natural antimicrobial (AATCC 100), bio-degradable, eco-friendly, and non-toxic. The Ceylon Tea branded face masks are distributed on a complimentary basis in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Relations. The SLTB said arrangements have been made to dispatch the branded face masks to over 75 Sri Lankan missions around the world who would distribute the product to the end-users. The business of face masks has been booming ever sine the coronavirus pandmeic making it one of the most essential and indespensible commodities of 2020. Even as Sri Lanka uses it as a tool for soft diplomacy, many have been using it to make political points as well as to create unprecedented mask art. A bespectacled Japanese artist, for instance, recently created a face mask that had the 3-D model of a bowl of ramen noodles on top in order to complement his glasses that were constantly getting fogged by the mask. when someone wearing glasses would wear the mask, it would look like their glasses are fogged due to the piping hot ramen. In the United States, face masks even became a political and electoral issue with the Republicans (led by Donald Trump) downplaying the importance of wearing them for months. Trump recently tested positive from coronavirus after he contracted it from his close aide Hope Hicks, at Tuesdays Presidental debate. As you might already have guessed, Hicks was not wearing a mask. (With inputs from IANS) Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 20:44:33|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SINGAPORE, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Singapore. Under the guidance of the leadership from both sides, the two countries have witnessed good momentum in the development of bilateral ties with pragmatic cooperation in all sectors LOGISTIC, FINANCIAL CONNECTIVITY The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor is a trade and logistics passage jointly built by western Chinese provincial regions and Singapore under the framework of the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity, or Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (CCI). The corridor serves as a bridge between the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and helps enhance connectivity between Western China, Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. As part of the corridor, the land-sea freight route had linked 234 ports in 92 countries and regions as of June 30 this year, according to sources with the route's operation platform. The platform also showed that 386 trips were made along the route in the first half of 2020, while the route had seen a total of 1,966 trips from its official opening in September 2017 to June 30 this year. Goods transported along the route covered more than 350 categories including automobiles and auto parts, chemical raw materials and products, light industry and pharmaceutical products and fresh and frozen goods, according to the platform. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore must strengthen connectivity with the region and the world to facilitate the movement of goods, data and people, said Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat in the FutureChina Global Forum last month. Singapore is pressing ahead with China with the corridor. "We saw a 20 percent increase in trade volume in the first half of this year, despite COVID-19, through this corridor," Heng said at the forum. China has been Singapore's largest trading partner and Singapore has been China's largest foreign investor since 2013, said Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday in an exchange of congratulatory message to commemorate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Actually Singapore state-backed investor Temasek saw its holdings in China surpassed its home market of Singapore for the first time in the financial year ending on March 31. Its exposure to China rose to 29 percent of assets, compared with 24 percent for Singapore, according to the Temasek Review 2020 released last month. DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY Another highlight of China-Singapore cooperation focuses on digital connectivity in a bid to boost the development of digital economy, which has become more pertinent than ever amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The first Joint Implementation Committee meeting of the Singapore-China (Shenzhen) Smart City Initiative was held online in June, during which eight MOUs were signed. Analysts believe that the initiative would facilitate the digital collaboration between Southeast Asia and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in south China, a region which China aims to develop into "a role model of high-quality development." In another development, Singapore and China's Chongqing co-hosted the Smart China Expo (SCE) Online in September. Singapore was a guest of honor for the previous two sessions of the expos in 2018 and 2019. In her speech at the SCE, Singapore's Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo noted that Singapore and Chongqing have a shared commitment to be at the forefront of digital connectivity, and digital connectivity is a key pillar of the CCI. She noted that COVID-19 has made "going digital" central to everyday interaction. "Digital connectivity has also enhanced physical trade and connectivity between our regions. We have worked together to make the clearance of goods more efficient" by linking Singapore's Networked Trade Platform, a one-stop trade and logistics ecosystem which supports digitalization efforts, and China's single window platform, making the exchange of digital trade documents between the two countries seamless and reduce costs for businesses, said the minister. CULTURAL AND PEOPLE TO PEOPLE EXCHANGES Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, China and Singapore are making concerted efforts in promoting cultural and people to people exchanges. Besides online meetings between officials of the two sides, a fast lane connecting six Chinese provinces and municipalities with Singapore was established in June in the first phase to facilitate essential business and official travel between the two countries amidst the COVID-19. Moreover, 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, visited Singapore in August, and met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat and other senior officials. Heng said at the FutureChina Global Forum that Yang is his first foreign visitor since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a message published on the English daily the Straits Times on Thursday to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Singapore and the 71st founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China, Chinese ambassador to Singapore Hong Xiaoyong said that China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been a major platform for bilateral cooperation. Under the BRI, the third-party cooperation is well underway, and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor started to forge synergy with the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, he said. On the cultural front, Singapore's Asian Civilization Museum (ACM) and the Shanghai Museum are jointly hosting an exhibition on shipwreck treasures from the prosperous Tang Dynasty (618 A.D.-907 A.D.), which is the first international collaborative exhibition after the Shanghai Museum reopened this year. Speaking at a seminar held by ACM in August as a prelude to the exhibition, Singapore's Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean said that the show is particularly significant as the collection is a tangible demonstration of the long-standing historical links between China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, which continue to flourish today. Singapore supports China's Belt and Road Initiative as it sees the benefit of enhanced connectivity and development in the Silk Road Spirit of "peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit, Teo added. Enditem (CNN) US First Lady Melania Trump was secretly recorded in the summer of 2018 expressing her frustration at being criticized for her husband's policy of separating families who illegally crossed the southern border while at the same time needing to perform traditional first lady duties, such as preparing for Christmas. "They say I'm complicit. I'm the same like him, I support him. I don't say enough I don't do enough where I am," she said in a tape secretly recorded by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to the first lady who wrote a book about their relationship, "Melania and Me." The tapes were played exclusively on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" on Thursday night and were recorded by Wolkoff after she left the White House. "I'm working ... my a** off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?" She continued, "OK, and then I do it and I say that I'm working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, 'Oh, what about the children that they were separated?' Give me a f****** break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that? I can not go, I was trying get the kid reunited with the mom. I didn't have a chance needs to go through the process and through the law." The policy Melania Trump was referring to was different from that of her husband, President Donald Trump. Under former President Barack Obama, children were separated from parents only when authorities had concerns for their well-being or could not confirm that the adult was in fact their legal guardian, but not as a blanket policy as was done under Trump -- until a judge forced the administration to stop. In a statement, Melania Trump's chief of staff Stephanie Grisham blasted Wolkoff for releasing the recording. "Secretly taping the First Lady and willfully breaking an NDA to publish a salacious book is a clear attempt at relevance. The timing of this continues to be suspect - as does this never-ending exercise in self-pity and narcissism," she said in a statement. Secretly recorded tapes reveal Melania Trump's frustration (full audio) 07:09 In another recording, Melania Trump emphasizes the reaction of migrant children brought "by coyotes" as evidence of the detention centers' quality and "the way they take care of them." "The kids, they say, 'Wow I will have my own bed? I will sleep on the bed? I will have a cabinet for my clothes?' It's so sad to hear it but they didn't have that in their own countries, they sleep on the floor," Melania Trump says on the tape. "They are taken care of nicely there. But you know, yeah, they are not with parents, it's sad. But when they come here alone or with coyotes or illegally, you know, you need to do something." The first lady also cast doubt on the authenticity of some immigrants' accounts of fleeing danger in their home countries. "A lot of like moms and kids they are teached how to do it. They go over and they say like, 'Oh, we will be killed by a gang member, we will be, you know, it's so dangerous,' " Trump said, mimicking a dramatic voice. "So they are allowed to stay here." "It's not true that they would, you know what I mean," Trump said, adding that "they're not professional but they are teached by other people what to say to come over and to you know let them go to stay here. Because they could easily stay in Mexico but they don't want to stay in Mexico because Mexico doesn't take care of them the same as America does." Wolkoff told Cooper on Thursday that she believed Melania Trump may have felt maternal concern for the children but had moved past it to fit in with the administration's agenda. "I think that as a mother, those maternal instincts in her were set off and she did care," Wolkoff said. "But there is no husband to come to, the leader of the free world, to discuss how she's feeling about that. So regardless of that, she steps in line and she just decides that what she has heard and what she's been told is what the rule of law is in our country." Wolkoff added, "On the flip side, Melania, the traditions of first lady and President have gone out the window with this couple and I feel that if there were there is so much that could be done but, again, no support. No understanding." Trump fumed following Wolkoff's book release over her former adviser's about-face from eager friend and active member of her tightly held inner circle to what Grisham has called, on Trump's behalf, "revisionist history." In the book, Wolkoff revealed private conversations with the first lady on topics ranging from her frosty relationship with her stepdaughter Ivanka to her marriage, her thoughts on border policy, Michelle Obama, to the controversy over a jacket she wore in 2018 and her frequent use of emojis. And Wolkoff later alleged that Trump used a private email account in the White House, an ethical taboo, even for the first lady, who is not a government employee. A former Vogue magazine staffer who oversaw high-dollar events, including the Met Gala, Wolkoff has known Melania Trump for more than a decade. The two women were close for several years while both lived in New York City and operated in similar social circles. Wolkoff was Trump's first hire for the East Wing, acting as senior adviser to the first lady, writing speeches and helping craft what would become the "Be Best" platform. However, as investigations into inaugural activities unfolded, Wolkoff's relationship with Trump unraveled, prompted by the amount of money Wolkoff and her events firm allegedly pocketed during the planning and execution of the inauguration. Wolkoff's firm was paid more than $26 million, most of which went to subcontractors, but a hefty amount, reportedly $1.6 million, went directly to Wolkoff's business, according to documents reviewed by CNN. Wolkoff personally received about $500,000 for her role in the inauguration, according to The New York Times. This story has been updated with more from the interview on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" and additional background information. CNN's Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report. This story was first published on CNN.com "Secretly recorded tapes show Melania Trump's frustration at criticism for family separation policy and her bashing of Christmas decorations" Union minister V Muraleedharan on Saturday slammed the opposition for its vicious" campaign against the Farm bills and said the Congress and the Left parties were playing with the lives and livelihood of farmers. The Narendra Modi government ensured a better future to farmers by reforming the agriculture sector and passing two legislations that empower farmers and strengthens supply chains, he told a press conference here. The Modi government relieved farmers from the limitations on sale-points and created a framework to ensure assured returns on farm produce. Our government is committed to making agriculture self-reliant and remunerative. We are for an empowered farmer", the Minister of State for External Affairs said. Rubbishing charges of the ruling LDF and opposition Congress led UDF in Kerala on the Farm bills, the minister said agri-reforms freed farmers from the shackles of middlemen and vested interests at mandis, eased restrictions on the sale, storage, transport facilities and harvesting of produce. Describing as baseless" the false propaganda" of the Left alliance and their irresponsible behaviour" in Parliament, he said CPI(M) MPs opposition to reforms was a"stunt" to compete with Congress as the Bills have no impact on farmers in Kerala, where there is no APMC. The Indian farmer is not influenced by the gimmicks" of the Congress and the Left, he said, adding farmers have understood the intentions of the reforms and welcomed them. The oppositions attempt to divert attention by falsely claiming about the disappearance of MSP" had fallen flat when government announced the new Minimum Support Price, he added. Muraleedharan also reminded the Congress about the increase in Agriculture budget from Rs 12,000 crore in 2009-10 to a whopping Rs 1,34,399 crore in 2020-21. The Agreement of Price Assurance and FarmServices Bill,2020, aims at addressing the price fluctuations of crops and ensures assured price to the farmer from the sponsor even before sowing of crops. of market unpredictability from the farmer to the sponsor, the minister said the reform measure acts as insurance and saves farmers from price fluctuations. Allaying fears of the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce(Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, Muraleedharan said farmers would enjoy the freedom of choice of sale and purchase eof agri-produce and carry out inter-state or intra-state trade without restrictions. In addition to mandis, farmers will have the freedom todo trading at farm gate, cold storage, warehouse, processing units and be able to engage in direct marketing, thereby eliminating intermediaries, ensuring full realisation of price, he said. UPDATE: The NYPD reports on Saturday that the missing girl has been found. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are asking for the publics help in locating a 12-year-old girl who went missing on Friday. The child, a resident of St. George, was last seen on Friday at 5 p.m. leaving her home and heading southbound on Stuyvesant Place, according to a statement from the NYPD. She is described as a 120-pound girl, standing 5 feet, 5 inches tall, with a thin build, light complexion, brown eyes and long black hair, according to the statement. She was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt, light blue jeans, black sneakers and a green backpack, police said. Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, or on Twitter @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday sent a message of sympathy to President Donald Trump and his wife Melania, wishing they would recover from the COVID-19 illness, state media reported. He sincerely hoped that they would recover as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it, the Korean Central News Agency reported. He sent warm greetings to them. Trump said Friday he and his wife had tested positive for the coronavirus, and leaders across the world have sent messages of goodwill to the couple. Kim and Trump once exchanged threats of total destruction and crude insults after North Korea in 2017 carried out a series of high-profile weapons tests aimed at acquiring an ability to launch nuclear strikes on the US mainland. Trump had said he would rain fire and fury on North Korea and derided Kim as little rocket man on a suicide mission, while Kim responded he would tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire. But they stopped such rhetoric and instead developed personal relationships after Kim abruptly reached out to Trump in 2018 for talks on the fate of his advancing nuclear arsenal. They met three times, starting with a summit in Singapore in June 2018 that made Trump the first sitting US president to meet a North Korea leader since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. But their meetings made little headway since their second summit in Vietnam ended without any deal following disputes over US-led sanctions on North Korea. Before their nuclear talks entered a stalemate, Trump said that he and Kim fell in love. Coronavirus vaccination could be just 'three months away' in Britain, Government sources have revealed. Every adult in the country could be vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as Easter as plans are put in place to train an army of careworkers to administer the jab. It coincides with Boris Johnson's hint last night that the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure a family of five can have both grandparents round for festive lunch. The Prime Minister stressed the Government would do 'everything we can to make sure Christmas for everybody is normal as possible'. Mr Johnson has often identified a vaccine as the key to being able to lift many of the restrictions imposed on the public since March, but has insisted 'we must never cut corners' or 'sacrifice safety to speed' in the search for one. It comes just days after it was claimed that Britain's rising coronavirus infection rate may actually speed up vaccine trials and move the world one step closer to eradicating the disease. But scientists are sceptical and say it could be much longer before full vaccination can be carried out, reported The Times. Earlier this week a Royal Society report warned there would be significant challenges in distributing and producing the vaccine on such a mass scale. Nilay Shah, head of the department of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, and a co-author of the report, said: 'Even when the vaccine is available it doesn't mean within a month everybody is going to be vaccinated. Boris Johnson, pictured today at the Conway Heathrow Asphalt & Recycling Plant construction site in west London, has often identified a vaccine as the key to being able to lift many of the restrictions imposed on the public since March, but has insisted 'we must never cut corners' or 'sacrifice safety to speed' in the search for one Care home residents and staff will be first to get a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of NHS staff and all over-80s Care home residents and staff will be the first to get a Covid-19 vaccine when one is approved, according to fresh government advice. Everyone over the age of 80 and NHS staff will be second in line, updated guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation states. The body, which consists of 20 top scientists, advises ministers on all vaccines. It admitted its guidance for any UK Covid-19 vaccination scheme is likely to change in the future. Matt Hancock previously pledged that Britons with underlying conditions would be near the front of the queue for any jab. But millions living with heart disease or other ailments that raise their risk of dying of Covid-19 won't be vaccinated until everyone over the age of 65 is inoculated, according to the new guidance. WHO WILL GET A COVID-19 JAB FIRST? Under the proposed ranking by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the vaccines will be rolled out in the following order: older adults' resident in a care home and care home workers all those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers all those 75 years of age and over all those 70 years of age and over all those 65 years of age and over high-risk adults under 65 years of age with underlying health woes moderate-risk adults under 65 years of age with underlying health woes all those 60 years of age and over all those 55 years of age and over all those 50 years of age and over rest of the population (priority to be determined) Advertisement 'We're talking about six months, nine months . . . a year. There's not a question of life suddenly returning to normal in March.' Oxford University has been running human trials on a vaccine since April and there are hopes it could be approved by regulators by Christmas. Government sources involved in the much-anticipated vaccine said it would be less than six months before a full programme, excluding children, would be ready. Plans to speed up the process include the creation of drive-thru vaccination centres and rules allowing more staff to give the jabs. The armed forces could even be drafted in for extra help. 'We are looking at closer to six months and it is likely to be far shorter than that,' a government source said. To administer two doses of a vaccine to 53 million adults in the six-month time period would involve 600,000 jabs a day. Those who need the injections most are first on the list, meaning care home residents and staff will get it as soon as it's ready. Those aged over 80 and NHS staff are next, followed by all over 65s, younger adults at higher risk and people over 50. Some care home managers were asked for a list of eligible frontline staff last month. Around 100million doses of the Oxford vaccination, which is yet to be proved successful, have already been ordered by the Government. It is hoped scientists will know if it prevents at least 50 per cent of infections, the threshold for success, by the end of this year. Britain is currently bound by the European Medicines Agency until January, meaning it can't administer the drug even if approved by UK regulators. But Ministers have revealed plans to change the law to allow vaccinations to start sooner. The Department of Health said: 'We are confident we have adequate provision or transport, PPE and logistical expertise to deploy a Covid-19 vaccine across the country as quickly as possible.' Several challenges had been highlighted in the Royal Society report, including the need to inject people with RNA, a type of genetic material, in some of the most promising studies, even though an RNA vaccine has never been produced at a large scale. Questions also remain over supply chains, with some vaccines having to be kept at -80C while being transported. Furthermore, as much as 80 per cent of the population may have to be innoculated to achieve herd immunity, even if a vaccine proves to be 90 per cent effective in reducing transmission. Prof Shah added that some 20,000 people would need to be recruited by the NHS to deliver the drug and that field hospitals may have to be built for the mass vaccination programme. People enter Oxford Circus underground station in London after the 10pm curfew that pubs and restaurants are subject to in order to combat the rise in coronavirus cases in England It comes after it was revealed New York-based company Codagenix plans to begin experiments of its vaccine in London by the end of the year. The jab will be of a type called a live attenuated vaccine, meaning people will be given a genetically-modified version of the coronavirus that is weaker than the real thing but still infectious. Live attenuated vaccines such as the MMR jab work by stimulating the immune system in the same way that real Covid-19 would, but by relying on viruses unable to cause severe illness. Codagenix says its vaccine was successful after a single dose in animal trials and is designed to produce immunity against various parts of the coronavirus, rather than just the 'spike protein' on the outside that many others have focused on. This could mean it would still work even if the virus mutated. Using a live virus may enable medics to create a type of immunity that is similar to what the body would make naturally. The report comes after scientists suggested that Britain's rising coronavirus infection rate may actually speed up vaccine trials and move the world one step closer to eradicating the disease. The UK is now well and truly in the midst of a second wave, with 6,000 new cases every day and hospital admissions doubling every week. Britons have been told they will need to live with tough new lockdown restrictions for another six months, with ministers banking on a jab being ready by then. Oxford University's front-runner vaccine candidate was supposed to be rolled out this autumn but trials came to a standstill when infection rates petered out over summer. Studies had to be moved abroad to the likes of Brazil, the US and South Africa - where coronavirus was still rife - to test if the jab can prevent infection. In order to prove beyond doubt a vaccine works, scientists need to inoculate tens of thousands of people then send them back into the community and wait for some to get infected. This has been a sticking point for the Oxford team because there was barely any Covid-19 transmission for months in the UK. But experts have told MailOnline the one 'silver lining' to Britain's climbing Covid-19 rates is that it could speed up this process. Supporters of President Donald Trump stand outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Alex Edelman/Getty Images) Pro, Anti-Trump Groups Gather Outside Walter Reed, Where Trump Is Being Treated Groups of President Donald Trump supporters and a smattering of people opposing the president gathered late Friday outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump is being treated for COVID-19. Trump, 74, will work from the center in Bethesda, Maryland, as he receives treatment for the new disease, the White House said. He is receiving remdesivir, an antiviral made by California-based Gilead Sciences. I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out, Trump said in a brief video he released on Twitter. A group of several dozen Trump supporters outside the medical center was sent pizza and other food, and received a greeting from White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The president saw you on TV and wanted to show his gratitude, Meadows said, according to One America News reporter Jack Posobiec. A supporter of President Donald Trump stands outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is seen in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Alex Edelman/Getty Images) The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is seen in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Alex Edelman/Getty Images) A counter sniper watches while waiting for President Donald Trump to arrive, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) Walter Reed National Military Medical Center seen before President Donald Trump arrives after he tested positive for COVID-19, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo) He wanted to say thank you,' Meadows said. Meadows handed out gifts from the White House. Asked how the president was doing, Meadows said: Hes doing well. Hes in good spirits. He loves America. Anti-Trump persons also gathered in the area. We live in this neighborhood and we are anti-Trump. Were here to support our family and our people against whatever Trump is for, one woman told Posobiec. Told that Trump is probably just for getting better from the illness, she added, We dont care how hes feeling. President Donald Trump leaves the White House for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Oct. 2, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Marine One lifts off from the White House to carry President Donald Trump to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., in Washington on Oct. 2, 2020. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo) President Donald Trump disembarks from the Marine One helicopter followed by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as he arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Another woman mocked Trump supporters, telling them, Wah wah your leaders gonna die. Walter Reed, the nations largest joint military medical center, is about 15 miles northwest of the White House. Trumps doctor, Sean Conley, said in a memorandum late Friday that he recommended moving the president to the medical center for further monitoring. This evening I am happy to report that the president is doing very well, he said. He is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but in consultation with specialists we have elected to initiate remdesivir therapy. He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably. Trump at 11:30 p.m. took to Twitter to write: Going welI, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!! NORWALK A family-run property management business is eyeing a long-unused property at Norden Park as the site of a new warehouse and distribution center, but some residents and city officials are worried the project could bring more traffic to East Norwalk. Benerofe Properties applied for a special permit in June to convert 330,000 square feet of existing property at 10 Norden Place otherwise known as Norden Park into a warehouse and distribution facility. The East Norwalk property once housed one of Americas foremost military technology companies, Northrop Grumman Norden Systems. But since the military giant completed its move in 2014, the 32-acre property has had only a handful of tenants. Benerofe representatives Thursday presented the Norwalk Zoning Commission a plan to revamp the property with a renewed parking lot that could accommodate large trucks and add six new loading docks to the existing 13 docks on the property. All additions would be built onto the existing structure, according to the proposal. Craig Benerofe, a partner at Benerofe Properties, said the development, if approved, would house two or three new tenants. He estimated these tenants likely would bring around 100 new employees to the property. Attorney Carolyn Cavolo, representing Benerofe on behalf of Shipman & Goodwin LLP, claimed the proposed use of the long vacant property would be less intense than other activities allowed under zoning regulations. A traffic study conducted by Tighe and Bond estimated that trucks would average approximately 198 trips to and from the property and about 574 total vehicle trips per day. Traffic engineer Craig Yannes estimated the development would generate 65 trips during morning peak hours (7:15-8:15 a.m.), and 67 trips during evening peak hours (5-6 p.m.). But he also pointed out that previously approved uses in the zone have generated nearly 1,300 and 3,700 trips per day in the past. What were talking about is a significantly less amount of traffic than what these other uses would be, Yannes said. But some zoning commissioners werent convinced. What concerns the neighbors is that there is going to be 200 truck trips to that site every day. That sounds like a lot of vehicles, Zoning Commission Chairman Louis Schulman said. In addition to volume, Schulman also raised concerns about the proposed truck route to and from the site. According to Yannes, trucks would have trouble driving the most direct route to Interstate 95, which is down Fitch Street, because of difficult turns. He instead identified a route that would take trucks down Strawberry Hill Avenue to Westport Avenue as the primary access point. That raised the issue of how those vehicle trips could affect traffic along Strawberry Hill Road and the traffic caused by the three public schools along the road. Youre going to have more truck traffic, during the time, particularly in the afternoon, when children are coming home from school, Schulman said. Thats an instance where that additional truck traffic during the day may not be a good thing at all. It may be more of a hazard to schoolchildren. Yannes claimed the traffic analysis found that the development would not have a significant impact on traffic in the area. However, Commissioner Nick Kantor pointed out that the Tighe and Bond traffic study only focused on the immediate area surrounding Norden Place and didnt account for any effects on the nearby schools. It didnt appear the traffic study took into account the primary route up to where there is already a ton of traffic in the community, Kantor said. The Zoning Commission also received more than 30 letters and emails from East Norwalk residents concerned about the effect a distribution center could have on the surrounding residential neighborhoods. Diane Cece, a board member of the East Norwalk Neighborhood Association, urged the commission to reject the application, citing serious concerns about truck traffic. All three of the recommended truck routes are not capable of accommodating 198 or more tractor trailer or other large trucks and 376 additional cars without impacting our community quality of life, and possibly without serious safety concerns, Cece wrote. Amy Sornatale wrote that the facility is completely wrong for the area. Air quality, noise pollution, and traffic hazards would destroy this neighborhood and the surrounding area, she wrote. Please say no to this proposal dont let the further destruction of our city continue. The project is expected to be built-out in late 2021 and occupied in early 2022. The city now is expected to undertake its own peer-reviewed traffic study on the proposal, which Planning and Zoning Director Steve Kleppin said could take weeks. Evangelists Paula White, Franklin Graham named among 'Israels Top 50 Christian Allies' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Evangelical leaders Paula White, Franklin Graham and David Jeremiah have been named as being among the leading defenders and advocates for Israel worldwide, according to a list released by the Israel Allies Foundation. On Thursday, IAF, an organization that coordinates 44 Israel Allies Caucuses worldwide to mobilize political support for Israel based on shared Judeo-Christian values, published its first list of Israels Top 50 Christian Allies, individuals the group said have conveyed their deep love and support for the State of Israel which stems from their faith. Released ahead of Sukkot the Feast of Tabernacles the list includes pastors, former politicians, organizational leaders and businessmen. The list is topped by the Rev. Paula White, the adviser to the White House on Faith & Opportunity Initiatives. She is also the chair of the evangelical advisory board in President Donald Trumps administration. White, who on her website says she stands with Israel and the Jewish people for peace and prosperity in the Holy Land, has publicly supported the Trump administration's pro-Israel policies. "My deeply held faith and conviction has aligned me to stand with and support Israel in every possible way. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob made a covenant with the Jewish people and promised them a nation," she said. "That nation, Israel, is the foundation and birthplace of my Christian faith. I also stand with Israel for geopolitical reasons. Since 1948, the nation of Israel has been Americas staunchest ally in the Middle East. I proudly support Israel and the Jewish people." Others named on the list include: John Hagee, Franklin Graham, Jentzen Franklin, Kay Arthur, Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer, Mike Huckabee, Alan Clemmons, Michele Bachmann, Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer. Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and head of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, often uses his platform to urge evangelical leaders to back Israel. Last month, he praised the signing of the historic Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, stressing that "Peace in the Middle East impacts the entire world." In a statement, IAF said it considers the moving of the U.S. and Guatemalan embassies to Jerusalem as well as the anti-BDS legislation now in 32 U.S states which made it official U.S. policy to oppose boycotts of Israel the direct result of the Christian supporters and politicians who have advocated for these issues along with Christian voters who have demonstrated that these issues will impact the direction of their vote. The list was authored by Josh Reinstein, president of IAF and author of Titus, Trump and the Triumph of Israel. Faith-based diplomacy has empowered Israel and its leadership to reach new heights, and it would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of these 50 unique individuals, Reinstein said. Recognizing the heroic work of our Christian supporters is an important display of our gratitude towards them. It is only due to the Christian political support for Israel, that Israel is welcoming embassies to Jerusalem and is now in the position to negotiate new peace deals on the basis of peace through strength. - The netizen created a collage of Akothee with Nicki Minaj referring to it as the expensive collabo - Akothee who was wowed by the message thanked the fan for believing in her and seeing her vision - The Rollam hitmaker congratulated the American rapper for welcoming her first child - The president of single mothers also promised her fans that she will also rock a baby bump soon PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed Days after American rapper Nicki Minaj welcomed her first child, a creative Kenyan decided it was time to poke fun on Kenyan businesswoman Esther Akoth alias Akothee. Akothee thrilled after fan predicted her collaboration with Nicki Minaj. Photo: Akothee. Source: Instagram Taking to her Instagram account, the mother of five shared a photo collage with Nicki indicating that they are ready for collaboration. Interestingly, the photo referred to Akothee as the expensive boss and referred to the collabo as Africa's best. In the photo, the Anaconda hitmaker barely had nothing covering her but showing the glow of carrying a human being inside her. On the other hand, Akothee was clad in simple night lingerie and from the photos, the message is already home. Wowed by the photo, the Rollam hitmaker congratulated the American rapper for gaining the mom title promising to look for another child soon. She also thanked the netizen who created the photo collage for believing in her work. "Oyaa congrats MoMA @nickiminaj. My baby bump is out soon. Whoever did this be blessed and thank you for Seeing the vision in me," she captioned the photo. In other news, Akothee's life is filled with rich history and experiences that can serve as lessons to a lot of women. The president of single mothers whose life is an open book often admits she had her fair share of misgivings in the past but would never change a thing. The mother of five who rarely posts photos of herself while expectant did the unexpected and posted a beautiful picture showing her pregnant with her son. At that time, madam boss lived in France with her wealthy baby daddy and the two of them were as happy as they could be. The 40-year-old had already formed an expensive taste and only stepped out in expensive clothes. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme - https://www.patreon.com/tuko My father-in-law won't let me bury my wife of 16 years or see my two children- Victor Odonda Tuko TV Source: TUKO.co.ke YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The Artsakh (Karabakh) Defense Army shot down three Azerbaijani military aircraft in between 08:25-08:46 October 3, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said. She said the first Azeri warplane was downed around 08:25, while the two others were shot down around 08:46. According to preliminary information, the number of Azeri warplanes that have been shot down by the Artsakh armed forces since the fighting began on September 27 has reached 14. Earlier Stepanyan reported that fierce fightings continue as Azeri forces keep attacking Artsakh. Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan For some people who get it, COVID-19 never goes away. They're called long haulerspeople who contracted COVID and, months later, are experiencing symptoms ranging from annoying to terrifying to debilitating. One study recently found that one-third of people who weren't sick enough with COVID to be hospitalized may still have long-term symptoms. And an Italian study found that nearly 90% of people who recovered from COVID-19 reported at least one persistent symptom two months later. Many long haulers don't fit the profile of those who are most likely to be made critically ill by COVID. "The people we're seeing as long haulers are people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. These are people who were never sick before with no pre-existing conditions," said Dr. Noah Greenspan, a New York City cardiopulmonary physical therapist. Here is what several long haulers across the country have said are their scariest symptoms. Read on, and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had Coronavirus. 1 Symptoms That Come And GoAnd Keep Coming Back Depressed woman awake in the night, she is exhausted and suffering from insomnia "There's a reason long-term Covid is called the 'rona coaster,'" said travel writer Lea Lane in Forbes on Sept. 30. She reports still suffering from nearly a dozen symptoms seven months after she contracted COVID. "We also refer to it as the beast, the devil and the demon. I can be feeling okay, and ten minutes later, feel like hell. Day to day, we never know how it will go. And many of us have relapsed, many times." 2 Brain Fog Tired young African man using laptop while sitting at the table on a sunny morning.Concept of people working hard home Chelsea Alionar, a 37-year-old in Portland, recently told Fox 12 Oregon she's had more than 80 doctors' appointments since testing positive for COVID in April. "I certainly cannot work at full capacity," she said. "My brain fog is really debilitating." "I survived, but I have survived with such problems," journalist Lorraine Graves told CTV News last week. Seven months after her COVID diagnosis, "My brain just doesn't work like it did. I'm sharp, I'm vivid, I'm vibrant and I'm not anymore." Story continues Researchers believe this frequently reported brain fogand other neurological symptoms like confusion, anxiety, depression, and personality changesmay be caused by virus-related inflammation in the brain. 3 Chest Pain mature man having heart attack at home Alionar said chest pain "wakes me up in the night, it plagues me throughout every day." This lingering symptom, which can seem frighteningly like a heart attack, may be caused by a condition called costochondritis, an inflammation of the cartilage that connects ribs to the breastbone. RELATED: COVID Symptoms Usually Appear in This Order, Study Finds 4 Fatigue woman lying on bed at home sick suffering cold flu and temperature covered with blanket feeling unwell and feverish Fatigue, from mild to crushing, has been reported by nearly 100% of long haulers, according to the COVID Symptom Study. "Since March, a four- to five-minute walk would send me to bed for a couple of days. I just couldn't tolerate it," Jenny Berz, a 50-year-old psychologist, told Boston 25 News on Oct. 1. "Interspersed in a lot of cells where they're inflamed so they're not functioning properly, so the heart is not beating as well as it should," said Eliza Chakravarty of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, who is studying long haulers. "People running seven miles a day now are struggling going down the driveway, so it can really take you out from the knees." 5 POTS dizzy San Francisco college student Kayla Swift, 23, told KPIX 5 News that she suffers from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) six months after her COVID diagnosis. The condition causes your heart rate to skyrocket when you move from sitting to a standing position, and can cause lightheadedness, dizziness and confusion. 6 Heart Inflammation Patient complains of heart pain to a cardiologist doctor Swift also developed myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle which has caused a thickening of her heart's myocardium and dilation of the ventricles. Previously active, she now uses a wheelchair. "Some days I can handle it, and some days it doesn't seem real, and then other days it feels absolutely hopeless," she said. RELATED: Simple Ways to Avoid a Heart Attack, According to Doctors 7 Eye Problems Woman in glasses rubs her eyes, suffering from tired eyes After being diagnosed with COVID in April, New Yorker Diana Berrent developed headaches and blurred vision. Her ophthalmologist recently diagnosed Post-COVID Onset Glaucoma. "We are now actually seeing many, many cases of COVID onset macular degeneration and other ocular issues," said Berrent, who founded Survivor Corps to track post-COVID symptoms, on KPIX 5 News last week. 8 Gastrointestinal Problems Middle aged woman suffering from abdominal pain while sitting on bed at home Swift says she has severe gastrointestinal problems, which have led to a 40-pound weight loss. For some people, gastrointestinal ailments like vomiting and diarrhea can be an initial sign of the illness; for others, those issues linger. RELATED: Dr. Fauci Just Said When We'd Be Back to "Normal" 9 Shortness of Breath Pretty brunette coughing on couch at home in the living-room. One European study found that 43% of COVID-19 patients had shortness of breath months after their illness supposedly resolved. 10 A Buzzing Sensation Moody young woman holding her neck Lane said one of her lingering symptoms is a disconcerting buzzing sensation throughout her whole body. "I was relieved when I realized that many long-haul people also have this frightening feeling," she said. Health experts don't know what causes it. RELATED: The New COVID Symptom Every Woman Needs to Know 11 Hair Loss losing hair Actress Alyssa Milano has shared on social media that she experienced ongoing hair loss months after first developing COVID symptoms. She's not alone: 27 percent of the 1,500 people surveyed by Survivor Corps reported ongoing hair loss. It's a condition called telogen effluvium, a form of hair loss that can be triggered by stress, illness or severe weight loss. Thankfully, it's temporary. 12 How to Stay Healthy As for yourself, do everything you can to prevent gettingand spreadingCOVID-19 in the first place: Wear a face mask, get tested if you think you have coronavirus, avoid crowds (and bars, and house parties), practice social distancing, only run essential errands, wash your hands regularly, disinfect frequently touched surfaces, and to get through this pandemic at your healthiest, don't miss these 35 Places You're Most Likely to Catch COVID. Phuket Vice Governor to transfer to Songkhla PHUKET: Wongsakorn Nunchukan, who has served as a Phuket Vice Governor since Oct 1 last year, has been transferred out of Phuket among the regular annual transfers announced each year. By The Phuket News Saturday 3 October 2020, 09:00AM Phuket Vice Governor Wongsakorn Nunchukan has been transferred to his home province of Songkhla, effective next Friday (Oct 9). Photo: PR Phuket Mr Wongsakorn will move to his home province of Songkhla, on the Gulf of Thailand coast, where he will take up the post of Vice Governor there. His transfer was announced in a Ministry of Interior order published on Thursday (Oct 1), announcing the transfers of 25 Vice Governors nationwide, to come into effect next Friday (Oct 9). Before his posting to Phuket, Mr Wongsakorn served as a Vice Governor in Satun province, south of Phuket, a post he took up on Oct 21, 2018. Mr Wongsakorn, 58, originally from Ranote district in Songkhla, had previously served in Phuket as Chief of the Phuket Provincial Planning and Public Works Office. It has yet to be announced who has been assigned to replace Mr Wongsakorn as Vice Governor. A K-9 sniffer was about to find a secret stash of 24-pounds of cocaine when they search a pad in New York City. The dog was able to find the illegal drugs inside the back of the bathroom vanity. The apartment was located in the Bronx and owned by an alleged drug trafficker in the city. Finding 24-pound of the stuff is a haul for the fight against illegal drugs, reported New York Post. Police dog K-9 Balu's sharp nose found the proof to arrest and prosecute the drug trafficker Cesar Chavez, 51, with two other known associates. They have $125,000 in cold cash with the stash of cocaine valued at $600,000. It is the statement of the city with federal officials announced on a Wednesday, reported KLSM. Who is Chavez During the cocaine shortage that was caused by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, Chavez of Manhattan was the one who got the 24-pounds of cocaine, according to the NYPD. He had two others with him when they were caught in the stung unknowingly. They are Cristian Rodriguez Chavez, 32, his nephew, and another Roberto Javier-Batista, 38. Both of the suspects are from the Bronx. Agencies that worked together to win this victory over organized crime have dealt a blow to illegal drugs and criminality. The New York Police Department (NYPD), state police, Port Authority police, and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) are part of the operation. It is one of the largest hauls of illegal drugs. Also read: Biden Messes Up with Numbers Again Saying 200 M Died From COVID-19, Teleprompter Needed? The cops were lucky to get off the streets all the cocaine they found in a flat. Ceasar Chaves had a large stash of snow that was not just half a kilogram of the drugs, and the bills inside a backpack. Their dog sniffed the drug stash behind the hidden spot in the bathroom. On September 3, the authorities conducted an operation with multiple agencies to ferret out criminal activities. Ceasar Chavez was under surveillance when carried an odd brick-shaped parcel covered in plastic. He and Javier-Batista left the area according to sources, mentioned Xoo News. Suspects got into a car and drove away fast when they felt edgy. The state police tried to apprehend them, but the perpetrators got away with the drugs. That evening Chavez was seen leaving the flat and getting into a car driven by Rodriguez Chavez. Later Javier-Batista entered the backseat with a similar package from earlier in the day. Authorities noticed it was the same kind of parcel they had. When the police stopped their car, the one in the back tried to hide the drugs under the driver's seat. The package was 2.2-lbs of cocaine. Keys to the flat used to search for more evidence to nail the suspects. Chavez's mobile phone pinged as a security alert when the flat was breached by agents, cited Fox News. Prosecutors in the case say the stash in the bathroom had a Chinese dragon stamped onto it. During the pandemic, everything tanked, but Chavez earned a lot according to Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan remarked. Chavez is under charges with all 24-pounds of the drugs that are under lock and key. Related article: Salon Gate: Hair Salon Owner Gets $120 K in One Day After Getting Accused by Dems Nancy Pelosi @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. CAIRO The Egyptian government has begun taking measures to monitor the commercial activity of Syrians in Egypt out of fear that some businesses are being used to fund the Muslim Brotherhood. The measures include not approving any commercial activity for Syrian nationals except with permission from the security authorities, as well as monitoring Syrian account activities and financial transactions in Egyptian banks. The Ministry of Local Development had sent out a memorandum a copy of which was obtained by Al-Monitor to governorates Aug. 11 asking them to assess shops owned by members of the Syrian refugee community in Egypt. Some people have opened a series of stores within short periods despite suffering from poor financial resources when they first came to Egypt," the memo read. It also said Syrians had bought "commercial stores in important locations using large amounts of unknown sources. The memo added, Some estimates indicate that Qatar funded them through the Muslim Brotherhood, to be a new economic entity representing the organization by financing its prohibited activities inside and outside Egypt. The memo also said the presidency did not want any commercial licenses granted to Syrians without approval from the Interior Ministry and the security services. A government official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, A campaign was launched in September to review and monitor the activities of shops and businesses owned by Syrians or in partnership with Egyptians. The official also said, These measures are only precautionary and are not aimed at stopping any existing activity, or pursuing or imposing any additional fees on funds or commercial activity by Syrians. The source added, The Syrians' funds in the Egyptian market are secured and subject to the laws protecting foreign investments in the Egyptian market as long as the existing activities do not cause any potential security risk or damage. On Sept. 12, Egyptian media outlets published reports about the Central Bank of Egypt instructing all banks operating in the local market to monitor the account activities of their Syrian clients. The Central Bank said this does not apply to the opening of new bank accounts by those who hold Syrian nationality and have a residency in Egypt but rather to accounts that show a sudden rise in value. Tayseer al-Najjar, the head of the Syrian community in Egypt, told Al-Monitor, The Egyptian government's decision does not affect the activity of Syrians in the Egyptian market. The Syrian community has not had any complaints about the implementation of the decision, especially since the Egyptian government has already taken several precautionary measures regarding foreign funds in the context of combating terrorist operations and activities. Najjar said, The decision is an inherent right of the Egyptian government within the framework of monitoring the funds pumped into the Egyptian market, especially with some suspicions about the nature of Syrian money with the increase in competition in the market. He added, The Syrians who came to Egypt were divided into segments; some were wealthy and had money invested in the Egyptian market, and others started small commercial activities and succeeded as they met demand from the Egyptian consumer, doubling their profits. It is unclear how many Syrian refugees there are in Egypt, as all may not be formally registered. According to the migration bulletin issued by Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the number of Syrian refugees in Egypt in 2017 was 233,000 refugees, more than double than the 110,000 refugees in 2012; Syrians also represent 54.5% of the total number of refugees in Egypt. A July report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates the number of Syrians registered as refugees in Egypt at 130,000. Najjar said, Some are trying to create a wedge between Syrians and the Egyptian people, but such decisions by the Egyptian government will show that the economic entities currently operating in the Egyptian market are clean and have nothing to do with the suspicious Brotherhood funds. These measures will be in the best interest of the Syrians since most Syrians in Egypt have obtained security clearances upon entering Egyptian territory. He added, If any Syrian is found to be working with Brotherhood funds, then the Egyptian administration has the right to take all necessary measures against them, even though most Syrians affiliated with the Brotherhood fled Egypt to Qatar and Turkey a long time ago. Khaldoun al-Mouakeh, head of the Syrian Businessmen's Association in Egypt, told Al-Monitor, Our association stands against any investment with a suspicious political or ideological background that harms the Egyptian security, people and economy, adding, Any country has the right to take whatever measures and decisions it deems appropriate to protect its security. He added, The Egyptian government's measures do not target productive activities, such as many Syrian factories in industrial cities in different Egyptian governorates. They rather target service activities such as shops and restaurants that serve Syrian food. Such businesses were very modest and only served the needs of the small numbers of Syrians coming to Egypt since 2012. However, they later started receiving broad acclaim from the Egyptians, so their owners established new, larger branches in better locations in order to meet the markets needs. Mouakeh said, I have received several letters from official Egyptian authorities stating that Egypt always welcomes the Syrians and appreciates the projects and investments they have set up. He also said, We are confident that Egypt will be able to verify any suspicious case without causing harm or injustice to anyone. In a report issued in May 2017, the UN estimated the total funds that the Syrians had invested in Egypt since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011 at about $800 million, but the Syrian Businessmen's Association thinks that amount is quite low, and has estimated Syrian investments in Egypt at $23 billion. In August 2019, Egypts Administrative Court rejected a lawsuit demanding the deportation of Brotherhood-affiliated Syrians who entered the Egyptian territories illegally amid the security chaos in 2013. Syrian community leaders say they believe almost all Syrians who entered Egypt have made legal accommodations with authorities. New Delhi: A Tihar jail superintendent has been transferred after an inmate was murdered last week inside jail number 1. An inquiry related to the murder of inmate Sunny Dogra alias Sikander is currently underway after a video of prisoners from inside jail 1, alleging that the murder was planned by jail authorities, was widely circulated on social media. On Saturday, Tihar director-general Sandeep Goel said an experienced officer has been put in charge of jail 1. Dogra, who was lodged inside jail number 1 since June 2020 for illegal possession of arms, was stabbed to death on the afternoon of September 24. Within days of the incident, a 5-minute video recorded on cellphone camera had surfaced in which prisoners accused jail officers of murdering Dogra for money. The prisoners had also demanded that the case be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The video also showed prisoners holding knives, smoking cigarettes, and narrating the details of the murder within the jail premises. HT could not independently confirm the authenticity of the video, but senior prison officers on condition of anonymity said probe has revealed that the video was indeed recorded inside jail number 1. Tihar additional inspector general Mukesh Prasad had ordered an enquiry to probe the allegations and also find out how prisoners were freely using cellphones. Cellphone are banned inside the jail. All of Steve McQueen's films in his Small Axe anthology will play on the BBC and Amazon in November In a movie year mostly lacking big, ambitious releases, Steve McQueens Small Axe anthology is an unqualified main event. While many other filmmakers are on hold, the 12 Years a Slave director has raced to finish not one but five new films. The movies, spanning 1968 to 1985, are each individual stories about the West Indian community in London. They are testimonies of resistance. Each tale resurrects a chapter of recent history to illuminate the daily oppressions of institutional racism and the struggles against it in courtrooms, in all-white police precincts, in segregated schools. These are stories that have made my life possible as an artist, as a British Black man, McQueen, who was born in West London to Grenadian parents, said in an interview from London. You look back to look forward, and also to judge how far weve come. The scope of McQueens achievement has been gradually coming into focus during the New York Film Festival. By Saturday, three of the films will have bowed (two had been set to premiere at the canceled Cannes Film Festival). All will play on the BBC and Amazon in November. For the filmmaker of Hunger, Shame, and Widows, Small Axe is a shattering masterwork a compendium, both damning and celebratory, of Black resilience. The format isolated films that are most powerful as a collective is itself symbolic. The title comes from a West African proverb popularized by Bob Marley: If you are a big tree, we are a small axe. Its a story about why we are here. Its not just about the past but the present, says McQueen. Peoples sacrifices, peoples determination thats why these films are important. They reshaped the landscape of the United Kingdom. They paved the foundation for multicultural London society. The films will run in a different order in November, but McQueen began by premiering Lovers Rock as the festivals opening night gala. The only fictional tale of the bunch, it brings to vivid, pulsating life a blues party from 1980, when young London Black people found refuge, and love, at house parties. The movie joyous and sensual is wall-to-wall reggae bliss. Still, in this, the brightest of the five acts, there are reminders of the cruelties lurking outside. Its festering, its moldering. Even with Lovers Rock, there are sharks and alligators circling constantly. At the blues party, you come out the door and whats greeting you? Some thugs. You go to work and whats greeting you? A racist boss, says McQueen. Within that narrative, you have to find your own joy, your own celebration. Police brutality is more at the forefront in Mangrove and Red, White and Blue. The title of Mangrove refers to a Notting Hill Caribbean restaurant run by Frank Crichlow (Shaun Parkes). A proudly Caribbean community gathering place, police regularly harass its customers, spurring protests (Letitia Wright plays British Black Panther leader Altheia Jones-LeCointe) and leading to a historic trial. Red, White and Blue, which is to premiere Saturday, is about Leroy Logan (John Boyega, in his most arresting performance yet), an aspiring research scientist who, after his father (Steve Toussaint) is beaten by police, elects to join the force to attempt to create change from the inside. Someones got to be the bridge, he says. Yet his colleagues mostly just heap racist abuse on him. Both films have moments of battles won and the ominous sense of a longer war. They also have beautiful, full-hearted scenes of family, music, and love. I would describe it in some ways as surviving the stench. Thats what it is, says McQueen. You have to transcend that environment. And often, as Black people, we do. Youre limited so you invent things. You invent break dancing, you invent jazz. Inventing things from nothing, thats how you survive. McQueen dedicated Lovers Rock and Mangrove to George Floyd. He has also been calling out inequities in the film industry. Earlier this summer, he penned an op-ed for the Guardian about the blatant racism of the British film industry. The UK, he said, is far behind Hollywood in representation. Casting Small Axe, he has said, was easy because of all the untapped talent just in need of an opportunity. I dont necessarily think Hollywood is that much better at all, but its way better than whats happening in the UK for sure, no doubt, says McQueen. What Im interested in is that the industry is welcoming to black talent. For a long time, I dont think it was welcoming and thats why people didnt take it up as a career option. They didnt think it was for them. The week-by-week rollout of Small Axe through virtual and drive-in festival screenings, has only heightened the anticipation of what McQueen has coming next. The final two films are Alex Wheatle, which leads up to the 1981 Brixton Uprising; and Education, which deals with a 12-year-old boy unfairly classified as special needs and the West Indian women who created school programs to fight back. The anthology is, in a way, mapped against the first half of McQueens life. He was born in 1969, about the beginning of the films, and McQueen has said he, too, was assumed less capable as a student than he was. But if anyone expecting a neat arc to Small Axe, McQueen says thats not its shape. Theres no beginning and end. Its a circle more than anything, he says. Its evidence, questions and thats it, really. As students began to arrive at several public schools in Vernon B.C. on Sept. 30, 2020, they were met with hundreds of small pieces of paper and leaflets scattered across sidewalks, streets and in parking lots. The papers link back to websites supporting white supremacy. This was particularly jarring to Indigenous parents, as Sept. 30 was Orange Shirt Day, a day for people to come together to recognize the impact of the residential school system on Indigenous kids. I fear for my babies future. I am scared, says Devyn Louis, a mother of two from the Okanagan Indian Band (OKIB) whose five year old attends a school in her community. Since Sept. 30, notes have continued to appear near schools. We as humans need to understand that inflicting this kind of pain on each other helps no one, says Louis. OKIB lies just west of Vernon, most of the children from the First Nations community attend the public schools where the notes are being left. OKIB Chief Byron Louis does not condone these events. We condemn any form of hate literature and hateful words, says Chief Louis. I dont believe for a moment that these hateful views are shared by the majority of the people of Vernon. Still, people on the fringe can do a lot of damage, and they dont just hurt me, they hurt everyone with their attitudes. Many parents are turning to Facebook community forums, calling for help in finding the perpetrators. I am petrified of what the world will come to be, and as a mother I beg you to please stop, if you dont know what its like living in fear, please stop, says Louis. The RCMP shared in a press release on Oct. 1, 2020 that the leaflets were, turned in to police who examined the content and found it is linked to a specific, extreme ideology. They say if anyone has information that may assist investigators they should call the Vernon North Okanagan RCMP. Many public officials also condemned the incident. It is very disturbing that white supremacist website information was distributed on the streets around some of our schools, writes Joe Rogers, the Superintendent of the School District 22 in an email with IndigiNews. There is no place for racism, discrimination or intolerance in B.C. in our schools or anywhere else, shared the Senior Public Affairs Officer for the Ministry of Educationl, Craig Sorochan in an email statement. Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming said in a statement: I am disheartened and deeply sorry about the events that took place in our community yesterday, with the distribution of hundreds of notes linked to racist propaganda and a white supremacist website. While the Vernon Mayor condemns the ongoing incidents, he and city officials are receiving backlash online regarding the city not passing an Anti-Racial Discrimination and Anti-Racism Policy. Put your money where your mouth is Mayor and Councillors. Pass the anti racism policy drafted by your lawyers. Lead by example, writes one person on the Vernon community Facebook forum. In July 2020, the mayor and two councillors voted in favour of passing the policy but it failed to be approved by the majority. The policy would have created a framework that would have allowed for more programming and training to be offered within the city. Despite the anti-racism policy not being approved, the mayor continues to condemn the incidents. We must be willing to confront discrimination, hate and racism in all its forms. I encourage you to speak with your children and loved ones about these things so we can learn from our past, Cumming said in the news release on Oct. 1. Meanwhile, the Province of B.C. has recently introduced a Community Roundtable on Anti-Racism that will include voices from First Nations leadership and student advisory committees. The development of an anti-racism action plan and to strengthen the K12 curriculum, ensuring the culture, beliefs and ancestry of all students and staff are accepted, celebrated and understood, the governments website states. As her kids continue to head off to school, Louis hopes that this creates an opportunity for communities to come together and learn more about each other. For us to heal we pray that you take the time to understand many of my non-Indigenous friends have reached out to gain a better understanding. she says. This step will help us heal. Chief Louis shares a similar sentiment. We must continue to learn to love our neighbours and to live in peace because history has proven this to be the only way forward, he says. Read more about: Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Vessela Sergueva (Agence France-Presse) Buzludzha, Bulgaria Sat, October 3, 2020 19:05 476 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48ef513 2 Art & Culture communism,Bulgaria,monument,preservation,UFO,architecture Free Nestled in Bulgaria's central Balkan Mountains, an international team of art experts and architects is hard at work trying to preserve one of the country's most striking monuments, a communist-era "flying saucer" perched on a hillside. The monument on Buzludzha Peak was dedicated to the glory of communism but since the collapse of that regime, it has fallen into disrepair. An operation is now underway to save its striking series of mosaics as a debate rages on about the site's long-term future. "It's a race against time," said architect Dora Ivanova, who launched the campaign to save the monument. "We have to act fast because there won't be any mosaics left if we wait for a plan" from the authorities, she told AFP. Erected in 1981 at an altitude of 1,400 metres (4,600 feet), the monument comprises a circle in concrete and steel alongside two 70-metre-high pillars dominated by a red star. It contained no fewer than 937 square metres of mosaics, a third of which have already been lost. Among the panels are depictions of the entry of the Red Army in September 1944 as well as glorifications of workers, peasants and the role of women in socialist society. 'Sign of the time' A representation of the hammer and sickle emblem still adorns the centre of the ceiling, but parts of the roof around it have fallen in. The mosaic portrait of former dictator Todor Zhivkov, meanwhile, has been replaced by a scruffy graffiti version. Experts and journalists walk on September 29, 2020 inside the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party on Buzludzha peak in central Bulgaria. Nestled in Bulgaria's central Balkan Mountains, an international team of art experts and architects is hard at work trying to preserve one of the country's most striking monuments, a communist-era (Agence France Presse/NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV / AFP) However, the marble adorning the floor and the walls has survived. "The aim is not to restore the monument in its old splendour," said Thomas Danzl from Munich's Technical University, one of the team working at the monument. "We will also keep the graffiti as a sign of the current time, of the past 30 years," he said. The restoration mission has received a $185,000 (157,000 euros) grant from the American Getty Foundation, enough to focus on conserving the fragile mosaics while gaps in the roof are covered with wood and sheet metal to protect them from the elements. In total 18 experts and students from Germany, Switzerland, Greece and Bulgaria are working on the project. Danzl says that the works in the monument show traces of Byzantine tradition but also material and technique that attests to their own time. "We are working on the critical areas while using the least invasive materials possible" for the mosaics while the authorities come up with a plan for the rest of the site, said the technical head of the team, Nikifor Haralampiev from Sofia's Academy of Fine Arts. 'Preserving memory' The authorities have dragged their feet in awarding Buzludzha the status of an official cultural site, which would unlock further funds for its restoration. They are mindful of how the site, and its role as an emblem of a dictatorship, divides opinion. A monument to the Soviet Army in central Sofia is for example frequently covered in graffiti and critical slogans. "It's society as a whole which has to decide on the function of this monument," said the president of the regional council Gergana Mihova, as austere mosaics of Marx, Engels and Lenin stare down at her. She carefully avoided expressing a view as she admitted that there "have always been voices for and against". In Kazanlak, a town at the foot of Buzludzha mountain, 52-year-old teacher Stoyanka Dimova said she has her doubts about saving the monument. "This money from abroad should first help the people, it's the poorest country in the European Union," she said. Haralampiev -- who was born the same year the monument went up -- said it's "an exceptional work of architecture" and while he "understands the reasons of those who want to destroy it, it's not the right approach". Ivanova, who launched the campaign to save the monument, admits that the monument was used by the communist regime as an instrument of propaganda, for example by organising group visits to the site. Her own proposal is to make the site relevant to the modern era by using it to commemorate all of Bulgarian history, but it remains to be seen if this will be realised. For Danzl, "preserving the mosaics is preserving a sort of memory". "You have to know the past in order to have a better future," he said. Topics : communism Bulgaria monument preservation UFO architecture WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill Thursday night that would increase federal funding for Capital Region hospitals. But it is unlikely to see final passage. In addition to aid for state and local governments and schools and money for testing and tracing the legislation contained a provision that would give hospitals in the Capital Region nearly $100 million in additional federal funds annually. The provision was included in the earlier relief bill passed by the House in May at the behest of Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, but that bill never cleared the Senate. For months, House Democrats, Senate Republicans and the White House have been unable to agree on a deal to provide more coronavirus aid. Tonko declined to say specifically if he was eyeing other legislative vehicles to get a funding change for Capital Region hospitals signed into law, but he would work with steps as the come along. Im not done with the fight," he said. The provision delivers a change Capital Region hospitals have seen seeking for two decades: an increase to the Capital Region's Medicare Wage Index rate. That increase would mean more federal reimbursement of services rendered at hospitals in Albany, Saratoga, Schenectady, Montgomery and Rensselaer counties. Local hospitals cheered in May when the provision was added to House Democrats' Heroes Act, but that legislation went nowhere. The new coronavirus relief bill is smaller than the Heroes Act and is meant as a gesture of compromise with the White House and Senate Republicans. The bill passed almost entirely along party lines, with 18 Democrats voting against it. Nominate your favorite people and places now Its the 25th anniversary of our Best of the Capital Region readers survey. Nominate your favorite people, places and businesses between Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. It would restore a federal benefit providing an additional $600 per week on top of state unemployment benefits and deliver another round of direct stimulus payments. McConnell said Wednesday that "the thought that Senate Republicans would go up to $2.2 trillion is outlandish." Tonko said Friday the coronavirus relief effort "should be brought to completion." "How many more millions of cases?" Tonko asked. "It's regrettable that there is not this order of seriousness and responsibility and empathy that should be guiding us through the process." Union minister Smriti Iranis cavalcade was stopped and the Amethi MP was heckled by Congress workers in Varanasi on Saturday after she lashed out at Rahul Gandhis planned visit to Hathras as politics on rape Addressing a press conference, Irani said action against rapists of the 20-year-old deceased Dalit woman will be taken after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) submits its report. Everyone should oppose and protest such heinous crimes. I have requested the CM (Yogi Adityanath) to take action. Two officials have been suspended. I am sure that action will be taken after the SIT submits its report. Modi government has always protected the rights of the women and their future. Appropriate action will be taken against the accused by the Yogi Adityanath government. Irani added that women from the Samajwadi Party had met her personally to request that the victims name not be revealed on social media. In a dig at Rahul Gandhi, she said, In a democratic country, everyone has understood the politics of the Congress party. Hence we were elected in 2014. If anyone wants to play politics on rape, I cannot stop him. Shortly after, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala hit out at Irani. The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhis Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out as per the wishes of the family". Madikeri, Oct 3 : Karnataka DG-IGP Praveen Sood on Saturday asserted that there was never any intelligence failure on part of the police in tackling the drug menace in the state. Sood is on a tour of various districts as he visited Kodagu district. Speaking to reporters in Madikeri, the district headquarters, Sood said that tackling the drug menace or any crime is not a one-day affair and it is a routine affair. "We taste success most of the time but sometimes failure too. The media is obsessed with stars and that's why the present drug investigations are attracting a lot of attention. It is not that the police are doing something like this. We have been doing it, but it never caught your (media) attention at this level," he caustically remarked. He retorted that the police had never targeted anyone including drugs case involving film stars. "Be it stars or others, we adopt the same attitude towards all suspects," he claimed. He asserted that his meeting with district police officials was successful and he directed them to keep a tight vigil on home stays, resorts and hotels where parties are arranged frequently. "Kodagu is otherwise a very calm district. Crime rate is also very low here," he said. Rebutting allegations on "police failures", Sood retorted those who criticise about police failures must also know that the same department strives hard to protect them. "Our policemen stand in rain, chilly cold or hot summer to protect people around them. It is not good to demoralise the force to such an extent," he shot back. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, October 3, 2020 13:27 476 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48e6692 1 National Papua,ShootingIncidents,shooting,shootings,pastor,mahfud-md,Coordinating-Politics-Legal-and-security-ministry,Coordinating-Political-Legal-and-Security-Ministry,security,human-rights,human-rights-abuse,Amnesty-International,Amnesty-International-Indonesia Free Papuans have expressed doubt over the establishment of a joint fact-finding team (TGPF) to probe the recent shootings in Papua, including the killing of Papuan pastor Yeremia Zanambani in Intan Jaya regency. They raised concerns that the team under the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister would solve nothing unless the government had the will to solve the systemic violence in the easternmost province. We, the church and I, believe that all the Papuan people are unsure whether the team can fairly and transparently investigate and disclose what happened [to Yeremia], because past investigations of unlawful killings in Papua have never been made public, Pastor Andrikus Mofu, the general synod chairman of the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) in Papua, said in an online discussion on Friday. Read also: Indonesia forms team to probe recent shootings in Papua, but state rights body excluded There have been 47 cases of unlawful killings leaving 96 people dead in Papua over the past two years, a marked increase from the figures recorded from 2010 to 2018, namely 69 cases and 95 victims, according to Amnesty International Indonesia. That figure is believed to be a conservative estimate. Of the 47 cases, only four made it to a trial, two of which were [closed trials] at the military court, Amnesty International Indonesia researcher Ari Pramuditya said. Pastor Dona Balubun of GKI Papua said she was pessimistic about the team, especially because its composition was dominated by the government and the military. She also questioned the absence of representatives from the Indonesian Evangelical Christian Church (GKII). A ministerial decree signed by Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD on Thursday shows that the team comprises 30 people, including ministry officials, members of state institutions including the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), the National Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI), an academic and seven Papuan public figures. How do we investigate if we are the perpetrator? Dona asked. The GKII must be included in the team, because they know the victim and the terrain so that there will be a discussion and monitoring. Yeremia was allegedly shot by TNI personnel on his way to his pigpen on Sept. 19, according to the GKII and local media. However, the TNI and Mahfud claimed that an armed criminal group (KKB) was behind Yeremias death. Papuan lawmaker Yan Mandenas of House of Representatives Commission I, which oversees information and defense, said the government should have done the investigation immediately, without first accusing the KKB publicly. The government didnt show accurate proof that the KKB was responsible either. Please dont let the investigative team be just another formality because the case got exposure, the Gerindra Party politician said. Read also: Intan Jaya pastor third churchman allegedly killed by security personnel, church says Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher Adriana Elisabeth said she feared the recent unlawful killings in Papua would not be the last, as the government had yet to address the key issue in Papua. The team must understand the root cause of Papuas problems, so that the current investigation can be an entry point to solve other problems of injustice. Besides, the team should also provide insight on how to stop violence in Papua, said Adriana. She further said the team should be a space for the government and the Papuan people to listen to each other instead of just reporting investigation results. One of the root problems in Papua is the rigid dichotomy between separatism and nationalism. There is no trust from Papuans toward the government and vice versa, therefore, a dialogue where both parties are willing to listen is much needed, she said. Ari of Amnesty added that the government should not solve human rights abuse in Papua case by case but rather through an effective mechanism that was independent and impartial. But now that another team has been established, the team must work independently, objectively and transparently. It must deliver its results to the public, especially to the families of victims, he said. Separately, Papua Governor Lukas Enembe said his administration would soon establish a humanitarian team to help Intan Jaya residents face issues stemming from violence in the region. The team, he said, would be comprised of representatives of the Papua administration, members of the public and church members. He said his office was currently drafting a decree for the establishment of the team. The shooting of pastor Yeremia Zanambani must be investigated. But apart from that, the problems faced by Intan Jaya residents recently have been very hard. There have been reports of violence taking place there, similar to what occurred during my term as a regent in Puncak Jaya, he said in a statement on Friday. The administration will take on a bigger role in helping residents to overcome the trauma from the violence, Lukas added. Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a statement from Papua Governor Lukas Enembe. Businesses and workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic will likely have more opportunities to get access to the 62 trillion VND (2.6 billion USD) package, the first of its kind financed by the Government during the outbreak period. Workers receive gifts after losing jobs due to COVID-19 in Ho Chi Minh City (Photo: VNA) This is a key part of a proposal sent to the Government by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) this week, revising and supplementing the Governments Resolution 42/ND-CP on supporting people facing difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. If the proposal is approved, some conditions and requirements for businesses and workers will be eliminated and simplified. The number of beneficiaries is expected to increase. People who had to stop working temporarily will enjoy financial support from February 1, this year, instead of the current regulation from April 1. Regarding conditions for loans to pay salaries during the work stoppage, MARD proposed the Government remove the requirement that employers have paid at least 50 percent of the work stoppage salary. This proposal is in accordance with Clause 3, Article 98 of the Labour Code. MoLISA also recommended revisions to loan applications, procedures, approvals and disbursement, in which the employers will self-declare and take responsibility for the accuracy of the number of employees who stopped working, as well as their revenue, that satisfies the loan conditions as prescribed. On the 5th day of each month, the employers will send the loan application to the Bank for Social Policies and its branches and offices. Vice Chairman and General Secretary of the Hanoi Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (Hanoisme) Mac Quoc Anh said the association's members agreed with MoLISAs proposal to loosen the conditions, so that the 62 trillion VND package can be put into practice. The application of this package is not effective because it includes too many steps and procedures, Anh told Vietnam Television. An incomplete survey by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry revealed that only 20 percent of businesses have received support from the Governments packages during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, a report from Hanoisme showed that, up to June 10, more than 400 workers who had stopped working had received financial support from the 62 trillion VND package. According to economist Can Van Luc, the preliminary statistics to the end of July showed that the number of applications was equivalent to about 30 percent of the package value, while the actual amount disbursed was about 12 trillion VND, about 20 percent. With the Governments second package, the estimated scale from MoLISA is about 18.6 trillion VND, I think this package shows the efforts of the State budget, however, its coverage is relatively limited, Luc said. Luc said it was necessary to drastically disburse these support packages to stimulate the economy. It is necessary to provide additional support for informal workers and seasonal workers, which account for a sizeable portion of about 27 million people, who have been severely affected by COVID-19, he added./. VNS Johnson is due to take stock of the crunch talks in a conference call with von der Leyen on Saturday. Photo: Tolga AKMEN / AFP Prime minister Boris Johnson and European Commission (EC) president Ursula von der Leyen have agreed to intensify Brexit trade talks, during a video conference call on Saturday. In a joint statement, the pair acknowledged that significant gaps remained between the UK and Brussels, and agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future. The pair have agreed to speak on a regular basis. Good phone call with @BorisJohnson about the state of play in the - negotiations. While progress had been made, significant gaps remain. We agreed that it's important to find an agreement as strong basis for a strategic relationship. Joint statement https://t.co/Tl3jdRIZqB pic.twitter.com/rUTSp8l9dP Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 3, 2020 The PM and the EC president have also instructed chief negotiators on both sides, David Frost and Michel Barnier to work intensively in order to try to bridge gaps in areas such as, fisheries, the level playing field, and governance. The two sides held the final scheduled round of Brexit trade talks on Friday. On Friday, in a statement following a meeting with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, the UKs chief negotiator David Frost expressed worries about the level of progress made so far. I am concerned that there is very little time now to resolve these issues ahead of the European Council on October 15, Frost said. Von der Leyen warned that time was running out, and with 100 days till the end of the year it is time to step up. She said she believed a Brexit deal was still possible: It is good to have a deal but not at any price, she said during a press conference on Friday in Brussels. Story continues But overall, where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations because it is worth working hard on it, she added. She, did point out however that difficult issues such as fisheries and state aid rules still had to be resolved if they were to get an agreement in place by the end of the Brexit transition period at the end of the year. READ MORE: CBI calls for Brexit deal as decline in private sector activity slows Meanwhile, the PM told the Telegraph, that the chances of a deal are very good if everybody just exercises some common sense and looks at the deal that is there to be done. He said that the UK has always been very clear that it wants a Canada-style relationship. We have been members for 45 years, and I dont see why they cant have the same deal with us, so Im pretty optimistic, Johnson added. While the PM urged using common sense to reach a Brexit trade deal that satisfies all parties, he did not shy away from pointing out that a Brexit deal will get done under all circumstances, including an Australian-type arrangement a Downing Street code term for a no-deal agreement. Last week, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) boss Dame Carolyn Fairbairn called for a 11th hour Brexit trade deal, revealing that more than three-quarters (77%) of UK businesses want to see a Brexit deal agreed. It is the first time Johnson, and von der Leyen will have been directly involved in Brexit negotiations in months. Watch: What is a no-deal Brexit and what are the potential consequences? Srinagar: On behalf of Pakistan, on Saturday, once again firing was carried out in the town of the Kerni sector of Poonch district in violation of the ceasefire. The Pakistan Army keeps on violating the ceasefire by firing on the border to infiltrate the terrorists in India, but this time the brave soldiers of India have given them a befitting reply. Pakistan making a border village its target opened fire. The Indian Army has also given a befitting reply to the firing of Pakistan. Till the time of writing the news, the Indian Army is attacking Pakistan and there is no news of the loss of any kind of life or property. The ceasefire is being violated continuously by Pakistan. The ceasefire is being violated by Pakistan for the last seven days. Even on Thursday morning, Pakistan opened fire in the Poonch area of Jammu and Kashmir. In this incident, a soldier of the Indian Army martyred. Earlier on Wednesday, Pakistan had broken a ceasefire on LoC for the seventh consecutive day in Poona district of Jammu and Kashmir, to which the Indian Army gave a befitting reply. Karnataka: CM Yediyuruppa's son gets corona infected President Election: Trump's COVID19 positive report becomes cause of trouble for Republican Party Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju claims 10 crore people have participated in fit India movement so far Eleven people involved in the set-up and planning of Tuesday night's presidential debate have now tested positive for COVID-19, the city of Cleveland has confirmed, as debate moderator Chris Wallace revealed that Donald Trump and his family arrived too late to take the suggested COVID test. 'The City of Cleveland is aware of positive cases of COVID-19 following the Sept. 29 presidential debate,' the city said in a statement. 'In total, at this time, we are aware of 11 cases stemming from pre-debate planning and set-up, with the majority of cases occurring among out of state residents.' They said no city residents appear so far to have contracted the virus as a result of this event. Shortly before their announcement, Wallace on Friday afternoon told his Fox News colleague Bill Hemmer that the Trump party was not tested. 'There was an honor system when it came to the people who came into the hall from the two campaigns,' Wallace said. Wallace arrived in Cleveland on Sunday, in time to be tested. 'They couldn't be tested by the clinic,' Wallace said. 'They didn't arrive until Tuesday afternoon. So for them to get tested, there wouldn't have been enough time to have the test and have the debate at 9 that night. They didn't show up until 3, 4, 5 in the afternoon.' Chris Wallace on Friday afternoon said that the Trump team arrived too late for COVID testing Wallace, who moderated Tuesday's debate, explained the 'honor system' for the tests Chris Wallace says Trump showed up too late to the debate to be tested as planned so they had to abide by the "honor system" pic.twitter.com/SonuY7kKD1 MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) October 2, 2020 'Members of the Commission were not especially happy with the fact that the presidential party was not wearing masks,' Wallace. 'There seems to have been a disregard for the risks of this virus.' Trump and his wife Melania both tested positive on Thursday evening, with the results disclosed shortly after midnight, in the early hours of Friday. On Friday evening the president's condition worsened, and he was taken by helicopter to the Walter Reed Medical Center. Ahead of the debate, doctors from a clinic in Cleveland, providing medical support for the event, asked all attendees to wear face masks. The Trump contingent refused once in their seats, according to NBC News. Donald Trump's family and supporters rejected requests on Tuesday night to wear masks The president and the first lady have for months refused CDC protocols on COVID prevention A Cleveland Clinic doctor in a white lab coat started to approach Trump family guests to ask them to put on masks. She offered them one in case they did not have one. She never approached any Trump family members but as she got closer to them, someone shook their head and no one she reminded to put on a mask ended up putting one on. Jill Biden, Senator Chris Coons and others sitting in the Democratic section began to look over, NBC reported. When the doctor, who refused to comment to the press, walked off the floor, a debate hall staffer reportedly told her: 'That's all you can do.' Biden and his wife, who were wearing face masks before and after the event, and were mocked by Trump supporters for doing so, have both tested negative for the virus. Trump ridiculed Biden for following the CDC guidelines by avoiding large gatherings, wearing a face mask in public and socially-isolating himself. 'I don't wear a mask like him,' Trump said. 'Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from him and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen.' Trump during the debate pulled out his face mask, but said he didn't wear it all the time Now Fox News, which hosted Tuesday's debate, is testing its staff including Wallace and Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan, executive chairman of the Fox Corporation. Lachlan Murdoch led a toast to Wallace at a Cleveland airport after the event. Lachlan Murdoch, the son of Rupert Murdoch, was present in Cleveland and is being tested for COVID-19 The gathering included two of the channel's news anchors, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, along with the chief executive of Fox News Media, Suzanne Scott, and its president, Jay Wallace. Sean Hannity is also being tested, after he broadcast live from within the debate hall and conducted a live interview with the president's son, Donald J. Trump Jr, who sat only a few inches away from Hannity. Other Fox News personalities were on a set outside the venue, including the political analysts Brit Hume, Dana Perino, and Juan Williams. Fox News declined to comment on Friday. A source told the New York Times that Fox News was taking precautions, including testing, to ensure the safety of the hosts, reporters, and staff. Earlier on Friday, before Trump went into hospital, Wallace appeared on Fox & Friends and told viewers: 'Wear the damn mask'. 'Follow the science,' he said. 'If I could say one thing to all of the people out there watching: Forget the politics. This is a public safety health issue.' Two members of Team Xecuter, a group that develops and sells devices that allow people to play pirated copies of games on their consoles, are in FBI custody. On Friday, the Department of Justice said Max Louarn, a 48-year-old French national, and Gary Bowser, a 51-year-old from Canada, were arrested in September. The two face 11 felony charges each related to their activities through Team Xecuter. The agency also charged Yuanning Chen, a 35-year-old from Shenzhen, China. Louarn and Bowser were leaders of Team Xecuter, according to the DOJ. Team Xecuter came into the spotlight earlier this week when UberChips, a website that sold the group's hardware, agreed to a $2 million settlement with Nintendo. The company also has a pending lawsuit against the group. According to the DOJ, Team Xecuter includes more than a dozen members, including individuals who specialize in finding software exploits in consoles. Among other systems, the group had targeted the Switch, 3DS and NES Classic. - Nicki Minaj is said to have welcomed her bundle of joy on Wednesday, September 30 - The little angel is Nicki's first child with her husband Kenneth Petty - According to reports, the Anaconda hitmaker gave birth in Los Angeles but the gender of the baby is yet to be known - The rapper said I do to the love of her life in 2019 PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed American rapper Nicki Minaj is now a first-time mom. The rapper and her hubby Kenneth Petty welcomed their bundle of joy on Wednesday, September, as reported by TMZ. According to sources close to the couple, Minaj gave birth in Los Angeles but the baby's gender is yet to be known. The 37-year-old music star announced her pregnancy through an Instagram post captioning the photo "#preggers". Nicki Minaj is now a first mom. Photo: Nicki Minaj. Source: Instagram Before saying I do to Petty, Minaj shocked fans by announcing she was quitting music to start a family but she later bounced back. Thursday, May 12, saw Twitter light up with the burning question of if the 37-year-old rapper was indeed pregnant. Hints were dropped after a fan asked Nicki how she was keeping herself busy and she responded saying she was having cravings for red meat. During a question and answer session with her followers, one asked if she was also experiencing vomiting in the morning and having to use the bathroom more often. Nicki replied that she, fortunately, was not throwing up, but she was nauseous and could not stop rushing to the washroom for a short call now and then. "No throwing up. But nausea and peain non-stop. Omg what do you think this means guys," she posed. With everyone eager to find out, a fan asked if she would post a picture of her baby bump. PAY ATTENTION: Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme - https://www.patreon.com/tuko This is me coming to you with a heavy heart. My friends left after I got cancer - Esther Nyambura/TUKO TV Source: TUKO.co.ke Disneyland Park in Anaheim California View Photo Sacramento, CA The reopening of California theme parks has been put on hold. Gov. Gavin Newsom delayed new COVID-19 operating rules for theme parks, like Disneyland, that have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic. That came after tourism industry officials warned the state was set to lose more than $78 billion in travel-related spending this year. The Newsom administration had planned to release the new rules on Friday, according to the governors office. The change came after strong industry criticism of the proposed rules prompted state health officials to announce negotiation would continue. California Secretary of Health and Human Services Agency Dr. Mark Ghaly advised, Given the size and operational complexities of these unique sectors, we are seeking additional input from health, workforce and business stakeholders to finalize this important framework. Theme parks would have been allowed to reopen at 25 percent capacity under the proposed guidelines once the counties they reside in reached the lowest level for virus transmission in the states four-tier reopening system. Another, particularly concerning restriction for industry officials, was the stipulation that limited visitors to those living within 120 miles of a theme park. After seeing a draft of the new rules on Thursday, amusement park leaders urged state officials to change them, according to officials of the California Attractions and Parks Association. Florida, the home of Disney World, has allowed its theme parks to reopen with restrictions. Many Orange County officials, where Disney Land is located, have urged Newsom to issue guidance allowing parks to reopen, noting these businesses have been reopened elsewhere in the country with health and safety measures. Disney reports there have been no major outbreaks in Florida associated with the companys theme parks but would not divulge whether any cases have occurred there. Californias current coronavirus rules do not allow large gatherings for concerts, conventions and amusement parks. Disneys parks in California have been closed since March 14. Just this week, Disney officials announced 28,000 workers would be laid off at its parks in Florida and California. In a letter to employees, the company blamed its troubles in part on Californias unwillingness to lift restrictions. California tourism officials on Friday reported they expect the state to lose $78.8 billion in travel spending for 2020 up from an initial industry loss forecast in June of $75.4 billion for the year. Additionally, Visit California, the states tourism marketing authority, does not expect travel spending in the state to return to 2019 levels until at least 2024. Earlier this week, 19 Democratic and Republican state lawmakers sent a letter to Newsom requesting that theme parks reopen, arguing that theme parks are controlled venues operating predominantly outdoors and should be allowed to follow protocols that apply to other indoor businesses that have reopened. Public health officials have worked closely with Disney to prepare for the reopening of its parks, recommending that the state instead allow parks to reopen at a limited capacity once the county moves to the orange or Moderate risk Tier 2 in the states color-coded system, which is the second-lowest for virus transmission. White House physician Sean Conley said Saturday the president's symptoms are "now resolving and improving" but drew scrutiny for his varied responses to questions about Donald Trump's health. During a press conference at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he told reporters that President Trump is "doing very well," noting that he was without a fever for 24 hours. He repeatedly said Trump was not on oxygen Saturday but did not answer several questions about whether he had received it at any point previously. White House officials declined to answer questions from USA TODAY about whether oxygen was administered. Conley also told reporters that Trump was "just 72 hours into the diagnosis now," a statement that may have contradicted the White House's official statement of when Trump tested positive for COVID-19. Conley later issued a memo saying that he meant "day three" of the diagnosis. The initial statement, if taken literally, would have put the president's diagnosis to Wednesday morning, before he traveled to Minnesota for a rally Wednesday and to New Jersey for a fundraiser Thursday. More: Trump's condition was 'very concerning' over past day, White House official says on day of mixed messaging Here's what to know about Conley: What is Conley's role as Physician to the President? Conley is the Physician to the President, an appointed role responsible for serving the medical needs of President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other White House staffers. In 2018, he was selected as the acting White House physician, replacing Retired Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, who was nominated by Trump for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. In May that year, he was officially appointed for the position by President Trump. White House physician Sean P. Conley gave an update on President Trump's health from Walter Reed hospital, saying he was "doing very well." Conley had OK'd Trump to take controversial hydroxychloroquine The White House physician had not drawn any media attention until earlier this year, when Trump made an umprompted announcement in May that he had taken hydroxychloroquine despite repeated public warnings from the Food and Drug Administration against using the anti-malarial to ward off COVID-19. Story continues Conley issued a memo approving Trumps use of hydroxycholoroquine, writing the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks. It is unclear if Conley had explicitly prescribed the medication. What's Conley's background? Conley is a doctor of osteopathic medicine commonly known as a DO as opposed to an MD, or doctor of medicine. Both are licensed physicians. The key distinction is that DOs prioritize osteopathic, holistic approaches to medicine, as opposed to more traditional MDs, according to UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine. He is a native of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and went to Notre Dame University. He attended the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Medical School. Conley previously served with the International Security Assistance Force as a lieutenant commander, working in Afghanistan as the head of a NATO trauma unit. Contributing: Chris English, Bucks County Courier Times; John Fritze, Michael Collins and David Jackson, USA TODAY; Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sean Conley: Who is Trump's Physician to the President? What to know Many have questioned the wisdom of model Chrissy Teigen posting pictures to 13 million Instagram followers just moments after she had lost her third child halfway through her pregnancy. In one, she and her pop star husband John Legend heartbreakingly cradle the little boy they had already named Jack in the hospital bed after he died. In another, the bereft mother leans forward in grief, tears trailing down her cheeks. Too much? Too private to share with the world? Quite the reverse, in my view. Yes they are celebs, yes they use social media to publicise themselves. But by revealing their terrible sadness at losing a child, they give succour to other people who have suffered in the same way, such as Kate Beckinsale, who has now revealed her own 'soul-destroying' miscarriage. Chrissy Teigen and her pop star husband John Legend heartbreakingly cradle the little boy they had already named Jack in the hospital bed after he died In those black-and-white pictures, Chrissy embodies the broken dreams of millions of mothers and fathers who have lost babies for the tragic truth is that one in every four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. She later tweeted: 'Driving home from the hospital with no baby. How can this be real?' The searing guilt she felt was expressed in her apology to her son for not being able to 'give you the home you needed to survive'. She spoke of 'the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain you've never felt before'. Millions have endured this agony yet for so long miscarriage has been taboo, something we've shied away from speaking about. There are no missed birthdays to dwell over with a miscarriage, no family moments to recall, no happy baby selfies. In those black-and-white pictures, Chrissy embodies the broken dreams of millions of mothers and fathers who have lost babies My mother, who lost a son at six months, only told me of the emptiness she felt decades after she'd miscarried. She felt guilty lamenting the loss of an unborn child when, like Chrissy, who has two children, she was already 'blessed' with healthy babies. I also understand some of that sadness from my 20s when, newly engaged and told I was 'probably' pregnant, it turned out to be ectopic. For me, ecstasy turned to tragedy, and I never again conceived. Social media is rightly pilloried for being a fast track to hatred, intolerance, voyeurism and cruelty. And yet, with the image of those tears, Chrissy spoke to so many women who have suffered. It was a brave and heartfelt gesture, and we should applaud her for breaking through this damaging wall of silence And yet, with the image of those tears, Chrissy spoke to so many women who have suffered Jacqui stepping out Who can begrudge former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith her turn on Strictly? She's transformed herself from dour, bespectacled politician into a sequined, sultry glamour-puss. What bravura from the woman who broke the mould as the first ever female Home Secretary yet is only ever remembered because her husband is said to have watched porn on MPs' expenses. Halloween's trick-or-treat is cancelled due to Covid-19, hurrah! Curmudgeonly? Yes, but then I can't forgive the kids who pelted me with raw eggs when I'd just arrived in the UK, unaware of this ridiculous American pagan tradition, and had no treats for them. Can I be the only one in awe of the naked Instagram pictures of mum-of-two Gwyneth Paltrow celebrating her 48th birthday? No knickers, hardly a scrape of make-up, straggly hair as if she's just got out of bed after six hours of tantric sex, she looks fabulous and it's all down to her own brand Goop 'insanely amazing new 43 body butter'. Forget loo rolls during any new lockdown and expect spreadable butter sales to soar. In her posthumously published biography, Victoria Wood wrote her own epitaph: 'Was born, lived, told a few jokes, knackered a few bras in the tumble drier, died' In her posthumously published biography, Victoria Wood wrote her own epitaph: 'Was born, lived, told a few jokes, knackered a few bras in the tumble drier, died.' Told a few jokes? She was the first women to tell good jokes about women. Like this one: 'They're terrible things, bras. I read in a magazine a test to see if you needed to wear one . . . if you could hold a pencil underneath [your breast]. It was very depressing for me. I could hold a small branch of WH Smith under one of mine.' Uplifting to the end. That was so dumb, Dom How revolting of The Wire star Dominic West to announce he 'did slightly leap in the air with joy' when he heard Donald Trump had been diagnosed with coronavirus. Whatever you think of The Donald and I can't abide him no one should wish this horrible disease on even their worst enemy. West's virtue-signalling comment was straight out of the mouths of those morons on the hard-Left who chanted 'Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead' when Maggie Thatcher died. Even teenagers love animals Desperate to appeal to the 'yoof' market of 16 to 34-year-olds, the Beeb rejected the new All Creatures Great And Small series and gifted it to Channel 5, where it has been a huge hit. No doubt Auntie sweated over the lack of diversity in James Herriot's sweet story of 1930s rural Yorkshire vets. Beautiful landscapes, decent people, lots of dying creatures saved surely even that last one must appeal to woke teenagers today. The Beeb rejected the new All Creatures Great And Small series and gifted it to Channel 5, where it has been a huge hit I shed a tear listening to Jenni Murray's final Woman's Hour, not just at the thought of losing her wit, her feminine wile and her warmth, but because it represented the end of an era in which presenters understood us women. How apt Jenni left to the words of the recently departed Helen Reddy's 1970s anthem I Am Woman, with its lyrics 'hear me roar'. Fearless Jenni could certainly roar as well as purr. Westminster wars The hunt is on for the comrade who gave or sold a picture of Jeremy Corbyn 'dining with nine' to a Tory-supporting newspaper. Finally I feel sorry for the old Marxist dinosaur, not just because the picture told us everything about his hypocrisy, but also because of that God-awful check shirt he was wearing. In her authorised biography, Diane Abbott says that in 1987 her Labour Party did not think 'it was anything to be proud of' having elected the first (and now longest-serving) black woman MP. And that her colleagues were jealous of her because she was always on TV. Despite her detractors, Westminster would have been a poorer place without her. If Stanley Johnson doesn't believe in his son Boris's draconian rules, why should the rest of us? Our peerless, fearless footy pundit Gary Lineker has taken a voluntary pay cut of 400,000 from his million-pound-plus BBC salary. A noble gesture, Gary, but I hope that doesn't mean you'll give up on your promise to house a newly arrived migrant. Along with your million Instagram followers, I can't wait for pictures of you and your new lodger. She sheds it well Having gained a stone during lockdown, a mortified Penny Lancaster, the former model now happily married to Rod Stewart, took a picture of her roly-poly tummy as an incentive to lose weight. 'I turned to food and drink as comfort. As a wake-up call, I shamed myself and lost 17lb and 4in off my waist in eight weeks,' she says. As a regular on ITV's Loose Women, I'm not sure Penny is in touch with her core audience, who abhor fat-shaming, even if you do it to yourself. Although for every lardy lady castigating her, millions of others will be asking: 'How did you do it!' ++Royal woke watch++ In his interview berating 'structural racism' in the UK, Prince Harry said: 'You know, when you go into a shop with your children and you only see white dolls, do you ever think: 'That's weird, there is not a black doll there'?' What a ninny; Barbie launched their first black doll in 1968. Harry's like Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies. Kind but dim-witted, and a font of laughter, always at his own expense. As for his claim London doesn't 'feel' diverse; two out of five Londoners are not white. Perhaps you don't notice from the back of a chauffeur-driven limo. Price range: EUR 30 - EUR 80 Description: Surf N Turf Strive to serve you with exceptional dishes cooked to perfection. Our menu offers a selection of Mediterranean cuisine with a French fusion. This includes the daily specials which are fresh local fish and prime meat cuts. Dishes are also accompanied by a wide range of fresh and local products. Besides, the assistance of sommelier Joshua Borg will guide you to select from a vast and detailed wine list. Finally, a mouth-watering homemade dessert will end your dining experience on a positive note. If Trump wins reelection his presidential legitimacy will be bolstered, even if his opponents attempt to diminish it, which they will. Its his actual reelection, not the popular vote margins that matter. The United States has never had a president quite like Donald J. Trump. He violated every rule of conventional presidential campaigns to win a race that almost no one, including at times he himself, thought he would win. In so doing, Trump set off cataclysmic shock waves across the country and world that have not subsided and are unlikely to as long as he remains in office. Critics of Trump abound, as do anonymously sourced speculations about his motives, yet the real man behind this unprecedented presidency remains largely unknown. In this innovative analysis, American presidency scholar and trained psychoanalyst Stanley Renshon reaches beyond partisan narrative to offer a serious and substantive examination of Trumps real psychology and controversial presidency. He analyzes Trump as a preemptive president trying to become transformative by initiating a Politics of American Restoration. Rigorously grounded in both political science and psychology scholarship, The Real Psychology of the Trump Presidency offers a unique and thoughtful perspective on our controversial 45th president. Here is an excerpt of the book; by Stanley Renshon There are many ways to view Trumps first term. One way is to understand it as a presidency elected as the country faced a profound political and policy fork in the road. As one retiring Republican put it: Theres a political realignment occurring in our country. The political ground is shifting right under our feet, and nobody knows how this is going to settle. Its going to affect both parties, and well see how it sorts itself out. Its going to take a few years. The domestic realignment noted above coincides with another substantial change, in the international political system. Discussing the rise of nationalism worldwide and the emergence of new powerful, assertive, sometimes even militarily aggressive countries, like Russia, Iran, and China one analysis concluded: President Trump at the White House The Cold War could have ended differently; largely, it ended peacefully. What youre now seeing, in my view, is across the boardnot just in the United States, not just with Donald Trumpa coming to an end of that order. Another lens through which to view Trumps election is as a political and policy audition. Trumps 2016 election victory was so narrow that it is impossible to completely rule out the impact of any single factor. Numerous efforts have been made to ascertain whether or not FBI Director Comeys off-again, on-again public statements about the Hillary Clinton investigation helped Trump or didnt matter. The same holds for reported Russian spending on FaceBook and its motivation, and a host of other factors that may, or may not have had an impact. Trump has now been impeached according to the Houses interpretation of the rules governing drawing up Articles of Impeachment. He has been acquitted on both impeachment charges by the Senate based on their governing rules. Trumps Constitutional legitimacy rests on more solid ground, even if the opposition continues to dispute his political legitimacy. His presidency thus carries with it the weight of core legitimacy, as well as the reality of it. As a result, if he wins reelection he will have another four years, and a more substantial opportunity to turn his first term audition into an historically rare, transformational presidency. That aspiration is unfolding now in the context of a pandemic of, at this point, uncertain consequences. Trading Places: Narrative Negation and the 2020 Presidential Election The fast approaching presidential election is already scrambling each candidates best laid plans Neither is going be waging the kind of campaign they had planned for against the candidate that they had hoped to run against. Donald Trump was eagerly savoring a campaign against Bernie Sanders, the only Democrat who could make Trump look like a moderate centrist, while he ran on his real, and robust economic record. The actual Democratic candidate Joe Biden envisioned a return to normality campaign. It would emphasize his steady, comparatively low wattage, and reliable political persona. That would present an obvious contrast to his opponent who would be portrayed as President Bombast, who has riled America's traditional allies, refused to act as a normal president, and perhaps is incapable of doing so. The Coronavirus pandemic upended both those narratives. President Trump cannot run on the economy he built. It no longer exists. And however leftward Mr. Biden inches forward, he is no Bernie Sanders. Mr. Bidens return to normality narrative has been compromised by events in which normality is in short supply. At some point he will have to convince the public that he is up to the task of leading the country and that he has the requisite amount of energyboth physical and cognitive, for being this countrys chief executive. Trumps bull in the china shop personafull steam ahead, explore any avenue, and get things done, is a possible advantage in the midst of this vast, enormously complex unprecedented pandemic challenge to the country, its leadership at all levels and its major institutions and agencies. Yet, there has been an erosion in the level of support in his handling of the pandemic and the demonstrations that followed. In these new election defining circumstances, the likely campaign narratives are clear. Trump will lean heavily on James Madison who wrote that energy in the executive was the leading character in the definition of good government, to which Trump will add, especially in times of crisis. A shattered economy? Trump will argue that during his first term his administration built the greatest economy in the world, and will then promise, were going to do it again. He will compare himself, favorably of course, to Slow Joe, the aged icon of the Democratic establishment whose level of real time alacrity is likely to be and remain an issue. He will support a number of useful policing practice reforms, while insisting that the countrys basic premises of freedom and opportunity are worth preserving and building upon not canceling or tearing it down. Trump sending federal police resources to cities torn by violent demonstrations and spiking crime rates to help local police also sends a clear message of support for public order, as well as a signal of decisive resolve. Mr. Biden does not have to do much to retain the support of Trump opponents. The question for his campaign is what real case can he make for his election? What will he promise? More solid, low key competence? More and better government programs defined by current progressive Democratic Party positions? A less combative presidential demeanor? The first of these is already being questioned. The second is likely to appeal to those government enthusiasts who have not yet lost their faith in those kinds of promises. And the last may prove preferable in theory, but not in practice given the many pandemic-caused crises that the country faces as the same time. Still, Mr. Biden will present Trump as a president who had squandered valuable time responding to the pandemic by picking unnecessary fights with front-line governors desperate to get the resources they needed from an unresponsive administration. He will compare his bipartisan proposals to reforming policing practices in the wake of widespread public demonstrations with what he will characterize as Trumps heavy handed law and order response. No firm prediction of the outcomes of those dueling narratives can be made at this point. Voters may well prefer a president who is seen as willing to go all out to fight for them, their livelihoods, and their country to one who promises a return to presidential decorum. Or, they may prefer a president who promises a return to normality, defined as status quo prior Trump. In the end, the 2020 president election may well come down to a contest between two leadership stylesfull speed ahead v. the promise of a retro style of relative presidential public peacefulness. If Trump is not Reelected: What Then? If Trump loses the 2020 election, the movement and the views that Trump represents and championed will die stillborn. Most of his executive actions will be rescinded. The pressure to rejoin the international community in climate crisis actions and to revive the Iranian nuclear agreement will intensify and probably be unavoidable. The new NAFTA treaty (USMCA) will be kept, but the political will to continue holding the Chinese accountable for their trade policies or to get NATO to spend more for their own defense will most likely dissipate. Here and there Trump policies will survive, but they will be dwarfed by the exploding cascade of the reestablishment of an even more progressive establishment policy paradigm. That holds as well for the one accomplishment that will be hard to rescind, but possible to negateTrumps record of judicial appointments. Courts can be enlarged. The above observations presuppose that a Trump reelection loss would be accompanied by a loss of Senate control as well, though that need not necessarily be the case. Still, a reduced Senate majority coupled with a major presidential loss are the ingredients of a long defensive crouch, not a burst of sustainable legislative Trumpism. More consequential for the longer term would be that Trumps eight policy pillars and his approach to them would be ended for the most part, and the conventional establishment policy paradigm would be reinstated and extended. This would surely increase the disappointment, frustration, and anger, anxiety, and resentment of Trump supporters at what they lost. It would however turbocharge the opposition, making for a more volatile political climate. In terms of absolute raw political power there would be little Trump supporters could do with the levels of government power back in establishment hands. Nor is there much chance that a new Trump-like figure would rise out of the real Trumps political ashes. Trump himself, as this analysis has argued, is truly sui generis, a unique political character and president. Who could possibly take his place? Mitt Romney? Ted Cruz? Jeb Bush? Nikki Haley? Listing the options answers the question. Moreover, after a Trump loss, NeverTrump Republicans and their establishment allies could legitimately argue: been there, done that. If Trump Wins Reelection: Variations on a Theme If Trump wins reelection his presidential legitimacy will be bolstered, even if his opponents attempt to diminish it, which they will. Its his actual reelection, not the popular vote margins that matter. You cant yield the powers of the presidency, which as both Trump and Obama among others have demonstrated are substantial, without being president. That said, it does matter what the election means for the distribution of power in Congress. The most dire outcome for a Trump reelection would be the loss of a majority in both Houses of Congress. In that case, Trumps legislative agenda would essentially be comatose. His Senate judicial strategy would definitely be dead. He would be substantially defenseless against a continuing and heightened onslaught of investigations and lawsuits. They would be fueled by anger that he had somehow escaped electoral rejection. They would also be fueled by the still white-hot rage at his successful presidential accomplishments carried out in his first term, his leadership style in so doing, and ultimately his existence. That would surely cripple Trumps second term presidency. It would put his Restoration ambitions on life support. He would still have, and doubtless would make use of, his executive presidential powers. However his accomplishments would be downsized and minimized, and his political troubles and setbacks would be the larger and more frequent narrative. Keeping control of the Senate would be an essential element of a successful Trump second term. A Republican majority in the Senate after 2020 would look very different than the Republican majority there in 2016. That body is now much more closely aligned with Trump perspectives, and the moderate Republican senators up for reelection and somewhat vulnerable in 2020 (Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina) if they won, would be past that kind of heightened reelection danger in seven years after Trump will have left office and could afford to be more supportive majority members. A Trump aligned Republican Senate would act as a barrier to Democratic efforts to throw policy sand into the gears of Trumps Restoration presidential ambitions. It would as well forestall, maybe, efforts to mount a second round of Trump impeachment articles. It would also allow Trump to continue his systematic and successful efforts to change the complexion of the federal judiciary and effectively respond to any Supreme Court openings that arise. A more difficult election likelihood is for Republicans to regain a House majority. Here too, were that to happen, the political stance of the Republicans would also be much more aligned with Trump perspectives than they were in the last Republican controlled House. If that happened, a major legislative immigration bill that closely resembles Trumps preferences would be a very distinctive possibility, if not a likelihood. So would another round of tax cuts, geared to the middle and working classes, which Trump promised if he and a Republican Congress are elected. The implications of the Congressional election results for a second Trump term then are variable. It is not possible to say more about the future of the Trump presidency at this point without the election results. That leaves one more major theoretical question to again consider: How do entrenched narratives change? Stanley Renshon is Professor of political science at Lehman College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a certified psychoanalyst. He is the author of over 100 professional articles and 18 books in the areas of presidential psychology and leadership, immigration and American national identity, and American foreign policy. Mamata Banerjee's TMC gives yet another jolt to Congress in Meghalaya; 11 members switch sides Congress should realise its leaders not emperors of India, says TMC; calls for anti-BJP alliance in Goa Hathras gang-rape case: TMC leaders file complaint against Hathras SDM over 'indecent behaviour' India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P Hathras, Oct 03: Two leaders of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Saturday lodged a complaint against Hathras SDM Prem Prakash Meena for allegedly pushing them and behaving indecently during a clash that broke out on Friday at Hathras border, Uttar Pradesh. A TMC delegation, comprising MPs Derek O'Brien and Pratima Mondal, and former MP Mamata Thakur, was roughed up by the state Police yesterday when they tried to enter Hathras to meet the family of a 20-year-old gang-rape victim. Hathras SP, 4 other cops suspended; media barred from victim's village till SIT completes probe After the scuffle, Mamata Thakur alleged that the police personnel "pulled bras and indecently touched" the women leaders, however, the police categorically denied the accusations. Today, Pratima Mondal and Mamata Thakur filed a police complaint against SDM Prem Prakash Meena, who was seen manhandling the TMC leaders in a video that surfaced on the internet. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Mamata Banerjee to lead protest march against Hathras rape on Saturday This brazen incident comes a day after the police stopped and pushed Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi to the ground while he was on his way to meet the rape victim's family. According to reports, the Congress will hold a 'satyagraha' across the country on October 5 to protest the alleged high-handedness shown by Uttar Pradesh's Yogi Adityanath government towards top Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi as they were proceeding on Thursday to Hathras to meet the family of the gang-rape and murder victim. BENGALURU: Hospitality unicorn OYO Hotels & Homes said it has promoted four key employees to its senior leadership team in India. This follows OYOs decision to extend the furloughs of its employees till the end of February 2021, and give them the option to voluntarily separate from the company, as its business remains hit because of the coronavirus pandemic. OYO said 70% of its furloughed employee base have opted for a voluntary separation, while 28% have chosen to stick on and go for leave with limited benefits (LwLB). Globally, the hospitality business continues to suffer because of muted travel appetite amid the pandemic. The recent leadership elevations include Ankit Gupta, who joined the company last year as chief operating officer (COO) of OYOs Frontier Business and now has been promoted as its chief operating officer (CEO). Harshit Vyas who was earlier the chief business officer of OYO has been made COO, India and South Asia, franchise business. Abhinav Ankur has been promoted as chief strategy and transformation officer of OYO, and Anuj Bhatnagar has been is now chief finance officer (CFO). In their new roles, Gupta will take charge of OYO Workspaces, Vyas will continue to work closely with OYO India chief executive Rohit Kapoor, to help the company recover faster from covid impact. Ankur will lead OYOs human resources function for India and South Asia, while Bhatnagar will see all business finance heads for OYOs Franchise, Weddingz, Frontier and Workspaces verticals report to him. At OYO, we have always worked towards nurturing meritocracy across levels and are proud to have resilient, robust and diversified leaders. The role enhancement for Ankit, Harshit, Abhinav and Anuj are further steps in this direction. Their inspiring leadership in the pre-Covid times helped us drive sustainable business growth in the region. When the pandemic started, they helped OYO balance several priorities towards our customers, partners and colleagues and respond to the crisis," said Rohit Kapoor. Last week, OYO appointed Tejal Patil as senior legal Advisor for India and South Asia. Oyo-preneurs in India, a term the company uses to address its employees, were earlier asked to go on leave with limited benefits (LwLB) for four months till 31 August, 2020. Recently, OYOs impacted employees took to social media to criticise the company for not having provided adequate compensation to its staff, during pandemic period. For employees who choose to extend their furloughs, the company provided them with health insurance coverage, financial assistance for school education and vaccination allowance. Furloughed employees were also provided support for better career opportunities with Oyos Project Outreach programme. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics Announcement of Tulum airport a welcome surprise Tulum, Q.R. The head of the Tourism Secretariat of Quintana Roo said she was surprised to learn of the announcement of an airport for Tulum. Marisol Vanegas Perez said the recent announcement by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador regarding the construction of an airport in Tulum was as surprising for us as it was for many people in Quintana Roo. Now it will be necessary to see if it will be in the same location and with the same conditions as the previous project, because that project advanced to the feasibility stages in the technical aspect. We also have to find out where the resources for the airport will come from, she pointed out. During a morning interview, Vanegas Perez said that having an airport in Tulum would be extraordinary and of great help for the economic recovery of the state, especially to connect the southern zone. Either way, she said, rural tourism is being promoted. Dario Flota Ocampo, director of the Quintana Roo Tourism Promotion Council, also welcomed the news saying it will be important to define how the work will be executed, if it will be private, official or a mixture of both. We will have to wait to see if this project has an official investment or if it will be a private project as originally planned. There is a lot of information to receive, he admitted. He said the plan to build an airport in Tulum has been put on hold for years, and became vacant with the change of administrations. Tulum mayor Victor Mas Tah says the Maya Train and the new airport will be investment generators. He says these two projects will be triggers for other developments, which will impact the municipality in its growth and evolution. We will be attentive to support these projects, generating and presenting the needs of the municipality in the face of projects of this magnitude that brings needed infrastructure, he said. In previous months, we have worked in coordination with Fonatur and Sedatu, working closely with all the institutions, all the corresponding information has been generated for this project to be carried out () and today we celebrate that the president announced these projects for the southeast and for Tulum, he added. New Delhi, Oct 3 : Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday discussed with the farmers living in the border areas of Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir the virtues of the new farm laws, saying "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has corrected a huge anomaly in the farming sector". Singh said the earlier system of middlemen taking charge of the crop and arranging for its sale might have been relevant till about two decades ago but today's farmer is young, educated, well-informed and well-connected and, therefore, capable of exercising the option of choosing the buyer for himself. Today's farmer, reiterated Singh, is actually an agricultural technocrat who has the capacity to decide sitting on a computer which will be the most profitable crop to sow in the coming season. He said the farmer today also has the facility to discover online to whom best to sell his product across the country. Singh said with the kind of means and opportunities available to the young agricultural technocrats of today, we have no right to deprive them of the avenues available to other technocrats and entrepreneurs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has corrected a huge anomaly in the farming sector of India, he added. Allaying apprehensions that big business houses will take over farming and the farmers' land will be forcibly taken over, Singh said, the new laws have ensured all safeguards. He again alleged that all the hue and cry is being raised by professional protesters who have nothing to do with farming. The interaction was arranged by the Kathua unit of the BJP led by its District President Raghunandan Singh. Im not saying that [the climate abnormality] was the cause of the pandemic, but it was certainly . . . an added exacerbating factor to an already explosive situation, said Harvard University climate scientist Alexander More, who led the research, in a news release. Restaurant worker Glen Pile, left, waits in line to obtain an unemployment form at a Miami-Dade County library on April 8. (Lynne Sladky / Associated Press) Unemployment insurance is serving a vital role in stabilizing the economy and supporting the households of 25 million workers. At the same time, its failings have been on display. Florida started the recession with a computer system that appears to have been designed to discourage applications. The maximum benefit offered by 14 states is not enough to replace 50% of wages for the average high school graduate. Seventeen states have depleted their trust fund and have had to get loans from the federal government. Theres a longstanding accusation leveled at the countrys unemployment insurance system that has been revived lately that its structurally racist, deliberately discriminatory from the outset and remains so today. The claim has been met with doubt. Some suggest that the disparity in benefits available to Black and white Americans is skewed by lower wages in the American South, where a large share of Black workers live. Other skeptics have argued that Black workers wait longer for benefits and are less likely to receive them because they are disproportionately low-wage workers, and unemployment insurance has minimum earnings requirements. Its not intentional that Black workers benefit less; its incidental. But underlying the debate is a legitimate question: Why doesnt unemployment insurance treat all workers and all earnings the same? Both old-age insurance what we call Social Security and unemployment insurance were created with the Social Security Act, passed by Congress in 1935. The federal government would run the old-age program, while states would run the unemployment program. Both were social-insurance programs, meaning that workers paid into trust funds via a payroll tax, and this made them eligible for benefits. Both programs excluded certain occupations, including domestic workers and agricultural workers. Excluding domestic and agricultural workers from the unemployment program was to the detriment of Black people, most of whom lived in the South. This much is widely agreed upon. By virtue of their occupations, about 65% of Black workers at the time fell outside the act, compared with 27% of white workers. Story continues Seventy-five years after the bills passing, the Social Security Administration offered a detailed explanation for why excluding the majority of Black workers was not the result of prevailing racial biases. The agencys case goes like this. The bill also excluded many white workers, women and other groups, including Latino and Asian workers. Most unemployment compensation programs in other countries in the 1930s excluded agricultural workers. Moreover, the federal government was enacting programs on a scale never before done. There was almost no history of federal benefits of any kind. In short, there was no racial motivation to the design of the legislation; it was administrative necessity. The counter-argument goes like this. There was racist intent behind the exclusions, and it is evident in a political devils bargain that Northern Democrats made with Southern Democrats. In order to get enough votes in Congress to pass most New Deal legislation, Northern Democrats had to give Southern Democrats the means to exclude Black people from receiving benefits. An economically empowered Black worker posed a political threat to Southerners and an existential threat to segregationist social structures. The bill was designed to exclude Black workers and enable Southern states to further exclude them; it was political necessity. Of course, it could have been both administratively and politically advantageous to leave Black workers behind which happens to be precisely what Black advocates said at the time. As the bill was being debated, Charles Houston, representing the NAACP, testified in front of the Senate. Houston made it plain to Congress that it was deliberately excluding Black workers. From a Negros point of view, he said, it looks like a sieve with the holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through. George Haynes, of the Federal Council of Churches, also testified before the Senate. He pleaded with Congress to prohibit racial discrimination in the administration of the benefits. He presented data tables documenting federal funding for universities, vocational education and earlier New Deal programs as evidence of racial disparities. There has been repeated widespread discrimination on account of race or color, Haynes said, as a result of which Negro men and women and children did not share equitably and fairly in the benefits accruing from the expenditures of public funds. Houston and Haynes made the same case. The design of unemployment insurance would prevent Black workers from obtaining benefits. The excluded occupations disqualified the majority of Black workers, particularly Southern sharecroppers. And allowing states to administer the benefits would only open the door for more discrimination. The assessment that unemployment insurance is structurally racist is based not on the expressed animus of past lawmakers but, rather, on the design of the program and who it intentionally or incidentally leaves out. There was no mistaking who the bill would leave behind. Congress had no intention of creating a program that treated white and Black workers the same. They didnt miss the mark on racial equality. They werent aiming for it. Kathryn A. Edwards is an economist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Rand Corp. who researches labor and employment issues. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Remembering the Coliseum by Pat French Swendsen (Originally published in the Richmond Review, May 2001) Remembering the Coliseum. What a delight! Going to the Saturday matinee movies was the highlight of the week for all the neighborhood kids. Sure it only cost a dime, but this was the Depression. A dime was hard to come by. Ambitious boys scrubbed stoops for neighbors or swept sidewalks. Girls begged their fathers or made the beds for their siblings to come up with the money. Somehow, some way, each acquired a dime-- 10 cents that opened the treasures of the moviedom universe to fulfill everyone's dreams. First of all, the preliminary ritual was overwhelming because we had to skate to the Coliseum. We tightened four-year-old skates with a key that was held by a knotted string around the neck. Some girls has strips of sheep's fleece facing their ankles on the top strap. This was a Cadillac touch. At Ninth and Clement we queued up and sometimes pooled our pennies to go into the fabulous candy store next door, owned by "Nick the Greek." It was as small as a closet and full of every kind of candy imaginable. We bought "pink and white" capsules of candy-coated licorice doled out ceremoniously from a huge glass apothecary jar and weighed out on an unforgiving scale. Big boys with newspaper routes bought Nick's frozen bananas, which were covered in chocolate, as a teeth-numbing treat. Going into the Coliseum we went through the main doorway and produced our tickets to a uniformed usher, a high school student looking very militaristic and hired because he fit the suit owned by management. His high school buddies would get in free if he gave them the torn-off stub from someone else's ticket. If it were a special matinee, there would be an usher on the left as you entered the theater handing out promotional Baby Ruth and Milky Way candy bars or Boston Beans. Inside, there was always an uproar. Some kids saved seats for others and got into hassles with bigger kids. Some little girls spent the entire time with their hands over their ears with a pained expression because of the noise, made mostly by the boys. The assistant manager would come out on stage and threaten to not start the movies if anyone threw any more spitballs. Inevitably, some boy with a sling shot would shoot one at him. No one was allowed in the balcony because of such goings-on. Girls constantly trekked up the thick carpeted stairs to the rest room, where they primped in front of the huge gold-framed mirrors and tried on pale orange-colored Tangee lipstick from a tiny case. The movies we generally saw were usually in a double-bill with Fox Movietone news reels (with hoots from the restless audience), cartoon (jubilant noises) and serials (with hysterical noise - and lots of opinions and warnings being shouted during the "cliffhanger"). Sometimes the manager would come back on the stage and hold a contest. The whole main floor was packed with kids and he would hold a yelling contest between the boys and girls with the winners getting free admission the next Saturday. Then, there might even be a sing-a-long with a bouncing ball over the words on the screen. Then, when the movie ended, we would wait for an usher to unlock the skate vault - a closet with hooks on the wall for our skates in exchange for a disk with a number on it. The procedure was so tantalizing some kids skated only one block from the theater to partake in the ceremony. That hard-to-come-by dime opened cowboy vistas, brought tears during Shirley Temple's exploits, suffered valiantly with Freddy Bartholomew and rolled with laughter with Mickey Mouse and Popeye. And it created 65 years of poignant memories of great Saturday afternoon adventures. Read other Pat French Swendsen columns: Playland was our Adventure Golden Gate Park Children's Playground Image credits: San Francisco Chronicle, September 1927. Contribute your own stories about western neighborhoods places.! Boris Johnson is facing pressure from his own partys MPs to get out of his bunker and shake off his reliance on controversial adviser Dominic Cummings. Confidence in the prime minister within his own party has been shaken by his handling of coronavirus, doubts over a Brexit deal and recent rows over lockdown restrictions, bizarre plans to send asylum seekers to the south Atlantic and threats to break international law. Speaking to The Independent ahead of the PMs crucial speech to this years virtual party conference, several MPs said he needed to assert more grip, with one saying it was time for an end to presidential-style government by a small group around the leader. But despite frustration about drift and widespread acclaim for the performance of chancellor Rishi Sunak, there was little appetite for a change at the top, with many instead saying that they wanted to see the old Boris who was voted in by a huge majority by MPs and party members last year and won a landslide in last Decembers election. One backbencher, who asked not to be named, said: We want him to lead us, but there has been a lot of confusion and sometimes he seems to be taking his lead from the scientists or from his advisers. I think he could be doing more to instil confidence in his troops. He talks a lot about levelling up but Im not sure the voters have a clear idea what that means. He needs to put a bit of flesh on the bones. A former minister suggested Mr Johnsons administration had run out of steam under the double burden of the coronavirus outbreak and the search for a deal on Brexit. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 19 January 2022 Britains Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, participate in a therapy session with individuals who have experienced the care system, during a visit to the Foundling Museum in London REUTERS UK news in pictures 18 January 2022 Surfers enter the sea as the sun rises over Tynemouth on the North East coast PA UK news in pictures 17 January 2022 Bonhams Danny McIlwraith holds a Nigerian polycrome carved wood mask during a photocall for the sale of the Jim Lennon Collection at Bonhams in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA The wheels have fallen off Boriss Brexit bandwagon and he is stuck in the Brexit Covid bunker, the MP said. Mr Johnsons second conference as leader taking place online after the planned Birmingham gathering was cancelled comes after a difficult week in which he twice had to make concessions to buy off backbench rebellions over the Internal Market Bill and Coronavirus Act. And it comes as talks on a free trade agreement with the EU reach their endgame, with the prime minister insisting that the onus is on Brussels to give ground if a no-deal Brexit is to be avoided at the start of 2021. Stalwart Brexiteer Peter Bone, who joined the rebellion against Coronavirus Act powers allowing ministers to impose lockdown restrictions without a Commons vote, said the PMs problems stemmed from his reliance on his most senior adviser. I think it has one simple answer, which is Dominic Cummings, said Mr Bone. I think a lot of these decisions are being taken by unelected special advisers behind closed doors and they like making laws without parliamentary scrutiny and dont have any regard for it. I think that is where the problem lies. But the Wellingborough MP recoiled from any suggestion that Mr Johnsons position is in peril from his own MPs. Oh God, no, he said. No, no, no. Were 100 per cent behind Boris. Theres a bit of a drift towards a presidential style-government with people like Dominic Cummings thinking theyre in the West Wing and that the president makes executive orders, so the prime minister making regulations is the same. Another lockdown rebel, Sir Desmond Swayne, agreed there was no immediate danger to the PM. I think theres a lot of frustration, but I wouldnt put it more than that, he said. I measure these things in votes. What people may grumble about with one another in the tea room is one thing. When it comes to being counted, its another. The frustration is there, but I wouldnt say its particularly measurable yet. Youve still got cheerleading for the Boris we used to know where has he gone, wont he come back? Sir Desmond said Mr Johnson needed to use Tuesdays conference speech to display the old Boris display his fundamental commitment to the values that we thought he held, particularly in respect of our individual liberty and not being pushed around by big government. Hes got to convey that actually he is the man who is holding the line against crazed scientists who would go much further. Former cabinet minister David Gauke, who was thrown out of the party by Mr Johnson over his opposition to a no-deal Brexit, said it was fairly clear there is a lot of discontent on the back benches as the Covid crisis exposed shortcomings which were evident in Mr Johnson long before he was elected leader. Clearly the circumstances at the moment dont play to Boris Johnsons strengths, said Mr Gauke. Theres a great need for grip and grasp of the details, which has never been his strong suit. But I dont think that comes as a surprise to anyone. If the Conservative Party had wanted a leader who was going to demonstrate grip and a grasp of detail, they should have chosen a different person. Boris Johnson is always going to be dependent on his advisers. Thats the nature of his leadership style. Another former minister expelled for opposing no-deal Brexit last year, but later readmitted to the party, Alistair Burt, told The Independent: I think the mood for a lot of Tories is that they know the government has made mistakes but no one would trade places with them, because they know how tough it is for them and there is a lot of sympathy for them. They are in a fix. The country is in a fix. Its difficult for the prime minister this is not what he was built for, he was built to deliver a buccaneering new start for the country and that has been impossible. Its quite patently not what he expected from the job, and that is difficult for him. Former Conservative leader Michael Howard, who spoke out loudly against the Internal Market Bills threat to overrule the Brexit divorce deal, said that the Johnson administration was facing problems much more formidable than those faced by the Thatcher and Major governments in which he served. What I think is a lot of the criticism is failing to take into account the enormity of the challenge the government faces and its the biggest in my view peacetime challenge a government has ever faced, said Lord Howard. I have no doubt that with the benefit of hindsight in due course it will be possible to show they didnt get everything right. I think it has to be borne in mind just how formidable the nature of the challenge is. Austin always beckons the weary traveler if you're looking for laid-back culture and off-the-grid, funky vibes. Hotel San Jose on South Congress has always been the ethereal Austin fix for an adventure that soothes the soul. Now meet Hotel San Jose's new sister property, Hotel Magdalena. Freshly unveiled Hotel Magdalena invites Houstonians to pay a visit to its new South Congress neighborhood in Austin. Hotel Magdalena is the new creative brainchild of Bunkhouse Group hotels in collaboration with renowned architecture firm Lake| Flato, and it's made a grand debut in October on Austin's Music Lane. AUTUMN GETAWAY: Houston hotel rolls out staycation deals for fall "The story of the hotel is the story of Austin--of live music, the outdoors, and relishing the hot summers in our beloved rivers and creeks," Bunkhouse's Vice President of Design and Development Tenaya Hills told Chron. "That naturally acted as a springboard for the design elements of the hotel--the pool being our own swimming hole, the buildings around it inspired by Austin's lake houses in the 1950s, which then informed the materials you see and furniture system we designed for the guest rooms." Named after the biblical figure Mary Magdalene, the boutique hotel boasts 89 guest rooms, a dedicated event space and a 900-square-foot sunken swimming pool reminiscent of Barton Springs. What's important about Hotel Magdalena is that it sits upon a treasured site for Austin. It was originally home to the Terrace Motor Hotel, a popular destination that opened in 1951 featuring 366 rooms and a convention center. The Terrace Motor Hotel was later purchased in the '70s by legendary Texas artist Willie Nelson, who renamed the The Austin Opry House and converted part of it into a music venue. The Austin Opry House became a popular tour stop for such American music icons as Muddy Waters, Ike & Tina Turner, Tom Waits and, of course, Willie himself. Now the Magdelana is a must-stop for Texas foodies. The hotel boasts Summer House on Music Lane, a full-service restaurant helmed by Executive Chef Jeffrey Hundelt (previously the culinary director of Austin's Launderette). Summer House on Music Lane's cuisine will embrace Texas roots and will open to the public in November. "The menu features straightforward cooking taking cues from old school hospitality and slow food mentality, but with an Austin sensibility," Bunkhouse hospitality noted. From a design perspective, Hotel Magdalena takes inspiration from the lush green space of central Texas and specifically, the lakeside culture in the 1970s era. "Lake culture was an inspiration because its what we do here in the summer hang out with friends on the water, grill, swim," Hills said. "Its fun, casual and relaxed, like this hotel is. 70s era Austin specifically is interesting just because of the richness of the music scene and the lore of the time a sleepy, fun-loving college town. It was the era that created the Austin we know today." So, what makes this hotel so unique in Austin? "We want this to feel like an escape to nature but in the middle of a city," Hills said. "I love the indoor/outdoor connection; it really makes the experience at this hotel original and a true escape. And with the nature as core to the hotel concept, our team was focused on very special landscaping, and we were lucky enough to work with Ten Eyck landscaping to make it happen. " The other true draw to Hotel Magdalena is that it lures the traveler who wants things to go at a slower pace with a natural vibe. "We want people to walk into a clean, uncluttered room thats instantly calming," Hills said. "We want them to put their feet up, put some music on, and slow down. The traveler we had in mind loves Austin, loves what those hot summer nights feel like, and, of course, great food, good music and the art of relaxing." The School of Visual Arts animation departments BFA Animation; BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation, and Visual Effects; and MFA Computer Arts have an amazing and diverse group of alumni that have been featured in thousands of film festivals and exhibitions over the years. Many alumni address social and political issues in their work. A few of them shared their projects and creative journeys with their alma mater! Melody Shih is a motion designer at CNN Motion, and graduated from SVA MFA Computer Arts in 2016. In her own words: I had the opportunity to design and animate an animation for a CNN feature series, The First Time I Realized I Was Black. This was one of my favorite projects at CNN. We invited people to have conversations about race and justice in America and to help us understand the challenges of different labels in society, based on an excerpt from W.E.B. Du Boiss The Souls of Black Folk. I believe animations can communicate and evoke emotions, and also help to build a deeper sense of empathy. In my animation I decided to use two colors, black and white, to represent racism with metaphorical transitions and visuals conveying feelings of despondency and rejection by different racial groups. When I read the writing from W.E.B. Du Bois, I was so moved and felt it resonated with the story. As an immigrant and person of color, I could associate with the feelings and the struggle of being seen as an outsider. I think it is important that we have conversations about race and racism in different forms. The first-hand experiences of people who are from different backgrounds, as storytellers and artists these are the most beautiful things that we should celebrate. I worked on this project with CNN because we want everyones story to be heard and understood. Shih adds, Im happy to see there are more animated stories that are related to the black community, like Hair Love and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse from Sony Pictures. I think in the animation industry, we need to keep the conversation going by telling stories of Black culture and history. And as people often say, This is a movement, not a moment. Its not just conversation, it needs to lead to action. I think it is our responsibility to continue to tell different stories, using our creative strength to bring light and to show our solidarity and support. Dominick Bedasse is a 2d designer and animator with a knack for storytelling. He received an MFA in Computer Arts at the School of Visual Arts in 2019, and he currently works for Titmouse Inc. animation studio. Run Little Boy is a 2d short animation that addresses police brutality and judicial misconduct. We follow a young boy who must become courageous and evasive within a living nightmare; a realm systematically designed to kill him. In his own words: This film was my response to the oppressive nature of the American justice system, specifically to young black bodies such as Kalief Browder, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and now Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Since its completion back in May 2019, Run Little Boy has been selected for screening in over 13 domestic and international film festivals, including the Queen City Film Festival, New Jersey where it received the award for Best Animation. While working on Run Little Boy, I learned that as the creator, I have the final say in what it is Im willing to sacrifice or not sacrifice to see a project come to its completion. I feel that animation and storytelling already provide contributions to discussing race and social injustice, especially when the writing table is composed of people whove lived through such experiences. What needs improvement is the pushing or advertising of content that talks about such topics. Thankfully, it is much easier now to self-promote diverse content through social media however there is room for growth when it comes to mainstream networks. Monique Henry-Hudson (BFA 2011 Computer Art, Computer Animation, and Visual Effects) is the co-creator of Diversetoons, an initiative to showcase the wide range of career opportunities in the animation industry from people we do not usually see or hear from. She says: People often ask me, Why did you create Diversetoons? And I chuckle to myself because the opportunity kind of fell into my lap. I was the programming coordinator for Black Web Fest, a Brooklyn-based film festival. The founder asked me to find some more professionals for a Black in Animation panel she wanted to submit to Blerd City Con, also in Brooklyn, that summer. She had a schedule conflict and I had to step up and be the moderator. When our panel had ended, people in the audience were so excited to tell their family and friends about what they witnessed. They shared that theyve never seen Black people whove worked on these movies, who were also accessible and could share their experiences. They wanted to know when the next one would happen. Next one? My childhood friend Jade was with me and she said We have to do this again. I was hesitant but agreed. We had our first official panel as Diversetoons in September 2018 at the School of Visual Arts with help from the BFA Computer Art department. Im still absorbing its impact on the community. Our panelists, our interns, our peers, and our attendees have found solace in the fact that they arent alone in some of the things we have experienced by being Black, a person of color, or being a woman in the animation industry. We share ways the industry can improve on making this industry better for all. We encourage recruiters to step outside of their usual list of places to recruit talent. Our tagline is Be Seen & Be Heard. It is our goal to continue providing a platform for professionals in the industry to be visible and to amplify their experiences and accomplishments. In short, Id like to see truly inclusive studios. Not just a Black lead, a female lead, or a kind-of-sort-of queer lead character. I want to see all races, all gender identities, and orientations employed in every part of the production pipeline and as executives. Id also like to see upward mobility for these people. Anisa Li-A-Ping, a recent 2020 graduate from BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation, and Visual Effects, created her thesis project, Moments, a short film about a young man who is having second thoughts about venturing outside his home. In her own words, Anisa wrote: I created Moments for my thesis months before the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. In fact, Moments has been in the making for years. Like many of you, after witnessing the injustices that have taken the lives of Sean Bell, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Akai Gurley, and so many more, I have been left overwhelmed and frustrated, but I hope, through my art, I can help raise awareness and empowerment. The Black genocide must stop at once, but together within our community and our talents I know we can overcome. David Heredia (BFA 2002 Animation) is an animator, public speaker, and founder of Heroes of Color, an art organization that promotes inclusion and diversity through art and education. In the past year, he has worked with SVA to offer a scholarship for black incoming students. Since January, he has been active in the schools department conducting talks and lectures addressing how to navigate an unconventional career path, as well as more recently how to navigate social justice with creativity. SVA asked Heredia to share the inspiration behind his work with Heroes of Color in his own words: What prompted me to start my Heroes of Color video series was the lack of inclusion and positive representation of people of color in the school textbooks, comic books, animation, movies, toys, etc. Schools in particular need to decolonize their curriculum. It does not reflect the society in which we live. Our communities are diverse and our education should be equally as diverse. I got sick of seeing people of color in movies either as the help, slaves, or subservient roles. We are so much more than that. I just got tired of complaining about it and decided to do something about it. When my first child was born in 2009, I had to counter all the negativity society had systematically put in place to prevent people of color from ever feeling as if they had equal rights and justice. By teaching my children about groundbreaking heroes who looked like them, my kids began questioning their teachers in school and they began to crave more inspiring stories about people of color. The narrative needs to change in the animation industry. One of the best ways to achieve this would be by including more executives of color in the industry. I would really like to see a surge of new, independent animation studios run by people of color. We need to keep telling our stories and stop waiting for others to tell them. Art enables us to escape our harsh realities, but it also reveals them to those who chose to ignore them. Many people woke up to the harsh realities of racism in our society through social media, videos, animation, and illustrations online. Animation and storytelling make it easier to have a conversation about race and social injustice. Sometimes the stories can be subtle, other times very graphic. Regardless of the approach, our creative expression can evoke powerful emotions from people. These emotions allow others to see things from a different perspective and can lead to positive change. Creative artists are influencers no matter how many people follow us our creative expression has the power to educate, disrupt peoples thinking, and challenge our beliefs. During the Covid-19 outbreak, so many people around the world looked to us for refuge from the monotony of quarantine. Music, films, art, poetry, books were being consumed by billions of people around the world. Once the Black Lives Matter movement came back into the forefront, Netflix and other streaming sites began highlighting films by and about the African American community. Parents began seeking books to help educate themselves and their children so that they can be better prepared to have the uncomfortable conversations about race with their children. I am so fortunate that my creative expression has enabled me to become an agent of change through art and animation. Throughout the past year, several initiatives have been put into motion to better address systemic flaws at SVA. The schools goals are intended to be long-term and have lasting impressions on students, staff, and faculty that will hopefully lead to the change so badly needed in the world and the animation industry. BFA Animation and BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation, and Visual Effects have recently come together to create an Equity Alliance aimed at bringing BIPOC alumni together with BIPOC students. As the collaborative brain-child of BFA Animation Chair Hsiang Chin Moe and BFA Computer Art Chair Jimmy Calhoun, the Alliances committee is proudly headed by David Heredia (BFA 2002 Animation) and Monique Henry-Hudson (BFA 2011 Computer Art, Computer Animation, and Visual Effects). Monthly events will be held to foster communication within the schools community to discuss topics ranging from professional, creative, and personal. Education does not stop at the classroom door. BFA Animation has begun organizing a bi-weekly book club focusing on anti-racist and BIPOC-created works to broaden the participants perspective. Students, staff, and faculty have come together to create a space to discuss difficult topics and stories as well as to share books, movies, graphic novels, and other BIPOC-created media through a staff-led book club and workshops held regularly over the summer and academic year. There is a lot storytellers can learn from listening to many diverse narratives. Further reading: Anti-racist resources created by the SVA Libary, and a list of resources on how to take action against racial injustice in America. Rapper Illbliss and wife have miraculously welcomed their second child. This happened at Reddington Hospital in Lagos. Ilbliss revealed their daughter came at 26 weeks and the first hospital they went said, she couldnt be saved. Announcing her arrival on Instagram, the rapper wrote; As Maama and Paapa hold you in our arms, We whisper your name a million times KACHiMSiDEH ( As My GOD has Written) In absolute gratitude to God Almighty. Welcome to Our World My Little Princess. In another post, he wrote about her journey while also wishing his wife a happy birthday, declaring how strong she was all through the crisis, Illbliss wrote; Happy Birthday my Queen Munachiso Maria-Goretti Ejiofor . The Mother of My two beautiful and adorable children SochiKaima and KachimSideh. This is a different kind of October 2nd, truly the most special to me. This year we went through so so much , but we never stopped believing in the power of the Lord Almighty. Our second child Sideh came into our lives so miraculously, arriving at 26 weeks after being pronounced unsaveable by the first hospital. We prayed. We went to war with prayers, alongside our beautiful and eternally supportive family and friends. We chose Life, in your words. Then baby was delivered safely and taken into incubation/ NICU at @reddingtonlagos , kickstarting the next phase of our test of Faith and Gods love for you and I. There were some really tough days and nights, but you went through all this turbulence with the warmest and uplifting smile on your face. Every single Nurse, doctor, kitchen staff, lab technicians, Finance Department staff, security, cleaners fell in love with your spirit and kept praying for you. I drew a lot of strength from you my darling. You fought like Gods own in true Munachiso Fashion. Through all these weeks of uncertainty in the hospital, you never gave up on us. You kept asking me how my new Album was doing and how I needed to make a lot of money off it, pushing me to promote and promote. Despite all the injections, unending scans, drugs, (sigh) and Caesarian Section, We came out victorious in the very end. We owe all of it to God. He never left us for a second. I cant celebrate you enough my baby. I want the world to know I am blessed to have you as my wife and the mother of my babies. Happy Birthday to my rock of Gibraltar, daughter of the Most High. Your greatness just commenced. May God keep blessing me to spoil you beyond comprehension I have to stop typing before I break down plus I need to help you baby sit KachimSideh I Love You Boo! Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates Seasoned journalist, Kwesi Pratt has slammed President Nana Akufo-Addo and his government over their response to the Western Togoland secession brouhana. Some residents in the Volta Region engaged in violent attacks days ago to demand freedom from Ghana. Popularly called the Western Togoland Seccessionists, the group attacked the State Transport Corporation (STC) and some Police stations in the Region. They set some buses belonging to the STC ablaze, calling on the government to grant them independence to become a country. Recently responding to the group, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in an interview on Hello FM during his tour of the Ashanti Region, stressed he has left the issue in the capable hands of the appropriate security personnel. ''I have to be calm because institutions are in place. The security agencies are doing their work. They've started already and we'll see results. If I panic, the country panics. It's like the COVID-19 disease, if I had panicked, fear would have gripped all of us. But I know the work that God has appointed me to do, if I panic, the entire nation will also panic. That is not the purpose of leadership. I'm supposed to assure people that our country will work. What is happening in the Volta Region in the time of these handful - it's just a handful of people, these secessionists - we'll deal with it. I have no doubts about it'' ''I trust the security agencies. I trust the Armed Forces. I trust the Police. I trust their leadership. The intelligence agencies, I know they are all working very, very, very hard to make sure that this matter is dealt with as quickly as possible'', he said. But Kwesi Pratt is of a strong opinion that the government is not treating the issue with the required seriousness. ''I've seen the Police situation report. Twenty-four (24) hours before the incident, the Police report indicated that these things were going to happen. According to the report we have, the attacks took place around 1:30 am. The security agencies got on the ground at 12 noon. What is happening? ''Take a look at the number of Ministers responsible for security; we can count about four or five (5). When you add the Defence Minister, it's about five and all this can still go on. What are you telling us? Do you think we're children or what? All this happening with all this security architecture, why?'' he questioned. He revealed the government knew about the plans of the secessionist group beforehand but stood aloof for it to happen. ''Government knows; the security knows who they are, where they are. What is happening? Somebody must be telling us something sensible.'' He also wondered why the President has not taken drastic actions against the group. ''One of the duties of the President is that he signs death warrant...You have a huge responsibility when we hand over the reins of the country to you...Is everything we do in government good? Is espionage a good thing? Is war a good thing? Governments declare war; people die and so on. The litmus test is whether or not the actions being taken by the government are in the national interest or they're not in the national interest'', he said on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo''. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video According to a new bipartisan law signed by Governor Phil Murphy, New Jersey residents in the military will no longer have to pay state income tax on combat pay. The new legislation, passed last month, also exempts servicemen and women from paying state income tax while hospitalized for an injury sustained in a combat zone. During a virtual event, Murphy signed the bill into law, officially rectifying what he sees as an unacceptable burden on combat veterans. I dont care how much money this costs us, he said. This is not right. Phil Murphy speaks at a rally on Oct. 19, 2017, in Newark, New Jersey. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Combat pay is a term that refers to the additional money that is paid to military personnel for deployment to a combat zone, an area that often comes with high risk of attack, injury, or death. The Military Times reports that there are currently four active combat zones overseas: the Afghanistan zone, the Arabian Peninsula area, the Kosovo area, and the Sinai Peninsula. Murphy believes that it isnt right to tax combat pay, which is already small repayment for the risk of life and limb, and the possibility that a family might lose a loved one overseas. Prior to signing the bill into law, he said in a public statement, Im thrilled at long last that were going to correct this forever and always. Servicemen and women are already protected from paying federal income tax on combat pay. However, the new legislation also protects them from paying New Jersey state income tax when deployed in a combat zone. In a rare move, both parties showed an outpouring of support for the new legislation, and the bill passed both chambers of the state legislature with no resistance from lawmakers. According to NJ.com, the bill passed the Senate with a 39-0 vote and passed the assembly with a 78-0 vote. Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times. Domestic flights: Pre-Covid figures will be reached between Diwali and New Year, says Hardeep Singh Puri The domestic aviation sector will reach pre-Covid numbers of daily flights and passengers between Diwali and New Year, Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. On October 2, a total of 1,76,601 domestic passengers were handled by all the airports collectively, and 1536 flights were operated. Read more. PM Modi rues lack of strategic vision of past regimes for poor border infrastructure | Analysis At the inauguration of 9.2km long Atal Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lighted up three projects in the west, central and east India to underline that the previous government lacked strategic vision and pitched for a rapid border infrastructure upgrade to defend India. Read more. In a first, Rafale fighter jet to feature in Air Force Day parade Marking its first public appearance since arrival on Indian land, the Rafale fighter jet will be taking part in the Air Force Day parade on October 8, the Indian Air Force said on Saturday. Read more. VHP plans nationwide drive to raise funds for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) plans to launch a nationwide drive from January to raise funds for the Ram Temple construction in Ayodhya. VHP vice president Champat Rai said the plan was expected to get a final nod from VHPs decision-making body soon. Read more. Vidya Balans vogue belted saree worth Rs 99k and sleeveless blouse leaves fashion police smitten Clearly, not all traditional wear is boring or so Shakuntala Devi star Vidya Balan makes us believe with her latest sultry photoshoot in a silk saree and vogue belt. Flaunting her love for the six yards of elegance, Vidya took her love for traditional wear a notch higher as she glammed up for her latest photoshoot in a Rs 99k printed saree, clinched at her waist by a phoenix logo tan belt and paired with a sleeveless blouse. Read more. Red Cross shares PSA from 1918. Guess the similarity it has with 2020 An advisory post shared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has grabbed the attention of netizens. The committee shared a PSA issued during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. It is about the importance of wearing masks. The oganisation also pointed out the similarity of that period with the present times. Read more. Hathras Ground Report: Is victims family ready for narco test? Heres the reply Even as outrage grows over the alleged gang-rape, torture and subsequent death of a Dalit woman in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras, the government has ordered a narco analysis of those linked to the case, including families of the accused, the victim, as well as police personnel. Hindustan Times Shiv Sunny travelled to Hathras to speak to the victims family. Read more. Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Fears are mounting over a global shortage of the coronavirus drug remdesivir, which is being used to treat Donald Trump after the US bought much of the world's supply. The US President's physician confirmed last night that Trump is being treated for the virus with the experimental anti-viral drug that was first developed to combat Ebola. For all patients hospitalised with Covid-19, the US' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given emergency-use of the intravenous antiviral drug sold by Gilead Sciences Inc, which has been shown to shorten hospital stays. But NHS doctors have been told not to give the drug to the most seriously ill patients, and to save it for those who 'have the greatest capacity to benefit'. Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilsom said: 'With this pandemic causing so much pain, ministers have a duty to do everything they can to keep people safe and ensure no one is left behind. US President Donald Trump, who is being treated for Covid-19 with the experimental drug remdesivir, walks to Marine One as he heads to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on Friday Remdesivir, pictured, works to prevent the virus from copying itself within a patient's body so it can't spread further but scientists have not yet discovered how 'Reports the NHS is already rationing remdesivir because it is in short supply is deeply troubling. It is made all the worse by the denial from the Department for Health. 'People deserve to know he truth. While it is clear the Government failed to prepare properly for a pandemic, they must leave no stone unturned in getting it now.' The National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that patients being given the drug improved after 11 days, four days faster than those who didn't receive the medication. It works to prevent the virus from copying itself within a patient's body so it can't spread further but scientists have not yet discovered how. Before he was hospitalised, the president was also treated with an experimental antibody drug from Regeneron. The FDA issued an emergency use authorisation for remdesivir on May 1, in response to the preliminary results of the NIH study that were released at the end of April. The study found that the medication helped patients recover 31 per cent faster. According to Hackensack Meridian Health, initially only severely ill hospitalised COVID-19 patients were eligible to be treated with remdesivir. On August 28, however, the FDA extended its authorisation to all hospitalised adult and paediatric patients with suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, irrespective of their severity of disease. Meanwhile, NHS hospitals around the country were issued an alert on Thursday titled 'supply disruption' which warned of an 'increased demand against available supply', telling doctors to be more selective about to whom they give the drug. Marine One lifts off from the White House in Washington to carry President Trump to Walter Reed National military Medical Center. Trump will spend a 'few days' at the hospital White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, right, watches as Trump walks off Marine One while arriving at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday WHAT IS REMDESIVIR AND DOES IT WORK AGAINST CORONAVIRUS? Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug first made to try and treat Ebola, has been used experimentally on COVID-19 patients since the outbreak's early days. The FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the drug on May 1, in response to the preliminary results of a notable study that was released at the end of April. According to Hackensack Meridian Health, initially only severely ill hospitalized COVID-19 patients were eligible to be treated with remdesivir, otherwise known as Veklury. On August 28, the FDA extended its authorization to all hospitalized adult and pediatric patients with suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, irrespective of their severity of disease. 'The FDA continues to make safe and potentially helpful treatments for COVID-19 available as quickly as possible in order to help patients. The data to support todays action are encouraging. The data show that this treatment has the potential to help even more hospitalized patients who are suffering from the effects of this devastating virus,' said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. 'We are working with drug developers to conduct randomized clinical trials to further study the safety and effectiveness of a number of potential therapies for COVID-19.' However in August, a report from the drug's California-based maker, Gilead Sciences Inc found that the effects of the medication may only be seen in those with severe infections. There are claims of miraculous recovery, improved survival odds and shorter illness, but other studies have found it makes no difference to patients in hospital with Covid-19. Remdesivir produced encouraging results earlier this year when it showed promise for both preventing and treating MERS - another coronavirus - in macaque monkeys. The drug appears to help stop the replication of viruses like coronavirus and Ebola alike. It's not entirely clear how the drug accomplishes this feat, but it seems to stop the genetic material of the virus, RNA, from being able to copy itself. That, in turn, stops the virus from being able to proliferate further inside the patient's body. Advertisement The Department of Health denies there is a shortage of the drug, claiming there 'remain plenty of supplies', but said it was being used up faster and more stocks couldn't be delivered until the end of October. It is not clear how much of the medicine the UK has bought. The US, where remdesivir manufacturer Gilead is based, was criticised in June for buying up the entire global supply of the drug meaning no new orders could be placed for the three months following. As well as this, Gilead donated 1.5million doses of it for clinical trials around the world, further depleting supplies. Britain is not alone in feeling the impact of the stocking issue, however, and hospitals in India are struggling to get hold of the drug, too. Hospitals were advised to ration use of the drug in an emergency alert and were told the restrictions were likely to remain in place until at least the end of this month. The alert ordered staff to deny remdesivir to the most seriously ill patients, including those on ventilators, demanding it should only be given to people with the 'greatest capacity for benefit'. It said: 'Due to increased demand against available supply, clinicians are now asked to apply the full eligibility criteria ... last published on 3rd September 2020... 'Clinicians are also asked to adhere to a standard treatment course of 5 days.' It says that for people to be eligible for remdesivir they should be in hospital with Covid-19 and pneumonia but not using a ventilator. 'The FDA continues to make safe and potentially helpful treatments for COVID-19 available as quickly as possible in order to help patients. The data to support today's action are encouraging', said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D in August. 'The data show that this treatment has the potential to help even more hospitalised patients who are suffering from the effects of this devastating virus. 'We are working with drug developers to conduct randomized clinical trials to further study the safety and effectiveness of a number of potential therapies for COVID-19.' Yet the same month, a report from the drug's California-based maker Gilead found that the effects of the medication may only be seen in those with severe infections. Researchers found a group of patients given the drug for five days saw their conditions improved but a similar group who received the drug for an average of six days had no significant benefit. The team looked at 584 patients with moderate cases of Covid-19. One third of the patients received a five-day course, one-third received a 10-day course and the remaining were given standard care. The patients were at 105 hospitals in the US, Europe, and Asia, and were followed for a little less than two weeks. The median length of treatment was five days for patients in the five-day remdesivir group and six days for patients in the 10-day remdesivir group. Those treated with remdesivir for five days were much better by day 11 than the standard care group, but the authors said this 'was of uncertain clinical importance.' Remdesvir is approved in the US for emergency use in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Pictured: A vial of remdesivir at the University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany However, the group that received the drug for an average of six days did not differ from standard care group What's more, death rates didn't vary between the 10-day group and those who didn't get the treatment with two percent in each group dying. Researchers say that patient receiving remdesivir did have fewer severe symptoms of the virus, they had more moderate symptoms and side effects such as headache and nausea. The team says its not sure why there was such a difference but plant to evaluate these discrepancies in further trials. Remdesivir produced encouraging results earlier this year when it showed promise for both preventing and treating MERS - another coronavirus - in macaque monkeys. It was developed to treat Ebola, the deadly fever that emerged in West Africa in 2014. While it was unsuccessful in treating Ebola, the drug appears to interfere with the ability of the coronavirus to copy its genetic material. It's not entirely clear how the drug accomplishes this feat, but it seems to stop the genetic material of the virus, RNA, from being able to copy itself. That, in turn, stops the virus from being able to proliferate further inside the patient's body. Gilead announced in September that is looking to expand the ways that remdesivir might be used. Its CEO Daniel O'Day told CNBC's Squawk Box on Monday that the company has launched trials to use the drug in IV form outside of hospitals. White House physician Sean Conley said on Friday night the president was 'doing very well' President Trump tweeted on Friday night that he believed his treatment was 'going well' Many major hospitals in the US are reserving the use of remdesivir for the sickest patients and have cut their orders by a third. At $3,120 per treatment course, remdesivir is expensive, and hospitals are reticent to buy or the drug on hand when it may go unused as hospitalizations for Covid-19 continue to decline in many states. O'Day said his company is 'not done with remdesivir yet' and is also trialling an inhaled form of the antiviral. In August, researchers want to see if adding another drug could improve the effects of remdesivir and shorten recovery time even further, reported The New York Times. Beta interferon, currently approved to treat multiple sclerosis, also has anti-inflammatory properties and helps tame the immune system response, which may help tame a deadly overreaction the immune system has to the virus The trial is the third phase of the Adaptive Covid-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT), being run by the NIH's National institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The first phase of the study was the phase that helped remdesivir receive emergency use authorisation as a treatment for severe coronavirus patients. The second phase tested remdesivir and a placebo in comparison with remdesivir and baricitinib, an arthritis drug that helps suppress inflammation, according to The Times. Researchers are still evaluating the results, but it appears baricitinib did not quell cytokine storms, which occur when the body doesn't just fight off the virus but also attacks its own cells and tissues. US BOUGHT ALMOST ENTIRE GLOBAL SUPPLY OF REMDESIVIR IN JUNE Boris Johnson was forced in July allay fears of an anti-coronavirus drugs shortage today after Donald Trump bought up almost the entire global supply of remdesivir. The US president was accused of 'undermining' the global coronavirus fight by splashing the cash on one of only two drugs approved to treat Covid-19 at the time. UK business minister Nadhim Zahawi was among those who criticised his decision to make the rest of the world compete for the medication, originally designed to treat Ebola but proven to speed up recovery time for coronavirus patients. But Downing Street and the Department of Health later played down the significance of the move, insisting that the UK has enough of a stockpile to treat everyone who needs it. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said on July 1: 'The UK currently has a sufficient stock of Remdesivir.' And the Department of Health said it had secured supplies in advance and had enough to treat every NHS patient who needs it. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) had earlier revealed it had secured more than 500,000 treatment courses of remdesivir for American hospitals. It represents the entire global supply for July and 90 per cent of stocks for August and September, leading to fears of an autumn shortage. Discussing the deal which US health chiefs boasted was 'amazing' Mr Zahawi told Sky News: 'It's much better to work together than to work to undermine each other, so we'll continue in that spirit.' Advertisement After Trump's hospitalisation, White House physician Sean Conley said in a letter to Press Secretary McEnancy that Trump began taking the drug on Friday night. 'This afternoon, in consultation with specialists from Walter Reed and Johns Hopkins University, I recommended movement of the President up to Walter Reed Military Medical Center for further monitoring,' Conley wrote. 'This evening I am happy to report that the President is doing very well. He is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but in consultation with specialists we have elected to initiate remdesivir therapy. He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably.' Trump also tweeted that he believed his treatment was 'going well' on Friday night. Earlier on Friday, the president had been treated with an experimental antibody drug that has been called one of the most promising approaches to preventing serious illness from a Covid-19 infection. Its maker, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, said the company agreed to supply a single dose, given intravenously, for Trump at the request of his physician under 'compassionate use' provisions. The new drug is in late-stage testing and its safety and effectiveness are not yet known, and no treatment has yet proven able to prevent serious illness after a coronavirus infection. Trump was given the experimental drug at the White House on Friday before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre. Several doctors who treat Covid-19, including Dr David Boulware at the University of Minnesota, had speculated that doctors might use the antibody drug, given that this approach has worked against other diseases in the past. 'They're not going to just sit around and watch to see if he gets sick,' he said. Antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs and vaccines trick the body into thinking there is an infection so it makes these antibodies. But it can take weeks for them to form after natural infection or a vaccine. The drugs aim to give that protection immediately, by supplying concentrated versions of one or two antibodies that worked best against the coronavirus in laboratory and animal tests. Regeneron's drug contains two antibodies to enhance chances that it will work and the company previously developed a successful Ebola treatment from an antibody combination. A scientist works in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' Infectious Disease Lab in New York state, for efforts on an experimental coronavirus antibody drug. Antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs; they attach to a virus and help the immune system eliminate it Earlier this week, Regeneron said partial results from about 275 Covid-19 patients who were not sick enough to need hospital treatment suggested it might be cutting how long symptoms last. However, the study has not been completed, the results were only announced in a company news release and have not been published or reviewed by other scientists. On Friday, Conley said Trump also was taking zinc, vitamin D, an antacid called famotidine, melatonin and aspirin. None of those have been proven to be effective against Covid-19. Trump apparently is not receiving hydroxychloroquine, a drug he widely promoted that has been shown in many studies to be ineffective for preventing or treating Covid-19. The president announced he and the First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus in the early hours of Friday morning. The White House said he will be spending a 'few days' in hospital but will continue to work. Locals have expressed opposition to revised plans for a proposed wind farm at Kilranelagh near Baltinglass. ABO Wind Ireland Ltd said it intends to apply to Wicklow County Council for planning permission in the next month to construct a proposed five turbine wind farm at Kilranelagh Hill. The company's plan for the wind farm has faced local opposition since it was announced in January. Many of the concerns have centred around the possible impact of the development on the archaeology of the area. Kilranelagh Hill and surrounding lands contain many archaeological features, including the Boleycarrigeen stone circle, cairns, an ogham stone and a number of ringforts. Paul Carberry of the West Wicklow Wind Action Group (WWWAG) said: 'there is huge local opposition. It's almost international as a number of leading archaeologists in Ireland have voiced their concerns about the proposed location of the wind farm'. Kilranelagh is part of the Baltinglass Hillfort cluster and archaeological investigations of the area have identified Neolithic and pre-Christian features. Mr Carberry said many locals believe the the site 'could drive the whole economy' of west Wicklow by attracting tourists to visit a site whose archaeology 'is more important than Glendalough'. When it revealed its plans in January, ABO Wind Ireland Ltd said the site provisionally had space to accommodate up to nine turbines, however, it recently indicated that the planned number of turbines had been reduced to five turbines of up to 165m in height. They also propose an underground cable will follow a 6.5km route along public roads to connect the wind farm to the substation in Stratford-on-Slaney. In a project newsletter seen by this paper, ABO Wind Ireland Ltd said the site layout had been changed to respond to feedback about the potential impact of noise and shadow flicker from the turbines on the neighbouring properties. It also said further changes to the site plans were made to respond to concerns about the potential impact on the archaeology of the site. However, Mr Carberry said locals feel the archaeology of the site makes it unsuitable as a location for a windfarm. 'It's not possible to mitigate or move turbines on this site because of its significance,' Mr Carberry said, adding locals would like to see the site and its archaeology protected. The proposed site is currently being used for commercial forestry and it is likely that this would continue if the wind farm received the green light. By PTI NOIDA: Heavy police deployment has come up on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border in Noida on Saturday, ahead of a scheduled visit of a Congress delegation that plans to meet the family of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras who died after an alleged gangrape. Barricades were installed at the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway where scores of policemen, including senior officers, were present at 12.30 pm, even as CrPC section 144 remained imposed in UP's Gautam Buddh Nagar. "The border is not sealed but checks have been intensified at the Delhi-Noida border," according to a local police officer. A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras on Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the young woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gangraped, a senior party leader said. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the Uttar Pradesh police in Greater Noida and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the young woman. ALSO READ | Hathras protest: We need to fight against the 'rape epidemic', says Swara Bhaskar The party leaders and workers were also booked in multiple cases for allegedly violating restrictions imposed under the CrPC section 144 in view of COVID-19 outbreak and under the Epidemic Diseases Act, among others, according to officials. The Congress has alleged that the woman and her family have been "denied justice" and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in its attempt to "hide the truth" of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi''s Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police had forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". Hathras, Oct 3 : Politics is on the boil over the Hathras gangrape incident in Uttar Pradesh as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi arrived in Hathras with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to meet the victim's family on Saturday. Priyanka hugged the victim's mother and said that "Congress is with you in this hour of crisis". They met the family for about 15 minutes. As with the DGP and Additional Chief Secretary's meeting with the family, the district administration had arranged to sit on a mat on the floor however Rahul Gandhi took the deceased's father and brothers to a separate room and locked it as media personnel were thrown out. The Uttar Pradesh government has pulled up several police officials including the SP in the case amid efforts to resolve the matter. Earlier, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra left Delhi to try to go to Hathras again on Saturday. Apart from Rahul and Priyanka, other Congress leaders were stopped by the police on DND Flyway at the Noida border. Later only five Congress leaders were allowed to proceed to Hathras, including Rahul, Priyanka, Randeep Surjewala, Ghulam Nabi Azad and K.C. Venugopal. Earlier on Saturday, UP Director General of Police Hitesh Chandra Awasthi and Additional Chief Secretary Home Avnish Awasthi met the family members of the victim. Both top officials gave full assurance of justice to the bereaved family. After meeting the family, the two officials said that they have taken cognisance of the complaints in their talks with the family and assured them that strict action will be taken against the guilty. UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath Heavy deployment of cops at DND ahead of Cong visit to Hathras India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Noida, Oct 03: Heavy police deployment has come up on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border in Noida on Saturday, ahead of a scheduled visit of a Congress delegation that plans to meet the family of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras who died after an alleged gangrape. Barricades were installed at the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway where scores of policemen, including senior officers, were present at 12.30 pm, even as CrPC section 144 remained imposed in UP's Gautam Buddh Nagar. 'We need justice, not money,' says Hathras gang-rape victim's kin The border is not sealed but checks have been intensified at the Delhi-Noida border, according to a local police officer. A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras on Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the young woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gangraped, a senior party leader said. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the Uttar Pradesh police in Greater Noida and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the young woman. The party leaders and workers were also booked in multiple cases for allegedly violating restrictions imposed under the CrPC section 144 in view of COVID-19 outbreak and under the Epidemic Diseases Act, among others, according to officials. The Congress has alleged that the woman and her family have been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in its attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. Ahead of Rahul Gandhi's scheduled visit to Hathras UP Congress chief put under house arrest She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police had forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". At Tuesday nights presidential debate, Donald Trump had a protective mask. But he carried it in the inside pocket of his suit coat. When needed, I wear masks, the president said, brandishing the cloth band as a type of visual aid. I dont wear masks like (Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden). Every time you see him hes got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask Ive ever seen. Its possible Trumps supporters will want to know where Biden gets his face coverings after the president revealed Friday that he and the first lady have tested positive for the coronavirus. Now (the illness) looks like the result of his not wearing a mask, said Tony Quinn, a former GOP consultant and senior editor of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which handicaps state political races. It all plays into Bidens hands, since hes the one who is always wearing a mask and Trump is the one mocking him. But there was no cascade of Republican second-guessing Friday, on face coverings or a pandemic strategy of opening up as much as possible, as quickly as possible. One Bay Area GOP official said masks were not a panacea. A GOP activist said Trumps illness could actually reinforce his bases aversion to masks and social distancing. The president for months has declined to regularly wear a face covering, even when hes doing campaign events or meeting with aides and official visitors, either in the White House or out of the road. Maybe theyre great and maybe theyre just good, he said in August. Maybe theyre not so good. Trumps reluctance to appear in public with his face covered has helped politicize the mask question, even as public health officials both inside and outside of the administration say masks are the fastest and easiest way to slow the spread of a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States. With Fridays news that Trump will spend a few days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center out of what White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called an abundance of caution, the presidents statements that the coronavirus is little more than the flu and that most people have little to worry about are sounding increasingly hollow. This puts a lot of emphasis where Trump doesnt want it, said Fred Smoller, a political science professor at Chapman University in Orange County. He politicized the very mask issue, asked his supporters to liberate statehouses (that were closing businesses), and now this happens. Supporters who have turned out by the thousands for the presidents face mask-optional rallies and have been knocking on doors and canvassing neighborhoods for Trump and other GOP candidates have to be worried, said Quinn, the former GOP consultant. Evan Vucci / Associated Press Trump is in the worlds biggest bubble, with full-time medical care, near-daily coronavirus tests and security that vets visitors before they can come near him, he said. And Trump still contracted the virus. It really does undercut his whole strategy, Quinn said. But there are plenty of Republicans who argue that Trumps sickness wont have any effect on his supporters. John Dennis, chair of the San Francisco Republican Party, said any concerns about whether Trumps aversion to masks was responsible for his illness are rendered moot by the sheer number of ways people can contract the coronavirus. People are saying, What if he had worn a mask? Dennis said. Well, my dad died of COVID in May and wore a mask the whole time, but got it in the hospital. So it just goes to show the mask is not a panacea. Trumps illness may even convince people that theres no real need to wear a mask, said Steve Frank, senior editor of California Political News and Views and former candidate for chair of the state Republican Party. People across the state, especially in more conservative places like Riverside and San Bernardino counties, are already defying rules calling for masks and social distancing and are eager to quickly reopen businesses and return the state to normal, he said. If someone with the best possible medical care can get infected, it means anyone can, whether you social distance or wear a mask, Frank said. It opens the eyes of people to question the science. But Trumps illness creates a dilemma for GOP candidates, especially those who have tied themselves closely to the president and his policies, including waving off the need for mandatory mask use and racing to reopen businesses. In Orange County, GOP congressional candidate Michelle Steel tweeted her best wishes for Trump and his wife, adding that, This is a reminder to continue wearing masks, social distancing, practicing good hygiene and following health guidelines. But as chair of the county Board of Supervisors, Steel in June led the effort to lift a rule requiring face coverings in public and has pushed hard to allow businesses to reopen, including Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm. For Democrats, Trumps illness is a political chance to say, I told you so, in the nicest possible way. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an MSNBC interview that shes praying for the president and his family and hopes that Trumps illness reminds people of the need for masks and social distancing. Its very sad, but ... going into crowds unmasked and all the rest was sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen, she said. Sad that it did, but nonetheless, hopeful that it will be a transition to a saner approach to what this virus is all about. Chronicle staff writer Nora Mishanec contributed to this report. John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday expressed confidence after meeting Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic that European countries will act to prevent China from acquiring their citizens' private data through its 5G networks. "I am confident that many more European countries now, frankly because of just sharing information with them, they are going to make their own sovereign decision that says no," Pompeo was quoted as saying by Sputnik. "We don't want our citizens' data in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party," Pompeo said. "I think every European country now understands this and is increasingly aware of it. And you'll see them take actions consistent with that, including Croatia." The US Secretary of State is on a week-long tour of Europe's Eastern Mediterranean region. "Superb trip to beautiful Croatia. I am proud of our shared commitment to enhancing our security cooperation, and appreciate Croatia's role in advancing European energy independence," Pompeo wrote on Twitter. Washington has signed declarations on 5G security with several European countries, including the Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia. Earlier, the US had announced sanctions on 5G communication giant Huawei, alleging corporate espionage and national security threats. Beijing has, however, denied all the accusation being levied by the US. Last month, Canada's Conservative party leader Erin O'Toole had said their government will ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from the development of the country's 5G network. "Unlike (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau, I do not take entities of the Chinese regime at their word. If I am (Prime Minister) Huawei will be banned from 5G," O'Toole had said in a tweet. This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics Back in 2016, Tesla had announced that it's bringing its autonomous vehicles to India. The company had even asked interested customers to reserve their chance to buy the car when it's official. Well, there hasn't been any info whatsoever from either Tesla or from Elon Musk himself. Is Tesla even coming to India? We didn't have an answer to that until yesterday, but it looks like it's finally happening. Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla is indeed coming to India. In response to a tweet asking about the arrival of Tesla in India, Elon Musk replied with a confirmation. The tweet had an image of a T-shirt with the message: "India wants Tesla", to which Elon replied and said, "Next year for sure". Here, check it out - Next year for sure Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2020 In another reply, Musk replied saying, "Thanks for waiting". Well, it's been a long wait so far and we're glad that there's finally some activity here in this space. With all that being said, we don't think we'll be getting Tesla as early as next year or even the year after that. But we're hoping for some positive news from Elon and the Tesla team about the expected date. It'll be interesting to see which car Tesla decides to bring to India. Hopefully, they won't be super expensive too. Reuters Tesla has started building a new car manufacturing plant for Model Y in Shanghai and expects to start delivering them from next year. Perhaps we'll get the Model Y here first? Let's wait and see. Published: 2 October 2020 What course(s) did you study at Queen Mary and what inspired you to study this course? I studied the International Foundation Programme in Social Sciences and earned a Distinction and went on to study for my LLB (Laws) Degree at Queen Mary. I am a third generation Lawyer - my grandmother, Atinuke Ige JCA, OFR was called to the English Bar on 28 April 1959 and enrolled at the Nigerian Bar on 18 May of the same year. At the time, she was the only female lawyer in Ibadan. My grandfather, Chief Bola Ige SAN, followed in 1960. I would say a good sixty percent of my immediate family are lawyers and I thus could not think of anything more suited for me when I had to choose a degree to study. My grandmother retired as a Justice of the Court of Appeal in 2002 and passed away in 2003 and my grandfather served as Attorney-General of the Federation until his passing. Why did you decide to study at Queen Mary in particular? I decided to study at Queen Mary because I liked the idea of a campus-based London university. In addition, getting a Law degree from Queen Mary was and is still enviable. How did you first hear about Queen Mary? I first heard about Queen Mary from my Secondary School, The Vale College, which I am very proud of. We had representatives of UK Universities visiting us regularly. My first impression of Queen Mary met my expectations of a campus-based London university, though much different from what I later saw when I visited friends in their universities outside of London. I think I got the best of both worlds! What were your favourite modules on your course and why? Without a doubt I enjoyed EU Competition Law the most. It was the only module in which I earned a first class, and it helped me get a decent enough degree result overall. Some elements of the module were adopted in the Nigerian Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act of 2019. I understand that you were an international student at Queen Mary, where is home for you? Home for me is South-West Nigeria, particularly Ibadan where I grew up and Lagos where I now live. What was it like studying and living in a different country? Living in a new country was only a little difficult for me because it wasnt really my first time away from home. I attended a day school in Ibadan until I attended Queen Mary and I had always been familiar with London because I was born in London and spent many summer holidays there. What advice would you give to prospective students thinking of studying in another country? I would advise prospective students to keep an open mind and do as much as possible to adapt, mix, and immerse themselves in the life and culture of Queen Mary student life. Can you describe your career path since you graduated? How did Queen Mary help your career when you returned home? My Queen Mary education was of immense benefit. It can compare to university education anywhere in the world. Students have to be independent minded self-starters though, to thrive at Queen Mary. I had some challenges settling down initially, but overall, I had a great time. After my degree, I returned to Nigeria to attend the Nigerian Law School to qualify to practice at the Nigerian Bar. I spent a couple of years practicing at my family legacy law firm, and then joined the public sector I was the second employee at the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, a $70m job creation fund established by the Lagos State Government. I have since gone on to advice companies on Government Relations and Regulatory matters. I also made an attempt at elective politics in 2018, and I might try again in the future. Were you involved in any extracurricular activities whilst you were at Queen Mary? I was a member of the Afro-Caribbean Society, and I spent a lot of time with my friendship groups which were a mix of UK-based and international students. I am still in touch with a good number of these friends from Queen Mary, friends who easily come from most of the continents in the world such as the UK, Bahrain, Qatar, Cameroon, Korea, and the US. What was so special about your time at Queen Mary? I particularly enjoyed my foundation year during which I lived on campus and made lots of friends. It was also the year I settled in properly. I would advise international students to take the foundation route it makes a world of difference. Whilst at Queen Mary, I participated in a number of photography competitions as I was a hobbyist photographer at the time. I took some of my best images in the East End and I went on to exhibit some of my photography in Nigerian galleries after my graduation. How did you discover your passion for photography? Do you still find the time to do it now? Around the age of sixteen I became conscious of my natural disposition to visual arts. I had a collection of scrapbooks from my childhood in which I had cut up old photographs. When I was starting at Queen Mary, my parents bought me my first DSLR camera and I think I became obsessed at that point. These days, I am more into photography with my phone, but I have transferred my obsession to collecting contemporary Nigerian art instead. Rupert Everett has complained that the movement for trans rights has completely overshadowed gay issues. Speaking to The Times, the 61-year-old Shakespeare in Love actor bemoaned that he now feels like the wrong type of queen and that the gay community has completely lost our profile. He criticised what he sees as an overly reproachful outlook among young people, and spoke of his fears of being cancelled for speaking about transgender issues. This might be the first time that the older generation has felt that they have to tiptoe around the younger generation and turn everything off, he said. While Everett claimed to support wokeness because everything it stands for is, essentially, great, he regretted that gay rights appear to have taken a backseat to trans issues, citing Russias recent move to ban same-sex marriage. Nobody was up in arms about anything, he said of the constitutional amendments, which were denounced by the Venice Commission and protested by hundreds in Russia. Everett has previously shared that he wanted to be a girl until he was about 15. Asked what he would be like if he were that age now, the actor said: Well, Id probably be transitioning. He also joked that transitioning may help his career. I might transition because it could be a way of reigniting my career, because in Hollywood now, if youre a middle-aged director of second-rate television youre finished, he suggested. Everett once said he believed coming out in 1989 harmed his Hollywood career, and two decades after he first disclosed his sexuality he advised other actors not to do so. The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business, he told the Guardian in 2009. It just doesnt work and youre going to hit a brick wall at some point. Youre going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure theyll cut you right off Honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out. He restated this in 2014, telling the Daily Telegraph: Theres only a certain amount of mileage you can make, as a young pretender, as a leading man, as a homosexual. There just isnt very far you can go. While airlines are seeing improved demand and industry-wide seat occupancy has increased to over 60%, it is road trips which are generating higher traction. Booking trends show that customers are also choosing homestays or four- star and five-star accommodations, as hygiene and safety is a priority now. The ongoing long weekend has turned out to be a bright spot for the tourism sector. Travel companies have seen a pick-up in demand over the previous month. In the first two months after the easing of lockdown restrictions by the end of May, most bookings were for a one-way journey, as people mostly travelled for essential purposes. Now, travel and airline executives say that leisure demand is slowly returning, with an increase in bookings to popular weekend gateways. For the long weekend, we are noticing some leisure demand and better loads, which have been probably triggered because of the gradual streamlining of quarantine requirements and travel restrictions in most places across the country. "Challenges around international travel in current times and a lack of scheduled services are also contributing factors. "However, we have to closely observe, over a period of time, to find out if this is sustained trend, said a Vistara spokesperson. Vistara said it was now operating 100 daily flights (50 per cent of its pre-Covid capacity) and would be increasing this number to 110 this weekend onwards. IndiGo, too, is operating around 800 flights, which is over 50 per cent of its pre-Covid schedule, and its capacity deployed has increased by 15 per cent over the past month. While airlines are seeing improved demand and industry-wide seat occupancy has increased to over 60 per cent, it is road trips which are generating higher traction. Booking trends for long weekends, according to Yatra.com, show that customers are also choosing homestays or four- star and five-star accommodations, as hygiene and safety is a priority now. Over the long weekend, we expect 40 per cent higher check-ins in comparison to bookings made for weekend gateways in August. "Within this segment, more than 70 per cent of the bookings are for drivable destinations or to places within 400 kms from the home city. "Goa, Shimla, Missouri, Nainital, Manali, Coorg, and Rishikesh have been high on the consideration list of travelers looking for a break over the long weekend, said Vipul Prakash, chief operating officer of MakeMyTrip. We are all sold out this weekend, said Vibhas Prasad, director of Leisure Hotels, which has properties in Nainital, Corbett National Park, Haridwar, and other places. After the state governments lifted travel restrictions, our properties have seen a sharp demand pick-up. "On average, occupancy on the weekends in the current month is expected to touch 60-64 per cent, which is almost double of what it was in September, Prasad said. Another trend coming to the fore is customers opting for alternate accommodations. Booking.com said it had simplified its search experience and introduced filters for customers looking for private accommodation and properties that have implemented health and safety measures. The portal has also introduced weekly and monthly rate plans after search trends revealed that travelers are increasingly looking to stay in a single place for longer. Besides key metros, top-booked destinations by travelers within India from October 1-31 are Lonavala, Jaipur, Gurugram, Rishikesh, Digha, and Manali, said Ritu Mehrotra, country manager - India, Sri Lanka, and Maldives at Booking.com. Congress Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will meet the family of the 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was gang-raped and murdered in Hathras, along with other leaders on Saturday, a couple of days after they were stopped by the Uttar Pradesh police on their way to her village, the party said. Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress President Shri. Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year-old daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted, murdered and the body cremated surreptitiously in the middle of night by Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government, the party said in a statement. The Congress delegation led by Shri. Rahul Gandhi and Smt Priyanka Gandhi will meet the family members to hear their grievances and demand justice for the victim and her family who have been denied justice and severely traumatized by the BJP Government in their desperate attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on the victim, it added. Also read | Prohibitory orders clamped in Hathras, district borders sealed Rahul Gandhi and his sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi were briefly detained on Thursday as they tried to visit Hathras on the grounds that there was a ban on public assembly in the area. The police took them to a guest house at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida before escorting them back to Delhi. On Friday, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended a prayer meeting for the victim at a Valmiki temple in Delhi. She was joined hundreds of people, including Congress leaders PL Punia, Sushmita Dev, Anil Choudhary and BV Srinivas, to show solidarity with the woman. Priyanka Gandhi told reporters that she was at the event to express her condolences and offer prayers for the deceased. We are all here to ensure that the girl gets justice. We will pressure the government to get her justice, she said. Also read | Cops outside toilets of victims home The state police have deployed officers around the village, preventing journalists from meeting the family amid allegations that authorities seized the phones of the victims relatives and put them under surveillance. Since early Thursday, police set up barricades roughly 2km from the village on the main road, blocked off all access paths and deployed policemen on the mud tracks and in the fields to prevent any outsiders from accessing the village. The police have said that Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits the assembly of four or more people, was clamped in the area. A senior officer said the ongoing probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was the reason for the restrictions. A four-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress, led by senior party leader Derek OBrien, was also stopped on Friday by the police from going to the village of the gang-rape victim to meet her family. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the suspension of Hathras superintendent of police Vikrant Vir and three other police officers for their handling of the case. The chief minister took the decision on the basis of an initial report of the SIT. The woman was allegedly raped by four dominant-caste men on September 14 when she had gone to the fields in her village to gather cattle fodder. She was left partially paralysed and admitted for treatment in the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of Aligarh Muslim University and then shifted to New Delhis Safdarjung Hospital when her condition did not improve. She died on Tuesday morning. The womans family has said she was forcibly cremated late in night. Masks become obligatory outdoors in Rome and Lazio region from today amid rise in covid-19 cases. The obligation to wear face masks outdoors throughout Italy will be "evaluated," Italian premier Giuseppe Conte said on 2 October, reports news agency ANSA. Conte, speaking on the margins of an EU summit, said: "We are in constant contact with the health ministry and the scientific technical committee. At the moment we have not approved any measures in this direction." The premier's remarks follow an order from the Lazio region, which includes Rome, making the wearing of masks compulsory outdoors as well as indoors in public places, at all times, amid a spike in new covid-19 cases. The move takes effect across Lazio today, Saturday 3 October, with fines of up to 400 for those who fail to comply with the new rules. The measure applies 24 hours a day to everyone except children under the age of six, those with disabilities preventing them from wearing masks, and those taking exercise. Lazio is the latest Italian region to make masks obligatory outdoors, following Campania, Calabria, and Sicily as well as some Italian cities including Foggia and the historic centre of Genoa. The daily number of new coronavirus cases in Italy remained high for a second consecutive day on Friday 2 October, reports ANSA, with 2,499 cases recorded over the previous 24 hours compared to 2,548 the day before. However the number of swabs taken also set a new record for Italy, with 120,301 tests - around 2,000 more than on 1 October - according to the Italian health ministry. Photo credit: MikeDotta / Shutterstock.com. A Louisiana state trooper was heard in newly released audio saying he beat and choked a black man who authorities initially said died of a car wreck after a police chase. 'I beat the ever-living f*** out of him,' the trooper, identified as Chris Hollingsworth, said in a 27-second audio clip obtained by The Associated Press. It is the most direct evidence to emerge yet in the death last year of Ronald Greene, 49, which troopers initially blamed on injuries from a car crash at the end of a police pursuit. Hollingsworth, who was white, was the only one of six troopers placed on leave last month following an administrative investigation that State Police did not open until late August. He died in a single-car crash on September 21 - just hours after he learned he was being fired for his role in the Greene case. The long-simmering case has now become the subject of a federal civil rights investigation and growing calls for authorities to release the full body-cam video. Scroll down for audio Ronald Greene (pictured), of West Monroe, Louisiana, died in May 2019 after getting into a confrontation with Louisiana State Troopers Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth is heard on audio recordings saying 'beat the ever-living f*** out of' Greene and choked him before he 'just went limp' Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth is heard recounting the May 2019 arrest of Greene in rural north Louisiana on audio provided to the AP through an intermediary who asked not to be identified because the case remains under investigation. Its veracity was confirmed by two law enforcement officials familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity. State Police did not dispute the tapes authenticity. 'Choked him and everything else trying to get him under control,' Hollingsworth said, apparently in his part of a phone conversation with an unidentified colleague. 'We finally got him in handcuffs when a third man got there, and the son of a b**** was still fighting him, was still wrestling with him trying to hold him down,' he said. 'He was spitting blood everywhere and all of a sudden he just went limp.' A lawyer for Greene's family called on state officials to immediately release the full footage. 'It is shocking that this evidence has been withheld for over a year,' said attornet Lee Merritt. Eugene Collins, president of the Baton Rouge branch of the NAACP, called Hollingsworths remarks 'disgusting and morally bankrupt' and said the recording raised new questions about the actions of other law enforcement officials familiar with Greenes death. 'How far did this coverup go?' Collins asked in an interview. 'We are deeply saddened in the actions of State Police and call on the governor to take swift and aggressive action.' Graphic postmortem photos of Greene's injuries and the silver Toyota drove that night were shared to the NAACP Baton Rouge Facebook page. Greene's face was covered in large abrasion sand dark-colored bruises and a visible cut is seen on his head. Additionally, the photo of Greene's car does not show any damage or blemishes on the front end, despite law enforcement declaring he died from injuries related to the crash. Pictured: Greene's vehicle with damage mainly to the rear end, contrasting police accounts that he died from injuries related to a car wreck Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, told reporters last week that footage of Green's arrest would be made public at the conclusion of the state and federal investigations. Even after the Hollingsworth's death, the State Police have refused to comment on the troopers use of force or say which policies he was accused of violating in Greenes arrest. The agency declined to comment due to ongoing investigations. According to court documents viewed by DailyMail.com, the wrongful death lawsuit was filed by Greene's daughter, who lives in Florida, on Mary 6. Greene was brutalized by Louisiana State police and Union Parish Deputy Officers which caused his death, the lawsuit said. The lethal force used against Greene was unprovoked, unjustified, unreasonable, excessive, and in violation of Greenes rights under the United States Constitution and the laws of the State of Louisiana.' The lawsuit said Greene was driving a silver Toyota on U.S. 80 in Monroe, Louisiana. Lawsuit: 'Greene was brutalized by Louisiana State police and Union Parish Deputy Officers which caused his death' One trooper initally contended that he attempted to initiate a traffic stop of Greene's car, but he did 'not define any violation of the motor vehicle code that would justify a stop.' 'Instead he contends that he observed a 'traffic violation.' A vehicle pursuit continued into Union Parish when Greene's car swerved and crashed into a wooded area, court documents said. Notably, the lawsuit claims that Greene was able to exit the vehicle without assistance. 'Greene was not injured and could walk, speak and otherwise function in a healthy manner after the crash,' the lawsuit said. The lawsuit contends that troopers deployed a Taser on Greene three times during the struggle after he exited his car and allegedly apologized to the troopers. Court documents said emergency crews arrived to the scene and found Greene unresponsive. 'When the Emergency Medical Technicians arrived at 12:51am they found Greene unresponsive,' the lawsuit said. 'He was propped up against an officer's leg, covered in blood with multiple 'TASER' Bards penetrating his body.' He was pronounced dead at 1.27am. The lawsuit filed by Greene's daughter claimed that he was able to walk and 'otherwise function in a healthy manner' after the crash in May 2019 Initially, Greenes family was told that the he died from injuries suffered in a crash into a 'shrub/tree' at the end of a long car chase near Monroe that began over an unspecified traffic violation. A State Police crash report obtained by AP omits any reference to troopers using force - or even arresting Greene - but notes that he was not wearing a seat belt in the crash. State Police later acknowledged there was a 'struggle' with troopers who were trying to arrest him. The lawsuit an initial report from the Gleenwood Medical Center said the main cause of death was cardiac arrest, and he also suffered an 'unspecified injury to the head.' But Dr. Omokhaule, an emergency room physician at Gleenwood said that, upon obtaining more information about the incident, said law enforcement's explanations didn't 'add up.' The lawsuit cited a ER physician that noted the initial account of Greene's death from authorities didn't 'add up' 'Upon obtaining more history from different law enforcement personnel [sic], history seems to be disjointed and does not add up,' court documents obtained by DailyMail.com said. 'Different versions are present...family states they were told by law enforcement that patient died on impact with [tree] immediately after motor vehicle accident, but law enforcement state[d] to me that patient [got] out of the car and was running and involved in a fight and struggle where...he was tased 3 times.' Greene, a barber who had lived for years in central Florida, was not known to be wanted on any charges at the time of the police chase. He had a criminal record in Florida that included arrests ranging from theft to drug possession. Court records show he served more than a year in prison following a 2015 conviction for burglary and grand theft. The State Police crash report does indicate whether alcohol or drug use was involved. Ten police officers have been suspended pending a probe into their responsibility in a large-scale cockfight gambling ring, which was busted on Vo Van Kiet Street in District 6, Ho Chi Minh City last week, a source confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday. The ten include four officers from the city's criminal police department and six from District 6s police bureau. An investigation is underway to clarify their specific responsibility. The cockfight gambling ring was raided by police on September 25. Officers arrested a large number of people and confiscated about VND2 billion (US$86,300) worth of cash and other related objects during the raid. The municipal police handed over certain arrestees, who merely violated administrative regulations, to officers in District 6 on September 30, while 39 others are still detained at the former's headquarters for investigation. Police officers raid a cockfight gambling ring on Vo Van Kiet Street in District 6, Ho Chi Minh City, September 25, 2020. Photo: A.X. / Tuoi Tre Initial results from the investigation showed that the gambling ring was run by a group of people, with Nguyen Minh Thanh, nicknamed Thanh Co or Ong Co, playing a key role. The venue of the gambling ring was surrounded by buildings and constructions, fenced off with iron sheets, covered with plastic tarps, and guarded by a number of people. It was difficult to access the venue from the outside. It was reported that up to hundreds of people came to gamble at the venue every day. They avoided attention by parking their vehicles at a nearby parking lot before being transported to the gambling venue on motorbikes ridden by members of Thanhs group. The investigation is still taking place. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Police Accountability Act is a bureaucratic mess To the editor: When the Police Accountability Act first came up I wrote to both my representatives, Will Haskell and Jonathan Steinberg, saying I strongly supported our police and not to follow the national bandwagon to defund the police. I asked for their reply. Haskells reply was a form email, saying thank you, we have received your comment. He went on to co-sponsor the bill. Steinbergs was, and I quote, The bill isnt perfect ... but I expect to support it. When I asked Based on what facts? His response was: First you insist that I respond to you. Now you insist that I justify myself! Yes, I believe that an elected official has a responsibility to justify their positions to their constituents. Ive read the Police Accountability Act. It is a bureaucratic mess of task forces, civilian review boards and a new inspector general focused only on the police. It will require the police to spend as much time submitting reports as they do policing. It opens them up to fiscal penalties, it requires them to go through a checklist before they can use force in what can be split-second decision. It never uses the term criminal, instead it uses justice-impacted person. That is language right out of Berkley, Calif. The bill is disrespectful to our fine police. I have lived in Westport for almost 30 years. My interactions with our police have been respectful and professional. These days, when I see a policeman I tell them how much I appreciate what they do. Privately they will tell you, actions like the PAA weigh on them, some are thinking about other careers, many are thinking about retiring. Haskell and Steinberg support of PAA does our police a great disservice. Kim Healy is the daughter of a policeman and will do the right thing for our police and be fiscally responsible. Chip Stephens has been a key member of the Westport RTM for years and has opinions that are based on fact not whats trending on Twitter. There is much talk these days about people crossing the aisle, well as a registered democrat, I will be crossing that aisle in November. Robert Moorman Westport In support of Stephanie Thomas To the editor: Voters in Wilton, Westport and Norwalk who live in Connecticuts 143rd District have the opportunity to vote for a superb candidate for state representative: Stephanie Thomas. I am fortunate to have gotten to know Stephanie through her local volunteer work. Through her experience as a small business consultant for nonprofit organizations and her work throughout the community, Stephanie has already been a model of servant leadership. She will be a tireless advocate for all of the people of her district. In my experience, Stephanie listens to people, has an open and compassionate heart and seeks creative solutions for the problems facing average people and small businesses. Did I mention that Stephanies penchant for hard work? Her work ethic and engaging personality are needed in Hartford. She supports policies that will assist small businesses and non-profits as they face the COVID-19 crisis. Stephanie will work to promote legislation that will support education funding in the district and affordable health care through a public option, prescription drug cap and expanded mental health care. Please join me in voting for a most exceptional candidate, Stephanie Thomas. Linda Pryde Westport Haskell will not stop fighting for women To the editor: In a world where our president perpetrates rape culture and sexual abusers are given light sentences, we need someone to fight for the safety of women. State Sen. Will Haskell is that person. Fifty percent of women in Connecticut are survivors of sexual violence, and Sen. Haskell has taken action to protect women from sexual abuse. He co-sponsored the Times Up Act, which makes sexual harassment training mandatory in the majority of Connecticut workplaces, protects employees who come forward with claims, and extends the statute of limitations for sexual assault charges. Sen. Haskell will continue to fight for legislation to prevent sexual abuse and harassment if he is reelected. He will specifically keep working to pass bills that address sexual misconduct on college campuses and in the office. When you cast your vote on Nov. 3, please remember that Sen. Haskell will not stop fighting for women in our community. Ruby Coleman Westport Haskell advocates for better health care To the editor, I am putting my support behind state Sen. Will Haskell for reelection because of the work he has done and is planning to do on health care reform. The past few months have highlighted one major disparity within Connecticut. Our health care system has major flaws. Minority populations have suffered greatly during the COVID-19 crisis: 23 percent of COVID-19 cases were Hispanic and 17 percent of COVID-19 patients were Black. Sen. Haskell has worked to expand the health care data collection to work towards exposing the different health care disparities in Connecticut. These practices will help lead to better policies in our states health care regarding race, religion and gender. Additionally, he has advocated to create public options for health care insurance for all Connecticut residences. This legislation will allow for varied health care options in the state, which has become immensely important as both employers and individuals will be able to find plans that work for them. This plan would help lower the cost of premiums because of the bargaining power the government would have. Keeping lower costs for all will help to benefit the economy of the whole state. Connecticut has the means to become a state leading in the health care field and Sen. Haskell is putting in the work to get there. Overall, the work that Sen. Haskell has done and the plans he has detailed for the future will lead Connecticut to a state that can economically benefit from health care, while supporting the low income families in our state. Katie (Katherine) Simons Westport New York, Oct 3 : New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo has urged officials in New York City to step up with the enforcement of wearing masks and social distancing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, or else face fines of upto $10,000. In a conference call on Friday, Cuomo said that he was going to enforce Section 16 of the health law, which will allow him to fine the city with $10,000 for violations, reports CBS New York. "If the local governments don't step up the compliance, they will actually be in violation of the law and they can be fined," he was quoted as saying. It however remained unclear if the city was going to enforce the measures. "The numbers are continuing to go up in many of the zip codes. That means, by definition, compliance is not where it needs to be," CBS New York quoted the Governor as further saying. On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that 16 violations were given out, but did not mention for what. On Thursday, officers with masks and PPE in hand stood outside a corner market in Williamsburg, insisting the men, women and children passing by put on masks. Once the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US, New York state has reported more than 466,000 Covid-19 cases, of which New York City accounted for over 250,000/ The death toll in the state stood at 32,789. As of Saturday, the US continued as the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 7,331,241 and 208,693, respectively, according to the Johns Hopkins University. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Mumbai, Oct 3 : A Mumbai special court on Saturday extended the judicial custody till October 6 of former Dharma Productions executive Kshitij Ravi Prasad even as he accused the Narcotics Control Bureau of emplooying "pressure tactics" and "harassment". Prasad was arrested on September 26 by the NCB during its ongoing probe into the drugs angle to the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Kshitij was presented before Special NDPS Court Special Judge JB Gurav at the end of his earlier judicial custody. The NCB said in its remand application that Kshitij was in touch with several suppliers and peddlers from whom he used to procure drugs and his judicial custody was needed to unravel whom all he was delivering the contraband in Bollywood. In a separate statement filed through his lawyer Satish Maneshinde, Kshitij said he had retracted his earlier statement given to the NCB allegedly under duress. He claimed that NCB sleuths told him they would let him off if he falsely implicated (filmmaker) Karan Johar, Somen Mishra, Rakhi, Apoorva, Niraj or Rahil, but he (Prasad) refused. "That subsequent to September 27, I have been repeatedly harassed and coerced into falsely implicating Dino Morea, Arjun Rampal, and Ranbir Kapoor in the present proceedings, despite me repeatedly stating that I do not know the said persons and have no knowledge of such allegations," Kshitij said in a handwritten addition to the statement. He contended that since he refused to oblige, the NCB officials allegedly prepared the statements as per their wishes and forced him to sign them, and even threatened to implicate his wife and family in the case. "I say that in this manner I am being mentally, emotionally and psychologically harassed and abused by the NCB into making false statements," Kshitij claimed. Kshitij is the 20th person to be arrested till date by the NCB in the high-profile case, including Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty -- the only woman accused in the case so far -- besides her brother Showik, and 18 others including peddlers, suppliers, aides of the late actor Sushant etc. The NCB has also recovered various types of drugs and cash from the accused as it attempts to unravel the drugs nexus in Bollywood for the past nearly two months. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed New Delhi : During Jallikattu festivities in Madurai's Avaniapuram, 37 bull-tamers have been injured till now. Out of them 9 have been admitted to the hospital while rest have been given first aid. Over 1,200 bull tamers and around 950 bulls are taking part in the mega event. Earlier, after getting a nod from the government and Supreme Court to organise the bull taming sport, Jallikattu is taking place in Avaniapuram district on Sunday. As many as 20 ambulances and 15 medical teams have been proving assistance to ensure security and safety of the participants taking part in the event. The bull-taming sport was formally inaugurated by Revenue Minister R B Udhayakumar and District Collector Veeraraghava Rao. Notably, Jallikattu resumed in Tamil Nadu after the government intervened in the matter of ban imposed by Supreme Court on the bull taming sport. The next round of Jallikattu festivities will be held in Madurais Alanganallur on February 10 where organisers are luring participants with attractive prizes. Winners can even stand a chance to win a car. Madurai (TN): Bull-taming sport #Jallikattu underway in Avaniapuram; 1200 tamers and 950 bulls participating. pic.twitter.com/mO6IJzbik7 ANI (@ANI_news) February 5, 2017 Other gifts include the likes of Royal Enfield bikes, tractors, gold coins and other mega prizes. Also read: Cyclone Vardah, Jallikattu protests to oil spill: Marina Beach turns playground of natural disasters and cultural movements Significantly, the Alanganallur area is famous for its Jallikattu which every year attracts a large number of visitors including foreign spectators as well. With the government of Tamil Nadu promulgating an ordinance and subsequently getting a Bill passed in the assembly to let Jallikattu happen in several parts of Tamil Nadu in past few days. Usually held during the harvest festival of Pongal in mid-January, Jallikattu was not organised for past three years in view of the ban on the sport by Supreme Court. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. SRINAGAR, India - Government investigators on Saturday exhumed the bodies of three young men in disputed Kashmir, two weeks after the Indian military in a rare admission said its soldiers exceeded their legal powers in killing the men they described as Pakistani terrorists. A team of police and medical officials exhumed the bodies of three men in western Baramulla district and handed them over to their families for burial at their remote village in southern Rajouri district, police said. Mohammed Yousuf, the father of one of the victims, said the three were murdered in cold blood. Our sons have been proved innocent and we are now waiting for justice, Yousuf said. The killers must face justice. The Indian army on July 18 said its soldiers killed three unidentified Pakistani terrorists in Kashmirs southern Shopian area. Police, who usually participate in counterinsurgency operations, said the July 18 encounter was a solo operation by the army. Police, however, later buried the bodies in a remote cemetery in Baramulla. About a month later, three families in Rajouri identified the victims as their missing relatives using photographs of the bodies that circulated on social media. The families filed a complaint with police, accusing soldiers of killing their relatives in a staged gunbattle. The families said the three men went to Shopian to work as labourers and were last heard from on July 17. Police ordered an investigation, the results of which have yet to be released. On Sept. 18, the Indian military admitted wrongdoing and said its internal probe identified the three men killed as local residents, without explaining how the military had identified them. It also said an army investigation showed the soldiers had exceeded the powers granted to them under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The act gives the Indian military in Kashmir sweeping powers to search, seize and even shoot suspects on sight without fear of prosecution. Under the act, local authorities need federal approval to prosecute army or paramilitary soldiers in civilian courts. The special powers were given to the military in 1990, a year after an armed rebellion erupted in Kashmir seeking the Himalayan regions independence or merger with neighbouring Pakistan, which also controls part of Kashmir and claims the entire region. Kashmiri civilians and activists for years have accused Indian troops of abusing their powers and repeatedly targeting civilians. In 2000, the Indian army killed five men it alleged were militants responsible for the massacre of 35 Sikhs in Kashmir. An investigation later found the five were local villagers killed in a faked firefight. In 2010, a massive uprising erupted in Kashmir after a police investigation found Indian soldiers had killed three civilians in a staged gunbattle and then said the victims were militants in order to claim a reward for killing them. The army responded by suspending two officers. India has rejected every request since 1989 to prosecute Indian soldiers in civilian courts in Kashmir for alleged rights abuses including murder and rape, according to official documents. Read more about: Malaysias coronavirus cases climbed by a record for a second day as the government sought ways to curb infections without resorting to a strict lockdown. There were 317 confirmed cases on Oct. 3, the highest single-day increase for the country since the pandemic began, according to the health ministry. About half of the new cases were found in the state of Sabah, which has emerged as the epicenter of the outbreak in the country, followed by 102 in Kedah state. One more person died from the disease, bringing total fatalities to 137. Malaysia wont return to a nationwide lockdown, defense minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said in a Saturday briefing. It was only in June that Malaysia allowed most activities to resume after imposing restrictions on peoples movement that pushed the economy to shrink 17.1% in the second quarter. Instead, the government will step up enforcement of its maritime borders in Sabah, located on the island of Borneo, and limit foreign delegates visiting the country, Ismail said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The editor of a Russian news website died after setting herself on fire outside a regional police headquarters Friday, a day after officers searched her residence. Russia's Investigative Committee confirmed the death of Kolza.Press editor Irina Slavina in Nizhny Novgorod, a city of 1.2 million about 380 kilometers (235 miles) east of Moscow. Slavina reported on Thursday that her home was searched by police, although the nature of the search was not clear. The independent news site Meduza reported that Slavina left a message on Facebook saying her death should be blamed on Russian authorities. (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.) ALAMOGORDO Couy Griffin of Cowboys For Trump says he was shocked by his recent ban from Mescalero Apache reservation. I will always love and respect the Native American People, read a post by Cowboys For Trump on Wednesday. Two days earlier, Otero County Commissioner Griffin was banned from the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation by the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council after publishing two videos filmed on the reservation earlier in September to the Cowboys For Trump Facebook page. Tribal President Gabe Aguilar said the videos not only contained false and misleading information about tribal leaders and members, but also were disrespectful to the tribes tradition. I feel I am obligated to represent the (Mescalero Apaches) if they call on me and (I) try to give them a voice, Griffin said in response to the ban. The Mescalero Apache reservation is a sovereign nation and not represented by Griffins District 2 seat on the Otero County Commission. The first video posted on Sept. 14 showed Mescalero Tribe member Chris Valdez speaking about what he claimed was a contested workers compensation claim, and alleging it was mishandled by the tribe. When he couldnt get the tribe to help, he called me, Griffin said. We brainstormed ideas. We had a good meeting and we left. I thought everything was fine. Then I saw the headline from the Mescalero Apache Tribe that I was banished. I was shocked when I saw it. I thought maybe the tribe should have maybe reached out to me and let me know some of the issues that they had before they went to the measures that they took. Griffin said that he intended to connect with tribal officials, but in its statement earlier this week, tribal officials said Griffin made no attempt to verify the information before publishing the video. A second video published by Griffin shows him participating in a traditional Apache blessing, which tribal officials said Griffin disrespected with laughter and by politicizing it. (The laugh) was in no way pointed towards the ceremony or what was taking place, Griffin said. I wasnt the one that initiated it. It was one of the tribal members. I dont know what I was expected to do. Was I expected to tell him to shut up and be respectful? I dont know. That was my first experience in that situation, Griffin said. For the tribe to ban me off of the grounds that they are, I dont feel like its justified and I really question the legality of it. The tribe has the right to banish non-tribal members through a tribal council resolution, as per the Mescalero Apache Tribal Code. They banished Couy because the tribe doesnt want to help me and they are going by rumors instead of facts, Valdez said. Couy Griffin is the only one out there trying to help me try to find a federal lawyer. Haiti - USA : Good news for Haiti, Congress voted to renew the CBTPA law Friday after the ratification by the House of Representatives on September 27, the Senate Finance Committee unanimously adopted the resolution to renew the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA), a critical legislation set to expire on September 30, 2020. The bill was introduced by U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and the committee proceeded to passing it unanimously. The passage ofthis piece of legislation is of great importance to Haiti, as it directly impacts the garment industry, a pillar of the Haitian economy. The existence and growth of the garment economy in Haiti depends on the preferences granted under CBTPA and the additional HOPE/HELP programs. According to the Association of Industries of Haiti (ADIH), this sector, which provided direct employment to almost 60,000 workers early this year, was already beginning to suffer from the delay in CBTPA's renewal before the coronavirus outbreak, and even more during the global pandemic, Ambassador Denis "I am incredibly grateful for Congress' commitment to economic prosperity in the Republic of Haiti and the Caribbean region. This legislalion has created roughly 55,000 jobs and generated almost $1 billion in Haitian exports." Furthermore, CBPTA would playa crucial role in strengthening the supply chains for PPEs and textiles in response to COVID-19, making America less dependent on nations outside the Western Hemisphere. Also, with the issues regardoing China, Haiti hopes and expects to benefit from the "Near-Shoring" concept introduced by Congress. Together, we can strengthen bilateral trade relations between two of the oldest republics in the Americas. The favorable vote for the renewal ofCBTPA came as a successful bipartisan effort. The bill has now moved to the President's desk to be signed into law. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31873-haiti-usa-the-house-of-representatives-voted-the-law-renewing-the-provisions-of-the-cbtpa.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31797-haiti-usa-the-future-of-the-textile-assembly-industry-in-haiti-in-danger.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-29290-icihaiti-economy-towards-the-renewal-of-the-caribbean-basin-trade-partnership-act.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-28048-icihaiti-economy-haitian-delegation-of-the-private-sector-in-washington-dc.html HL/ HaitiLibre How does the U.S. best set prices and incentives to get power plant developers to meet future demand, and increasingly from clean sources like wind and solar farms? Federal lawmakers are coalescing around the concept of carbon pricing a tax on emissions as the most efficient way, with the possibility of elbowing aside the existing permit to pollute system, as one official puts it, through which Connecticut and other states have been successfully reducing carbon emissions. More than 20 years after a carbon pricing bill was first proposed in Congress, the Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission held a hearing last week on how it might roll out the concept nationally if asked to do so, with multiple bills under consideration. FERC Chair Neil Chatterjee expressed support for the carbon-pricing concept after hearing testimony from officials with ISO New England, which is charged with overseeing the regional grid, and other independent system operators and energy experts. Connecticut is part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that debuted a dozen years ago, derived from the cap and trade concept that limits carbon dioxide emissions by power plants burning fossil fuels. From an initial cap of 188 million tons annually in 2008 when the pact went into effect, those limits have come down in steady increments since to roughly half that level today. Chatterjee credited RGGI with proving the concept that making polluters pay for emissions can in turn underwrite the cost of renewables like solar arrays and wind farms, creating a virtuous cycle. And he backed the idea of continuing that flow of funding to renewables in any national carbon pricing model, while noting FERCs mission is centered on maintaining a reliable grid rather than pushing an environmental agenda. The commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environment Protection told Hearst Connecticut Media that the state is supportive of a national carbon pricing program, while urging FERC to consider the progress made in efforts like RGGI. We know there are many mechanisms that complement carbon pricing programs and help achieve decarbonization affordably, DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes stated in an email response to a query. So long as it is the states alone that have these clean energy goals and mandates, the exclusion of state voices from this discussion is cause for concern. But only a few weeks before, Dykes expressed stronger skepticism of the structure of a national carbon pricing program and any partial or full displacement of RGGIs cap-and trade system, while speaking during an ISO New England web conference that addressed carbon pricing. What would happen with the revenues? Dykes said in mid-September. The states that have these policies are making decisions about how the revenues are then reinvested. Its very important for supporting our other clean-energy programs ... [and] addressing consumer impacts from these programs. $240M in 10 years On Wednesday, electricity market experts told Chatterjee and fellow FERC commissioners that carbon pricing represents a better model. Setting a national carbon-price policy now will eliminate the possibility of emissions leakage, the result of power plant operators investing in states with looser emissions policies. ISO New England runs annual auctions through which power plant developers bid to add generation capacity to fill any projected electricity gap years in advance, based on projections for economic growth and the expected retirement of older plants. That would certainly help their decisions when they are making the billion-dollar decisions on what to invest in, said Matthew White, chief economist for ISO New England. Investors in new generation facilities face tremendous risk right now over their future costs of carbon compliance and the highly uncertain impact of ever more renewables, when most of those renewables are coming from state policies that could change year to year as state budgets move around. At the outset in 2008, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative included the six New England states and New York, along with Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, which rejoined in January after a three year hiatus. Pennsylvania and Virginia have since moved toward joining up. Under the initiative, power plants were assigned caps on emissions, but are allowed to purchase excess capacity freed up by rival plants that beat their emission targets. Across 49 such auctions through this month, Connecticut has generated nearly $240 million in proceeds. For two years the Connecticut General Assembly and former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy siphoned off those funds to address budget shortfalls, including more than 90 percent of the proceeds from 2018. From more than $12 million directed to residential weatherization incentives in 2016, within two years that total had dropped to $400,000. Upon taking office,Gov. Ned Lamont recommitted RGGI funds to their original purpose, including supporting a Connecticut Green Bank program to pay for the cost of commercial renewable energy projects through extra assessments on taxes. Lamonts emergency budget measures to close a $2 billion gap released Thursday did not specify any transfers from RGGI funds, though the governor is paring $1.1 million from DEEPs budget including about $50,000 for clean air programs. Gov. Lamont is committed to seeing RGGI funds being invested to reduce the burden of energy costs on Connecticut families and businesses, creating jobs in our communities, and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, stated Connecticut Green Bank CEO Bryan Garcia, in an email response to a query. Continuing to invest these resources in our growing green economy is vital to making our great state more resilient to the impacts of climate change. At what price? ISO New England tracked a 31 percent decline in carbon dioxide emissions in the region over 10 years through 2018. As home to New Englands lone nuclear power plants, New Hampshire and Connecticut lead New England on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, as averaged against megawatt hours of electricity production. Natural gas generators like the new PSEG Bridgeport plant and CPV Towantic in Oxford have supplanted coal and oil plants like the former Manresa Island Power Plant in Norwalk; and states continue to push efficiency like LED lights and renewables like solar panels. Dykes said any attempt to blend a new carbon pricing regime with RGGIs requirements could push costs beyond what households and businesses can bear, with Connecticut bills having shot up this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic and a new power purchase agreement with the owner of the Millstone nuclear power plant. Affordability has to be at the forefront of any mechanism, any design to accelerate the deployment of clean energy ... or energy efficiency, Dykes said. Our primary concern would be the price that this carbon adder ... would push up consumer prices to astronomical levels. If Congress and FERC proceed with carbon pricing, the actual price thresholds become the elephant in the room confirmed Bill Hogan, who runs the Harvard Electricity Policy Center at Harvard University, speaking Wednesday during the FERC forum. If the carbon price is too low, then it doesnt meet the efficiency objectives and doesnt internalize the impact on the climate, Hogan said. The social, cost-of-carbon estimate is important and its not easy to isolate that number. But its not impossible, and weve had government task forces in the past that have done it as well as you can do it. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman Advertisement The Royal Navy seized drugs worth more than 160 million that could have ended up in the UK in the Caribbean today. Navy troops were joined by Royal Marines, US Coast Guard teams and a Dutch Navy ship in the drug bust which saw the seizure of 1.7 tonnes of cocaine and 28kg of amphetamines. The bust was the second in two days after 264kg of cocaine was seized in a separate operation in the region . The Royal Navy said its Caribbean task group has prevented nearly a quarter of a billion pounds worth of drugs reaching the UK after three separate drug busts also took place last month. Drugs worth more than 160 million which could have ended up in the UK have been seized in the Caribbean. Pictured: A Merlin helicopter from 845 Naval Air Squadron lifts off from the flight deck of RFA Argus The Royal Navy was joined by Royal Marines, US Coast Guard teams and a Dutch Navy ship in the drug bust which saw the seizure of 1.7 tonnes of cocaine and 28kg of amphetamines (pictured) Pictured: Royal Marines from 539 Raiding Squadron, 47 Commando and US Coastguard deploy to intercept a fast craft in the Caribbean Sea RFA Argus is in the Caribbean with HMS Medway providing support to British overseas territories during hurricane season. Both ships also continue to carry out maritime security and counter-narcotics operations in the region. The UK works in partnership with allied nations in the Caribbean as part of the Joint Interagency Task Force South, which detects and monitors activity to support security operations from its base in Florida. The commanding officer of RFA Argus, Captain Kevin Rimell, said: 'Collectively we secured and apprehended a number of smugglers and a large quantity of contraband. The UK works in partnership with allied nations in the Caribbean as part of the Joint Interagency Task Force South, which detects and monitors activity to support security operations from its base in Florida The Royal Navy said its Caribbean task group has prevented nearly a quarter of a billion pounds worth of drugs reaching the UK after three separate drug busts also took place last month RFA Argus is in the Caribbean with HMS Medway (pictured) providing support to British overseas territories during hurricane season The bust was the second in two days after 264kg of cocaine was seized in a separate operation in the region 48 hours before. Pictured: A Wildcat of the 815 Naval Air Squadron takes part in the drugs bust 'These are challenging times and we ask a lot of our people so it is encouraging to see that our training and professionalism continues to shine through.' Armed forces minister James Heappey said: 'The armed forces are committed to tackling organised crime, both at home and overseas, and work with our allies around the world to help protect our people and interests. 'The Royal Navy has once again demonstrated its professionalism and tactical operational capability in an international effort to stop illegal drug-smuggling. 'It is with thanks to their efforts that 160 million worth of drugs will never reach the streets of the UK.' Regulations introduced in the wake of the 2008 crash to take risk out of the financial system could be reversed to help young people onto the housing ladder, prime minister Boris Johnson has indicated. Mr Johnson has asked ministers to work up plans to allow more mortgages to be offered with a 5 per cent deposit, to help would-be homeowners who are currently locked out of the market by the demand for deposits of 15 or 20 per cent of the propertys value. He told the Daily Telegraph that he wanted to create a Generation Buy of young people enabled to engage in the world of capitalism by investing in their own home. But the PM was accused of selling pipedreams by housing charity Shelter, which pointed out that even a 95 per cent mortgage will be beyond many peoples range at a time when average house prices are eight times average salaries in England. The initiative came as the Conservative party opened its virtual annual conference with the announcement that it plans to open a new northern headquarters in Leeds. Party co-chair Amanda Milling said the new HQ would provide a base at the heart of the blue wall a description Conservatives are increasingly applying to the so-called red wall of historically safe Labour seats in the midlands and north of England which fell to Tories in the December general election. Mr Johnson wants to use the four-day conference moved online after the planned annual gathering in Birmingham was cancelled because of coronavirus to shift attention away from his governments handling of the pandemic and onto its plans to level up the UK through investment in infrastructure. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 January 2022 Surfers enter the sea as the sun rises over Tynemouth on the North East coast PA UK news in pictures 17 January 2022 Bonhams Danny McIlwraith holds a Nigerian polycrome carved wood mask during a photocall for the sale of the Jim Lennon Collection at Bonhams in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA 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 He last night announced 3.7bn for the renovation or construction of 25 hospitals. And he today launched a review of transport links between the four nations of the UK, with a brief to consider proposals for faster road and rail links to Scotland, upgrades to Welsh railways and a possible bridge between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The PM was also today holding talks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in the search for a breakthrough in EU trade talks to avert a no-deal Brexit at the end of 2020 which economists believe would inflict massive damage on the UK economy. Strict minimum capital requirements imposed on UK banks since 2008 have been blamed for making home ownership unattainable for many individuals and couples whose income would allow them to afford repayments on a mortgage but who cannot save enough to put down a five-figure deposit. Risky lending in the 2000s was blamed for contributing to the collapse of a number of financial institutions which offered mortgages on tiny deposits or even loans larger than the value of the property being purchased. Partly as a result, the number of households in the private rented sector in the UK increased from 2.8 million in 2007 to 4.5 million in 2017. Mr Johnson indicated that reforms to stress-tests for mortgage applicants could be used to make homebuying more accessible. A huge number of people feel totally excluded from capitalism, from the idea of homeownership, which is so vital for our society, he told the Telegraph. And were going to fix that Generation Buy is what we're going for. We need mortgages that will help people get on the housing ladder even if they have only a small amount to pay by way of deposit. It could be absolutely revolutionary, particularly for young people. But Shelter chief executive Polly Neate responded: You have to question whether the prime minister is in touch with reality. He is talking about giant mortgages at a time when more than 320,000 private renters have fallen behind on their rent as a result of Covid-19. The prime minister needs to stop selling pipe dreams and start facing reality. The only way we will make a dent in the housing emergency is by increasing the number of secure and genuinely affordable homes, and that means building decent social housing. The PM said that this weekends conference represented a big moment for us, the moment to address some things that the country has needed to fix for generations. He has hired Sir Peter Hendy, the chair of Network Rail, to conduct a review of transport links between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The review will look at air links within the UK, improvements to road and rail links between England and Scotland, cutting rail journey times to north Wales and improving major road links like the A1, A77, A75, A55 and the M4 in Wales. And it will revive Mr Johnsons earlier proposal for a road bridge linking Northern Ireland with the British mainland, with Sir Peter asked to explore the cost, practicality and demand for a new fixed link. Mr Johnson said: The United Kingdom is the greatest political partnership the world has ever seen, and we need transport links between our nations that are as strong as our historic bonds. Quality transport links are the key to making sure everyone can access education, jobs and housing; helping businesses to grow and thrive; and rebalancing opportunity fairly across our country. The government of Sao Paulo state in Brazil has asked health regulator Anvisa to register for use the Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd, governor Joao Doria said on Friday, a major step in what could be one of the first vaccination programs in the Americas. Doria has said he plans to begin inoculating the population of Sao Paulo with the Sinovac vaccine by mid-December, one of the world's most aggressive timelines outside China and Russia. Before he is able to do so, he requires approval from Anvisa. Shortly after Doria's statement, the ... "Chinahas achieved notable results in curbing desertification and preventing sandstorms; efforts that have been praised internationally," Yang Wenbin, chief expert of Desertification Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Forestry, told China.org.cn in a recent interview. According to statistics, China has 2.61 million square kilometers of desert, meaning more than a quarter of the country's land is either degraded or lost to sand. However, thanks to decades-long efforts to combat desertification, China has achieved substantial progress in sand control and ecological protection. Results of the fifth National Monitoring of Desertification and Sandification showed that land degradation is occurring at an average of 2,424 square kilometers annually, 1.5 times the size of London, compared to an expansion of 10,400 square kilometers per year at the end of the last century. Yang Wenbin attributed China's achievement in desert control to several factors. "First of all, the Chinese government has attached great importance to reducing desertification through afforestation and has poured a great deal of cash, labor, and resources into them. Secondly, China has advanced other anti-desertification techniques, including paving straw checkerboard sand barriers and aerial seeding." "In addition, several nationwide sand control and vegetation restoration campaigns were launched, such as the Three-North Shelter Forest Program that began in 1978, the Natural Forest Protection Program in 1998, and the Conversion of Cropland to Forest and Grassland Program in 1999." "Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature in the Soviet Union and the Great Plains Shelterbelt Project in the United States failed after not delivering suitably positive results, while China's afforestation drive continues to this day. For example, over 7.88 million hectares of windbreak trees have so far been planted under China's Three-North Shelter Forest Program over the past four decades," Yang noted. Sun Guoji, director of the Department of Combating Desertification with the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, said that China's next step in its anti-desertification efforts will be to proceed with major afforestation campaigns to consolidate gains and fulfill its obligations under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Montgomery County has filed a lawsuit against a land clearing company that has built a massive wall of debris reaching 25 feet high and spanning more than six football fields in length behind a townhome development in Woodforest creating a safety hazard and a rodent and roach infestation for homeowners. The lawsuit that names Justin Hasara, Ector Barrera, Hasara Land Services, J &H Land Venturs and Ash-Gram Materials follows investigations by the County Attorneys Office, the County Environmental Health Services department, District Attorneys Office and the Fire Marshals Office. According to the lawsuit filed late Friday, the debris is being maintained in an unsanitary condition and the neighboring residents have complained of the existence of rodents, snakes, and other disease carrying pests emerging from the piles. Defendants have been observed burning the wood waste at the Property for their unauthorized wood processing and mulching operations. Defendants do not have the requisite permits or financial assurance required by the State to operate a solid waste, wood processing, or wood mulching facility at the property. Further, the piles of refuse and wood waste create an extreme fire hazard to the residents in the neighboring community and subdivision as the piles are mainly comprised of combustible materials. The lawsuit seeks immediate injunctive relief to prohibit any further dumping or burning on the property and gives Barrera and Hasara 90 days to remove all the debris on the property. If they fail to meet that deadline, the county will take control to abate the property. Hasara did not return calls seeking comment. Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley said he has been aware of the issue on the property where Hasara dumps debris cleared from land for development for about two years. However, about two months ago, Hasara built the massive wall within feet of the homes along Biltmore Loop. He is not doing anything with it other than piling it up, he said. If that were to catch on fire, if it doesnt burn everything down it will smoke them out for about six months because you cant put it out. It has to be physically torn apart to put that kind of fire out. Fire Marshal Jimmy Williams said his office was made aware of the issue several weeks ago and the safety issue with the massive pile. State law allows the fire marshal to inspect a property for fire hazards and issue orders for the cleanup. He added his office issued Hasara an order earlier this week. That is part of what we are doing to work to remedy the hazard and then conducting an investigation on how it became to be in the first place, Williams said. District Attorney Brett Ligon said his office is working on the criminal investigations side of the issue noting the actions of Hasara falls under illegal dumping. The Great Wall of Woodforest that has appeared behind the Biltmore subdivision came to our attention several weeks ago, Ligon said. Environment Health Services did a very thorough investigation that has allowed us to get to the point where we have worked with the County Attorneys Office on how best to deal with the approximately one million cubic feet of debris. Ligon added the issues are both public safety and how to mitigate the issue. A lot of that depends on how quickly, how safely and how soon the landowner moves the pile and disposes of the remnants. One resident, who asked for her name to not be used for fear of retaliation, said the issue has been a nightmare. We have a massive rodent and cockroach investigation and we have never had that before, the resident said. The resident, who has lived in the subdivision for about four years, said Hasara has always piled up debris but it was never an issue since it was much further from the homes. However, she said about two months ago, Hasara began working all hours of the night to push the debris up to the property line of the homes. She believes the act was retaliation after several residents called police after Hasara set some of the debris on fire and it was left unattended. We have been involved in previous fires out there, Williams confirmed. cdominguez@hcnonline.com Paul Hollywood has revealed that he taught hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas to drive during The Great British Bake Off filming. The judge, 54, said that the The Mighty Boosh star, 47, and Little Britain actor, 46, didn't have driving licences so he decided to teach them. The latest series of The Great British Bake Off took place at Down Hall Hotel in Essex with all cast and crew living together in a bubble for six weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic. Driving teacher! Paul Hollywood has revealed that he taught hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas to drive during The Great British Bake Off filming (pictured in 2017) Paul has revealed that he taught Noel and Matt to drive around the 110 acres of land in go karts with Matt even wanting to take his test now. He told the Mirror: 'Neither of the male hosts have actually got a driving licence. So I was trying to teach Matt a few little tricks on the go kart and how to drive it at speed. But it was, it was fun. We need a challenge actually. 'Now he wants to do his test. The buggies did the trick.' With fellow judge Prue Leith adding to the newspaper: 'I tell you what, Matt got to drive just as fast as Paul Hollywood. In the end, he was zipping around with that bug. And I kept thinking, "That's a guy who can't drive!"' Co-stars: The judge, 54, said that the The Mighty Boosh star, 47, and Little Britain actor, 46, didn't have driving licences so he decided to teach them It comes as Channel 4 scored a huge ratings hit with their 2020 series of The Great British Bake Off. It's been revealed that the first episode of the new series, which aired on September 22, had the biggest ratings of any programme - excluding films - to be shown on Channel 4 since 1985. According to the broadcaster, consolidated viewing figures for the series 11 debut were 10.8 million. The TV premiere of the film Four Weddings And A Funeral on Channel 4 in 1995 attracted a higher audience of 12.4 million. Car fan: Paul has revealed that he taught Noel and Matt to drive around the 110 acres of land at Down Hall Hotel in Essex in go karts with Matt even wanting to take his test now (Paul pictured in 2016) The biggest-ever audience in Channel 4's history remains 13.9 million, which was for the mini-series A Woman Of Substance in 1985. The show was also the biggest overnight launch audience for the series since its move from the BBC, with overnight ratings averaging 6.9 million viewers. The cooking competition left BBC One in a 75million switchover in 2016. The first episode of the new Bake Off series saw Matt Lucas make his debut on the programme as he replaced previous co-host Sandi Toksvig, joining co-host Noel Fielding and judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood. They're a hit! It comes as Channel 4 scored a huge ratings hit with their 2020 series of The Great British Bake Off The start of the debut episode for series 11 was delayed by 15 minutes to make room for Prime Minister Boris Johnson's address at 8pm, which three million people tuned in for on Channel 4. Bake Off played up to the schedule clash, opening the episode with new presenter Matt impersonating a bumbling Boris who urged viewers to 'Stay Alert, Protect Cake and Save Loaves.' The series had already seen it's start date pushed back by a month from its usual late August slot after filming was delayed by lockdown. The production worked to ensure COVID-19 restrictions would not impact the close-knit nature of the show. Light-hearted relief: Bake Off opened with new host Matt impersonating a bumbling Boris Johnson who urged viewers to 'Stay Alert, Protect Cake and Save Loaves' All 12 bakers, presenters Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding, judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood along with the entire crew lived together in an isolation bubble for six weeks in order to film. The production took over luxury hotel Down Hall in Hertfordshire with all cast and crew living together on site for the duration of the shoot, undergoing regular COVID-19 testing and living away from their families. This allowed the bakers and the judges and presenters to forgo social distancing in the famous tent. Great British Bake Off continues on Channel 4 on Tuesday nights at 8pm. Iraqi Consumers Gain Safer Way to Transact with Top Retailers BAGHDAD, Oct. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Qi Card, the leading electronic payment solution and national debit/credit card of Iraq, today announced that ZoodMall and OpenSooq have joined the legions of retailers accepting Qi Card as a form of payment. This announcement marks the latest in a series of moves by Qi Card to expand the depth and breadth of offerings available to Iraqi citizens. Seven million Iraqi citizens trust Qi Card to conduct financial transactions with safety and ease. Qi Card is delighted to include Zoodmall and OpenSooq among the 6,000 vendors that work with Qi Card to provide exceptional shopping experiences for consumers. Both popular e-commerce sites, OpenSooq and ZoodMall have a focus on serving middle eastern communities. OpenSooq is the leading mobile classifieds platform in the Middle East & North Africa region while Zoodmall facilitates cross border trade of more than four million products from over 30,000 sellers. This announcement follows closely on the heels of several exciting announcements and two big launches from Qi Card. On August 24, the company announced the launch of Salifni, an emergency loan program allowing qualified, ministry employees to receive 200K IQD in advanced salary payments. Two weeks earlier, Qi Card revealed Ekhtiyari Card which allows card holders to personalize their card's aesthetic. Online shopping habits present a unique set of risks for consumers as they expose themselves to identity theft and other cybercrimes. When shoppers elect to use Qi Card as their payment provider, they can have confidence that the products and services are based on the principle of maximum protection, accessibility, ease of use and full transparency. About Qi Card Qi Card is the leading electronic payment services solution in Iraq, which employs biometric identity as the cardholder verification method. Qi Card is operated and managed by International Smart Card "ISC," the most successful partnership in the history of Iraq. With its State Bank partners, Al-Rafidain and Al-Rashed, it has completed domiciliation of more than 7M citizens with its multi-biometric payment scheme. In just over 18 months, ISC was able to disburse 3T IQD in loans to over 800,000 Iraqi citizens. To date, ISC has an ecosystem of 17,000 POS and more than 6,000 merchants using the Qi scheme to provide easy merchant funded installment and other commercial activities. ISC issues and acquires payment cards on behalf of fourteen affiliated banks in Iraq. Through its principal membership in Mastercard, ISC has now issued more than 1.8M Mastercard and is now the largest Mastercard provider in Iraq. SOURCE Qi Card Related Links https://qi.iq/ I am OMI | Events | People | Places | Participate Urbano's Racetrack by Woody LaBounty September 1999 I hate Nineteenth Avenue. It starts with Crossover Drive. Whose idea was it to have a mini-freeway slash through the heart of Golden Gate Park? The cypress trees, roses, and rustic pathways are suddenly interrupted by a racetrack for thousands of automobiles. The city that found the money to build tunnels through Twin Peaks and Russian Hill could not come up with the funds to burrow under four blocks of sand to preserve the park. Bisecting the Sunset District, Nineteenth Avenue gets no better: three miles of traffic, stoplights, pavement, and exhaust fumes. The unfortunate residents park with two wheels on the sidewalk to avoid the common sideswiping. Drivers try to beat the timed traffic lights, tailgating and speeding so the street resembles the backstretch of the Indianapolis 500. I avoid Nineteenth Avenue like a vegan avoids a Texas barbecue. If I have to drive south in the Sunset I take the wide, clear avenue called Junipero Serra Boulevard, skirting the large "residence parks" developed in the 1910s and 1920s. Driving down Junipero Serra Boulevard, south of Ocean Avenue, you will see Ingleside Terraces: a clean, sunny ramble of large houses, well-edged lawns, and curving streets. Iron arches originally connected the stone obelisks that provide welcome to the development. The arches have disappeared, perhaps a victim of tall delivery trucks, a wartime metal-collecting drive, or more likely, regulations to allow new, larger fire engines access. Ingleside Terraces centers on Urbano Drive, a street that has the best reason for curving. Urbano is an oval laid along the lines of the old Ingleside Racetrack, the last venue for horse racing in San Francisco. Horses in San Francisco? The Pacific Coast Jockey Club built on a fifty-year history of horse racing in the city when they opened Ingleside Racetrack in 1895. The first formal horse race in San Francisco was staged on a meadow flat near Mission Dolores in late 1847. William Leidesdorff, for whom an alleyway downtown is named, owned one of the horses, but history has not recorded whether it won. In following decades a number of tracks fought for the gamblers and lovers of horseflesh. The Richmond District featured Agricultural Park between the sand dunes of Twenty-third and Twenty-seventh Avenue on Point Lobos Road (now Geary Boulevard). Bay District Race Track ran along what is now Fulton Street from Arguello to Fifth Avenue. The wealthy created a Speed Road in Golden Gate Park to race their thoroughbreds. Near Lake Merced, stood Ocean View Course, and lastly, Ingleside Racetrack opened its doors across the road from a popular inn. Connemara's Escape At the turn of the century, gamblers whose luck ran cold with the horses could try and change it with the greyhounds. East on today's Ocean Avenue, across Phelan Avenue from City College, a dog track called the Ingleside Coursing Park operated in the early 1900s. 1 The writer Raymond Clary, in his book The Making of Golden Gate Park, told the tale of a wayward greyhound named "Connemara." The dog decided there had to be a better world than chasing rabbits in circles. One day at the end of a race he had won, Connemara crossed the finish line and kept going until he reached Sutro Forest, near Laguna Honda and present-day University of California-San Francisco. There he became the leader of a pack of wild dogs who terrorized cats, chickens, pigs, and even took out a couple of peacocks in Golden Gate Park. The greyhound, worth several thousand dollars, was never recaptured. Closing the Doors Ingleside Racetrack disappeared when San Francisco's growing population moved into the open-gated community of the Terraces. The Twin Peaks tunnel opened up the area as a realistic development opportunity. The racetrack had its last moment of glory as a temporary hospital after the 1906 earthquake and fire. Those wanting to watch a filly bolt out of a starting gate had to travel down the peninsula or across the bay. Today, just a few blocks from Urbano, the corner of Nineteenth Avenue and Holloway Avenue is rated as one of the five most dangerous intersections in San Francisco. Cars fly off Highway 280, desperate to save the thirty seconds the red light delays them. The Department of Traffic has installed automatic cameras to entrap red-light runners, and hopefully, slow down the race. Last week I sat parked in my car on the former racetrack in Ingleside Terraces. After ten minutes I had counted two dog-walkers (no greyhounds), one Buick LeSabre going about fifteen miles an hour, and three children on bikes. Read more about Ingleside Racetrack on this page and this page. Contribute your own stories about the OMI! This project is made possible by a grant from the CALIFORNIA COUNCIL FOR THE HUMANITIES with generous support from the San Francisco Foundation, as part of the Council's statewide California Stories Initiative. The COUNCIL is an independent non-profit organization and a state affiliate of the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES. For more information on the Council and the California Stories Initiative, visit www.californiastories.org. Kobe Co-op staff in Akashi, Hyogo prefecture will visit families and provide free diapers, powdered milk, and baby products for nine months. Staff will also talk to parents and guardians, help family finances and listen to family concerns. Akashi (AsiaNews/Agencies) The City of Akashi in Hyogo prefecture (Kansai, Honshu) has launched a free diaper subscription service and home care and family counselling on 1st October. The goal is to stop Japans declining population decline and reverse the coming demographic winter. Under the municipal scheme, the Consumers Co-operative Kobe (Co-op Kobe) will deliver diapers, formula milk and other baby supplies for free whilst watching over babies and their parents or guardians. Under the subscription service, parents and guardians will receive products of their choice once a month when their children turn three months old, and this until their first birthday. Support staff have experience raising children, and received training such as role playing in preparation for talking with parents and guardians. The service not only supports family finances but staff will also provide child-rearing information and listen to family concerns. Whats new: Chinas newly formed national oil and gas pipeline network, known as PipeChina, signed asset transfer agreements with its nine shareholders Wednesday, marking the state-owned pipeline giants official start of operations. As the agreement came into effective Thursday, China Oil and Gas Pipeline Network officially took over oil and gas pipelines, storage facilities and personnel from state-owned energy giants PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC Group, PipeChina Chairman Zhang Wei said Wednesday at a video conference. Besides the three state-owned oil and gas giants, other shareholders include China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd., China Reform Holdings, National Council for Social Security Fund, China Insurance Investment Fund Co. Ltd., CIC International and Silk Road Fund. To ensure the smooth transfer of assets, mobilize and coordinate tens of thousands of employees and meet energy demand in the coming winter are PipeChinas primary tasks in the near future, said Zhang, who is formerly PetroChinas general manager. The background: The creation of PipeChina, under consideration since 2014, is aimed at providing access to an integrated national pipeline network in a bid to help small and non-state-owned companies to participate in the sector and eventually to help lower overall energy costs. The restructuring is part of the Chinese governments plan to combine state-owned companies into fewer, larger groups to help them compete with global rivals. PipeChina will own 500 billion yuan ($73.6 billion) of combined assets and will be responsible for managing a pipeline network thats expected to expand by 80% to 240,000 kilometers by 2025. Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use. To read the full story in Chinese, click here. Contact reporter Denise Jia (huijuanjia@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bobsimison@caixin.com) Support quality journalism in China. Subscribe to Caixin Global starting at $0.99. Before the opening ceremony (Photo: VOV) Co-organised by the radio The Voice of Vietnam, the Huong Sen Group and the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, the event is featuring a beer festival inspired by the renowned German beer festival Oktoberfest, with visitors being given a chance to try a range of German delicacies. Within the framework of the festival, about 200 Vietnamese and German firms will discuss how to promote bilateral ties at an economic cooperation forum, contributing to bolstering links between Vietnam and 27 member states of the European Union Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). The festival will run till October 4./. If you really want to honour him, implement his inclusive ideology: SC Bose's grandnephew Development trajectory: PM to interact with DMs of various districts today At DMs meets, PM calls for direct, emotional connect between administration and public for good governance PM Modi to inaugurate Atal Tunnel at Rohtang today India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Oct 03: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the strategically important all-weather Atal Tunnel, which reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by four to five hours, at Rohtang in Himachal Pradesh today. Atal tunnel OPEN: All you need to know in 10 points | Oneindia News Modi will also attend public functions at Sissu in Lahaul Spiti and at Solang Valley, officials said. The prime minister will be accompanied by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, they said. Rajnath reaches Himachal to review Atal Tunnel's inaugural program Atal Tunnel is the longest highway tunnel in the world, and the 9.02 km long tunnel connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley throughout the year. The valley was earlier cut off for about six months every year due to heavy snowfall The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 metres(10,000 feet) from the Mean Sea Level (MSL) According to the officials, the prime minister will arrive at the Centre for Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) in Kullu district on October 3. He will halt at a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) guesthouse and interact with the officials there Meanwhile, the defence minister will reach Manali on Friday evening and hold a meeting with BRO officials. He will also inspect the tunnel ahead of its inauguration by the prime minister, officials said. Modi will travel through the Atal Tunnel to reach its north portal in Lahaul valley of Lahaul-Spiti district and flag off a Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) bus for the south portal in Manali, they said. The south portal (SP) of Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 metres, while the north portal (NP) of the tunnel is located near village Teling, Sissu, in Lahaul Valley at an altitude of 3,071 metres. It is a horse shoe shaped, single-tube double lane tunnel with a roadway of 8 metres and has an overhead clearance of 5.525 metres, officials said. The tunnel, built at a cost of about Rs 3,300 crore, is extremely significant from the point of view of the country's defence, they said. Atal Tunnel: PM Modi to open world's longest highway tunnel; Everything you need to know The BRO worked relentlessly to overcome major geological, terrain and weather challenges that included the most difficult stretch of the 587-metre Seri Nalah Fault Zone. The breakthrough from both ends was achieved on October 15, 2017. Talking about the tunnel, a BRO official said it provides a telephone facility at every 150 metre of its stretch, a fire hydrant every 60 metre, emergency exits every 500 metre, turning cavern every 2.2 km, air quality monitors every 1 km, broadcasting system and automatic incident detection system with CCTV cameras every 250 metre The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had taken the decision to construct the strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass on June 3, 2000, and the foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002 Vajpayee got the idea for constructing the tunnel on a suggestion from his friend Arjun Gopal of Tashi Dobhe village in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur had said. The Modi government decided to name the Rohtang Tunnel as Atal Tunnel in December 2019 to honour the former prime minister who had passed away the previous year. (Natural News) Republican congressmen, led by Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, wrote a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr on Sept. 25, calling for an investigation on the recent surge of hate crimes against Catholic properties. According to the letter, 57 instances of hate crimes against Catholics were reported since May 2020 compared to the 53 instances reported for the whole year of 2018. The letter also noted that the crimes not only target individuals and property but also American society as a whole. It reiterated the Department of Justices obligation to uphold both the physical safety of Catholics and the integrity of the American system by investigating the perpetrators of the violence and if they have any organizational or ideological ties. Attacks involved destruction of churches and statues The letter by Banks group mentioned a few reports of crimes targeted against Catholic churches and statues. According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the San Gabriel Mission Church caught fire on July 11, causing extensive damage to the more than two-centuries-old church. The conflagration came after local activists denounced the missions founder St. Junipero Serra; the saints statue was subsequently relocated to placate critics. Meanwhile in Florida, an attacker rammed the front door of Ocalas Queen of Peace Catholic Church while people were setting up for mass on the same day as the San Gabriel Mission fire. The attacker then attempted to burn the structure by throwing an incendiary device. No injuries were reported in the Florida incident. Churches were not the only targets of the attacks: Even statues of the Virgin Mary werent spared. Unknown vandals tried to burn a statue of the Virgin Mary near the St. Peters Parish Church in Boston, Massachusetts last July 12. The vandals set fire to the plastic flowers tucked in the statues hands, but the attempt only blackened the upper part of the statue. The attempted burning of the Virgin Marys statue in Boston came a day after a similar incident in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which vandals beheaded the Virgin Marys statue at St. Stephens Catholic Church. A more recent attack was captured on video Sept. 11 at Brooklyns Shrine Church of Our Lady of Solace. An individual went over fences bordering a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe and toppled it, breaking the image. The attacks are part of Black Lives Matters plan to burn America to the ground The attacks outlined in the letter by Banks and other House Republicans follow riots instigated by Black Lives Matter protesters. Supposedly non-violent protests devolve into widespread looting and destruction of property, thanks to Antifa instigators blending in with people exercising their First Amendment rights. Black Lives Matter protesters are no longer content with burning down private businesses and government buildings. They have now set their sights on Christian statues and churches, as seen in how they illegally occupied St. Johns Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. in June. The acronym BHAZ, which stood for Black House Autonomous Zone, was spray-painted at the columns of the churchjust across the White House. Aside from evil deeds such as destroying buildings and statues, Black Lives Matter also espouses evil ideas. One of its goals is to destroy the traditional family unit consisting of mother, father and child and replace it with a new kind of family similar to the Marxist concept of a collective. According to a statement on the organizations website, which was eventually deleted, it aimed to disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure with extended families and villages that collectively care for one another to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable. Black Lives Matter has turned away from God and embraced evil, resulting in a Faustian bargain where the organization possesses strength in numbers at the cost of members humanity. The movements destruction of Catholic churches and defacement of statues of the Virgin Mary serve as proof of its gradual descent towards perditionunless people return to the Lord and repent for their misdeeds. Until then, Black Lives Matter will continue to burn every building, loot every business and murder everyone who opposesuntil it reaches the ultimate goal: A literal hell on earth. Find out more news about the nefarious deeds of the Black Lives Matter movement at DemonicTimes.com. Sources include: LifeSiteNews.com Scribd.com LATimes.com MySunCoast.com BostonGlobe.com WDEF.com NewYork.CBSLocal.com 03.10.2020 LISTEN The Caretaker Chief of Kpone-Katamanso in the Greater Accra Region, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, has urged political parties to focus on issues rather than insults going into the 2020 elections. Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo made this known on Thursday, when Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia paid a courtesy call on the chiefs of Kpone-Katamanso in the Greater Accra Region. The Vice President was accompanied by the New Patriotic Partys (NPP) parliamentary candidate for Kpone-Katamanso, Hopeson Adorye, and other high-ranking members of the party in the Greater Accra Region. According to him, the country would appreciate listening to debates which focus on tackling developmental issues instead of trading of insults and insinuations. There is an urgent need for all of us to get united and organised in order for Ghana to move Ghana forward. He also reminded all political parties that, they will have to be mindful of their utterances against each other, because we are all Ghanaians hence political insults will not help the development of the country. Background The Member of Parliament who has been the representative of the people of Kpone Katamanso since 2009 was earlier this year installed as regent of Katamanso. Mr. Afotey-Agbo was enstooled as regent of Katamanso to take up the affairs of the divisional area due to the ailing health of the current chief Nii Otu Akwetey. Nii Otu Akwetey who is the current chief of Katamanso has been unwell for some time and could no longer run the affairs of the area hence the need for the elders to enstool the MP as the regent to act on behalf of the ailing chief. ---KingdomfmOnline Clearly, not all traditional wear is boring or so Shakuntala Devi star Vidya Balan makes us believe with her latest sultry photoshoot in a silk saree and vogue belt. Flaunting her love for the six yards of elegance, Vidya took her love for traditional wear a notch higher as she glammed up for her latest photoshoot in a Rs 99k printed saree, clinched at her waist by a phoenix logo tan belt and paired with a sleeveless blouse. Taking to her Instagram handle, the diva shared a slew of her pictures donning the silk saree with shifting leaves pattern, which are a signature design of the house of JJ Valaya, the brand she wore. Vidya paired it with a black sleeveless blouse which let the six yards of the ensemble do all the talking. The black and white chevron print saree sported embellished gold patti on the border and was held at the waist by brown leather phoenix logo belt. The actor accessorised her look with a pair of bronze earrings, finger rings and a broad vintage bracelet. To enhance the chic look, Vidya pulled back her sleek mid-parted hair in a low bun. Opting for smokey eye look, subtle dewy makeup and a glossy nude lip tint, Vidya looked breathtaking as she struck elegant poses for the camera. On JJ Valayas website, the saree chevron saree is worth Rs 99,000 while the Phoenix Belt costs Rs 9,900. From juggling virtual events to magazine cover shoots, Vidya Balan has been on a work spree but her sartorial elegance has never compromised. Adding a dash of colours to our social media feeds, the actor has kept fans hooked throughout the Covid-19 quarantine as she flaunted her gorgeous saree collection and even stylish western ensembles in a flood of pictures from her regular photoshoots. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Jake Evans was jailed for three years over the racist attack (Picture: SWNS) A man has been jailed for choking a taxi driver with his own seat belt and biting him in the face over a dispute about the fare. Jake Evans, 27, attacked the cab driver and threatened to kill him after he asked for a 6.20 fare to be paid at the end of a short journey in Wakefield on 8 September. Evans had earlier been picked up from a pizza takeaway with a female friend following a night of heavy drinking, Leeds Crown Court heard. After reaching his destination the defendant threw a handful of change at the driver before launching a racist verbal attack, prosecutor Katy Varlow said. He then got out of the car and opened the front passenger door before punching the driver in the head and ribs and grabbing his hair. Afterwards, he grabbed the driver's seat belt, which he was still wearing, and wrapped it around his neck, Miss Varlow said. Read more: Caught on camera: Delivery driver throws 'fragile' parcel over a wall Jake Evans was jailed at Leeds Crown Court (Picture: Getty) It was heard the victim struggled to breathe for around 10 seconds during the incident shortly before midnight. Evans then turned the driver's face away from him and bit his cheek for between 10 and 15 seconds, the court heard. When the cab driver got free, his attacker said: "Why did you ask me for money? I'm going to find you and I will kill you." Miss Varlow said the taxi driver was so terrified he drove off with the door of his vehicle still open. After the alarm was raised, officers found Evans nearby a short time later. He was still drunk and covered in the driver's blood. Read more: Blind peer who 'sexually assaulted masseuse' uses touch 'to get a sense of people' During an interview, he both denied the driver's claims and said "no comment". Appearing in the dock at Leeds Crown Court on Friday Evans, who's from Normanton, was jailed for 36 months. He earlier admitted racially-aggravated wounding and making off without payment. Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: "It's wholly unacceptable to attack a taxi driver who was doing nothing more than trying to earn a decent, honest living." Story continues The court heard that Evans has 12 previous convictions, including several for violence including wounding and battery. He was on a suspended sentence for possession of a hunting knife in public when he carried out his latest attack. Laura Hebditch, mitigating, said Evans recognised he had a problem when drinking alcohol. Coronavirus: what happened today Click here to sign up to the latest news, advice and information with our daily Catch-up newsletter Protesters demand the release of ethnic Mongolians arrested in Inner Mongolia. Beijing wants to suppress the use of the Mongolian language in the regions schools. The Mongolian government comes under fire for not protesting with Beijing. Ulaanbaatar (AsiaNews/Agencies) Dozens of protesters came together in the Mongolian capital last Thursday (1 October) to demand the release of ethnic Mongolians arrested in China in September. Last month, ethnic Mongolian students turned against the authorities in Inner Mongolia, a Chinese autonomous region, because of a government plan to reduce the use of their native language in school curricula. These protests and rallies in Inner Mongolia were the largest in decades, but were quickly suppressed by China with armoured vehicles deployed near the schools were tensions were the highest. In Mongolia itself, anti-Chinese protests broke out a few days after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in the country. The senior Trump administration official is currently scheduled to visit Japan and South Korea as well but not China. Some protesters, who wore protective masks against the coronavirus, were dressed in traditional Mongolian clothing, and carried banners showing images of alleged atrocities perpetrated by China in Inner Mongolia. They fear that the Chinese decision to limit the use of their language in schools will lead to the extinction of Mongolian culture. Last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Ulaanbaatar sparked protests. For Mongolian activists, Mongolian leaders should have called for the release of those arrested in Inner Mongolia. An unidentified man has died, while his co-passenger has suffered grievous injuries after piles of cardboard fell on the victims car from a Vasai-bound truck plying on Waghbil flyover at Ghodbunder Road, Thane, on Saturday around 10pm. The car was completely crushed in the mishap. The heavy material from the truck fell on the car which was plying below the flyover in the same direction. The car was completely crushed under the weight of the heavy materials. There were two male passengers in the car who were rushed to a private hospital, said a police officer. The passengers inside the car were taken to Hiranandani Hospital where one of the men was declared dead. The injured passenger, 38-year-old Prashant Devarkonda, has been shifted to Noble Hospital in Thane (West). According to Kasarvadavali police, the truck driver lost control of the vehicle on the flyover. The truck driver fled the spot and the police are trying to establish his identity. Stock Market Massive Dark Cloud Cover Pattern Is Above Critical Support Will It Hold? RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: A Dark Cloud Cover pattern is a Japanese Candlestick Pattern that is typically associated with major top setups. Critical Support on the SPY highlighted by multiple technical analysis strategies suggests 335~335.25 is acting as a major support level. If price stays below the $339.95 level, then we interpret the trend as being Bearish. If price moves above the $343.55 level, it is Bullish. Critical Support on the SPY (SPDR S&P500 ETF) highlighted by multiple technical analysis strategies suggests 335~335.25 is acting as a major support level. The rally in the markets that started late Sunday and carried forward into early trading on Monday, September 28, 2020, suggests the market is attempting to rally above this support level to establish a potential momentum base. My advanced price modeling systems and Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arcs (originating from the 2009 bottom) have clearly identified this area as a critical resistance/support zone. MONTHLY DARK CLOUD PATTERN MAY BE CALLING THE TOP The first chart below highlights the SPY Monthly chart data and shows the recent peak in price that broke through the major resistance level near 335, then collapsed back below that same level. Prior to this recent collapse, the COVID-19 peak in February also briefly touched this same resistance level confirming it as valid. We believe the current price activity suggests the markets are attempting to form some sort of price base above this $335 level on the SPY. As you can see from the recent highs on the chart above, there is a new Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arc range set up by the COVID-19 collapse that may interrupt this Base Setup process. Look for the smaller OBLIQUE on the chart near where the word Support is. This is a new Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arc that reflects the most recent price range activity into targeted Fibonacci based price zones. If the SPY price falls below the $322 level of the current lower Arc, then the markets will appear to be attempting to break lower. If the SPY price rallies above the $357.50 level, then the markets will appear to be attempting to break higher. The current monthly price bar spans the total height of this new Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arc thus it is suggesting a volatile type of topping pattern is setting up. If today was the last trading day of the month, this Monthly chart pattern would set up a very large Dark Cloud Cover pattern a major topping pattern. Before you continue, be sure to opt-in to our free-market trend signalsnow so you dont miss our next special report! A Dark Cloud Cover pattern is a Japanese Candlestick Pattern that is typically associated with major top setups. It represents a clear change in trend direction when a new Filled (RED) candle opens above the previous Empty (WHITE) candles closing price and the Filled candle closes below the midpoint of the Empty candles body. In the chart below, the size of the pattern is very relevant because it is setting up near a major price peak after volatility has increased to nearly 2x or 3x normal volatility ranges. This pattern is a classic topping formation pattern and well have to see how the next few trading days play out. If the SPY price is able to rally above the $339 price level, then this pattern changes into an Incomplete Dark Cloud Cover pattern waiting for a breakdown technical confirmation in price to confirm a major top setup. If the SPY price stays below the $339 level, then this pattern stays a Dark Cloud Cover pattern which would still require technical confirmation but become much more ominous related to the bigger monthly picture for the US stock market. It becomes an even scarier pattern when you consider we are just weeks away from a Presidential election event. When we pair this research with our Adaptive Fibonacci Price Modeling system, it become clear there are two major levels we should all be watching on the SPY charts. The first is the Bearish Fibonacci Price Trigger level near $339.95 and the second is the Bullish Fibonacci Price Trigger Level near $343.55. With such a narrow range between these two trigger levels, we interpret the range between them as neutral. If price stays below the $339.95 level, then we interpret the trend as being Bearish. If price moves above the $343.55 level, then we interpret the trend as being Bullish. We urge you to pay attention to how these levels align together across different types of Fibonacci price analysis/modeling. When this happens, we believe our modeling systems are pinpointing very accurate trigger price levels that become major support/resistance areas on the charts. Youll also notice the various Arcing levels on this Weekly SPY chart (below) that represent our Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arcs on a Weekly chart basis. Clearly, there is a GREEN ARC very near the current support level and current price level on the SPY. This GREEN ARC is the most immediate support zone on the SPY. If this level is breached to the downside, then we will immediately target the $310 or $280 level as prices collapse. Our previous modeling system support suggests the $334.25 level as support. Taken all together, we have a bunch of support levels above $334 and a bunch of resistance levels above $343. With the current Dark Cloud Cover setup, we believe the markets are poised for an attempted downside price move a big breakdown is possible if $334 does not hold. We will need to see the $339 and $334 levels hold over the next few weeks in order for the SPY to move higher. These Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arcs are suggesting major price volatility is pending. The Dark Cloud Cover on the Monthly chart suggests a big ominous topping pattern has setup. Its pretty clear to see that we could be in for a big breakdown in price if these support levels are breached. Stay safe. Avoid risky positions if you can. This move could unload to the downside in a hurry. Remember, the SPY price must stay above $334 to stay somewhat Bullish and even then we are not completely safe from a big breakdown in the markets. Unless the SPY rallies above $351 before the end of this month, some type of major topping Japanese Candlestick Pattern will setup. I will be speaking at the upcoming Special Election Edition Wealth365 Summit in less than two weeks from now. This multi-day event includes political speakers James Carville, Mary Matalin, Donna Brazile, Jason Chaffetz as well as many of the legendary traders and technical analysts I have had the benefit to learn from over the years. If you havent already registered, make sure you do so right now by Clicking Here: https://summit.Wealth365.com/The-Technical-Traders. Without exception, this is where you need to be in order to set yourself up for success for the remainder of 2020 and into 2021. See you there! This market, the future setups described above, and the profits lying therein are fantastic opportunities for skilled technical traders to capitalize on. Isnt it time you learned how I can help you find and execute better trades? My incredible technical analysis team and our proprietary tools have just shown you what to expect 6+ months into the future. Do you want to learn how to profit from these huge moves? Sign up for my Active ETF Swing Trade Signals today! If you have a buy-and-hold account and are looking for long-term technical signals for when to buy and sell equities, bonds, or cash, be sure to subscribe to my Passive Long-Term ETF Investing Signals. Stay healthy and rest easy at night by staying informed of market trends with The Technical Traders! Chris Vermeulen www.TheTechnicalTraders.com Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better. His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility. He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect. Chris Vermeulen Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. The Holiday Guru is always on hand to answer your questions. This week his advice is directed at issues around flight refunds and annual theme park passes. Q. Having bought a Merlin Annual Pass, which allows myself and my son entry to attractions including Chessington World of Adventures and Legoland Windsor, Ive found it is almost impossible to use as so many slots reserved for pass-holders are booked. Yet non-pass-holders can still buy tickets. What can I do? Laura Crompton, via email. Thrills and spills: The Pirate Falls water ride at the Legoland Windsor theme park A. Merlin explained that it has been having trouble with its booking system as some pass-holders are booking multiple slots and then not showing up. It is now offering more than 50,000 additional slots and has reserved whole days for pass-holders, it h.as also extended passes bought before the lockdown by five months. Q. I have rented a cottage in Scotland for half-term with my family. In light of the First Ministers announcement about not visiting other households, can we still go on this holiday? James Johnson, via email. A. The new rules state that you cannot make indoor social visits to other households - see gov.scot/news/new-measures - to-drive-down-infection-rate. Assuming that you will not be meeting people indoors or sharing the cottage with anyone, the holiday would appear to be fine. Q. I booked to stay three nights at Edgar Farmhouse in Norfolk last month through Big House Holiday Rentals. It was to be a family get-together of 19 people staying at the 20-room property to celebrate my 70th birthday and my daughters 30th. But, because of the Rule of Six, we could not go. I was told I could rebook any time in the next two years, which was fine, but then conditions were introduced that made this impractical for such a large group. Can you help? Anna Macer, via email. A. As you are now considering taking legal action to have your money returned, the owners were unwilling to comment. However, the Competition and Markets Authority, the Governments consumer watchdog, expects customers to be offered a full refund where no goods or services are provided by a business because this is prevented by the lockdown laws. For more information, go to the Statement on coronavirus (Covid-19), consumer contracts, cancellations and refunds page of gov.uk. Q. I am still waiting for a refund for return flights to New York which were cancelled on March 20 by Virgin Atlantic. They were booked through Expedia, but I am finding it stressful dealing with the firm. Ive made contact via the online portal, email and phone, and there is still no refund. Can you help? Joan Harris, via email. A reader asks the Guru for help on getting a refund on cancelled flights to New York A. Expedia says it can see that Virgin Atlantic has processed the refund. It has arranged for the money to be transferred to your account. Q. As I am considering booking a holiday in Cyprus, I went on to the Bupa website to book a Covid-19 test, as you advised recently. However, it is not doing the PCR (antigen) tests, which are required for Cyprus, only antibody testing. Where can I go to get the correct test? I am based to the west of London. Anita Twiddy, via email. A. Apologies, you are quite right. There are a number of firms providing the Covid-19 PCR swab tests and issuing suitable fit to travel certificates. Some guarantee a result within 70 hours. See doctap.co.uk/services/coronavirus-test or citydoc.org.uk/covid-19-fit-to-fly or better2know.co.uk. Prices range from about 130 to 175. WERE HERE TO HELP If you need advice, the Holiday Guru is here to answer your questions. Email them to holidayplanner@dailymail.co.uk and include your contact details. - Renowned economist David Ndii hit out at President Uhuru saying his "exclusionist economic policies had pushed many Kenyans to embrace the DP Ruto's "hustler philosophy - The former National Super Alliance (NASA) strategist fell out with former prime minister Raila Odinga following his March 2018 handshake with the head of state - Ndii recently claimed Ruto was way ahead of his opponents based on his study of various polls PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed Economist David Ndii a former fierce Deputy President William Ruto critic, has changed his tune and said he does not mind working with the second in command to sent the dynasties home in the 2022 presidential election. Economist David Ndii said a class war has been predicted in Kenya for a very long time. Photo: David Ndii. Source: Facebook The outspoken economics expert lashed out at President Uhuru Kenyatta saying his "exclusionist economic policies have pushed many Kenyans to embrace the DP's hustler philosophy. Speaking to the Daily Nation, Ndii who was ranked as Africa's second most influential economist online hit at out the Kenyatta, Odinga and Moi families for plotting to change the Constitution through the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) so as to benefit a few people. "Some of our friends in the civil society have raised an issue with (working with) Ruto but I remind them that even Narc and NASA had crooked politicians. Rutos move is only resonating with the masses. His phraseology or timing is only a happy coincidence. ""The hustler movement is an organic, populist insurgency, a blowback of Jubilees economic failure. We have had a situation where Uhuru has been protecting the big businesses at the expense of the small people. A class war has been predicted in Kenya for a very long time," Ndii said. DP Ruto (r) has expressed his interest in the 2022 presidency. Photo: William Ruto. Source: Facebook Raila, Uhuru's poisoned chalice The former National Super Alliance (NASA) strategist fell out with former prime minister Raila Odinga following his March 2018 handshake with President Uhuru Kenyatta. "Railas dalliance with Uhuru is a poisoned chalice. I knew that by the time Uhuru would be leaving State House, he would be more unpopular than Moi and I tried to dissuade Raila from working with him. But he didnt think the economic performance would affect Uhuru. I think only a financial implosion can save us: a default as has happened in Zambia and Lebanon. Remember the case of Greece (which had to be bailed out)," he added. Ruto ahead in polls Ndii recently claimed Ruto was way ahead of his opponents based on his study of various polls. "If you look at the way politics is panning out and I can see what I am saying about it is making so many people uncomfortable on social media...I study the polls and there are quite a few I have seen...If you look at it keenly William Ruto is leading as the frontrunner with about 40% of the votes," he argued. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme - https://www.patreon.com/tuko My father-in-law won't let me bury my wife of 16 years or see my two children- Victor Odonda Tuko TV Source: TUKO.co.ke Realizing the dream of owning two successful companies at the age of 27 would be a nearly intimidating ambition for any youngster. A young businessman from Poland who endured significant challenges shares how a life-changing book pulled him out of a depressed mindset and propelled him to the path of success. Fabian reading Zhuan Falun, the main text of Falun Gong. (Minghui) Lonely Teenage Behind Fabians success lies a troubled and lonely journey. He never experienced the warmth of family love and bonding as his parents divorced shortly after his birth and started their own families. Emotionally bruised by a broken family, he was raised by his grandparents. I became very miserable as I grew older because my classmates had parents, but I didnt, he told Minghui.org. My grandparents were my parents. Fabians grandparents wanted to guide him to the path of faith in God and thus always took him along when they went to church. Nevertheless, Fabian said, seeing how some of the congregation were not practicing what they preached made him not to believe in anything instead. He grew up to be an intelligent boy who enjoyed immersing himself in books. However, Fabian lost interest in attending school as his intellect was way ahead of his age. It was too easy for me, Fabian said. When I asked my teachers questions, they would tell me thats how its written in the textbooks. When I disagreed with my teachers viewpoints, other students would jeer at the teachers. Lost amid the big dye vat of society and peer pressure, Fabian, along with his group of friends, got involved in the unethical acts of hacking data: they stole confidential information to sell it to companies. Though they made a lot of money as hackers, Fabians conscience was tugging at him. He tried to dissuade his group from continuing, but his advice fell on deaf ears. Amid all this chaos, Fabian grew anxious about his future as his grandparents were getting on in years. I often worried what would happen to me if they were to die one day, Fabian said. I wanted to break free from this mire and leave this group of friends. I wanted to prove to my grandparents that I could support myself through my own efforts. Rediscovering Hope Eventually, Fabian left his hometown and moved to Germany in search of a better future; he didnt take a single penny of the money he amassed as a hacker. Once in Germany, Fabian slept on the streets and ate simple food. During those days, while thinking about how he could continue to survive, a chance encounter with an old man in a bar led Fabian to secure a stable job. The elderly stranger was the owner of a small company in Frankfurt that specialized in replacing lost or stolen locks. The man hired Fabian on the spot for his new company in Berlin after listening to his marketing ideas. Under Fabians assistance, the new company performed well and witnessed increased sales. Young Fabians hard work earned him a managerial-level promotion. Do you feel happy after making money? How do you find real happiness in life? Fabian In 2016, just when Fabians career was taking off, he received devastating news from his grandmother. I received a phone call from my grandmother while I was holidaying in Spain, Fabian said. She was crying at the other end. She told me my grandpa had passed away. Fabian couldnt accept this sudden and painful news; it hit him like a bolt out of the blue. He began to ponder the meaning of life. With more negative thoughts appearing in his mind, Fabian said, he was heading toward a dangerously depressive direction. I started to think about who I was, what was I going to do from now on, what could I do, was the world really like that, should I keep making money? Fabian said. I began to think that money was not the most important thing, because it cannot buy time, nor was there a way to bring my grandfather back to life. When I saw a car while I was walking, a thought would suddenly come to mind, It wouldnt be a bad idea to get hit by the car. Immersed in painful emotions, Fabian began his journey to find a solution to his life questions. He searched on the internet and posted a plea asking people: Do you feel happy after making money? How do you find real happiness in life? While there were some who laughed at him, many suggested him to read self-help books, including those on spirituality and faith. Determined to pull himself out of his negative, depressive emotions, Fabian took the advice seriously. He started reading the recommended books and finally found the answers to his lifelong questions. I would say that if not for Zhuan Falun, I would not be alive today. Fabian, from Poland When I opened the 15th book on my list, Zhuan Falun, and read the first chapter, I knew this was what I had been searching for, Fabian said. Zhuan Falun is the main book of Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa)an ancient mind-body cultivation practice based on the universal principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance. It has been translated into more than 40 languages, and over 100 million people across the world have benefited from the universal principles of upright and noble living explained in the book. Fabian practicing the fifth exercise of Falun Gong. (Minghui) Fabian said he finally understood the meaning of life and felt relieved from the agony of his negative emotions. He said his faith in Falun Gong also taught him to let go of his resentment toward his parents. He has since contacted his parents and his half-siblings. In the past, I felt as if I was walking while holding a giant rock. It was so difficult to walk and breathe. Life was not worth living at all. My whole world was dark, he explained. But after reading the book, Fabian felt like his whole world became bright. Fabian added that practicing Falun Gong also helped to restore his health. I also experienced huge changes physically. I used to suffer from headaches and nosebleeds frequently. I kept seeing doctors and taking lots of medicine. Now I dont have to deal with these issues, he said. A New Chapter in Life Fabian said that he later learned that the company he was working for was engaged in some dishonest work. In order to sell expensive products to customers, he said, the employees used to tamper with or even damage the locks under repair so that they could sell new expensive products to customers. He tried to reason with the staff that what they were doing was wrong but couldnt convince them. Having decided not to compromise on anything against his conscience, Fabian decided to pack up and leave the job. Though he had to leave the company that he had been with for many years, he knew he made the right choice. I know that as long as I follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance taught by Falun Dafa, I wont be lost, he said. No matter how hard it is, there is a solution for it. Today, Fabian has one company each in Portugal and Germany and is planning to start another business in Taiwan. He credits his success in life to the teachings of Falun Gong. I would say that if not for Zhuan Falun, I would not be alive today, he said. By PTI NEW DELHI: RJD MP Manoj Jha has moved the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the newly enacted three agriculture laws, saying they are "discriminatory and manifestly arbitrary" and will expose marginal farmers to exploitation by big corporates. Parliament has recently passed the three Bills -- the Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020. These have came into effect from September 27 after President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent. Jha, a Rajya Sabha member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), has filed the plea in the top court through lawyer Fauzia Shakil. READ| Protests across western Odisha against Farm Acts Besides Jha, Congress Lok Sabha member from Kerala TN Prathapan and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Rajya Sabha member from Tamil Nadu Tiruchi Siva had moved the top court against the farm laws. Jha, in his plea, said, "The impugned legislations corporatise agriculture and ushers in an unregulated and exploitative regime. A farmer would not have the knowledge to negotiate the best terms with a private company. This leads to unequal bargaining position in negotiating the farm agreement with corporates would lead to corporates monopolising the agriculture sector. " The plea said the laws have been passed by Parliament "in breach of the Parliamentary Rules and convention and the impugned acts are unconstitutional on the ground that it is discriminatory and manifestly arbitrary and further violates the Basic Structure of the Constitution. " These laws encourage "corporatisation" of Indian agriculture which is the lifeline of the poor farmers and key to the survival of the nation's agriculture sector, it said. "The impugned Acts primarily intends to sacrifice the interest of the farmers and leave them at the mercy of the sponsors without any proper dispute resolution mechanism. The Acts provide for 'farming agreements' between the farmers (of whom 85% are marginal farmers owning up to 2 acres) and the Corporate entities," it said. It is noteworthy that the farmers by way of these legislations are pitted against the corporates with disproportionate bargaining powers, the RJD leader said in the plea. The price determination mechanism under new laws is only through the agreements between the corporate entities and farmers and do not stipulate that the price should not be below the minimum selling price (MSP) and does not even guarantee the price given by the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC), it said. Instead of the ensuring MSP, the laws intend to corporatise peasant agriculture and erode the existing legal safeguards that prevent direct invasion of rural agriculture market by the monopoly corporate forces, it said. The laws enable the sponsors to deprive the market committees of their market fee on transaction within the specified Market Yards under the State Mandi Laws, the plea said. "The farmers currently have the freedom to sell their farm produce to anyone anywhere. The freedom however is not real but is bereft of any safety or guarantees, to protect them against the superior bargaining force of the buyers," the plea said. "The Acts have been passed in blatant breach of the principles of federal structure of Constitution as 'agriculture' is a state subject under Entry 14 of List II which does not grant competence to the central government to legislate on the issues relating to 'agriculture'. Only State Legislature have the legislative competence to pass laws dealing with the subject," it said. As per the government, the new law intends to provide a national framework for the farming agreements to protect and empower farmers as they engage with agri-business and food processing firms, wholesalers, exporters and large retailers for farm services and sale of produce at a remunerative price framework in a fair and transparent manner. Some parts of the country have been witnessing farmer protests on the issue in view of the alleged apprehension that the law would pave the way for the dismantling of the minimum support price system, leaving them at the "mercy" of big companies. The government has told the Supreme Court that it will waive 'interest on interest' on loans up to Rs 2 crore during the six month loan moratorium. The waiver will prove to be a huge relief for small borrowers including micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and loans pertaining to education, housing, consumer durables, credit card dues, auto etc. The Centre said in its affidavit submitted on Friday that the only solution is for the government to bear the burden of waiving of interest. "This category of borrowers, in whose case the compound interest will be waived, would be MSME loans and personal loans up to Rs 2 crore of the following category -- MSME loans, educational loans, housing loans, consumer durable loans, credit card dues, auto loans, personal loans to professionals and consumption loans," said the finance ministry. The government had earlier refused to waive interest, stating that it would affect the banks. However, after a recommendation of a government panel, set up after the Supreme Court asked them to help borrowers, the Centre changed its stance. The Reserve Bank of India had allowed borrowers to seek a six-month moratorium on all loans due to the pandemic. However, the banks and housing finance companies continued to charge interest on the entire amount -- the principal and the interest liability. The ministry said, "If the government were to consider waiver of interest on all types of loan advances to all categories of borrowers corresponding to the six-month period for which the moratorium, that is deferment of payment of instalments, was made available under the relevant RBI circulars, the estimated amount waived would be more than Rs 6 lakhs crore." It said that if banks were to take on that burden then a substantial part of their net worth would be wiped off. "This was one of the main reasons why waiver of interest was not even contemplated and only payment of instalments was deferred," added the ministry. Also read: 35% customers still under moratorium as of August: Suryoday Small Finance Bank CEO Also read: Get ready for 'restructured' tag in credit report for loan reset Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan (Image: Twitter.com/@ichiragpaswan) Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president Chirag Paswan on Saturday sought people's "blessings" for his party's "Bihar first Bihari first" vision document in yet another indication that it may not fight the state assembly polls as part of the National Democratic Alliance. In a statement, he heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said all his party's candidates will strengthen the BJP leader's hand. The vision document has been inspired by Modi, said Paswan who has often made it clear that his main grouse is against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U). "It is not only my hope but confidence that you will bless me to make Bihar first and restore its pride so that all my candidates could strengthen the hands of the prime minister," he posted a message on Twitter with a picture of Modi talking to him and keeping his hand on Paswan's shoulders. The LJP may contest on 143 seats in the elections to the 243-seat state assembly while not putting up its candidates against BJP nominees, party sources said. A party meeting to deliberate on the Bihar polls was postponed after Paswan rushed to hospital to see his ailing father and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan. Chirag Paswan has met BJP president J P Nadda a few times and had also spoken to Home Minister Amit Shah as the saffron party leadership worked to keep the alliance intact. The LJP, the sources said, is also unhappy with the seat-sharing arrangement offered to it and is hoping to inflict damage on poll prospects of the JD(U), which has maintained that the LJP is a BJP ally and not its. The Bihar assembly polls will be held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7, and the counting of votes will take place on November 10. The nomination process for the first phase, under which 71 of the total 243 seats will go to polls, began from October 1 and will end on October 8. In 2015, the LJP had contested 42 seats and won two. The JD(U) was then part of the opposition alliance which decisively defeated the NDA. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) speaks in Washington on Sept. 16, 2020. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo) Sen. Ron Johnson Tests Positive for COVID-19 A top Republican senator tested positive for COVID-19, the latest member of the party to receive the diagnosis. Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was exposed to someone who tested positive on Sept. 14, his spokesman Ben Voelkel said in a statement on Saturday. Johnson quarantined for two weeks, per federal health protocol, and tested negative twice. He returned to Washington on Sept. 29 and shortly after was exposed to another person who has since tested positive. After learning of this exposure, the senator was tested yesterday afternoon, Voelkel said. This test came back positive. Johnson feels healthy and is not experiencing symptoms, his spokesman said, adding that the senator will remain in isolation until cleared by his doctor. Most staff members working from the senators Washington office had already been working remotely. The office is shifting fully to remote work for the immediate future. President Donald Trump speaks as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), right, listens, Kenosha, Wis., Sept. 1, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo) Republican President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, as did First Lady Melania Trump and White House aide Hope Hicks. Since then, a slew of people who came into contact with Trump or Hicks have tested positive, including eight attendees of the Sept. 26 Supreme Court nomination ceremony at the White House. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have tested positive and are isolating. COVID-19 is a disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. It primarily affects the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. The CCP virus is believed to spread when infected people release droplets by coughing, sneezing, or speaking. Those droplets can land in another persons mouth, nose, or eyes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventative techniques include wearing masks, washing hands, and avoiding crowds. Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Saturday hit out at the Yogi Adityanath government over the Hathras incident, saying that "jungle raj" prevails in Uttar Pradesh even as foundation stone for Ram temple has been laid at Ayodhya in the state. The ruling party in Maharashtra alleged that the recent incidents of atrocities against women in UP have failed to move the government in that state as well as the Centre. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. But there is no 'Ram rajya' (ideal governance) in Uttar Pradesh. 'Jungle raj' is prevailing in UP in terms of the law and order situation," the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'. "Atrocities against women continue to happen and the incidents of rape and murder of young women are on the rise in that state," it said. "A 19-year-old woman in Hathras was raped and murdered, which triggered outrage across the country. In her dying declaration, the victim said that she had been raped. But the UP government now says that she was not raped. Soon after, an incident of gang-rape also took place in UP's Balrampur," the Sena added. "But despite all this, neither the rulers in Delhi nor the Yogi Adityanath government were moved. The government itself says that when there was no rape, why is the opposition crying hoarse. But if the woman was not raped, why did the police cremate her in the dead of the night?" it asked. "Earlier, when the UP government led by Akhilesh Yadav withdrew Yogi Adityanath's security cover, the latter had cried in Parliament. Now he himself is the chief minister, but women in his state are not safe," the party said. The UP police stopped Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from visiting the grieving family in Hathras, it said. "Gandhi was caught by collar and pushed to the ground. Humiliating a leader of a prominent political party in such a manner is a gang-rape of democracy," it said. "The body of Hathras victim was burnt by the police by pouring petrol on it. In which Hindu tradition does this inhuman act fit?" it asked. "When two sadhus were lynched in Palghar (in Maharashtra in April this year), we saw the statements of Yogi Adityanath and the BJP blew the conch of Hindutva. But why is it silent now?" the Uddhav Thackeray-led party asked. It said that BJP spokespersons went to town over TV channel debates in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. "But the same people are now saying that the Hathras victim was not raped. The victim's dying declaration has no value!" it said. The Sena said that the country was never so "lifeless and helpless" in the past. . The Shiv Sena on October 3 hit out at the Yogi Adityanath government over the Hathras incident, saying that "jungle raj" prevails in Uttar Pradesh even as foundation stone for Ram temple has been laid at Ayodhya in the state. The ruling party in Maharashtra has also written to President Ram Nath Kovind demanding security by CRPF personnel for the kin of the victim, alleging they are "held captive and being threatened by officials, denying them free speech and movement", a party leader said. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. But there is no 'Ram rajya' (ideal governance) in Uttar Pradesh. 'Jungle raj' is prevailing in UP in terms of the law and order situation," the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'. "Atrocities against women continue to happen and the incidents of rape and murder of young women are on the rise in that state," it said. The Sena said recent incidents of atrocities against women in UP have failed to move the government in that state as well as the Centre. "A 19-year-old woman in Hathras was raped and murdered, which triggered an outrage across the country. In her dying declaration, the victim said that she had been raped. But the UP government now says that she was not raped. Soon after, an incident of gang-rape also took place in UP's Balrampur," the Sena added. "But despite all this, neither the rulers in Delhi nor the Yogi Adityanath government were moved. The government itself says that when there was no rape, why is the opposition crying hoarse. But if the woman was not raped, why did the police cremate her in the dead of the night?" it asked. "Earlier, when the UP government led by Akhilesh Yadav withdrew Yogi Adityanath's security cover, the latter had cried in the Parliament. Now he himself is the chief minister, but women in his state are not safe," the party said. The UP police stopped Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from visiting the grieving family in Hathras, it said. "Gandhi was caught by collar and pushed to the ground. Humiliating a leader of a prominent political party in such a manner is a gang-rape of democracy," it said. "The body of Hathras victim was burnt by the police by pouring petrol on it. In which Hindu tradition does this inhuman act fit?" it asked. "When two sadhus were lynched in Palghar (in Maharashtra in April this year), we saw the statements of Yogi Adityanath and the BJP blew the conch of Hindutva. But why is it silent now?" the Uddhav Thackeray-led party asked. It said that BJP spokespersons went to town over TV channel debates in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. "But the same people are now saying that the Hathras victim was not raped. The victim's dying declaration has no value!" it said. The Sena said that the country was never so "lifeless and helpless" in the past. Meanwhile, in the letter addressed to President Kovind, Sena MP and spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi stated that "brutality of the gang-rape leading to the death of the victim and abdication of responsibility of due process by the UP police had shaken and shamed everyone". "The nation saw a grief-stricken and sobbing family of the victimbeing denied a decent cremation as per Hindu rites and the body was burnt in the middle of the night," she stated. White House gave its biggest stimulus offer yet during a closed-door meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday. From $1.3 trillion, the White House offer was upped to $1.6 trillion, said a Fortune report. It is still below what the Democratic leaders requested but will be enough to delay a Wednesday vote on the revised $2.2 trillion HEROES Act. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was the one to deliver the White House stimulus offer to Pelosi, and the two parties are expected to continue negotiations. Over the summer, talks on the stimulus broke down. It seemed like both sides of the negotiation were not willing to adjust offers. The House passed a $3.4 trillion relief package in May and Republicans offered $500 billion. Democrats said the counterproposal was not enough to meet the needs of the country amid the pandemic. House Democrats, including Pelosi, repeatedly pushed White House negotiators to boost their $1.3 trillion offer by another trillion dollars. Last September 28, they unveiled the revamped HEROES Act with a $2.2 trillion. Unemployment Benefits The Republican offer includes $400 weekly enhanced unemployment benefits. These benefits will be paid on top of state benefits and retroactively. The offer provides a September 12 to January 1, 2021 timeline for the claiming of unemployment benefits, according to Roll Call. President Donald Trump issued a memorandum in August granting $300 in weekly benefits. Funds for it have since been exhausted and will be replaced by the new proposal of $400. White House negotiators offered far less than the $600 per week that Democrats proposed under HEROES Act. But the $400 benefit is double than the Senate Republican's $200 proposal back in July. More State, Local Funds The White House stimulus offer would also include $250 billion for funding states and local governments. It is also lower than the House Democrats request, which is more than $430 billion. It may be lower than the Democrat's offer, but it is still higher than their initial offer of $100 billion. Other Inclusions The latest offer from the White House will also allocate $150 billion for education and $75 billion for coronavirus-related projects. It will also include $60 billion for the mortgage and rental assistance and $15 billion for food programs. If both parties strike a deal on the stimulus package, it was assured by all negotiators that a $1,200 stimulus check would materialize. It will also include $500 for dependents. But if negotiators fail to compromise by Thursday, House Democrats are likely to vote on the revamped HEROES Act. The proposal garnered high opposition from Republicans and is unlikely to be signed into law. Congress is bound to go on recess for October, forcing Senate Republicans to go home without passing a stimulus bill since the spring. Despite the confusion on the real price of the second stimulus package, Pelosi is hopeful that there will be a deal before the recess happens. "The speaker thinks there's a possibility of getting a deal," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. If there will be a deal, the House might wait for several dates to vote on and fine-tune the legislative text. "But if we don't have a deal, then we're going to move the bill," said Hoyer. Check these out! Mnuchin Presents Counterproposal for Coronavirus Relief in Meeting with Pelosi Second Stimulus: McConnell Says Negotiators are 'Very, Very Far Apart' Senate Approves Stopgap Spending Bill to Avoid Government Shutdown The investments value Reliance Retail at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.285 lakh crore. In less than three days, Reliance Industries has entered into five deals to sell stake in RRVL Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Global alternative asset firm TPG are set to pickup stakes in Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL)'s retail arm. The two mega investment firms will put in a combined amount of Rs 7,350 crore. Through two separate deals, Reliance Industries will sell 1.63 percent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL). GIC will invest Rs 5,512.5 crore for 1.22 percent share in RRVL, while TPG will invest Rs 1,837.5 crore to buy 0.41 percent stake in the retail arm. The investments value Reliance Retail at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.285 lakh crore. In less than three days, Reliance Industries has entered into five deals to sell stake in RRVL. Earlier, on 1 October, RIL announced Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co would invest Rs 6,247.5 crore to buy a 1.4 percent stake in its retail arm. On 30 September, global private equity firm General Atlantic picked up a 0.84 percent stake in the company for Rs 3,675 crore. Also, US PE investor Silver Lake made a second investment of Rs 1,875 crore, taking its total fund infusion in Reliance Retail to Rs 9,375 crore for a 2.13 percent stake. KKR previously took a 1.28 percent stake in the firm for Rs 5,550 crore. Commenting on the development, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, said, "I am delighted that GIC, with its track record of close to four decades of successful long-term value investing across the world, is partnering with Reliance Retail in its mission to transform the Indian retail landscape." GIC's global network and track record of long-term partnerships will be invaluable to the transformation story of Indian Retail. This investment is a strong endorsement of our strategy and India's potential, he said. GIC Chief Executive Officer Lim Chow Kiat said: GIC is pleased to partner with Reliance through this new investment, which will enable the company to position Reliance Retail for the strong secular growth in India's retail market. On the TPG deal, Isha Ambani, Director of Reliance Retail, said, "We are delighted to welcome TPG to the Reliance Retail family in our journey of revolutionizing the Indian Retail landscape and improving the economic prospects of millions of merchants and enhancing the consumer experience. TPG's rich experience will be invaluable to the Reliance Retail mission." Besides Silver Lake, KKR, General Atlantic and Mubadala, the other investors in Jio Platforms which houses India's youngest but largest telecom operator Jio include Facebook and Google. It is worth noting that Reliance had recently acquired the retail, wholesale, logistics and warehouse businesses of Future Group for an enterprise value of Rs 24,173 crore. The firm also in May launched JioMart, its e-commerce platform. Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd (Newser) Vice President Mike Pence in March directed the nation's top disease control agency to use its emergency powers to effectively seal the US borders, overruling the agency's scientists who said there was no evidence the action would slow the coronavirus, according to two former health officials, the AP reports. The action has so far caused nearly 150,000 children and adults to be expelled from the country. The top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doctor who oversees these types of orders had refused to comply with a Trump administration directive saying there was no valid public health reason to issue it, according to three people with direct knowledge of the doctor's refusal. So Pence intervened in early March. story continues below The vice president, who had taken over the Trump administration's response to the growing pandemic, called Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC's director, and told him to use the agency's special legal authority in a pandemic anyway. Redfield immediately ordered his senior staff to get it done, according to a former CDC official. The CDC's order covered the US and Canada borders, but has mostly affected the thousands of asylum seekers and immigrants arriving at the US-Mexico border. Public health experts had urged the administration to focus on coronavirus safety measures, but Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump who has been a vocal opponent of immigration, pushed for the expulsion order. (Pence sent a personal message to Trump on Friday.) IBM and NIH want to find out if artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to detect people at risk of developing schizophrenia. The International Business Machines announced that it will work with researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, the Northern California Institute for Research and Education, and Stanford University. Also Read: Experts Bring a Faster and More Accurate Synthetic DNA Manufacturing Process IBM's new initiative, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), will study if AI can be used to identify better people at risk of developing mental illness. The new project is part of the multimillion-dollar, multiyear Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) program, a collaboration between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), NIH, non-profit organizations, and biotech firms. The AMP program aims to develop new diagnostics and therapies for patients. On the other hand, NIH's new Schizophrenia initiative (AMP SZ), a five-year, $99 million effort, will address the heterogeneity of those at risk of developing psychosis, a symptom of schizophrenia. The institute, together with IBM and collaborators, including the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, will coordinate with the FDA to develop biomarker algorithms from new and existing data sets, compiled by AMP SZ's research investigators. What are biomarkers? Biomarkers can be used to detect a range of health-related outcomes. For example, the algorithms could inform an objective measure of pain and allow remote patient monitoring, enabling medical experts to address patients who require urgent in-person care. The AMP SZ initiative wants to predict outcomes and trajectories and generate risk calculators that can be used in future trials for treatment intervention by leveraging these biomarkers. NIH and BIM aim to prevent psychosis onset progression, mood disorders and anxiety, drug abuse and alcohol, suicidal behavior, and more. IBM announced that it will contribute to data-driven AU and brain imaging for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. The company also plans to guide and observe the collection of data, including language samples. "The ... initiative as a whole will be a unique opportunity for IBM to be a leader in the realization the enormous potential of integrating large volumes of data, artificial intelligence, and basic neuroscientific research to help impact mental health," said Guillermo Cecchi, a principal research staff member at IBM. For more news updates about new biotechs, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Also Read: Gennaris 'Bionic Eye' Surpasses Neuralink in World's First Brain Implant Human Trials That Can Restore Vision This article is owned by TechTimes, Written by: Giuliano de Leon. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Shoukry expressed Egypts concerns about the stagnation of some countries to eliminate nuclear weapons Egypt believes the total elimination of nuclear weapons, under international inspection, is necessary to establish peace, security and sustainable development, said foreign minister Sameh Shoukry during his address to the United Nations General Assembly. In a recorded speech to a high-level meeting at the UN headquarters in New York commemorating the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Shoukry expressed Egypts concerns about the stagnation of some countries to eliminate nuclear weapons. He added that Egypt is worried about the failure to establish a zone free of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East in accordance with the decision issued in the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Shoukry said Egypt hopes the next review conference will adopt a balanced final document that reaffirms commitment to previous resolutions, including the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, in light of the consensus reached at the UN in 2019 to establish such a zone. The NPT treaty, which came into effect in 1970, recognises the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, China and France as countries with nuclear weapons. More than 190 countries have signed the treaty. Search Keywords: Short link: Those who rely on reading glasses may soon be able to swap them for daily eye drops said to restore perfect vision for up to 12 hours. They could help an estimated 10million in the country who struggle to read menus, use smartphones or do crosswords because they have difficulty focusing on nearby objects. This is the result of presbyopia, a natural part of the ageing process that affects more than 40 per cent of those over 50. Clinical trials are under way in the US on several eyedrop products and, if successful, they could be available in the UK in the next two to three years. Clinical trials are under way in the US on several eyedrop products and, if successful, they could be available in the UK in the next two to three years (file photo) As we get older, the lens at the front of the eye becomes stiff. This reduces its ability to properly focus nearby images on to the retina at the back of the eye. Reading glasses work by helping light enter the eye at the correct angle so objects look clearer. Some resort to private surgery for presbyopia, which can cost around 2,500 per eye. But the experimental drops could be a more convenient solution for many. They contain two drugs carbachol and brimonidine tartrate that are widely used to treat vision-robbing conditions such as glaucoma. They work by making the pupil smaller, creating a pinhole effect where light entering the eye passes through a much smaller gap, keeping images in focus. In a recent study involving 57 patients with presbyopia, most reported a significant improvement in vision within minutes that lasted at least 12 hours. After that, the pupils dilated and words and images became blurred again. Scientists say most should be able to use the drops in the morning to keep their eyesight working properly throughout the day. The study was carried out at Al-Azhar University in Egypt, and published in the International Journal of Ophthalmic Research. They could help an estimated 10million in the country who struggle to read menus, use smartphones or do crosswords because they have difficulty focusing on nearby objects (file photo) British experts last night welcomed the breakthrough but warned the drops may have side-effects. Many people would love a fix for their near vision problems as they get older, said Melanie Hingorani, consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. Surgery is high risk and the results are not always reliable so it would be nice to have an alternative. But these drops can cause headaches and eye ache. And as the pupils are small, they cannot get bigger in dim light, which might restrict night-time vision. Miss Hingorani said larger studies are needed to ensure that the drops do not cause long-term damage to the eyes. She added: You could just stick with glasses, which are highly effective and very safe. As the summer coronavirus spike in Sunbelt states subsides, Florida has gone the furthest in lifting restrictions, especially on restaurants where the burden of ensuring safety has shifted to business owners and residents raising concerns of a resurgence. In his drive to return the state to normalcy, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted limits on indoor seating at restaurants, saying they can operate at 100% in municipalities with no restrictions and that other local governments can't restrict indoor seating by more than 50%. In some of Floridas touristy neighborhoods, patrons have since been flocking to bars and restaurants, filling terraces, defying mask orders drawing mixed reactions from business owners and other customers. Were generally concerned that were going to find ourselves on the other side of an inverted curve and erasing all the progress weve made, said Albert Garcia, chairman of the Wynwood Business improvement district, which represents 50 blocks of restaurants and bars in Miamis trendy arts district. Other Sunbelt states that have been COVID-19 hot spots over the summer haven't gone as far. In Texas, bars have been closed since June under Republican Gov. Greg Abbotts orders, and restaurants can hold up to 75% of their capacity, while face covers are required throughout the state. And in Arizona, restaurants and bars must run at half-capacity. Though Floridas governor generally wears a mask when arriving at public appearances and has allowed municipalities to impose mask rules, he has declined to impose a statewide mandate. And on Sept. 25, as the state entered a Phase 3 reopening, he barred municipalities from collecting fines for mask violations. DeSantis says contact tracing has not shown restaurants to be substantial sources of spread. I am confident that these restaurants want to have safe environments, he said earlier this week. And Im also confident that as a consumer, if you dont go and you dont think theyre taking precautions, then obviously youre going to take your business elsewhere. Craig OKeefe, managing partner for Johnnie Browns and Lionfish in Delray Beach, said theyre now accommodating as many people as they did before the pandemic began and hes hired eight people in the past few days. Demand surged last weekend. It was like someone turned the light on, OKeefe said. It was great to see people out smiling, having fun getting to see each other. Its been a really nice thing to get people back to work. Shutdowns and restrictions have battered Floridas economy, leaving hundreds of thousands unemployed in the tourist-dependent state. Earlier this week, The Walt Disney Co. announced it would lay off 28,000 workers in its theme parks division even after the Florida parks were allowed to reopen this summer. Florida has had more than 14,500 deaths from the pandemic, ranking 12th per capita among states. Its outbreak peaked in the summer, seeing as many as 12,000-15,000 cases added per day. New cases, positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths have been on a downward trend for several weeks. Still, the state has added 2,000 to 3,000 cases per day over the past couple of weeks. Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at the Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of Texas Childrens Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said that loosening restrictions in Florida is a mistake that could increase community transmission at a time when teachers are being summoned back to school. It really sends the message either implicitly or explicitly that its OK. Its back to normal now, and its not the case. We are still in a very serious situation, Dr. Hotez told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus this week. In South Florida Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said Friday that he was concerned over a slight uptick in county hospitalizations in recent days and warned people not to let their guard down, using President Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis as an example that the virus is highly contagious. Gimenez has been consulting with attorneys and staff on what rules local governments could continue to enforce without violating new state orders. The county plans to limit many restaurants to 50% indoor capacity and continue requiring masks in public. An 11 p.m. curfew is keeping a lid on nightlife, and the county even restricts loud music at venues so people don't have to shout, which is believed to spread the virus more easily. I think theres a lot of confusion because people thought that was it everything is open, Gimenez told reporters. We are still not out of the woods. Omer Horev co-owns Pura Vida, a Miami chain of coffee shops with locations in iconic South Beach, the Design District near downtown and at the University of Miami. Horev said he isn't relaxing any rules at his businesses. Store managers told him some customers have been defying their mask rules after DeSantis new order and he hasnt seen any local enforcement in the past week. We are in this gray area where you dont know what is enforced, he said. I feel safe; I am OK with it, as long as restaurant operators such as us and others do the right thing in keeping the employees and guests safe. In Tallahassee, Denise Barber, a 65-year-old retired state worker, used to dine out almost every day before the pandemic. Shes now comfortable dining out again, but only at places being more cautious than required. Shell check a restaurants Facebook page or call them to verify their rules. I want to go out to eat more. I can still do it, but Im going to have to do a lot of research to find a place, she said. ___ Kelli Kennedy reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 22:21:51|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close GUANGZHOU, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- A gang suspected of people smuggling has been apprehended by the coast guard in south China's Guangdong Province. In an operation launched on Sept. 29, the Guangdong coast guard, in collaboration with local police, cracked a case involving the alleged smuggling of people using boats. So far, 12 people involved in the case have been detained, including five suspected smugglers, with one vehicle and two speedboats impounded. An investigation into the case began in late July when the coast guard received information about the gang, which had been active in Guangdong and Hong Kong, smuggling people across the border using speedboats. Two maritime smuggling routes were cut off as part of the operation. Enditem (CNN) Businessman and TV host Zef Eisenberg has died while attempting to break a British land speed record at an airfield in the UK, police have confirmed. The founder of health supplement firm Maximuscle, Eisenberg was driving a Porsche 911 Turbo S car at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire, northern England, when he lost control of the vehicle. The 47-year-old had been involved in several previous high-speed drives and set dozens of speed records on bikes, cars and quad bikes, national governing body UK Motorsport said after his death. North Yorkshire Police said on Friday that they were called to the scene shortly after 4:30 p.m. the previous day. "The incident occurred during a British Land Speed record attempt and the driver, 47 year-old Zef Eisenberg tragically died at the scene," police said. Elvington Airfield is a popular site for high-speed driving attempts, but it has also been the scene of a number of notable accidents. Eisenberg was involved in a dangerous crash at the airfield in 2016, while 10 years earlier former "Top Gear" presenter Richard Hammond suffered a near-fatal accident while driving at over 300 miles per hour at Elvington, leaving him with damage to his brain. Motorsport UK said in a statement Friday that it was "deeply saddened" and would investigate the cause of the accident. "Zef, aged 47, was a Guernsey-based businessman, television presenter, and a much-loved member of the motorsport community. An ultra-speed motorbike racer, he achieved numerous land speed records for motorbike and car," the group said. "Over the past decade, Zef amassed over 70 British, World, UKTA, ACU and Guinness speed records with bikes, cars, and quads. In May 2019, he received the Simms Medal in honour of his outstanding contribution to motoring innovation by the Royal Automobile Club. "Zef leaves behind his partner Mirella D'Antonio and two children," added the Motorsport UK statement. He also earned a world record in 2015 for reaching speeds of 225 mph on a turbine-powered motorbike. It was widely reported that Eisenberg had been attempting to break the British land speed record for a vehicle 207.6mph -- that was set by racer Tony Densham in 1970. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Businessman Zef Eisenberg dies while trying to break British land speed record" Mumbai: Superstar Akshay Kumar on Saturday made an heartfelt appeal to fans as well as the media to not paint every film personality with the same brush, addressing the coverage of drug probe in relation with actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death. In an almost four-minutes-long video, the 53-year-old actor said that drug issue exists in Bollywood, like any other industry, but one shouldnt assume that every person in the profession is part of the problem. Today, Im talking to you with a heavy heart. I want to say so many things in the past few weeks but there is so much negativity everywhere. We may be called stars, but Bollywood has been created because of your love. We are not just an industry, but through our films we have showcased Indian values and culture throughout the world, Akshay said. The actor added that cinema has always been a reflection of the society, raising pertinent issues like corruption, poverty or unemployment, and will continue to do so. Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB) is probing the alleged Bollywood drug-nexus and has till now arrested Rajputs girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik and some suspected drug peddlers. The federal agency has also questioned Bollywood actors Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan as a part of the investigation. Amid the probe, Bollywood has faced wrath of many on social media and various other platforms for being a negative influence on cinema fans. Akshay believes the series of events following the death of Rajput in June has pushed everyone in the film industry to introspect. The actor said he wont deny that there are some in the industry who may be doing illegal things, but most of the people will cooperate with the investigation. Ill be a liar if I say that this problem does not exist in our industry. It exists, just like every industry. But every person in every profession is not involved in such problems. This is impossible. Drugs is a legal matter and Im totally confident that our law enforcement authorities and courts will conduct a fair investigation into this issue. I know this for a fact that every person from the film industry will cooperate with them in this investigation. It is my request, dont dont look at the whole industry with same lens. This is not right, he said. The actor requested the members of the media to not indulge in insensitive and irresponsible coverage as even a single negative issue can damage an artistes hard-earned reputation. I want to request the media that they continue doing their jobs and raising their voices but with sensitivity. One piece of negative issue can damage a persons reputation that they built over the years after a lot of hard work. Akshay said the star status many enjoy in the industry is a result of the love fans shower on them and his aim will always be to change for the better. My message to all the fans is that you all have made us and we will not let your faith go in vain. If you are upset with us, then we will work extra hard so as to get rid of our flaws. We will win your love and trust. We are because of you. Last month Producers Guild of India, which has 136 members including biggies like Aditya Chopra, Aamir Khan, Karan Johar, Shah Rukh Khan and Vishal Bhardwaj, criticised media for peddling what it termed clickbait journalism. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 17:23:17|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Passengers wait for trains at the Dar Es Salaam station of Tanzania-Zambia Railway in Dar Es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, Feb. 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Lyu Shuai) The Chinese-built infrastructure, Tanzania-Zambia Railway line is still paying dividends despite having been constructed 50 years ago, Zambian business community said. CHINGOLA, Zambia, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese-built infrastructure, Tanzania-Zambia Railway line is still paying dividends despite having been constructed 50 years ago, Zambian business community said on Friday. This follows the board of directors of Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) involving of the private Open Access Operator in the transportation of cargo in TAZARA line which has so far had contributed to substantial diversion of freight traffic away from the roads and therefore added in slowing down the deterioration of the roads in Zambia and Tanzania. Morgan Lungu, a Zambian transporter, said TAZARA is still one of the major international routes to the sea coast. "Despite having been in existence for several decades TAZARA is still very effective when it comes to exports of goods such as Copper which is transported in bulk," he said. Lungu commended the TAZARA board for ensuring that the railway remains effective in the transportation of cargo. And Maureen Mwape who is Chingola chapter chairperson for Women in Business said apart from Zambia and Tanzania, other African nations are also using TAZARA to export and import goods. "The railway line has become beneficial to other African countries not only to Zambia and Tanzania," she said. Grand Jury Audio Details Raid That Killed Breonna Taylor LOUISVILLE, Ky.Police said they knocked and announced themselves for a minute or more before bursting into Breonna Taylors apartment, but her boyfriend said he did not hear officers identify themselves, according to Kentucky grand jury recordings released Friday. In the hail of gunfire that ensued, the 26-year-old black woman was killed. The dramatic and sometimes conflicting accounts of the March 13 raid are key to a case that has fueled nationwide protests. When police came through the door using a battering ram, Taylors boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired once. He acknowledges that he may not have heard police identify themselves because of where he was in the apartment. If hed heard them, it changes the whole situation because theres nothing for us to be scared of. The fear and confusion that played out after midnight at Taylors Louisville home was detailed in 15 hours of audio recordings made public in a rare release. While the recordings added rich detail about what happened as police fired 32 shots in the last moments of Taylors life, nothing on them appeared to change the fundamental narrative that was previously made public. The recordings also do not include any discussion of potential criminal action on the part of the officers who shot Taylor because Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron determined beforehand that they had acted in self-defense. As a result, he did not seek charges against police in her killinga recommendation the grand jury followed. Grand jury proceedings are typically kept secret, but a court ruled that they should be released after the jurys decision last week angered many in Louisville and around the country and set off renewed protests. One of the jurors also sued to make the proceedings public. The material does not include juror deliberations or prosecutor recommendations and statements, none of which were recorded, according to Camerons office. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said it will release its own assessment of how the evidence was presented after a review of the recordings. Sherrilyn Ifill, the groups president, said releasing the recordings is a critical first step. Black Lives Matter protesters march in Louisville on Sept. 25, 2020. (Darron Cummings/AP Photo, File) At Jefferson Square Park, which has been at the center of protests for months, a small group gathered in a mood far more subdued than the outcry that followed the grand jurys decision. On the March night in question, police arrived after midnight at Taylors apartment with a narcotics warrant to search the home. She and her boyfriend were in bed. Within minutes, she had been shot five times. Though police had a no knock warrant that would have allowed them to burst in unannounced, they agreed it was better to give them a chance to answer the door, said Louisville police Lt. Shawn Hoover. Detective Myles Cosgrove said the officers had been told to use our maturity as investigators to get into this house. In a police interview played for the grand jury, Hoover said the officers announced themselves as police and knocked three times. He estimated they waited 45 seconds to a minute before going through the door. Another officer said they waited as long as 2 minutes. Walker said he heard knocking but that police did not respond to his and Taylors repeated requests that whoever was at the door identify themselves. He told police that he grabbed his gun, and they both got up and walked toward the door. Shes yelling at the top of her lungs, and I am too at this point. No answer. No response. No nothing, Walker said. Police said they used a battering ram to enter the apartment, hitting the door three times before getting inside. Detective Michael Nobles said officers made so much noise that an upstairs neighbor came outside. Walker, who has said he thought the police were intruders, fired once, hitting Detective Jonathan Mattingly in the leg as soon as he leaned inside the apartment. Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., in an undated photograph. (Courtesy of Taylor family attorney Sam Aguiar via AP) Mattingly said in testimony, some of which was previously released, that he fired his gun while falling on his backside. Cosgrove came through the door and saw Mattingly on the ground. In his interview with investigators, he spoke to the confusion of the confrontation. He told investigators that he thought he fired four or fewer shots, but the evidence showed he fired 16 rounds, including the bullet that killed Taylor. Officer Brett Hankison, who has since been fired, told investigators that he saw flashes from a gun coming from inside the apartment and feared his fellow officers were sitting ducks. Hankison said he began shooting, and when gunfire inside the apartment continued, moved to fire through a window. He fired 10 bullets. Hankison was the only officer indicted by the grand jury, which charged him with wanton endangerment for shooting into another home with people inside. He has pleaded not guilty. What I saw at the time was a figure in a shooting stance, and it looked as if he was holding, he or she was holding, an AR-15 or a long gun, a rifle, Hankison said. Walker was, in fact, using a handgun. He said he and Taylor both dropped to the ground when the officers returned fire. Im scared to death, Walker said, before it dawned on him that it was the police. Walker said he then looked at Taylor, who was bleeding. Seeking help he called his mother, 911, and then Taylors mother. Walker told a 911 dispatcher, Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend. While Walker told police he did not hear officers identify themselves, he also said he doubted he could have, considering the couple was at the opposite end of a long hallway. If we knew who it was, that would have never happened, Walker said. But Hoover, the police lieutenant, said he believed Walker and Taylor ambushed the officers. They knew we were there. I mean, hell, the neighbors knew we were there, he said. Police interviews with Taylors neighbors, however, didnt clear up the confusion. Two neighbors said they didnt hear the police knocking. One of them also said he was certain he didnt hear police identify themselves. Another man gave three differing accountsin two of them saying he heard officers identify themselves. After the burst of gunshots, the officers focused on the wounded Mattingly. No one else entered Taylors apartment until a SWAT team arrivedeven as she lay bleeding. A neighbor, Summer Dickerson, told investigators she was jolted out of bed by the gunshots. Outside the apartment, she said, an officer she recognized told her that some drug-dealing girl shot at the police. Walker initially told police that Taylor was the one who shot at them. He later said he was the one who fired the gun. One law enforcement officer testified that no drugs were found in the apartment but that police ultimately never executed the search warrant. Amazon is airing a commercial for a climate pledge that highlights the companys commitment to using wind power. Designed to appeal to environmentalists, the commercial ironically reveals how Amazon and wind power advocates would decimate Americas environment, open spaces, and wildlife. The Amazon commercial opens with the sound of songbirds singing. Text then appears, saying Amazon is committed to being net zero carbon by 2040. Follow-up text observes Amazon has ordered 100,000 electric vehicles. The commercial then shows hills lined with gigantic wind turbines, with text saying Amazon has created a $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund. If a Climate Pledge Fund entails developing increasingly more lands that are currently pristine with wind turbines, Mother Earth is certainly saying, Thanks, but no thanks. While a wind-turbine energy economy might reduce Americas already shrinking carbon dioxide emissionswhich have already declined more in this century than any other nation on Earththe real-world environmental damage caused in the process would be shocking and ultimately devastate the very songbirds featured in Amazons commercial. Harvard University scientists who are concerned about global warming published in 2018 a study in which they examined the impact of a wind-turbine economy on Americas open spaces. According to the study, replacing conventional energy with wind turbines would require covering one-third of Americas lands with wind turbines. No, that is not a misprint. According to the Harvard report, wind turbines would have to blanket fully one-third of Americas lands to replace conventional energy. Moreover, the scientists found that a large-scale placement of wind turbines would increase U.S. temperatures, as the warming impact of turbines impeding air circulation would outweigh any cooling effect of lower carbon dioxide emissions. Even worse, if Americas entire vehicle fleet were electrified, a move that Amazon supports, it would require covering fully half of Americas lands with wind turbines. In the name of environmentalism, Amazon and its Climate Pledge allies would destroy half of Americas landsincluding millions of acres of forests, prairies, mountaintops, and seashoresand replace them with energy infrastructure. Those same lands are home to an immeasurable wealth of wildlife that would be forced to seek dwindling habitat, largely to no avail. Many of the animals that remain would face a certain and unnecessary death. Wind turbines have already created no-fly-zones in much of the nation, killing millions of our nations birds and bats every year, including many protected and endangered species. Ramping up wind power from its current 9 percent of electric power generation to 100 percent electric power generation would create a 10-fold increase in that death toll. Adding the transportation vehicle fleet to the grid would require much more wind power, and thus a much higher death toll. The songbirds joyfully singing throughout the Amazon commercial will suffer an aviary holocaust everywhere that wind turbines are erected. And for what asserted benefit? Scientific evidence showsand even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledgesthere is no evidence of worsening droughts, floods, hurricanes, or tornadoes due to Earths recent and modest warming. Climate activists constant predictions of worsening climate impacts are the same predictions they have been makingand getting wrongfor the past 30 years. As opposed to the failed warnings of climate activists, NASA has documented that more atmospheric carbon dioxide is generating spectacular benefits for forests, grasslands, and other plant life. According to a NASA article titled Carbon Dioxide Greening Earth, Study Finds, more atmospheric carbon dioxide is spurring an increase in plant growth that represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental U.S. Thats the kind of CO2-pumped environment song birds love ... if you actually care about the props for your ad more than virtue signaling that murders birds. Moreover, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that global crop production is setting new records virtually every year. More atmospheric carbon dioxide, longer growing seasons, and fewer frost events are playing a large role in that. Yes, replacing conventional energy with wind turbines could accelerate the ongoing decline in Americas already small carbon dioxide footprint. The U.S. is responsible for just 14 percent of global CO2 emissions, and Americas emissions have fallen faster than every signatory to the Paris Climate Accord, which, by the UNs own admission, is primarily focused on redistributing wealth, not saving the planet. There have been few real-world harms caused by modest, gradual global warming, and whatever harms have occurred have been far outweighed by the substantial, objectively documented benefits resulting from a warmer world. And climate activists have continuously failed to give any sound evidence showing that this trend will soon change. On the other hand, the unavoidable environmental impact of destroying half our lands and covering them with wind turbines would be catastrophic and irreversible. Thank you, Amazon, for presenting increasingly threatened songbirds in your commercial to illustrate that point. Now, maybe we can save those songbirds. James Taylor (JTaylor@heartland.org) is president of The Heartland Institute. An RFE/RL correspondent at the scene, Sargis Harutyunyan, reported that the city was rocked by several explosions that partly destroyed the headquarters of the Karabakh Rescue Service. Four persons were injured, a spokesperson for the service told RFE/RLs Armenian Service. Thank God, nobody was killed. Karabakh officials said that Stepanakert was hit by rockets fired by the Azerbaijani army. The city is located a few dozen kilometers from the nearest section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact around Karabakh. There will be a proportionate retaliation, a spokesman for Ara Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, said shortly after the shelling. The family of [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev will bear the full responsibility for that. The RFE/RL reporter and a cameraman had to take cover in a basement when Stepanakert again came under heavy artillery fire in the evening. One of the shells or rockets exploded near their shelter. Karabakhs Armenian-backed army said Azerbaijani forces also fired rockets at the Karabakh town of Hadrut. Five Hadrut residents were wounded, it said. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry did not immediately comment on what was the worst shelling of Stepanakert since the September 27 outbreak of heavy fighting on the Karabakh frontlines. It accused Armenian forces of shelling Azerbaijani villages close to the line of contact. The Karabakh authorities say that the hostilities have left 152 ethnic Armenian soldiers and 13 civilians dead. The Azerbaijani side reported 16 civilian casualties as of Thursday evening. It has still not disclosed the number of Azerbaijani soldiers killed in action. The hostilities involving scores of tanks, artillery systems and attack drones continued on Friday despite growing international efforts to stop the bloodshed. Mr. A P Parigi, President ,The FMS Forum, said It gives me immense pleasure to welcome Gurmit Singh as the Chapter Head of The FMS Forum, Mumbai. Gurmit has an outstanding track record in the media sector, having worked with global & Indian Brands like Yahoo, Forbes, India Today & Hindustan Times. He is currently the General Manager of APAC Region at Quora. We look forward to his galvanizing the participation & support of the Alumni in the Mumbai region. Mr. Gurmit Singh said "It's always an honor to be remembered by your alma mater and its alumni. I am excited about furthering the 3-point agenda of the FMS Forum; to further establish FMS as a thought leader, foster an active exchange between FMS Alumni and their alma mater, create a platform for intellectual exchange In 2015, THE FMS FORUM was formed by a group of passionate distinguished alumni in the spirit of Guru Dakshina i.e. unconditionally giving back to the Alma Mater with gratitude and respect. The Dean of FMS is the patron of the FMS Forum. The FMS Forum, is a not for profit society. The prime objective of THE FORUM has been to create an intellectual platform through the global alumni networks strategic leadership inputs, collective experiences, and pooled financial resources. For all the woes the Permian Basin energy industry is currently experiencing demand destruction from the COVID-19 pandemic and low oil prices it still has a bright future. We think theres a very bright future for the Permian Basin, Bobby Tudor, chairman of Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. stated during the Permian Basin Petroleum Associations 58th Annual Meeting, held virtually this year. It will be different than what we were expecting. The Permian has great rock, great people, great companies and a great regulatory environment. The Permian Basin will continue to be a critical part of the global energy picture. Tudor said his company expects oil prices to remain rangebound at current levels and not rising above $50 for the next five years. Still, he said Permian Basin oil production will continue its upward trajectory. Were actually projecting the Permian will continue to grow; were showing 5.6 million barrels per day in 2025. Its not as if the Permian will fall off a cliff, its just the growth rate will moderate, Tudor said. He said the questions are: Who will be generating that growth? Will growth be concentrated in fewer companies? There likely will be meaningful consolidation around Permian companies, and larger companies will be the consolidators, Tudor said. Markets demand scale and return of capital, and smaller companies find that very hard to meet, he said. There are a lot of general & administrative efficiencies that could be wrung out in consolidation, he said. The G&A picture would look very different in a highly consolidated Permian; our expectation is that is likely to happen over the next several years. The challenge is the industrys record of losses over the last decade has made it difficult to attract investors, he said. Access to capital is limited to the largest, highest quality operators, Tudor said. Investors are now focused on return on capital. They want operators to generate cash flow, lower their reinvestment rates and moderate production growth, and investors want much lower leverage, he said. Some Permian-focused companies are already adjusting their operations to meet those new demands, he said. Looking forward, Tudor said the upcoming presidential election will be a meaningful catalyst for energy markets. Emerging markets India, Southeast Asia and Africa will determine the energy mix. ESG environment, social and governance issues matter and are a focus for investors as well as energy companies, he said. All that is actually healthy; the industry is responding appropriately, working to lower its environmental footprint, make operations cleaner and being partners in driving toward a cleaner globe as opposed to being a hurdle to lowering emissions. Globally, and certainly in the U.S. and Europe, the general populace believes climate change is real and we need to lower global emissions. That is driving behavior and, ultimately, I think its going to result in lower emissions. That is good for the world. The question is, how do we provide affordable energy to the world while learning how to do it cleaner and with lower carbon dioxide emissions? Its a big challenge and its critical the energy industry, the U.S. energy industry in particular, be seen as partners in the drive to lower emissions. I think were on the right path. Its a long slow path; the nature of transition will be difficult without real breakthroughs in technology. There will be politicians and people who will only be happy if the oil and gas industry goes out of business, Tudor said. That will never happen, never happen in our lifetime. The world needs what we do, he said. With a view to mounting pressure on the BJP-led Central government to revoke the contentious agriculture laws, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is planning to shift its agitation to the national capital. To work out the modalities of the protests in Delhi, a meeting of the partys core committee is expected to hold a meeting soon. The SAD has decided to take its protests to Delhi. The schedule will be decided shortly. But we also want all the farmer bodies to come on a common platform with the Akali Dal to put a joint fight for their rights, said former minister Bikram Singh Majithia. The senior leadership, including former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, ex-Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, sitting and former MPs and MLAs, former ministers, besides the district jathedars, and sitting and former members of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandak Committee (SGPC) will take part in the Delhi protests. The SAD leaders will sit on a dharna outside Parliament to draw the attention of various political parties and farm bodies cross the country, it is learnt. Chain hunger fasts likely Chain hunger fasts are likely besides the jathas courting arrests every day, said a senior leader not willing to be named. On Thursday night, police detained Sukhbir, Harsimrat and other senior party leaders when they were trying to enter Chandigarh leading protest marches from Takhts of Sikhism. They were on their way to submit a memorandum, addressed to President Ram Nath Kovind, to Punjab governor VP Singh Badnore demanding the repeal of the farm laws. The partys farmer wing president Sikandar Singh Maluka said since the paddy harvesting season has started, farmers cant make themselves available for the protests in Delhi. So we have decided to make a plan in such a way that only our senior leadership is involved in these protests, he said. Also, wheat sowing will begin immediately after the paddy harvesting. The farmers cant be troubled for at least a month, he added. To get in touch with regional parties The Akali Dal has also decided to get in touch with other regional parties across the country to turn the ongoing stir into a national agitation. The leaders of different regional parties have congratulated us for moving out of the NDA and initiating protests for the farmers cause, said Maluka. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON She claimed they'd been embroiled in a backstage row in her bombshell memoir. And it seemed that Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood wanted to see Shirley Ballas' accusations for himself as he picked up her autobiography Behind The Sequins on Saturday. The acid-tongued judge, 55, tweeted a snap of himself reading the book with a feigned shock expression, after Shirley claimed he body-shamed her back in 2018. Laugh it off! Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood wanted to see Shirley Ballas' accusations for himself as he picked up her autobiography Behind The Sequins on Saturday Craig tweeted a snap brandishing Shirley's new book after it was released on Friday. His surprise reaction perfectly displayed his shock as he wrote: 'Just received Shirley's auto. It's a fab-u-lous read!!!! Well done darling.' Earlier this week Shirley spoke out about how she had a furious row with Craig after he reportedly body-shamed her back in 2018. No drama: The acid-tongued judge tweeted a snap of himself reading the book with a feigned shock expression, after Shirley's explosive claims Her side of the story: Earlier this week Shirley spoke out about how she had a furious row with Craig after he reportedly body-shamed her back in 2018 (pictured in September 2019) The head Strictly judge described how Craig's 'painful' alleged comments about her figure drudged up bad memories from her second marriage to retired dancer Corky. Shirley said Craig gave a grovelling apology after he is said to have told a crowd her breasts were 'hanging out' when she auditioned to replace Len Goodman. Craig, 55, allegedly said while promoting his autobiography at the time: 'What happened is that she came to the audition and literally had her thing open to her navel. I am not joking. 'Her boobs were like La BaZooKa things hanging out. It was not very, erm, Strictly. So they came in and sewed all that up. Then they had to push them down . . . and they're fake.' Taunt: Shirley says Craig gave a grovelling apology after he is said to have told a crowd her breasts were 'hanging out' when she auditioned to replace Len Goodman (pictured in 2019) Two years on, Shirley spoke of her shock in her autobiography, Behind The Sequins. In an extract obtained by The Mirror, the retired dancer said: 'It was awful and very, very painful. It brought up a lot of things from my past that I thought I'd dealt with.' She claimed: 'Once again, I was propelled back to my toughest days with [ex-husband] Corky, when he would make comments about my appearance: my crooked teeth, my nose, my a**e that was too big. 'All those insults just came flying back as I read what Craig had said, apparently in jest. I told him exactly how I felt.' Shirley said she told Craig she felt a sense of betrayal as she felt he should 'feel like a protector to me and I should to you.' The Strictly star added Craig gave her a grovelling apology and sent her flowers as an olive branch. Old wounds: In an extract of her autobiography, the retired dancer said: 'It was awful and very, very painful. It brought up a lot of things from my past that I thought I'd dealt with' Made it up: The Strictly star said Craig gave her a grovelling apology and sent her flowers as an olive branch (pictured last year) MailOnline has contacted Craig and Corky's representatives and Strictly for comment. Shirley was with her second husband, professional dancer Corky Ballas when she decided to increase her bust size from a 32B to 34DD 18 years ago. She told MailOnline last year: 'For years Corky was what I call a jokester. He'd tease me with things like, 'You've got breasts like two currants on a breadboard' or 'You've got a sunken chest like a pirate's something or other.' He didn't like my teeth until I got braces at 25. 'It's like a little pickaxe that goes, chip, chip, chip, until, in the end, you think you are ugly. Boob job: Shirley was with her second husband, professional dancer Corky Ballas when she decided to increase her bust size from a 32B to 34DD (pictured in 2018) Confidence knock: For years Corky was what I call a jokester. He'd tease me with things like, 'You've got breasts like two currants on a breadboard', she claimed 'I thought I'd have this fantastic bust and everyone would look at me and think I was amazing.' 'After the operation I did feel fantastic: I'd put a bra on and I had a cleavage. But her delight was short-lived. 'Because if you're not happy with yourself if you're heart is not happy you won't be happy with anything you do to your body,' she said. 'It isn't until you're at peace with yourself that everything about you is beautiful. So what if you've got a smaller bust? I think it's only since I've been with Danny that I've realised that.' Last year Shirley had an operation to remove her implants and wowed fans when she returned to Strictly just days after her surgery. Lebanon and Israel agree to talks to end sea border dispute Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri holds news conference in Beirut By Ellen Francis and Rami Ayyub BEIRUT/TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Lebanon and Israel have agreed to a framework for U.S.-mediated talks aimed at ending a long-running dispute along the border between the two nations that have fought several conflicts. Still in a formal state of war, Lebanon and Israel have contested their land and maritime borders for decades, namely over an area in the sea on the edge of three Lebanese offshore energy blocks. Israel said the talks would cover the sea border. Washington has mediated between the two sides. "This is a framework agreement, not a final one," Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told reporters, less than a month after the United States imposed sanctions on his top aide for corruption and financially enabling Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese group which Washington deems a terrorist organisation. The heavily armed Hezbollah and Israel, sworn enemies, last fought a war in 2006. The announcement comes with Lebanon facing its worst crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war. The country's financial meltdown was compounded by a massive port explosion that wrecked a swathe of Beirut in August, killing nearly 200 people. Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz confirmed the two sides would hold U.S.-brokered talks on the maritime border, a major point of contention. The U.S. State Department welcomed the agreement and said it had taken three years of diplomacy to achieve. Talks will begin in the week of Oct. 12, David Schenker, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, told reporters in a telephone briefing, adding that he will represent the United States in the negotiations. It follows deals signed last month, brokered by Washington, between Israel and two Gulf Arab states to normalise relations. SANCTIONS Berri, a Hezbollah ally and influential Shi'ite leader in charge of the border file, said talks would be held under the auspices of the United Nations at a U.N. base in Naqoura near the boundary with Israel, known as the Blue Line. Story continues He told a news conference in Beirut that Washington would push for agreement as soon as possible. Berri mentioned the land and maritime border at the news conference, while Israel and the United States only mentioned the maritime boundary. One reason previous efforts to launch talks floundered was the two sides disagreeing over which frontier to discuss, analysts say. A Lebanese official source suggested Berri was prompted to make the announcement now because of the economic crisis and U.S. sanctions imposed last month on his right-hand man, Ali Hassan Khalil. A Western diplomat echoed this. Berri denied being swayed. "I, Berri, cannot be softened by force," he told reporters. Speaking after the agreement was announced, Schenker, the State Department official, said the United States will continue to impose sanctions on Lebanese individuals allied with Hezbollah or engaged in corruption, adding that further sanctions remained in play. In 2018, Beirut licensed a group of Italy's Eni, France's Total and Russia's Novatek to carry out Lebanon's first offshore energy exploration in two blocks. One of them, Block 9, contains waters disputed with Israel. Berri said he had asked French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been at the centre of foreign efforts to help Lebanon out of crisis, to press Total not to delay exploration for gas in the offshore area. As well as the maritime border row, the two countries disagree over a border wall Israel started building in 2018. A U.N. peacekeeping force monitors the boundary since Israel's military withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, ending a 22-year occupation. (Reporting by Ellen Francis, Samia Nakhoul and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Rami Ayyub in Tel Aviv and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Kirsten Donovan) More than 1,500 alumni from Amy Coney Barrett's undergraduate alma mater have signed a letter making it known they are not proud of their ties to the US Supreme Court nominee. Barrett, 48, attended Rhodes College - a small, mid-tier university located in Memphis, Tennessee - where she studied English literature and graduated magna cum laude in 1994. During her time at the school, Barrett was a member of the Honor Council and was named to the Student Hall of Fame, before going on to attain a postgraduate law degree from Notre Dame. Last month, following her nomination to the Supreme Court, Rhodes president Majorie Hass released a statement praising Barrett, saying that she had built a career of 'professional distinction and achievement'. Soon after, Rhodes alumni Rob Marus and Katherine Morgan Breslin wrote a letter criticizing Barrett's for her conservative stances, taking particular issue with her past comments on abortion law and her remarks about the Affordable Care Act. The letter, which was signed by 1,513 alumni and posted online, declared that the signatories were 'firmly and passionately opposed to her nomination' to the nation's highest Court. 'We are likewise firmly and passionately opposed to Rhodes administrators' attempts to embrace Amy Coney Barrett as an alumna of our beloved alma mater,' the letter further stated. More than 1,500 alumni from Amy Coney Barrett's undergraduate alma mater have signed a letter making it known they are not proud of their ties to the US Supreme Court nominee. Barrett is pictured this week Barrett, 48, attended Rhodes College - a small, mid-tier university located in Memphis, Tennessee - where she studied English literature and graduated magna cum laude in 1994 'We oppose this embrace because we believe both her record and the process that has produced her nomination are diametrically opposed to the values of truth, loyalty, and service that we learned at Rhodes. The letter further accuses Barrett of sidestepping questions about how she would rule if the abortion case were challenged before the Supreme Court. It added that Barrett 'has demonstrated a judicial philosophy and record that fails to serve and protect the vulnerable in our society, including immigrants, those in the criminal justice system, and individuals reliant on the Affordable Care Act.' In a subsequent statement following the alumni's letter, Rhodes president Majorie Hass encouraged 'all members of the Rhodes community to rise to this moment with courage and to speak, act, and vote in the service of justice.' 'I hope that your letter - as well as the support, dissent, and attention it has generated - serves as a spur for robust engagement with the political process,' Hass wrote. She stood by her previous public remarks praising Barrett's 'exceptional record of academic achievement' at Rhodes. 'The college will continue to speak of her with respect and friendship,' Hass wrote. Whilst at Rhodes, Barrett was a member of the Honor Council and was named to the Student Hall of Fame. She is pictured in a photo taken during her senior year Barrett's nomination has thrust the small school into the national spotlight. The college is little-known outside of Tennessee, and is far less famous than Notre Dame - where Barrett now works as law lecturer. Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany confused Barrett as a 'Rhodes Scholar'- a term for international students who receive a scholarship for postgraduate study at England's University of Oxford. However, Barrett would not be the first Supreme Court Justice that Rhodes College has produced. Abe Fortas, who graduated from the Memphis school in 1930, served on the Supreme Court from 1965 - 1969. Rhodes graduates have also clerked for justices and the school has previously hosted on-campus talks by sitting Justice Stephen Breyer and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Ahead of Rahul Gandhi's scheduled visit to Hathras UP Congress chief put under house arrest India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P Hathras, Oct 03: UPCC president Ajay Kumar Lallu has been put under house arrest ahead of the scheduled visit of senior leader Rahul Gandhi to Hathras on Saturday, the party said. According to party spokesperson Anshu Awasthi, police personnel have been stationed outside Lallu's house and he is not being allowed to venture outside. "The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Ajay Kumar Lallu has been placed under house arrest at his residence in the state capital," Awasthi said. Rahul, Priyanka doing drama in Hathras, quiet on Rajasthan: Prasad The step has been taken to prevent Lallu from joining Rahul Gandhi who is scheduled to visit Hathras, he added. By doing so, the state government is only exposing itself. It has removed all doubts from people's mind that it has resorted to gundagardi and is blatantly standing with the criminals of Hathras, he said. A tweet by Uttar Pradesh Congress said, "Our state president Shri Ajay Kumar Lalluji, our district heads and more than 500 workers have been placed under house arrest. Yogiji don't stop those who fight for justice." Hathras gang-rape case: Borders reopened, reporters allowed in, says authorities Meanwhile, authorities in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh on Saturday reopened the borders and said they would allow media to enter the village, where a 19-year-old woman was gang-raped. On Thursday, police had set up barricades roughly 2km from the village on the main road, blocked off all access paths and deployed policemen on the mud tracks and in the fields to prevent any "outsiders" from accessing the village. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Officials also said that Section 144 was clamped in the area. They had said the ongoing probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was the reason for the restrictions. "Since SIT probe in the village is complete, the restriction on media has been lifted. More than five media persons are now allowed to gather as Section 144 of CrPC is in place," Prem Prakash Meena, Sadar senior divisional magistrate said. "Only the media is allowed right now. When orders come in to allow delegations, we will let everybody know. All allegations about phones of the family members being taken away or confining them in their homes are absolutely baseless," Meena said. 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Numerous councils have joined a push against the targets since a north shore council amended its draft housing strategy after a concession by the state government that the targets are not legally binding. Randwick deputy mayor Philipa Veitch has called for a review of housing targets, as the COVID-19 crisis slows population growth. Credit:James Alcock Ryde's Labor mayor, Jerome Laxale, called on housing targets established before the pandemic to be cut, saying the current target of 7600 new homes by 2021 made Ryde "a developers' Disneyland". "These state government housing targets were too high prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and they are too high now," he told The Sun-Herald. "The COVID-19 pandemic has seen good governments rethink their approach to everything; why should these insane housing targets be no different?" Getting a Nobel Prize is a dream of every researcher who dedicates his entire life doing ground-breaking research in any subject. But when Indian-American scientist, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, got a call from Sweden aprising him on his win, he thought it was a prank being played on him. The Instagram account of Nobel Prize shared a post recalling this day. Also read | Virus Scales Down December Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony In a post on the official Instagram handle of Nobel Prize, it is mentioned that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan had a bad day when he got the call. His bike had gotten a flat tire as he was on his way to Cambridge University. His telephone rang just as he entered his office. This is an important phone call from Stockholm please hold, the caller said. He angrily said to the caller in response, Whoever put you up to this I dont believe you!" Also read | Trump Wisconsin Crowd Chants 'Nobel Peace Prize' The general secretary was now on the phone and when he, too, congratulated Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, he was still dubious. Even as the general secretary tried to convince him that the news was true, the Indian-American scientist still refused to believe it. He then spoke to Mans Ehrenberg who was the committee member Venkatraman Ramakrishnan had met before. After speaking to him, Ramakrishnan actually believed it was true and not a prank. The scientist also heard laughter fin the background and realised he was on loudspeaker. Also read | Trump Says Nobel Peace Prize Possible For 'stopping Mass Killings' Between Serbia, Kosovo It was hard for people to believe that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan would believe this is to be a prank. The post has garnered over 6000 likes on Instagram and people are sharing and commenting on what they would have done had they gotten a call for winning the Nobel Prize. Here is how netizens reacted to this - Such a noble man. Studied physics, research in biology and got nobel prize in chemistry. Hooman! Saludos Kurniawan, SRPharmS. (@kurniachev) September 20, 2020 Such a noble man. Studied physics, research in biology and got nobel prize in chemistry. Hooman! Saludos Kurniawan, SRPharmS. (@kurniachev) September 20, 2020 This made me deep belly laugh. I can just hear the phone conversation -no, very sorry no, stop pranking me..good bye..Maybe my Dad has also won a Nobel too.. https://t.co/q9JgD1EpPb Sheela Abraham (@SupremeHaggis) September 20, 2020 It took three Nobel committee members to convince Dr. Venkatram Ramakrishnan that it wasn't a prank! https://t.co/qUImQbQSsl Santosh Satam (@satamsantosh) September 20, 2020 Greatness doesn't lie in the spheres narrowed down.... It lies somewhere else MTGmanjeet (@manjeet202416) September 23, 2020 Also read | China Warns Norway Against Awarding Nobel Peace Prize To Hong Kong Activists The Indian-origin scientist won the prestigious Nobel Prize in 2009 for his notable work in the field of chemistry. According to Nobelprize.org, he had studied the structure and function of the ribosome. His contribution was important in the production of anti-biotics. The prize was shared by three scientists. His autobiography is available on the website of Nobel Prize. Promo image courtesy- @nobelprize_org Instagram Russia and Turkey had coordinated at times in the past to tamp down tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia. But the uncomfortable cooperation between Turkey and Russia, an ally of Armenia, comes as both countries become increasingly assertive in the Middle East and as the United States steps back. Relations between all three countries have become more complicated. Turkey has alienated the United States by buying antiaircraft missiles from Russia and cutting a natural gas pipeline deal seen as undermining Ukraine. At the same time, it is fighting proxy wars against Moscow in Syria and Libya. After Russian airstrikes in Syria killed Turkish soldiers earlier this year, Turkey soon appeared on other battlefields where Russia was vulnerable. In May, Turkey deployed military advisers, armed drones and Syrian proxy fighters to Libya to shore up the U.N.-backed government and push back a Russian-supported rival faction in that war. In July and August, it sent troops and equipment to Azerbaijan for military exercises. Armenia has said that Turkey was directly involved in the fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, and that a Turkish F-16 fighter shot down an Armenian jet. Turkey denied those accusations. Shortly after electronic voting closed for ratification of the contract negotiated between Unifor and Ford Canada, details of major concessions agreed to behind workers backs appeared in the Detroit Free Press. These concessions were intentionally left out by Unifor in the self-serving contract highlights summary they presented workers, and they have not been widely reported since in the mainstream press. Unifor President Jerry Dias at a September 22 press conference. Dias and Unifor announced its deal with Ford Canada but refused to divulge any of its details. The silence of the union, company, and corporate media on the concessions was deemed necessary so as to pull wool over workers eyes as to the sweeping givebacks that Unifor has made in what it is touting as the pattern contract for the Detroit Threes 17,000 Canadian workers. Unifor has effectively surrendered the hallowed principles of the eight hour day and overtime pay provisions. In addition, it has agreed to a scheme to create a large third tier of workers on the shop floor by flooding the auto plants with a new wave of temporary part-time (TPT) workers. Unifor has agreed to the implementation of an Alternative Work Schedule (AWS). This concession, Ford boasted in a press release, will help maximize production flexibility and corporate efficiency, ensuring that the automaker remains globally competitive. The AWS, first introduced into US auto plants and widely hated by workers there, was imposed during the 2009 Obama administration-led restructuring of Chrysler and GM. It allows the automakers to run their plants longer, adding the equivalent of an extra 49 days of production annually compared with traditional plant schedules. It also allows the companies to cut tens of millions in labor costs by eliminating overtime payments for working more than a 40-hour week and on Saturday, which previously paid time-and-a-half. AWS schemes can compel workers to labour at least 10 hours a day including at straight-time pay on weekends. Workers are at the whim of the corporations when it comes to setting work hours. In many plants, all the company needs to do is give 14-days notice and it can force workers to toil whenever management deems it necessary, including workweeks with grueling shifts even beyond 10 hours. Seniority does not matter. This is akin to an on call provision, where the company can force workers to do as it pleases, when it pleases. The company can change start times each week if they so choose. The AWS is also known as the 3-2-120 schedule because three crews work two shifts for 120 hours a week. While AWS schedules change, there have been instances at the FCA Jefferson North Assembly plant in Detroit, where an A crew has worked 10 hours a day on day shift from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. A B crew has worked 10 hours on night shift 6 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday through Saturday, and a C crew has worked 10 hours on the night shift Monday and Tuesday and 10 hours on the day shift Friday and Saturday. Under this schedule, the paid lunch breakwon by auto workers decades agowas also eliminated. Recent Detroit Three contracts in the US have paved the way for the expanded use of lower-paid, temporary part-time workers in the factories. The deployment of ever more TPTs becomes even more necessary for the extraction of corporate profit under conditions where the gruelling AWS impacts attendance levels. To push against absenteeism, in UAW-Detroit Three agreements absences and lateness demerits are no longer wiped clean in ensuing contracts. Currently, FCA employs the highest percentage of second-tier and temporary workers out of the US-based Detroit Three auto companies, but the new Ford agreement adopts provisions that will allow Ford to quickly close that gap. The reality is, had Unifor presented these provisions openly to the membership, their pattern agreement with Ford might well have been decisively rejected. As it turned out, Unifor President Jerry Dias and his fellow union bureaucrats managed to secure passage of the agreement with bogus promises of job security, and hyped claims about a $1.8 billion investment in the Oakville Assembly Plant to retool it for electric vehicle production. As the WSWS explained in its initial article analyzing the ratified agreement: in exchange for investment commitments that are far from finalized, Unifor accepted the destruction of hundreds of jobs during the life of the new agreement, particularly among higher-paid legacy workers, who will be pushed into retirement. At Unifors insistence, the Ford-pattern deal will run for three instead of the usual four years. This means it will expire in September 2023 at the same time as those between the UAW and the Detroit Three. Unifor wants to synchronize its Detroit Three contracts with the UAWs not in order to facilitate a joint struggle by North American autoworkers. On the contrary, Dias has stressed that synchronized bargaining will allow Unifor to compete directly with the UAW for products and prevent the migration of investment to Mexico. In other words, it will bring about a further intensification of the race to the bottom in wages and working conditions, as the rival unions compete to demonstrate which can deliver the lower labour costs. Autoworkers are very familiar with Unifors longstanding anti-democratic modus operandi of withholding important information from them at contract ratification meetings in order to induce a Yes vote. Unifor, as a matter of practice, refuses to release and distribute the full contract complete with all side-agreements and Memorandums of Understanding until months after a ratification vote takes place. This has never sat right with thousands of workers at the Detroit Three auto plants in Canada. After all, the 2016 pattern contract at General Motors where Unifor guaranteed that auto assembly at the Oshawa plant would be saved was met only two years later by the companys closure announcement based on a contract clause never presented or discussed with workers at the ratification meetings. Unifors flagrant violation of Ford Canada workers basic democratic right to be fully informed of what they were voting on must be taken as a serious warning by autoworkers across Canada. Reports indicate that Unifor may announce a rapid agreement with FCA as early as this weekend as it seeks to wrap up the current bargaining round as quickly as possible. FCA workers must decisively reject all efforts to stampede them into voting on a deal they have not seen, especially since Dias has already made clear that it will follow the Ford concessions-laden pattern. Unifor, like the pro-capitalist trade unions around the world, does not represent the interests of working people, but rather of a privileged bureaucracy focused above all on maintaining its lucrative partnerships with big business and capitalist governments. Attempts to reform the union or persuade it to fight on behalf of workers interests are doomed to fail. It is worth recalling in this regard that although over 1,800 workersmore than one in ten of the Detroit Threes total Canadian workforcesigned a petition demanding that Unifor release agreements in full prior to any ratification vote, the union ignored it with contempt. I dont chase mice when Im hunting elephants, said Dias when asked for his view of the petition. Workers at FCA, GM and Ford must act now to organize independently of Unifor by establishing rank-and-file committees to block its efforts to impose similar pro-corporate, job-cutting agreements as it has done at Ford. These committees should demand the full release of any agreement reached between Unifor and FCA, and at least one week to study and discuss the terms before any ratification vote is held. They should also establish links with autoworkers in the United States, Mexico and internationally to prepare a unified counter-offensive by autoworkers against the hated two-tier system and all concessions and job cuts. Top Navy leaders are asking lawmakers for help in changing the timeframe for sailors to qualify for family separation pay during the global coronavirus pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic is putting extra stress on Navy families, Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, deputy chief of naval operations for Operations, Plans and Strategy, told reporters this week. New protocols to keep the virus off ships, which the Navy updated this week, require crews to complete a minimum 14-day restriction-of-movement sequester ahead of deployments. That stretches the time sailors are spending away from their families. Read Next: At Least 4 Top Generals May Have Been Exposed Before Trump Tested Positive for COVID-19 But a $250 per month family separation allowance doesn't kick in for Navy families until 30 days into a deployment. Now, Navy leaders are asking Congress to create a new rule to account for the unprecedented conditions sailors are facing during the pandemic. "Listening to the sailors, hearing what the pain points were, one of their issues was they get a family separation allowance when they deploy once they're away from homeport for more than 30 days," Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. John Nowell told reporters. "... By statute, we could not start that counter when they had to go aboard the ship for [restriction of movement]." Fourteen is the minimum number of days leaders require their crews to isolate ahead of deployments, but that can be extended at a commander's discretion. In April, after a carrier faced a COVID-19 outbreak, another flat top crew spent 27 days on their ship before deploying. Nowell said Navy leaders want those weeks to count toward the 30-day period that kicks off the monthly family separation allowance. They're hopeful the change will be made official in the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, he said. "What we've asked for is a legislative change that will allow that 30-day clock to start at the beginning of any pre-deployment [restriction of movement]," he explained. "We think that's fair enough. They're not with their families." Nowell acknowledged the pay doesn't address all the stressors Navy families are facing right now, "but it's still extra money in the pocketbook," he said. Leaders are mindful that the pandemic has left Navy families facing significant challenges, Sawyer added. "It is a concern," he said. "... The world and our nation has additional concerns and additional stress due to COVID, and certainly that translates to us." Some crews have faced extended deployments due to the pandemic, only to be gearing up for another overseas mission just months later. Navy Times reported that the aircraft carriers Theodore Roosevelt, which experienced a massive coronavirus outbreak this year, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, which recently spent more than 200 consecutive days at sea, are both preparing for upcoming missions. Sawyer stressed that any upcoming deployments have long been in the works as part of the Navy's Optimized Fleet Response Plan, or OFRP. That plan, which includes four phases, was meant to provide stable and predictable maintenance plans. "Having carriers deployed twice within an OFRP cycle is not new," he said. "While COVID has added complexity, the OFRP process has not changed. ... But it's still hard on the crews and their families." To help combat the stress -- aside from possibly extending family separation allowance -- Navy Surgeon General Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham said about a third of the service's mental health professionals are now with fleet units. "We've made a very concerted effort to increase the amount of what we call embedded mental health providers," Gillingham said. "We have found that this has had significant benefit in the sense that it lowers barriers to access and it decreases stigma." Sailors know their embedded mental health providers and feel comfortable seeking help from them, he said. Ships also have command resilience teams, Nowell added, that are meant to spot when a sailor might need help. "We already knew we had [operational stress] before COVID," he said. "Post-COVID, it's been even worse. "This is all about, 'How do we make it easier for the families and the sailors to concentrate on the main event,' whether it's taking care of their family during COVID or making sure that their ship's ready to fight," Nowell added. -- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins. Related: This Navy Destroyer Just Broke the All-Time Record for Consecutive Days at Sea CROWMELL - A cooperative effort involving a Delaware farmer and a cadre of local volunteers has provided boxes of fresh food to more than 1,100 families. The distribution of the food, with a gallon of milk included with each box, is the latest installment of the USDA Farmers to Families Program. Families in Cromwell, Portland, and Rocky Hill among other communities, benefited from the program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered locally by the state Department of Agriculture. The need for food has become particularly acute as the coronavirus continues to stymie efforts to reopen some businesses fully and get more people back to work. It also ensures that farmers who would ordinarily be supplying food to schools and restaurants, can provide that food to needy families rather than see it thrown away. The effort, which also involved the support of the Cromwell Fire Department, was the third such program so far this year in this part of the state. Volunteers from non-profits, schools, and churches were waiting when a tractor-trailer truck pulled into the Coles Road fire station on a recent morning. Fire Chief Michael Terenzio said the fire department stepped in to help out because, We have the space, the manpower - and the equipment. The fire service is not just about fighting fires, Terenzio said. Its about people helping people, about neighbors helping neighbors. As pallets were unloaded from the truck, the volunteers swarmed over the food boxes, loading them into SUVs, truck, and even a BMW convertible. Armed with a clipboard, Kayleigh Royston, a legislative liaison for the DOA, tallied the number of boxes that went to each group. While she has been instrumental in setting up the program, it was the first time Royston was able to see the distribution in person. Our good system has been bending over backwards to get a lot of food to a lot of people, Royston said. While she would prefer to get food from farms in Connecticut and throughout New England, Royston said Vincent Farms happened to have an adequate supply of food to meet the requirements of the delivery. Royston said she hopes to be able to mount additional Farms to Families deliveries before the end of the month. State Rep. Christie Carpino was among several officials on hand to help unload to trucks that had arrived from the Vincent Farms in Laurel, Deleware. Other officials included Mayor Enzo Faienza, town councilors Allan Waters, Patrick Ahlquist and his wife, former town clerk Joan Ahlquist. Carpino worked with the Cromwell Childrens Coalition to ensure there were adequate volunteers to unload the trailer. In all, 27 organizations were represented and and they managed to empty the trailer in two hours. Laura Winoski, the director of the Hilltop Pre-School, was among those who answered the call. We just know who are the families that need help by being close to our families, Winoski said. Royston also said she hopes to have additional shipments before the months end. It was not just about providing food to those in need, Royston said. Its also about the type of food that is being offered. The boxes distributed this time contained hot dogs, yogurt, sour cream, and cheese as well as fresh vegetables. Crews from the Portland Public Works Department off-loaded nearly 300 boxes, which they brought back to for distribution to the a senior living facility as well as to the Food Pantry for distribution to various churches. After she helped unload boxes, Portland First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield said, I want to thank all the volunteers for their generosity and for their hard work. In a significant development, the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) concluded that Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide dismissing theories of strangulation and poisoning. AIIMS handed over its findings to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The apex investigation over abetment to suicide still continues. There were no marks of struggle/scuffle on the body and clothes of the deceased," Dr Sudhir Gupta, Chairman of AIIMS Forensic Medical Board was quoted. The AIIMS Forensic Medical Board was formed in the death case of Sushant Singh Rajput after CBI took over the probe "The presence of any seductive material was not detected by the Forensic Science Laboratory in Mumbai and the AIIMS toxicology lab. The complete examination of the ligature mark over the neck was consistent with hanging," he added. Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead on June 14, in his duplex flat in the Mont Blanc building at Carter Road in Bandra. The Dr R N Cooper Municipal General Hospital in Vile Parle where the autopsy was conducted had found "asphyxia due to hanging" as the cause of death. The Bandra police station in Mumbai registered an accidental death report (ADR) and had recorded 56 statements during the investigation under Section 174 of the CrPC. However, the investigations were handed over to the CBI following an order of the Supreme Court based on the plea of the Bihar government which has registered an FIR in Patna against Sushant Singh Rajputs live-in partner Rhea Chakraborty and others for abetment to suicide and swindling off the actors money. Sushants father Krishna Kishore Singh has lodged the FIR and later also asked the murder charge to be probed. The statement of Dr Gupta comes as a major relief to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government, which was in the firing line of the BJP and political parties from Bihar. As soon as the statement of Dr Gupta came, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said that he would not like to comment. Nothing official has come to -when it comes, I will surely say on this, he said. Deshmukh, a senior NCP leader, went on to add that the CBI report should come now. Whether it is suicide or murder, people must know, he said. Meanwhile, Sushants live-in partner Rhea Chakrabortys lawyer Satish Maneshinde too stated that the CBI report must be tabled. "I have seen the statement of the doctors from AIIMS concerning the Sushant Singh Rajput case. The official papers and report are only with AIIMS and CBI which will be submitted in court once investigations are over. We await the official version of CBI, Maneshinde said. "We on behalf of Rhea Chakraborty have always said that truth cannot be changed under any circumstances. The speculations against Rhea in some quarters of the media are motivated and mischievous. We remain committed to truth alone," he added. The Congress also mounted an attack on the BJP-led Centre. After the official confirmation by AIIMS panel head Dr Sudhir Gupta that Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide, it is proved that investigation by the Mumbai police was honest and forthright. It is also clear that it was a conspiracy of the Modi govt with help of their fake media allies, state Congress general secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant said. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 22:43:13|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close VALLETTA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Five migrants who admitted to their involvement in a violent riot in a Maltese detention center two weeks ago were on Saturday jailed for 30 months each. The men had previously denied their involvement but opted to change their plea to guilty when they appeared before a magistrate. Magistrate Ian Farrugia jailed each migrant for 30 months, warning them that their behavior was unacceptable in a civilized society. The violent riot took place on Sept. 18 at Safi detention center during which seven police officers were injured, two of them seriously. The police arrested a total of 27 migrants, including five who had escaped but were apprehended shortly later. They are believed to have been the masterminds of the riot. Enditem YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The Defense Army of Artsakh has released footage showing the destruction of Azerbaijani hardware and how the adversary forces are retreating. Fierce battles continue at the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact since September 27, when the Azerbaijani armed forces launched a massive attack against Artsakh. Stepanakert city, the capital of Artsakh, has been bombarded multiple times by the Azeri forces, leading to civilian casualties. Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee indicated it is standing behind him. North Carolinians are supporting Cal because he will protect health care coverage for preexisting conditions, fight to bring down the costs of prescription drugs, and help our country recover from this crisis, DSCC spokesperson Lauren Passalacqua said in a statement. We are confident that he will bring the same courage and determination to the Senate as he has while serving our country in uniform. William Henry, 31, was one of the men who were murdered (Picture: Police) A 32-year-old man has been charged with the murder of two men after their bodies were found shot dead in a car. Jonathan Houseman, from Stourbridge, is accused of killing William Henry, 31, and 29-year-old Brian McIntosh in Dudley on Wednesday. The victims, both from Bartley Green in Birmingham, were found in a car park off Moor Street, in Brierley Hill, at around 3.30pm. Police said they believed the victims were killed at the site shortly after 1pm on the same day. A second person arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender has been released without charge, West Midlands police said. Houseman will appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on Monday. Read more: Racist jailed for choking taxi driver with his own seat belt and biting his face Brian McIntosh, 29, was shot dead (Picture: Police) In a statement released on Friday, Mr Henrys family described him as the light of our lives while Mr McIntoshs relatives said they were absolutely devastated and heartbroken. Mr Henrys family remembered him as a much-loved father, son, brother, uncle, partner and friend. In a tribute, they said: He was loving and caring and always thought of others before himself. He was the light of our lives, his death has left a huge void in our lives. We would like to express our thanks to the kind words and love shown from extended family and friends. Mr Henry was reportedly the brother of West End actor Matt Henry. Read more: Blind peer who 'sexually assaulted masseuse' uses touch 'to get a sense of people' The men were found in the car park off Moor Street, in Brierley Hill, Dudley (Picture: SWNS) Mr McIntosh was described as a much-loved son, a devoted partner and a doting father to his two sons. He was also a loving brother to his three sisters and three brothers. The tribute from his family added: He was loved dearly by his whole family nieces, nephews, aunties, uncles and cousins. There will be a big whole left in all of our hearts. As a family we are all absolutely devastated and heartbroken. A post-mortem examination revealed both men died from gunshot wounds. Nicolas O'Rourke, director of organizing for Pennsylvania Working Families, encourages passersby to vote early by casting a mail ballot at Philadelphia's City Hall on Friday. Read more The first line of the Republican lawsuit makes clear its motivations: Bad things are happening in Philadelphia. Thats not a legal argument, and its unlikely to sway a judge in Philadelphias Court of Common Pleas. But thats not the point. The lawsuit filed late Thursday on behalf of President Donald Trumps reelection campaign, with language echoing his dig at Philadelphia during Tuesdays debate, is the latest effort in a political operation to shape a false narrative that the results of the Nov. 3 election cant be trusted. Especially if they hinge on Pennsylvania, a critical swing state that could determine the outcome. Trumps attacks on the election in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania now encompass all methods of voting and how those votes are counted. Vote by mail? Trump has spent months falsely attacking it as fraudulent, including seizing on a minor administrative error last month in Luzerne County. In-person voting on Election Day? Trumps called for an army of poll watchers to stop the supposed bad things that happen in Philadelphia. Early voting using mail ballots at elections offices? The campaign this week sent uncertified monitors to elections offices where state law doesnt give them the right to be, the president complained on national TV that they werent allowed in, and then his campaign finally sued the city over the matter. And Trump has repeatedly declared that the winner should be known on Election Day, an unlikely scenario in a state where officials believe counting will take days. Asked during Tuesdays debate if he would ask his supporters to stay calm during such an extended period of uncertainty, Trump didnt do so. Im urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because thats what has to happen. I am urging them to do it," he said. If its a fair election, I am 100% on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated. I cant go along with that. READ MORE: Bad things happen in Philadelphia, Trump says at debate, renewing false claim about poll watchers However votes are cast, however long they take to count, Trump has already laid the groundwork for undermining them. And Philadelphia is ground zero for Trumps attack on voting. In a typical election, candidates attack each other, said Al Schmidt, the lone Republican on the Philadelphia Board of City Commissioners, which run elections. In this election, it is our electoral system that is under attack. Why Philadelphia? It is both a huge city and a heavily Democratic one a fifth of all registered Democrats in the state live in Philadelphia, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 7-1. Turnout for Joe Biden in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs could determine who wins the White House. Its the obvious place to come looking to get votes not counted or to get votes delayed in being counted, said Richardson Dilworth, director of Drexel Universitys Center for Public Policy. The week marked a significant escalation in what started as a rhetorical crusade against mail voting, grew into a sprawling legal campaign to limit how and when mail ballots could be used, and has now gone further. The Trump campaign dispatched supporters whom Trump wrongly called poll watchers to new satellite elections offices in Philadelphia where voters can request and submit mail ballots without using the mail. State law doesnt grant poll watchers the right to monitor activities at elections offices like it does at traditional polling places on Election Day. And the Trump supporters werent certified to be poll watchers as required under state law anyway. Meanwhile, a deluge of mail ballots could take days to count, sowing chaos if the country is waiting on Pennsylvania to know who the next president is. If state leaders want to run the risk of negative national news coverage during a presidential election in a battleground state with the anticipated high turnout, then they should do nothing, Jeff Snyder, a Republican county commissioner in central Pennsylvanias Clinton County, said Thursday. The General Assembly must give counties additional time before Election Day to begin the time consuming manual work" of preparing ballots to be counted. READ MORE: Pennsylvanias nightmare 2020 voting scenario and how to prevent it Legislative negotiations over changes that might have included such a fix were tense in Harrisburg last month, and stalled entirely after a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling extended the deadline for mail ballots, something Trump and other Republicans had fought. Instead of passing pre-canvassing legislation, the GOP-controlled House moved this week to create an election integrity committee that would have the power to subpoena election officials and ballots. It was scheduled for final floor vote Thursday before the House session was abruptly canceled after a Republican lawmaker tested positive for the coronavirus. By legislating from the bench, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ... injected chaos into the general election by creating election procedures not found anywhere in current law and ensuring Pennsylvania and thereby the nation will not have reliable results on Election Day, Rep. Kerry Benninghoff (R., Centre), the House majority leader, said Wednesday. Electoral chaos could benefit Trump. Contested election results could end up the Supreme Court where Trump has explicitly said he wants to install a new justice before Election Day and delayed ones could end up in Congress, as Trump himself told supporters at a rally last Saturday in Harrisburg. And I dont want to end up in the Supreme Court and I dont want to go back to Congress, either, even though we have an advantage if we go back to Congress does everyone understand that? Trump said to cheers. He was referring to a constitutional provision in which, if the election is thrown to the House, each state gets one vote. Despite the overall Democratic House majority, Republicans currently have a majority of the seats in 26 states, compared to 22 for Democrats (Pennsylvanias delegation is split 9-9). The seeds of this moment were planted late last year, but the political dynamics run much deeper. Pennsylvania is a state uniquely suited to be a fierce political battleground in the Trump era. It has a disproportionate share of white voters who didnt go to college compared with the United States as a whole. That group is a key pillar of Trumps support, and Pennsylvanias 20 Electoral College votes make it a bigger political prize than swing states with similar demographics like Michigan and Wisconsin. READ MORE: Can Trump win again without winning the most votes? Yes. Pennsylvania shows how. A new election law enacted last year greatly expanded mail voting but prevented mail ballots from being opened until Election Day. Now, its the fear over how Trump could exploit the time needed to count mail ballots that increasingly keeps Democrats awake at night. Statewide, more than 1.5 million registered Democrats have requested mail ballots, compared withabout 567,000 Republicans, as Trumps relentless campaign against mail voting has dissuaded his voters from using it. In short, with Trump voters expected to mostly cast ballots in person and Biden voters already doing so by mail, votes for Trump will likely be counted faster on election night. Mail ballots counted in the days after could swing that margin in Bidens favor a phenomenon known in political science as the blue shift. And Trump could wrongly claim the election is being stolen from him. Democrats, after months of encouraging their supporters to vote by mail during the pandemic, are now changing course. Bob Brady, chairman of Philadelphias Democratic City Committee, said the local party has shifted back to its bread-and-butter tactics for getting out the vote on Election Day. I was never a mail ballot person, but it was the way of life," he said. "Right now, were going to run our operation. Were going to have our committee people. Were going to have our ward leaders like we always do. Thats the safest and best way. Philadelphia voters lined up to request and submit mail ballots at the main City Hall elections office Friday decried Trumps nationally televised attack on the city and his new lawsuit against it. Its a perfect example of voter intimidation, said Lamin Sonko, a 26-year-old medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. The campaign has a lot to be concerned about in how hes managed the pandemic. Having poll watchers here to intimidate voters shows how concerned they are. Carolyn Burke, who lives in Fairmount, dropped off her ballot Friday morning at City Hall and said of the office: These are not polls. If Trump supporters were to come out en masse, some people would be intimidated, she said. And some wouldnt. Its just not needed. Its a gross assault on the regular person trying to vote. State Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Friday that its clear the presidents strategy is to inject a lot of noise and a lot of lies into the public discourse." What is equally important for people to know is that every time he does that and it manifests itself in a lawsuit, we shut it down in court, Shapiro said. "In court, we deal in facts and evidence. And in every case, either he has failed to demonstrate any actual fraud or the accusations for said fraud have been disproven. Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article. Last Thursday, the Ministry of Environment launched its pioneering Eco Egypt campaign from Ras Mohamed in Sinai, a new campaign to promote nature reserves in Egypt, raise awareness of environmental issues and the importance of natural resources preservation, and promote responsible ecotourism. The campaign was launched in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the Ministry of Information and with the participation of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the project to integrate biodiversity into Egyptian tourism funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The launch ceremony took place in the Ras Mohamed Reserve in the South Sinai governorate in the presence of Yasmine Fouad, minister of environment, Khaled El-Enany, minister of tourism and antiquities, Osama Heikal, minister of information, and Mohamed Manar Enaba, minister of civil aviation, in addition to 30 ambassadors and representatives of foreign embassies in Egypt and figures from the international media. The campaign aims to promote protected areas and strengthen the ecotourism industry in Egypt, as well as to encourage citizens to visit nature reserves and learn about the different cultures that exist among the population in Egypt, including the heritage that distinguishes them and allows them to play a primary role in protecting the environment and biodiversity.Fouad said in her address at the ceremony that the campaign opened new horizons for sustainable ecotourism in Egypt, as one of the aims of the Ministry of Environments strategy in its first phase is to develop protected areas through developing the infrastructure and services provided to visitors at 13 nature reserves across Egypt, including the establishment of a visitor centre at the Ras Mohamed and Fayoum reserves.Members of the local community in both areas would be fully involved, she said, with these benefiting from sustainable job opportunities and raising the average income of the residents of the Fayoum and Wadi Al-Gemal reserves by some 126 per cent.Ras Mohamed is the oldest nature reserve in Egypt and is home to 220 species of coral and 1,000 species of fish, Fouad said. She added that the ministry had enjoyed the full support of the political leadership in its work to protect Egypts nature reserves, helping to develop and manage them according to the highest international standards. The idea was to preserve them while also maximising their economic, social and cultural development, she said, preserving Egypts biodiversity in a way that supports the environment and the economy by attracting more investment to the ecotourism sector. This already features many activities, including camping, diving, astronomy, and bird-watching. Heikal said at the event that the project was a great opportunity to prove that tourism does not contradict environmental projects that can attract more tourists and benefit the economy and local communities. He added that the project was part of the governments determination to promote collective work and large-scale collaboration and that the state ministry of information was keen to cooperate with other ministries and organisations.We are working on simplifying the language of environmental topics in the media to reach all the people in order to create the needed awareness about environmental issues and sustainable development, he said.El-Enany said his ministry was cooperating with the ministry of environment in many areas to revitalise tourism, one of the pillars of the national economy, including in the decision of the environment ministry to reduce fees on individuals for trips to nature reserves in the South Sinai and Red Sea governorates by 50 per cent until March 2021, in addition to a 50 per cent reduction on daily cruise boats.He added that his ministry encouraged responsible and sustainable tourism aimed at preserving the environment.Fouad said that the Eco Egypt campaign was taking place within the framework of the Go Green presidential initiative to raise awareness about environmental issues. It provided an authentic model of sustainable development, she said, as it took into account the environmental, economic, social and health dimensions of ecotourism. She added that ecotourism could help to revive the wider economy, especially in the light of the repercussions of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, by maximising the sustainable use of nature reserves and raising awareness of the importance of large-scale participation in their protection by integrating the local community in cooperation with youth, the private sector, and civil society.The campaign would last for three years, she said, targeting the promotion of ecotourism in Egypt through the establishment of a website and a number of social-media platforms. There would also be publications to showcase Egypts rich natural resources, including stunning landscapes and many species of animals, birds, and rare plants. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Extra Space Storage Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE: EXR) announced today it will release financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 on Wednesday, November 4, 2020 after the market closes. The Company will host a conference call at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, November 5, 2020 to discuss its financial results. Hosting the call will be Extra Space Storage's CEO, Joe Margolis. Joining him will be Scott Stubbs, Executive Vice President and CFO. During the conference call, company officers will review operating performance, discuss recent events, and conduct a question-and-answer period. The question-and-answer period will be limited to registered financial analysts. All other participants will have listen-only capability. To Participate in the Telephone Conference Call: Dial in at least five minutes prior to start time. Domestic: 855-791-2026 International: 631-485-4899 Conference ID: 1069195 Conference Call Playback: Domestic: 855-859-2056 International: 404-537-3406 Conference ID: 1069195 The playback can be accessed beginning on November 5, 2020 at 4:30 p.m. ET through November 10, 2020 at 4:30 p.m. ET. The conference call will also be available on the Company's website under Investor Relations at www.extraspace.com. To listen to a live broadcast, go to the site at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time in order to register, download and install any necessary audio software. A replay of the call will also be available for 30 days on the Company's website. Full Text of the Earnings Report and Supplemental Data The full text of the earnings report and supplemental data will be available at the Company's website at http://ir.extraspace.com immediately following the earnings release to the wire services after the market close on Wednesday, November 4, 2020. For those without Internet access, the earnings release will be available by mail or fax, on request. To receive a copy, please call Extra Space Storage Investor Relations at (801) 365-1759. About Extra Space Storage Inc. Extra Space Storage Inc., headquartered in Salt Lake City, is a fully integrated, self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust, and a member of the S&P 500. As of June 30, 2020, the Company owned and/or operated 1,878 self-storage properties, which comprise approximately 1.3 million units and approximately 145.4 million square feet of rentable storage space offering customers conveniently located and secure storage units across the country, including boat storage, RV storage and business storage. The Company is the second largest owner and/or operator of self-storage properties in the United States and is the largest self-storage management company in the United States. For more information, please visit www.extraspace.com. SOURCE Extra Space Storage Inc. Related Links http://www.extraspace.com UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath Hathras gang-rape case: Borders reopened, reporters allowed in, says authorities India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P New Delhi, Oct 03: Authorities in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh on Saturday reopened the borders and said they would allow media to enter the village, where a 19-year-old woman was gang-raped. On Thursday, police had set up barricades roughly 2km from the village on the main road, blocked off all access paths and deployed policemen on the mud tracks and in the fields to prevent any "outsiders" from accessing the village. Hathras gangrape case: Rahul Gandhi to make another attempt to meet victim's family today Officials also said that Section 144 was clamped in the area. They had said the ongoing probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was the reason for the restrictions. "Since SIT probe in the village is complete, the restriction on media has been lifted. More than five media persons are now allowed to gather as Section 144 of CrPC is in place," Prem Prakash Meena, Sadar senior divisional magistrate said. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Hathras gang-rape case: TMC leaders file complaint against Hathras SDM over 'indecent behaviour' "Only the media is allowed right now. When orders come in to allow delegations, we will let everybody know. All allegations about phones of the family members being taken away or confining them in their homes are absolutely baseless," Meena said. Uttar Pradesh's director general of police HC Awasthi will visit Hathras amid a controversy over local administration's handling of the alleged rape case. Several parents of students from the city are planning to join the nationwide protest against unjust fees charged by private schools on October 10. As part of the protest organised by the Forum for Fairness in Education, a city-based NGO that works in education, parents and students of private schools are urged to bang plates from their homes between 7am to 7.05am on October 10. The issue of indiscriminate fee hike is affecting parents across the country; especially in the current situation, as parents are facing pay cuts and job losses. It is becoming difficult to pay the hiked fees. We are urging the governments to take strict action against such schools, said Jayant Jain, president of Forum for Fairness in Education. Parents of several schools in Mumbai had written to the state education department complaining about the indiscriminate fee hikes levied by schools. In September, the department formed two panels and are now in the process of inspecting these schools. Parents said that with schools not willing to have a discussion with them, they are having a tough time opposing hikes. Schools are resorting to all sorts of unjust practices such as removing students from online classes, charging late fees to parents etc. Children are already stressed in the transition to online learning, and schools are adding to the pressure, said the parent of a school in Central Mumbai. A couple of billionaire brothers from Venezuela wont be getting back their $1 million super yacht anytime soon. A Miami lawsuit brought by Luis and Ignacio Oberto was thrown out this week when a federal judge found that their company, which claimed to own the Italian-made vessel, had been dissolved a few years ago so the brothers could not assert ownership. U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno said the Obertos Panamanian company, Violet Advisors S.A., no longer existed at the time that the brothers filed their suit in April to reclaim the Leonardo II yacht. And though the brothers reactivated the company in September, it did not help boost their bid for the boat, Moreno said in his decision released Wednesday. The judges decision means that a Hialeah company, Excellent Auto Group, which claims to have bought the 98-foot blue-and-white yacht for $200,000 from Violet Advisors in 2015, can keep it. Our clients are pleased to be secure in possession of their boat, now named M/V Nicole, Miami attorney William Norris told the Miami Herald Thursday. I was impressed that Judge Morenos instinct that the claim against us was false proved to be true. Moreno, who at a hearing last month called the dispute over the boats ownership a mess, left open the door for the Oberto brothers to refile their suit. But it might be a lost cause. The judge cited Panamas law saying that even if the brothers recently reactivated their company, they could only do so for the purpose of selling off any final assets including the yacht. And that, of course, was never the intention of their suit. The legal battle was joined in April when the two wealthy Venezuelan brothers said their company bought the twin-engine Leonardo II yacht for $2 million in 2013 and later brought it to South Florida, where they claimed it was stolen in March from a dock in North Miami Beach. During the dispute, the Obertos claim of ownership has been overshadowed by a lingering federal criminal investigation into their past. The brothers, who until recently were living in a pair of Miami Beach waterfront condos, are under investigation for alleged corruption and money-laundering activities totaling $4 billion, extending from Venezuela to Switzerland to South Florida. Federal records show that most of their money, which U.S. authorities believe was embezzled from the Venezuelan government, is in Swiss bank accounts, including under the name Violet Advisors. Their defense attorneys in Miami say the brothers have committed no wrongdoing. Story continues In their suit, the brothers say they bought the super yacht in 2013 and had it transported to Palm Beach later that year. The brothers assert they obtained a certificate of British registry from the Cayman Islands verifying that their Panamanian company, Violet Advisors, owned the yacht and held the title. But court records show the brothers dissolved that company in May 2015. In 2019, the brothers say they moved the vessel to a residence on the water in North Miami Beach, where it remained docked until March, when it went missing and ended up docked in front of an apartment building along the Miami River near the 12th Avenue Bridge. This summer, the boat was moved again to an Aventura marina at 173rd Street and Biscayne Boulevard. The Obertos suit named both the yacht itself and several defendants, including Excellent Auto Group, the Hialeah company that says it acquired rightful ownership of the vessel. Court records suggest that Excellent Auto Group bought the yacht, previously called The Round, from Violet Advisors in 2015, but the brothers and their attorney assert the bill of sale was fabricated. The brothers lawyer, Bryan Busch, told Moreno at a court hearing last month: I think there was fraud. Despite their civil claim, the Obertos did not show up at that hearing. Both brothers left Miami in July to visit the Dominican Republic and possibly other countries. They have not returned to South Florida and its not clear if they plan to come back, authorities said. Noni flies to Britain and falls in love with the tattoo-artist who inks her just below her sternum. He looks like a Viking. His favourite movie is Point Break (Keanu Reeves version). He has a 16-year-old son he called Zeppelin. He tells Noni she's beautiful while they make love. As cardboard Prince Charming as he is, her Beau (his actual name) still gave me that feeling I get when I watch a romcom from the early 2000s. You know it'll work out in the end. And that sensibility feels so incredibly scarce and valuable these days like a rare natural resource. After masturbating on a hardwood floor in front of Beau, Noni feels " a kind of freedom, a kind of power, that I dont think Ive ever felt". I wonder why her task to self-love must involve performing sexual empowerment in front of a man, as if his attention was required for her to manifest a full spectrum of selfhood. In 2020, I wonder why stories about women are still calibrated this way? But as John Updike once said, men might not be the answer, but they may be the question. The moment Noni begins her "Pleasure Quest", her desires twist into the standardised template for the straight white woman of the 21st century. She buys lingerie. She gets a new haircut. She pursues predictable, over the counter-range of "pleasure-fulfillers". Its the 2020 version of Eat Pray Love, minus the cultural fetishism. But Noni's comic voice is so refreshing, so endearing, I forgave her for her basic tastes. Local Ireland, the representative association for local weekly news publishers, has welcomed the launch of the Future of Media Commission and its recommendations aimed at sustaining high quality journalism. However, President David Ryan has expressed concern at the lack of representation of qualified individuals with specific experience in the Irish news publishing sector. He has called on the Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht, Catherine Martin to add an additional member or members with considerable experience at a local and national level to the board. Mr Ryan says is also worrying that there is no mention, in the terms of reference, of the role and impact of digital search engines, social media platforms and other digital content aggregation platforms and their impact on securing the future of a sustainable healthy news media. The remit of the Commission must include an examination of the particular role of the digital advertising supply chain, and whether it incentivises the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, whether it is operating fairly and transparently, and whether it is funnelling advertising revenues away from content producers, he said. Local Ireland, whose members include the Limerick Leader, says the terms of reference need to be amended urgently to ensure these important issues are addressed. The digital issue is global and the Commission need to broaden the scope of their research beyond Europe and examine developments currently taking place on a global level, particularly in Australia, said Mr Ryan. The new Commission will be chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith, a former DCU president. Its membership includes experts in public service media, independent journalism, and social media. It will look at Irish public service broadcasters, as well as other broadcasters, print and online media at local, regional and national level. It is expected to publish a report within nine months. With the cooler temperatures these days, hot pumpkin-spiced drinks are a-frothing, fuzzy warm sweaters come out of hiding, and nature starts to put on quite a show. Forget Broadway, the best show in town is happening right outside your door! So go for a ride, roll the sunroof, take the roadster out for a spin and enjoy the fall foliage. Ottawa Valley has some of the best places to see the bright red, yellow and orange leaves on maple, oak and yellow poplar trees. Heres a list of some of the best road trips, hikes and rides you can take to appreciate what nature has to offer. Late September to mid-October is the optimal time to be a leaf-peeper. CALABOGIE PEAKS RESORT CHAIRLIFT RIDE Imagine the fall foliage view riding on a chairlift 780 feet up in the air toward the top of Dickson Mountain. At $15 a person, Calabogie Peaks offers chairlift rides on weekends starting October 3. Could this be the ultimate leaf-peeping activity of all time? Find out more by visiting www.calabogie.com. WESTPORT The drive to Westport is very picturesque, especially if you take Perth Road to Foley Mountain. You cant go wrong visiting Foley Mountain Conservation Area in the fall: the view from Spy Rock lookout is spectacular overlooking the village of Westport. Purchase a day pass for $7, park near the Spy Rock lookout, go down the wooden ramp to the granite ridge below and enjoy the vibrant fall colours. Foley Mountain has over 10 kilometres of hiking trails to explore as well. When youre done taking selfies, visit the charming village of Westport and have a bite of some of the best butter tarts at Melting Moments Bakery, have lunch at The Cove and shop at Village Green. Drive five minutes out of the village to Kilborns on the Rideau in Newboro for their great shoe selection, fall clothes, gourmet food and house decor. As you head out from Newboro, take County Road 42 until youre almost at Highway 15. Make a left turn and go north on Narrows Lock Road. This road has a lot of hairpin turns as it winds north, but the trees are ablaze with brilliant colours. Stop by the Narrows Lock bridge (it is, indeed, narrow) and enjoy being in the middle of Upper Rideau and Big Rideau Lake, surrounded by amazing views. BALDERSON Start your trip a few minutes north of Perth in the village of Balderson. No ones judging you if you start the road trip with delicious ice cream and treats from Balderson Village Cheese. Continue driving north on County Road 511 to catch a glimpse of lovely fall colours. Set aside a couple of hours to hike one of the best lookout points in Lanark County: Blueberry Mountain located at 502 Hills of Peace Road. Blueberry Mountain is one of the Seven Wonders of Lanark County, and is definitely a must-see in the fall. If youre not up for a hike, keep going north on County Road 511 from Balderson until you reach Ferguson Falls Road (County Road 15). Make a right turn on Ferguson, stop at the bridge (or go fishing) over Mississippi River for beautiful fall colours, and end your trip at the hamlet of Fergusons Falls. Park at the canoe launch area, head down to the water, and be surrounded by postcard-worthy views. KEMPTVILLE Ferguson Forest Centre is located right in Kemptville and has 1,100 acres of multi-use green space. Check out Maple trail, an easy 1.5 km hike (one-way). Park on the east side of County Road 44, or across the street from the OPP station. Ferguson Forest Centre is located at 275 County Rd. 44, Kemptville, ON. Visit www.fergusonforestcentre.ca/about or call 613-258-0110, ext. 230. Bonus: Combine two activities in one and visit Log Cabin Orchard to pick some apples and enjoy the colourful foliage nearby while sipping hot cider by the bonfire. The apple farm is located at 6121 Cabin Rd. in Osgoode, a few minutes out of Kemptville. MERRICKVILLE Limerick Forest has almost 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) to explore, and is spread out in a few areas, with the biggest trails closest to Merrickville and North Augusta. The Limerick North and South trails are not to be missed for fall foliage. When youre done hiking, pop into the lovely village of Merrickville, an artists haven, for some art galleries, a Christmas shop, not to mention mustard bliss at Mrs. McGarrigles and wicked smelling body butters at Wick Witch. MILL OF KINTAIL (MISSISSIPPI MILLS) If youre looking for a quiet, serene place, head over to the Mill of Kintail. Take the Riverside trail for the best views of the Indian River or hike the other six trails for fall foliage. Theres a log cabin and a lovely museum to check out. Hours are 10-3 p.m. Friday to Monday, pre-book only. The route to Mill of Kintail, County Road 29, has amazing fall foliage as well, and if youd like to make a side trip head straight to Cedar Hill Christmas Tree Farm (open weekends) for their pancakes on the porch, scavenger hunt and picture-perfect bridge overlooking the store and some of the best fall colours. Cedar Hill is located at 951 Concession 8 South in Pakenham. Did you know that theres a website to see the changing of the leaves in our Ontario Parks? Visit www.ontarioparks.com/fallcolour. Correction October 6, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the Narrows Lock bridge is in the middle of Upper Rideau Lake. In fact, the bridge is between Upper Rideau Lake and Big Rideau Lake. Hong Kong students arrested over anti-government protests should be treated leniently to allow for social reconciliation, the citys biggest association of secondary school principals has urged, while also asking for school operations to be free from external non-professional intervention. The Hong Kong Association of the Heads of Secondary Schools made the calls in a submission to Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung, ahead of Lams fourth policy address, expected on October 14. The principals 12-point list of proposals also covered how the authorities deal with protest-related complaints against teachers, as well as the number of students admitted to Hong Kongs universities. Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China. The principals asked the government to handle protest-related complaints against teachers cautiously, and to disregard anonymous complaints. Between June last year and June this year, the Education Bureau received 222 such complaints against teachers, with initial investigations completed in 180 cases. They included 117 cases that were believed to involve wrongdoing, with follow-up action taken in 60 cases. So far, 17 teachers have been reprimanded, nine received written warnings, and 34 were given written advice or verbal reminders. Lin Chun-pong, acting chairman of the association, told the Post that many teachers were concerned about the bureaus handling of anonymous complaints. Schools were expected to deal with such complaints seriously, and to submit reports to the bureau despite not knowing who made the complaints, Lin said. This is one of the biggest concerns in our sector, he said. Such an arrangement could be unfair to the teacher, or even the school. It also encourages the trend of complaining, causing a sense of unease among educators. Story continues Acting chairman of the Hong Kong Association of the Heads of Secondary Schools Lin Chun-pong. Photo: Xiaomei Chen More than 10,000 people were arrested between June of last year and last month for their involvement in the citys social unrest. They include nearly 4,000 students, mostly at the secondary and tertiary levels. Asked what the principals meant when they urged the government to be lenient towards arrested students, the associations honorary executive secretary, Michael Wong Wai-yu, said it was important to show the young people that society had not given up on them. When pupils get arrested and convicted, what happens to them afterwards? Do they still get a chance to be educated, say, after being put in prison? he asked. We have to care for these pupils and their future plans. If they are just around 20 years old, they still have 50 to 60 years of living in Hong Kong. How would they view our society? How does our society respond? With regards to school operations, the principals asked the government to ensure autonomy for the school curriculum to be developed professionally, without being affected by the current political environment. It would be important if the chief executive could let teachers know their professionalism is being truly respected, Wong said. The association has about 400 members, comprising most of the principals of the roughly 500 secondary schools in Hong Kong. In their submission, the principals also expressed concern about the low rate of admission to local universities, which accept only about 15,000, or some 30 per cent, of the 50,000 candidates who sit the entrance exams. They asked the government to consider giving more students the opportunity to go to university. Meanwhile, the citys two biggest teachers unions also drew up their wish lists for city leader Lams policy address. The 35,000-strong Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers asked the government for detailed guidelines and help creating teaching materials related to the citys national security law. The sweeping new law, which came into effect on June 30, bans in broad terms acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security, and also says the government should promote national security education in schools and universities. Some schools have already changed their syllabus to include national security education, sparking criticism from pupils and alumni. The Education Bureau has said it was working on a detailed set of guidelines relating to the new law. Meanwhile, the citys biggest teachers union, the 100,000-strong Professional Teachers Union (PTU), also asked the government to ignore anonymous complaints against teachers, and called for more spending on education. It also went on to call for an independent commission of inquiry to probe police conduct during last years protests, and to find out the truth and take constructive steps towards social reconciliation. Both teachers groups also asked the government to provide teachers and students with more support for online learning, which has become necessary during the Covid-19 pandemic. With face-to-face lessons suspended for nearly half a year, teachers and students have had to interact digitally, which has proven difficult for children from poorer families. The PTU called for government subsidies to help these children buy tablet computers and printers. The association of principals also touched on online learning, asking the government to provide subsidies to enable more schools to help children buy electronic devices and improve internet access for those in need. This article Treat students arrested over protests leniently, disregard anonymous complaints against teachers, principals urge Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020. (Newser) President Trump was admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center outside Washington on Friday evening to be treated for COVID-19a stay that aides said they expect to last a few days. Administration officials said that the president was in good spirits, the Washington Post reports, but that his symptoms had worsened during the day. Those symptoms include low-grade fever, a cough and nasal congestion. Trump is fatigued, his physician said, per the AP. First lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive for the coronavirus, tweeted that she's dealing with mild symptoms but is "overall feeling good." Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, tested negative Friday, per the New York Times. Biden addressed the Trumps' illnesses in a speech in Grand Rapids. "My wife, Jill, and I pray that theyll make a quick and full recovery," he said, while asking Americans to wear masks. story continues below Trump wore a mask and suit when he walked to Marine One, waving to bystanders and giving the thumbs-up, for the short flight to Walter Reed, per the AP. He didn't say anything but appeared to have no difficulty walking in his first public appearance since testing positive. White House staff members, Secret Service members and Marine One crew members also had covered their faces. As the president arrived at the hospital, a video made at the White House was posted on Trump's Twitter account in which he announced that he was headed to the hospital and that he and his wife are doing well. A spokeswoman said Trump, 74, had not transferred power to Vice President Mike Pence. Aides said Trump worked during the day from the White House and planned to keep working; Walter Reed's presidential suite is equipped to accomodate a working president. A statement by Trump's physician said the president has received an injection of an experimental antibody cocktail to treat the disease. More than 205,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. (Read more President Trump stories.) Po-po have their work cut out for them if they're going to try to spin their way out of community outrage and growing demand for the removal of the KCPD Chief. As always, remember that keyboard warriors ranting anonymously on the Internets have consistently demonstrated that they don't have any real influence in local politics. Moreover, there's a dearth of ANYBODY willing to go on record and publicly defend a knee to a pregnant woman's back. Moreover, the excuse about the "officer shifting his weight to his foot" is not only unconvincing but also childish and insulting to any KCMO resident familiar with the often contentious relationship betwixt police and urban communities. Similarly, activists claims this hot mess scene was a "peace vigil" are also testing the public's patience. In fairness, this video clearly depicts a nightmare scenario AND the pregnant woman putting herself in the midst of a dangerous late night situation. Here's the word . . . "A security officer for a business at 35th and Prospect called 911 for help at 10:49 p.m. Sept. 30 to report 15-20 individuals fighting on the businesss property. "When officers arrived, they contacted the business owner, who advised he wanted everyone off the property who wasnt buying anything. "One of the men who was on scene physically interfered with the investigation and refused to leave. Officers attempted to arrest the man, at which time the crowd physically prevented the officer from arresting him. The man took off running. He tripped, and officers attempted to get him in custody. At that time, a woman (seen in the video) and man tried to pull the suspect away from officers. Other officers had to assist the arresting officer by pulling off the man and woman. "Police gave the woman and man several verbal warnings to leave, but they continued to physically interfere by attempting to pull the suspect away from officers. One of the assisting officers then attempted to place her under arrest for hindering and interfering. The officer attempted to do this while she was standing, but she continued to physically resist arrest, at which point he placed her on the ground to effect the arrest. Then she was handcuffed, turned to her side and immediately placed in a seated position. The other man who was the original arrest also was taken into custody. "The officer who arrested the woman stated he took care not to apply pressure with his legs. Police called ambulances, which arrived within one minute. The woman was transported to an area hospital, where she was evaluated and released. The original arrest also was evaluated and released at an area hospital, and then booked into jail." And here's the footage that police are sharing . . . You decide . . . Michigan residents are still in a state of emergency and subject to her emergency orders for another 21 days, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement on Friday after the Michigan Supreme Court struck down her authority to continue Michigans state of emergency under two laws. It is the state of emergency that has allowed Whitmer to unilaterally issue orders governing things like business and school closures without legislative input. But Whitmer said those orders remain in effect, for now. It is important to note that this ruling does not take effect for at least 21 days, and until then, my emergency declaration and orders retain the force of law, Whitmer said in a statement. Furthermore, after 21 days, many of the responsive measures I have put in place to control the spread of the virus will continue under alternative sources of authority that were not at issue in todays ruling. A spokesperson for Whitmer said the 21-day period is derived from a Supreme Court rule that puts all decisions into effect in 21 days. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in a split decision on Friday that Whitmer does not have authority under either of the states emergency statutes to continue the coronavirus state of emergency. It declared she did not have authority under the 1976 Emergency Management Act, and found the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act was unconstitutional. Related: Gov. has no authority to continue state of emergency, Michigan Supreme Court rules Whitmer said the crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic was ongoing. Todays Supreme Court ruling, handed down by a narrow majority of Republican justices, is deeply disappointing, and I vehemently disagree with the courts interpretation of the Michigan Constitution, Whitmer said. Right now, every state and the federal government have some form of declared emergency. With this decision, Michigan will become the sole outlier at a time when the Upper Peninsula is experiencing rates of COVID infection not seen in our state since April. Related: UP moves back a phase as Gov. Whitmer regresses a region for the first time Republican legislative leaders, who have a separate lawsuit pending that challenges the governors authority to issue emergency orders, applauded the courts ruling. This is a giant win for the people of Michigan and for the democratic process. The people of this state have been denied a voice and a seat at the table in decisions that have impacted every facet of their lives and their futures over the past eight months. They deserve to have their representatives bring their voice and their concerns into this decision-making process, said House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, in a statement. He said the legislature looked forward to the coming bipartisan deliberations on the pandemic response and the improved outcomes for Michigan families. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, said in a statement he stands ready for bipartisan action. This ruling does not alter our collective responsibility to protect ourselves and others by wearing masks, social distancing, and washing our hands. The virus still presents a threat to our health and we must be vigilant in our actions, he said. The Senate stands ready to work with the Governor to do what is necessary for Michigan to lead by example by informing, inspiring, and enabling citizens to do whats necessary and responsible. The court, in a footnote of the majority opinion, anticipates the governor and legislature working together. Our decision leaves open many avenues for the Governor and Legislature to work together to address this challenge and we hope that this will take place," notes the footnote in the majority opinion. Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, advocated the legislature adopting the governors orders. This is unfortunate. The Senate Democrats accept that the responsibility of keeping Michiganders safe from this unruly pandemic is now in the hands of the Legislature, and we will continue to partner with the governor in her herculean battle against COVID-19. We believe the wisest course of action would be to immediately adopt the governors orders via legislation in order to keep us safe," he said in a statement. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, the party in the underlying federal suit, applauded the courts decision. The Court has restored the voices of 10 million Michiganders by reaffirming the constitutional protections of checks and balances afforded through the separation of powers, said Patrick Wright, vice president for legal affairs at the Mackinac Center and director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation in a statement. This important decision was long in the making, but now future COVID responses will have the benefit of including the peoples representatives through the legislative process. As our state continues to face the challenges that come with COVID-19, all of the people of Michigan will have a voice in the decisions that will impact our state in the years to come. COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS: In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus. Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible. Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued executive orders requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nosewhile in public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. See an explanation of what that means here. Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus. For more data on COVID-19 in Michigan, visit https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/data/. Related stories: Gov. has no authority to continue state of emergency, Michigan Supreme Court rules Michigan reports 780 new coronavirus cases for Friday, Oct. 2 Friday, Oct. 2, coronavirus data by Michigan county: Calhoun moves up to red; 23 counties now orange UP moves back a phase as Gov. Whitmer regresses a region for the first time YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Iran is monitoring the developments at its border areas seriously and with great sensitivity, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran Saeed Khatibzadeh said, commenting on the reports of violation of Irans territory on the background of ongoing military operations between Artsakh and Azerbaijan. Considering unacceptable any attack against Irans territory by any of the conflicting sides, we seriously warn all sides, the spokesman said. He also highlighted the necessity to start serious negotiations. He said clashes should stop, adding that Iran is ready to assist in achieving these goals. Australia's Chief of Army, Richard Burr, has vowed to act on allegations of war crimes involving the nation's special forces, saying they are "extremely serious and deeply troubling" and at odds with "who we aspire to be". Lieutenant General Burr is the most senior military official to comment on the landmark Brereton inquiry into war crimes in Afghanistan which is due to report within weeks, and he has vowed in an email to all army officers, soldiers and employees to enact reforms in response. Lieutenant General Rick Burr at the ceremony to install him as Chief of Army. Credit:AAP "We will act on the findings when they are presented to the Chief of the Defence Force," General Burr said in the internal email, obtained by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. "We all have a role to build on the actions we have already taken to address shortcomings that our social research programs and reforms have identified. This is what we do." The release of the email comes a week after news that the inquiry had uncovered the actions of a rogue squad of SAS soldiers who allegedly murdered multiple bound or defenceless Afghan detainees. Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Gangwar on Saturday said that the new farm laws and labour reform codes will benefit farmers and workers immensely. Elaborating on farmer-friendly initiatives of the Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, the minister informed that the budget of the agriculture ministry has been increased 11-fold to Rs 1.34 lakh crore from Rs 12,000 crore in 2009-10 during the UPA regime. This, he said, reflects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment for the welfare of farmers in the country. Speaking at a conference organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce through video conference, Gangwar said that the new farm laws are aimed at providing marketing freedom to farmers for selling their produce anywhere in the country. Gangwar emphasised that farmers would now be able to sell their produce at better prices in other states as well. The minister also brushed aside apprehensions about scrapping of MSP saying there has been considerable increase in the crops' support price compared to the UPA regime. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have been protesting since the two Houses of Parliament last month passed The Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 during the monsoon session. Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a leader of NDA ally Shiromani Akali Dal -- which enjoys significant support among the Sikh peasantry in Punjab and Haryana -- had resigned from the Union Cabinet, hours ahead of voting in the Lower House on the two earlier Bills on September 17. On the benefits of major labour codes to workers, Gangwar said that these reforms would help workers become self-reliant in coming days. He stated that in addition to promoting unprecedented labour welfare and gender equality these labour codes would also help increase ease-of-doing business adding that industry and workers complement each other and therefore they have to work together in tandem with changing times. He emphasised that these reforms are pathbreaking and game changers as some of the archaic laws awaiting reforms have been in existence for more than 73 years. Besides the code on wages which was enacted last year, three more major codes - Code on social security, code on industrial relations and code on occupational safety health and working conditions - were passed by Parliament and enacted recently. --IANS rak/kr (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.) Press Release October 3, 2020 Bong Go manifests support for DOTr budget; urges agencies to establish more airports and extend assistance, open more routes for public transport sector Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go has expressed his support for the 2021 budget of the Department of Transportation, while commending its valuable contribution to the government's efforts in transporting stranded Filipinos locally and abroad along with its attached agencies amid COVID-19 pandemic. "I fully express my support to the Department of Transportation and the agencies under its helm such as, but not limited to, the Land Transportation Office, Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, Office of Transportation Cooperatives, Civil Aeronautics Board, Office of Transportation Security, Maritime Industry Authority and Philippine Coast Guard," Go said during a public budget hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Finance on Friday, October 2. Citing the agency's role as one of the pillars in government's crusade to combat and cope with the ongoing pandemic, Go said that the DOTr has instituted various programs that alleviate the plight of the Filipino people, especially to the so-called locally stranded individuals in Metro Manila during the strict community quarantine. "Napakaimportante po na makasama natin ang ating mga mahal sa buhay sa panahon ng pandemya. The DOTr also instituted reforms in our public transportation system to adjust to the new normal," Go said. The Senator also stressed the important role of DOTr in the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa Program instituted by the executive branch, as they are in charge in ferrying the returning and relocating residents from Metro Manila back to their home provinces, as well as in ensuring unhindered transport and delivery of critical goods and services in various parts of the country. "Bilang isang probinsyano, I want this program to succeed. I want our local economies in different regions of the country to prosper. I want to improve the quality of life of every Filipino, kahit nasaan man sila, saang sulok man ng Pilipinas," said Go. While he expressed his support, Go urged the DOTr and its attached agencies, especially the LTFRB to extend assistance and open more routes for public utility vehicle drivers who have lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "I call on the DOTr to primarily focus on the safety of our commuters, hindi pa po tapos ang laban. Andyan pa rin po ang banta ng pandemyang ito. Kaya hinihikayat ko ang DOTr at ang ating mga kababayan na huwag maging kampante," Go said. "Sumunod tayo sa mga health protocols issued by the DOH, lalo na ang pagsuot ng masks and social distancing. Balansehin din po natin ang kapakanan ng ating mga drivers ng public transport, marami po sa kanila ay ang nawalan ng mga ruta," he added. He then asked the DOTr and the LTFRB to open more routes for public utility vehicles and fast track the pending applications of franchises and routes to boost employment among public utility vehicle drivers nationwide. "Nawala po ang kanilang hanapbuhay, I urge the DOTR and the LTFRB, to extend assistance and open more routes para mas matulungan natin ang ating mga drivers na naghihirap," he said. "Huwag na po natin pahirapan ang mga naghihirap. To the LTFRB, please also fast track all of the pending applications of franchises and routes para mas dumami ang mabigyan ng trabaho sa ating mga kababayan," he added. Go has also reiterated his support for the construction of the New Manila International Airport in Bulacan, which he believed will help decongest the metropolis from heavy traffic and invite more employment in Bulacan. "Panahon na para i-decongest natin ang Maynila. Welcome development po ang pag construct ng international airport sa Bulacan which will complement the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa Program. I also hope that in addition to the Bulacan airport, we construct and develop more airports in various parts of the country, lalo na 'yung mga mahirap puntahan," Go said. "This will not only improve domestic tourism but also ease the delivery of basic services to our fellow kababayans," he added. On Sunday 4 October, people in the French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia will vote in a second referendum on whether to break away after almost 170 years. Two years ago they voted to remain part of France, so has anything changed this time round? More than 180,000 long-term residents of New Caledonia are registered to vote Yes or No to the question: Do you want New Caledonia to gain its full sovereignty and become independent?. When asked exactly the same question in the first referendum two years ago 56.7 percent voted to remain within the French Republic, despite it being some 17,000km away. But opinion polls had predicted a crushing defeat for the pro-independence camp and their surprisingly strong result was a shock for France. Why another referendum and why now? This is the second of up to three referendums agreed as part of the 1998 Noumea Accord, signed between the French government, the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) and anti-independence leaders. The Accord was aimed at putting New Caledonia on the path of decolonisation after years of bloody conflict in the 1980s between pro-independence indigenous Kanak and the descendants of European settlers known as Caldoches. It allowed for long-term residents to vote on New Caledonia's future political status and the transfer of sovereign powers concerning defence, foreign policy, police, courts and currency. Who is voting? Some 180,640 people are enrolled, the equivalent of two inhabitants out of three. The bulk of New Caledonia's population is made up of the indigenous Melanesians (37 percent) and Caldoches (27 percent). Eleven percent are migrants from other Pacific islands such as Tahiti, Wallis and Futuna and Vanuatu. How's the campaign going? Six political groups are campaigning: UC- FLNKS, the Parti Travailliste and Uni are in favour of independence, while Loyalists 1 and 2 and Caledonia Together are against. The campaign has been fiercer and more tense than two years ago, with little dialogue between the two sides. A special authorisation allowing the French tricolour to be used in campaign spots has angered the pro-independence FLNKS which accuses the French government of taking sides against independence. Loyalist parties argue that rules restricting the right to vote in the referendum which have led to some 34,000 people being struck off the lists give an advantage to the pro-independence campaign. Which side is likely to win? In 2018, pollsters predicted a much bigger win for the Loyalists than turned out to be the case. No opinion polls have been made public this time. However, many political observers feel the Yes vote is unlikely to come out on top. I would be surprised if the Yes vote won, said Pierre-Christophe Pantz, a Noumea-based expert in geopolitics. But Mathias Chauchat, a law professor at the University of New Caledonia and supporter of independence was more upbeat. I have never seen such fervour, such willingness to gather and participate, he told RFI. There is a feeling that victory is within reach. Loyalists have played the anxiety card with the message that Yes to independence would signify the end of economic prosperity and security, observed RFI's correspondent in Noumea. That's far from clear. New Caledonia has the 4th biggest nickel reserves in the world. But equally, the French government subsidises the territory with some 1.5 billion every year, the equivalent of more than 15 percent of New Caledonia's gross domestic product. What factors might change the 2018 result? The gap between the two camps could narrow depending on whether the 33,000 or so people who abstained in 2018 come out and vote. Loyalists are hoping that 2018's closer than predicted result will convince people they can't afford to abstain. But turnout could also be boosted within the independence movement. In 2018, smaller groups like the left-wing Labour party and USTKE trade union confederation called on their members not to vote in the referendum arguing the colonised Kanak people alone should vote. But this year they are campaigning for a Yes vote. There's also been a shift among some of the migrant populations from islands like Wallis and Futuna. While the large Wallisian community has traditionally supported the anti-independence parties, Eveil oceanien, set up shortly after the first referendum, has left Polynesians to make up their own mind on how to vote rather than follow the European-dominated Loyalist alliance. What happens if the 'Yes' vote wins? If New Caledonia votes for independence, France would, after a transition period, hand over control. Paris would stop paying its yearly 1.5 billion annual subsidy, though a new system of development aid would be put in place. If independence is rejected, the status quo will continue. The Noumea Accord allows for a third referendum, to be held by 2022. Whether the vote is yes or no a not insignificant part of the population, essentially Kanak, will continue to be deeply attached to independence, Pierre-Christophe Pantz wrote on the site Outremers 360. Where does Paris stand? Officially the French government is neutral on the referendum. Prime minister Jean Castex announced as much on 29 September. But contrary to 2018 when then prime minister Edouard Philippe and Emmanuel Macron both visited the archipelago, French officials have been few and far between of late. New Caledonians feel slightly abandoned, Chachut says. In a recent ministers' council, government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said that whatever the result of the referendum, President Macron would make a speech in Paris when the results are announced. He also said there would most likely be third referendum, suggesting the No vote was once more expected to come out on top. LONGVILLE, La. On October 2, 2020, shortly before 2:30 p.m., Louisiana State Police Troop D responded to a two-vehicle fatality crash on US Hwy 171 about one mile south of South Beauregard High School. The crash claimed the life of 75-year-old Judith Raye Landry of Ragley, Louisiana. The preliminary investigation revealed a 2008 GMC Envoy, driven by 79-year-old Donald J. Landry, was traveling south on US Hwy 171. For reasons still under investigation, Landry struck the rear of a utility trailer being pulled by a 2001 Chevrolet pickup truck. After the impact, Landry ran off of the highway to the left and came to a stop in the median. The driver of the Chevrolet was able to come to a stop in the inside lane of travel. Landry suffered moderate injuries and was transported to a local hospital for treatment. His passenger, Judith R. Landry, suffered fatal injuries as a result of the crash and was pronounced deceased at the scene. The driver of the Chevrolet was not injured and all three occupants were properly restrained. Impairment is unknown as a factor at this time and toxicology reports are pending. The crash remains under investigation. Joseph R. Biden Jr. tested negative for the coronavirus and pressed on with in-person campaigning on Friday, as President Trumps hospitalization with the virus seismically altered the race and threw the government into upheaval. Mr. Biden flew on Friday afternoon to Grand Rapids, Mich., where he delivered remarks about the economy and emphasized the dangers of the pandemic. In a preview of how the former vice president may discuss the developments in the days to come, he cast his opponents positive test as a vivid illustration of the public health risks at play, but ... Sarah Lauren Scott of Rockwood, Ont. captured this gorgeous fall image of three-year-old trotter Silver Spoon, which is featured as the October shot in Standardbred Canadas Heart of Harness Racing calendar. Scott captured the photo of Silver Spoon enjoying the paddock on a warm autumn day. I believe in turning my horses out as much as possible. Silver Spoon and her half-brother Fork always enjoyed their time together in the paddock. With those two, you never knew what they would do next. They were always excited to get turned out for the afternoon in the large paddock I rented from Keith Waples behind First Line Training Centre, explained Scott. The location offered the landscape for this picture, with the right time of day and lighting you could set the stage for a nice still or action shot. If you have raced anywhere in Ontario over the last 30 years, chances are you may have crossed paths with Sarah as shes worn many hats in the industry. Along with being an owner-trainer-breeder and former full-time caretaker, she has worked for Joannes Staking Service, the Ontario Standardbred Adoption Society, and was employed by System Equine for over six years before accepting a position as the North American Regional Manager of Nortev Limited of Ireland (Flexineb). She is also the creator of SLS Equine, designing custom day-to-day equipment for horses. Sarah is also known across the industry for her heartwarming photographs that show the bond between human and horse, particularly with our caretakers. She has taken photos for Grand River Raceway, the Breeders Crown at Woodbine Mohawk Park and for the Hambletonian Society. A pair of Sarah's photos with 2019 Breeders Crown winner Reflect With Me A pair of Sarah's photos with 2019 Breeders Crown winner Reflect With Me My photos are known for capturing moments. May it be the bond between the caretaker and their horse, or the hard work that goes into the daily care, training and racing, she explained. Having a strong background in the harness racing industry, I can set myself up to find that sweet spot and be in the right place at the right time, to capture a shot that is different, or a picture that someone may treasure for the years to come. Sarah also owns two retired Standardbreds. In 2001, she claimed Music Director, a horse she worked with years prior, who is now 31 years old and enjoying life at a private farm in Milton along with her 11-year-old retired trotter Fork. Silver Spoon has become a broodmare; I continue to stay in touch with her new owner and will continue to make sure she has a home to return to if need be. New Delhi, Oct 3 : Calling the inauguration of the 'Atal Tunnel' a historic day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah described it as an engineering marvel and said "it will prove to be a major boon for the entire region". He expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inaugurated the all-weather 9.02 km horseshoe shaped two-lane 'Atal Tunnel' in Himachal Pradesh, that links Manali to the Lahaul-Spiti valley, on Saturday. In a series of tweets Amit Shah said, "A historic day for the entire country as the vision of Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji comes true! Congratulations to BRO for working relentlessly on this unprecedented project." "As the longest highway tunnel in the world, Atal Tunnel will reduce the travel time between Leh and Manali by 4-5 hours. Being an all-weather tunnel, it will also connect Lahaul-Spiti valley with the rest of the country throughout the year which used to be cut off for months earlier," Shah said. "Atal Tunnel will prove to be a major boon for the entire region. People will now have access to better healthcare facilities, business opportunities and essential items. It will also strengthen our defence preparedness and generate employment by giving impetus to the tourism sector." The 9.02 kilometre long tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 mtrs (10,000 feet) from Mean Sea Level. It has been designed for a traffic density of 3,000 cars and 1,500 trucks per day, with a maximum speed of 80 km per hour. It has state of the art electromechanical systems including semi transverse ventilation, SCADA controlled fire fighting, illumination and monitoring systems. The tunnel also has ample safety features built into it. The decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken on June 3, 2000 when late Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The foundation stone for the Access Road to the South Portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. The Union Cabinet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided on December 24 last year to name the Rohtang Tunnel as the Atal Tunnel to honour the contribution made by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Amanda Bynes cleared out her Instagram page and rebranded it as the Matte Black Online Store in July. And now, some two-and-a-half months on, the former The Amanda Show star shared her first post: a three-quarter body photo of herself sporting a brand new look. The 34-year-old actress, who has had a history of changing styles and going MIA on social media, is seen with long, dark tresses that are pushed behind her left ear, along with short bangs styled to the right with a side part. She's back! Amanda Bynes, 34, showcased a new look when she hared her first post on her rebranded Instagram page the Matte Black Online Store on Friday, October 2 In the photo, Bynes almost has a shy grin on her face dressed in faded blue denim jeans and a yellow and black plaid shirt over a white tee. She's also donning clear-rim glasses and has a septum piercing in her nose that's she's worn in previous social media posts earlier in the year. Bynes made a reference to starting an online store in May when she announced she was taking online classes at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in pursuit of her bachelors degree. 'Getting my Bachelors degree from FIDM, Taking online classes, trying to get a 4.0 GPA :] ,' she wrote on Instagram before adding, 'Looking forward to starting my online store in the future #goals.' Changes: The What A Girl Wants actress rebranded her Instagram page in July; she is pictured in a post by fiance Paul Michael on September 24 Dialed on: Bynes' fiance Paul Michael has been sharing photo of the couple, and solo snaps of the actress, on his Instagram page in recent months Bynes' fiance Paul Michael has been sharing photo of the couple on his Instagram page in recent months, which included one showcasing their wedding rings in August that had some fans believing they had gotten married. The former movie star's attorney, David Esquibias, was quick to shut down speculation about his client and announced, 'Amanda is not married,' in an Us Weekly report. It turns out Bynes had previously shared the same photo of their hands adorned with the rings. 'Engaged to tha love of my life,' she captioned the ring photo in February. Shortly afterward, she posted a selfie of the two with the caption, 'Lover.' False alarm: Some of Bynes' fans thought she had gotten married after Michael posted their rings on Instagram in August but Us Weekly reported they're still not married Troubled past: The What A Girl Wants actress has had a long struggles with mental health issues, substance abuse and bizarre behavior that led to her being arrested several times The What A Girl Wants actress has had a long struggles with mental health issues, substance abuse and bizarre behavior that led to her being arrested several times. By July 2010, after dropping out of her last two film roles, Bynes announced an indefinite hiatus from acting. Her last documented role was in the teen comedy film Easy A that premiered in September 2010. This past July Page Six reported the California native had been living in a transitional psychiatric facility 'to help with my social anxiety that caused me to drop out of school months ago,' and that she's 'back on track and doing well.' Longtime struggles: The California native has had a long struggles with mental health issues, substance abuse and bizarre behavior that led to several arrests; she is pictured in a mugshot following her arrest for DUI in April 2012 in West Hollywood An investigation is underway after a fire broke out onboard an Irish naval vessel which was tied up in Cork Harbour. Firefighters from the city and county tackled the blaze which broke on the LE Niamh (P52) just before 12.30pm as she was alongside at Cork Dockyard for routine maintenance. While a full investigation into the cause of the fire will be conducted, it is thought to have started in a stores compartment adjacent to where cutting work was being carried out by engineers, a Defence Forces spokesman said. He confirmed that there have been no reports of injury to naval service personnel or to Cork dockyard staff. Four crew members were on duty watch onboard the vessel when the fire was spotted just before 12.30pm. They carried out first aid fire-fighting to contain the fire and prevent any spread to the rest of the ship. The alarm was raised with fire control in Limerick and several units of the Cork County Fire Service were tasked to the incident at 12.26pm. The vessel was evacuated and the scene was handed over to firefighters from Cobh, who were backed up by four units of the Midleton fire brigade. Firefighters boarded the vessel and began tackling the blaze below deck. Fire Brigade units from Cobh, Midleton & @CorkCityFire in support of the @naval_service have successfully extinguished a fire on board the LE Niamh while berthed in Cobh. Great interagency work from @IrishCoastGuard @PortofCork @AmbulanceNAS @GardaTraffic @DoyleShipping @Corkcoco pic.twitter.com/ro9apeNsBx Cork County Fire Service (@corkcountyfire) October 3, 2020 Cork City Fire Brigade dispatched a van to the scene later with extra supplies of foam, and later sent a unit to provide further back-up at the incident. The fire has been brought under control. It is understood that some firefighters will remain on scene for another hour or two to monitor the ship. Its been a little over a month since the University of Georgia began classes for the fall semester. In that time, there have been over 3,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the UGA community, and over 2,000 new cases in Athens-Clarke County. Victorians are dobbing on their neighbours in record numbers with hundreds of thousands of calls made to police to report COVID breaches since the start of the pandemic. Data released by Victoria Police shows that at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, the police assistance line received about 100,000 calls during the month of April, 66 per cent more than during an average month. Nearly four in 10 were people dobbing in other Victorians for breaching coronavirus restrictions. Recent crime statistics data, which has provided a detailed picture of how enforcement strategies played out during the first wave of the pandemic, show coronavirus breaches were the 20th most common crime in the year to June, out of 114 distinct offence categories that police track. A new Houston Chronicle investigation found the states reported death toll was thousands short at the peak of the pandemic. Here are five major takeaways: 1. A flawed reporting system created an undercount. From the start of the pandemic, the Texas Department of State Health Services relied on an antiquated system to tally the states death toll. Instead of using its new vital statistics software to calculate how many people had died of COVID-19, the state relied on local health departments to report deaths on their websites and then added them up for its daily count. But as the death toll climbed and some local departments became overwhelmed, DSHS officials said they noticed that their internal death certificate data was higher than the public number. When they switched to reporting their death certificate tally daily in late July, the gap between the two systems was 407 deaths. But the gap between the number of people dying in Texas and the state tally was actually far greater than that because of lags in recording death certificates. 2. State officials used the artificially low death rate as part of a push to justify reopening. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott appeared on radio and television programs touting the states low death rate. They both cited the low death rate as a reason it was time to reopen the economy. But by the pandemics peak this summer, the state was missing thousands from its death tally. In late July, the number of people who had died but were not yet counted in the state tally peaked at 3,811 an undercount of roughly 44 percent. 3. Texas reporting lag was worse than other states. Some delay is expected when reporting deaths because of the need to investigate and confirm the cause. However, in terms of raw numbers, Texas gap between the number of people dying and its reported deaths was at least two to three times greater than Californias or New Yorks during their deadliest days. Florida and Washington, also hit hard, peaked with gaps of about 20 percent. New York, the early epicenter of COVID-19 in the U.S., topped out at around 1,700, about 6 percent. 4. Experts warned that Texas was not meeting key reopening criteria. Dr. Mark McClellan, one of Abbotts key advisers, co-authored a paper published in March that was designed to serve as a road map for states to reopen safely. The criteria included robust testing, sufficient contact tracing and ample hospital bed space. When the state reopened, only about 1 percent of the population had been tested since the start of the pandemic. Many county health departments were already overwhelmed and unable to properly trace the source of new infections. Hospitals in some parts of the state were in danger of being overwhelmed. 5. Texas is now projected to hit 33,000 deaths in 2020. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation initially forecast 6,000 deaths in Texas by Aug. 4. After the executive orders slowed the spread, IHME in April knocked that estimate down to 1,000, provided social distancing continued. But Texas started reopening May 1. By Aug. 4, more than 10,000 Texans had died from COVID-19, 10 times more than what the IHME model had forecast in the spring. As of Oct. 1, 16,102 people have died from the virus in Texas. The latest IHME model suggests that more than 33,000 Texans will die from COVID-19 by the end of the year. Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images The shocking announcement that President Donald Trump has contracted the coronavirus was promptly followed by well-wishes from the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday sent President Trump a telegram, wishing a speedy recovery to the U.S. president and the first lady. According to a Kremlin readout of the telegram, Putin wrote, I am sure that your inherent vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus. Overshadowed by the news of Trumps positive test for COVID-19 was the fact that U.S. National Security Advisor Robert OBrien met with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev in Geneva. According to Russian state media outlet Vesti, OBrien allegedly went along with Putins much-ridiculed proposal that the United States and Russia enter into a pact of mutual non-interference in each others internal affairs. If such an agreement was in fact entertained, Moscow will undoubtedly interpret it to encompass Russias relations with its neighboring countries, including but not limited to the post-Soviet space, as well as the potential relief from the U.S. sanctions for Russias election interference, and the Kremlin being allowed to escape any consequences for the attempted poisoning of Alexei Navalny. Chaos President Gets Hit by the Ultimate October Surprise Meanwhile, with respect to Trumps coronavirus diagnosis, initial reactions in the Russian state media encompassed a full spectrum of emotionsranging from sympathy to schadenfreude. Discussing Trumps COVID-19 diagnosis, Evgeny Popov, the host of Russian state media news talk show 60 Minutes, said, Our candidate got sick. His co-host Olga Skabeeva reminded the viewers that Trump is in a high-risk group, due to being elderly and overweight. Referring to former Vice President Joe Biden, Popov added, The other one may get sick too. The hosts and panelists of 60 Minutes briefly discussed the possibility that Trump faked the coronavirus results in order to get out of additional debates with Biden, having resoundingly failed in the first round. They dismissed that conspiracy theory out of hand, believing that Americans traditionally dont vote for sick candidates and illness would be much worse for Trump than being defeated in another debate. Story continues As a case-in-point, 60 Minutes proceeded to showcase a compilation of various instances when Trump mocked and hounded Hillary Clinton, then a Democratic candidate for president, for her real and perceived ailments. In 2016, the Russian state media was very actively promoting various claims of medical issues allegedly plaguing Clinton. Hosts and panelists of the program concurred that those claims successfully transformed Clinton into a lame duck as a presidential candidate. The participants of 60 Minutes didnt limit themselves to well-wishes and kindest regards. Deputy of the State Duma Aleksey Zhuravlyov smugly noted, Im glad that COVID got involved in the presidential race and it will most likely win. Not Joe Biden or Trump, but COVID will win. Popov pondered out loud, So weve been interfering and interfering, but all of that was for naught? The programs hosts, Popov and Skabeeva, baselessly claimed that the Democrats are celebrating Trumps diagnosis, but state media reporter Denis Davydov in the U.S.who spent the night peering at the windows of the White Housepointed out that Trumps Twitter mentions are filled with messages of support. Those are just the Russian bots, retorted Popov. Moskovsky Komsomolets, a popular privately-owned Moscow daily, wrote about Trumps coronavirus diagnosis: What happened is what should have happened. The newspaper articulated that the U.S. presidents infection was directly related to his reluctance to wear a mask, in order to protect his carefully cultivated image of a tough guy. Moskovsky Komsomolets published a photo gallery, featuring the president of the United States attending various events and rallies, habitually without a mask. The newspaper argued that by getting infected with the coronavirus, U.S. president fundamentally screwed up his campaign during the hottest time for meetings with voters, rallies and debates. In other articles, Moskovsky Komsomolets concluded that Trumps diagnosis could result in the Democrats winning without elections and coldly surmised that the president of the United States brought it upon himself, publishing a compilation of Trumps stupid quotes about the coronavirus. Trumps low-energy performance during his recent fundraiser in Bedminster, N.J., didnt go unnoticed. Russian state media outlet Vesti came up with a caustic headline: Sleepy Joe Biden wished Sleepy Trump a speedy recovery. Russian state media outlet RT published a cartoon image of U.S. President Donald J. Trump in a coffin, after the image made the rounds on the internet. Pondering about the worst case scenario, 60 Minutes described the unfolding situation in the United States as the perfect storm. Popov speculated that President Trump had infected the U.S. government in its entirety and cheerfully expressed Russias readiness to take control over Americas nuclear button. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Jharkhand minority welfare minister and four-time JMM legislator from Madhupur, Haji Hussein Ansari died on Saturday afternoon fighting coronavirus in Medanta hospital in Ranchi. The 73-year-old JMM leader, who had undergone open heart surgery about two years back, was admitted to Medanta on September 23 after he tested Covid-19 positive. He, however, tested negative on October 2 and was shifted to a non-Covid ICU of the hospital. He passed away due to a cardiac arrest at about 3:50 pm on Saturday, confirmed health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni. The body was handed over to the family maintaining Covid-19 protocols. His son Hafizul Hassan was present. Later, the family members took the body to his ancestral place in Madhupur for the last rites. Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren tweeted: I am deeply hurt by the loss of my ministerial colleague Haji Hussein Ansari sahab ji. Haji sahab was in the forefront of the Jharkhand movement and played a great role in it. He was a simple person with strong determination. May the almighty give peace to the departed soul and strength to the family to withstand the loss. JMM president and Rajya Sabha member Shibu Soren said he was pained to hear the news. In his condolence message, Soren described Ansari as a truly popular leader who was available to all. He was my beloved companion. Ansari was a true leader, who was always alert on public issues and party organisation, Shibu said adding that his death was an irreparable loss to the party. Condolences poured in from leaders of different political parties as well. Among the prominent ones were state Congress president and minister Rameshwar Oraon, CPI (ML) state secretary Janardan Prasad, CPI (M) and CPI state committees. Born in Pipra village in Madhupur block of Deoghar district, Ansari started his political journey in late eighties with the Congress. Influenced by JMM chief Shibu Soren, he joined the regional party in the nineties when the Jharkhand movement was at its peak. A close associate of Shibu Soren, he was one of the frontal leaders of the separate statehood struggle and spearheaded several agitations along with the JMM chief. Later, Ansari got elected from the Madhupur assembly segment for the first time in 1995 in unified Bihar. He represented the assembly constituency four times in 1995, 2000, 2010 and 2019. He was the leader of the opposition in Jharkhand in 2004 and also headed the state Haj committee as its chairman in the past. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON George Clooney has spoken about how he worked around Felicity Jones' pregnancy for his latest film. The 59-year-old actor-director told Empire magazine about the moment his 36-year-old star first told him her good news 'about three or four weeks into shooting' The Midnight Sky. 'She calls me and goes, 'Uhhh, I'm pregnant'. I was like, 'Oh, s**t! You're kidding!' said the Academy Award winning actor. Challenges: George Clooney [R, in 2017] has spoken about how he worked around Felicity Jones' [L in December 2019] pregnancy for his latest film Clooney said he first tried to shoot around the problem, explaining, 'The first thing we tried to do was shoot her and just do head replacement. Meaning we shoot each scene with her three times: once with her, once with a body double, and once with nothing in it.' 'But we started looking at it and thought, "She's not comfortable."' It was then that George had the idea to write Felicity's pregnancy into the story of Sully, her astronaut character. 'Then it was really simply sitting down and going, "Okay, so, you know, people have sex! They're going to be in space for a long time and she's pregnant". I think it ends up adding to the story, in a way,' Clooney continued. 'It makes it kind of beautiful by the end.' Co-star: Jones, 36, appears in the film as astronaut Sully, with George revealing that he adapted the movie to build in her real life pregnancy Space: Kyle Chandler also stars in the movie as pilot Mitchell and is seen standing by an image of an almost completely white planet Earth Meanwhile, the Ocean's Eleven actor has a very different look from his usual suave appearance as he transforms into a 70-year-old scientist in his new movie. In the first pictures from upcoming Netflix film, the actor is seen sporting a long beard and messily shaved head. As well as playing character Augustine Lofthouse, George has directed the post-apocalyptic flick which also stars the aforementioned Jones and David Oyelowo. New role: George Clooney transforms into a 70-year-old scientist with a long beard and messy hair cut who lives on a remote arctic research station in new Netflix movie The Midnight Sky George is barely recognisable in a new picture from the set, with the star having a beard and wearing a checked shirt. His usually styled locks are also nowhere to be seen. George told Vanity Fair that he shaved his own hair off for the movie, purposely not trying to do a good job. Speaking about the transformation, he joked: 'I have had a lot of people, the first couple of shots in the movie, not realise it's me... My wife was very happy when I finished shooting this.' Behind the scenes: As well as acting, George has also directed the post-apocalyptic movie The actor also revealed he doesn't believe he's keeping his youthful looks as he ages in real life, saying he's looking closer to his character's age of 70 than his 59 years. Other pictures released by Netflix on Friday also show the Oceans Eleven star working hard behind the camera and his co-stars onboard their space ship. The Midnight Sky follows Augustine (Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully (Jones) and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe. Sully and her team are on the NASA starship Aether after a journey to explore a moon of Jupiter, with the group discovering it to have a habitable climate. Testing times: The film shows a group of astronauts returning to Earth after a mission to a moon of Jupiter, with Felicity's character falling pregnant on the ship (Felicity and David Oyelowo pictured) MailOnline exclusively revealed that Felicity had welcomed a baby with her husband Charles Guard earlier in September. It is not yet known when exactly the actress gave birth. The baby's gender and name have also yet to be publicly revealed. Touching on the current situation in his interview, George explained he finished filming the film in February before restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. However he acknowledged the plot may be a little eery for some, saying that although it is 'science fiction', things are becoming 'less fictional' as time goes on. The Midnight Sky, which also stars David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir and Tiffany Boone, is set for release on Netflix this December. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern wishes Donald Trump swift recovery Trump was taken to hospital on Friday after he tested positive to COVID-19 Officials told media he had trouble breathing and that he was 'very fatigued' Ms Ardern wished him well as she continues on campaign trail for NZ election New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has wished US president Donald Trump a speedy recovery after he was rushed to hospital to be treated for COVID-19. Trump had 'trouble breathing' as he was admitted to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Maryland on Friday evening following his positive coronavirus test. ADVERTISEMENT Officials have told media Trump was 'very tired, very fatigued' and that his condition was much more acute than First Lady Melania Trump. Ms Ardern directed her best wishes to the US president while speaking at a Labour event at Otara in south Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday. 'We've seen now several world leaders who have been affected by COVID-19 and I know that I stand with others in wishing [him] all the best, because this is obviously a virus that had globally has a devastating impact,' she said. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured on Saturday) has wished US president Donald Trump a speedy recovery after he was rushed to hospital to be treated for COVID-19 Trump had 'trouble breathing' as he was admitted to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Maryland on Friday evening following his positive coronavirus test (pictured, Trump arriving at the hospital on Friday) Ms Ardern has been on the campaign trail as New Zealand heads to election day on October 18. Advance voting has opened ahead of the big day and Ms Ardern cast her ballot for Labour and her own government's re-election. Accompanied by partner Clarke Gayford - but not two-year-old daughter Neve - Ms Ardern submitted her vote at the Mount Eden War Memorial Hall. Her bright red blazer left little doubt as to her allegiance, and as she waited by the ballot boxes for Mr Gayford to finish voting, a pair of star-struck voters told Ms Ardern she had won their support. The prime minister is in one of the safest Labour seats in the country and is certain to be re-elected, and her party is a hot favourite to win a second term. Click here to resize this module 'I have a philosophy of campaigning as though it could go either way,' she said. 'We can't take anything for granted and so that's the way (Labour has) campaigned all the way through, working very, very hard.' ADVERTISEMENT New Zealand has non-compulsory voting, meaning most party's campaigning efforts are now geared towards get-out-the-vote operations. On Saturday, 450 polling places opened as part of an Electoral Commission push to spread out more of the voting before election day. In Mount Eden, Ms Ardern cast four ballots - an electorate vote for herself, a party vote for her Labour party, as well as her choices in the two referenda her government has put to New Zealanders, on legalising euthanasia and cannabis. Ms Ardern directed her best wishes to the US president while speaking at a Labour event at Otara in south Auckland, New Zealand (pictured), on Saturday Accompanied by partner Clarke Gayford - but not two-year-old daughter Neve - Ms Ardern cast her vote at the Mount Eden War Memorial Hall (pictured) Ms Ardern signalled her intent to vote in favour of the end of life proposal, but has kept her vote on the referendum a secret. After voting she headed to a Labour phone-banking event in South Auckland's Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate. Among homemade Labour signs adorned with the party's Let's Keep Moving slogan, Ms Ardern rallied volunteers and called supporters to thank them for their efforts. Unfortunately, the first four calls the wildly popular PM made went through to voicemail, before she finally got through to volunteer 'Shane' for a chat. Labour is hot favourite to defeat the opposition National party led by Judith Collins, who will vote on Sunday. Ms Ardern's key message is one of stability - not to change horses now - as New Zealand begins a recovery for its COVID-ravaged economy. US President Donald Trump walks off Marine One while arriving at Walter Reed Medical Center 'My very clear pitch will be in the midst of that uncertainty, we need that stability,' she said. 'We need a very strong plan ... and it's a plan that I do think also will create a better New Zealand in the aftermath.' ADVERTISEMENT Since electoral reform in 1996, no party has been able to govern on its own in New Zealand. For the last three years, Labour has been supported by centre-right New Zealand First and left-wingers the Greens, but polling has Labour within touching distance of a majority on its own. 'I will be seeking the strongest mandate for Labour that I can, but I'd like to think that we have a record that demonstrates we can equally work with what New Zealand delivers,' Ms Ardern said. EDWARDSVILLE Southern Illinois University Edwardsville together with SIU Carbondale will host the 20th Annual Global Fusion Conference Friday-Sunday Oct. 9-11 in what will be the events first-ever virtual gathering. The goal of the conference is to promote academic excellence in global media and international communication studies. It is sponsored by a consortium of universities, including SIUE, SIUC, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Ohio University and Temple University. Feeding newborn babies their mother's poo after birth could reduce their susceptibility to allergies and asthma. According to scientists, mixing a little amount of feces in breast milk could bolster the development of an infant's immune system. Mother's Beneficial Bacteria In the path through the birth canal, delivering by cesarean section inhibits infants from receiving their mother's healthy bacteria. Scientists acknowledge that it is disgusting. But they also underscore that the technique undergoing study is done through a meticulously controlled, clean procedure. The likelihood for newborn cesarean babies to develop asthma and allergies as a toddler is perhaps due to the fact that they were not exposed to the microbiota in their mother's perineum and vagina in the birthing process. This remarkably affects their immune system's progression, reported Science Times. Scientists from Finland probed into whether infants would gain an advantage from fecal microbiota transplants (FMTs). The purpose of FMTs is to clear up infections immune to antibiotics in adults. A healthy stool is required to be introduced to the patient's colon. Babies Born by C-Section More than naturally birthed babies, cesarian infants are more at risk of asthma or allergies. In the journal "Cell," the process seemed to be safe and resulted in C-section newborns having microbial makeup identical to vaginal-born newborns, reported Med India. The group of researchers from the Pediatric Research Center at the University of Helsinki found the procedure safe. "From a clinical point of view, this transfer of microbial material is happening during a vaginal delivery," according to co-senior author Sture Andersson, a professor at the University of Helsinki in Finland, reported Sound Health and Lasting Wealth. Also Read: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Worried About Prince Philip's Health, Couple Eager to Return to UK With Archie Some scientists believe that this is due to the fact that newborns are missing out on their mother's vagina, skin, and intestines' germs. Other experts think it is associated with different factors including antibiotics offered to mothers after a cesarian delivery. Experts persuaded mothers not to make Do-it-Yourself attempts at home. The drastic approach is for the underdeveloped immune system of the newborn. The Research Study The study is part of an increased interest in the microbiome which is a broad collection of bacteria and other microbes that inhabit the body. Studies in the past years have been divulging how essential those microbes are to the body's regular procedures. Before the more drastic way was suggested, a few studies suggested that to address the shortage in the microbiota, newborn cesarian infants should be swabbed with their mother's vaginal fluid urgently after birth to lessen that susceptibility. Microbiota exposure will help the baby's immune system to mature. Andersson added that the poo is the mother's gift to her infant. Once a newborn begins thriving alive, their immune system develops out of microbial subjection. Delivery of Baby There is proof that the way of delivery of the baby could have a critical impact on the microbiome's properties. Natural childbirth exposes infants to the advantageous microbes in the birth canal while the cesarian delivery bypasses that procedure. Related Article: Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston Asking Alia Shawkat to Be Surrogate Mother? @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. 45% of businesses said they would implement AI technologies in the next 12 months. Photo: Getty Artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace has long been a sensitive topic. Many people see it as robots taking over their jobs, while some firms remain sceptical about the technology due to the costs. While COVID-19 saw global lockdowns introduced and work patterns change amid a shift to remote work, firms closed as revenues dropped and wreaked havoc on the travel and hospitality industries. In the face of adversity, it forced business leaders to make smart investments on the spot to prevent their businesses from collapsing, which saw them roll-out digital technologies to keep the workflow going, while keeping their customers satisfied. However, as the coronavirus crisis saw many people lose their jobs, or put on furlough it has brought about a change in attitude towards AI in UK business leaders, according to a study by Fountech.ai, published exclusively by Yahoo Finance. Of the 430 respondents, 55% of UK companies have started exploring how AI could improve their product or service. The figure is highest among small and medium-sized enterprises, at 61% and 66% respectively. The research also found that, 45% of businesses would implement AI technologies in the next 12 months. Founder of Fountech.ai, Nikolas Kairinos, said: Businesses curiosity about the potential of AI has grown notably over recent years. This has no doubt been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic: survival has emerged as the number one reason to invest in emerging technologies. READ MORE: COVID-19 rules could see 290,000 UK job losses and cost the economy 7bn Recently, a rise in coronavirus cases has prompted the government to advise Brits to work from home if they can, as was customary during the height of the pandemic in April, May and June. Kairinos said that the shift towards remote working has forced enterprises around the world to re-examine their existing processes and find new ways of maintaining productivity in a virtual setting. Companies are investing more aggressively in powerful cloud-computing technologies and sophisticated AI solutions as they continue to migrate their work and communications online, he said. Story continues AI underpins many of the key digital solutions that enable firms to continue delivering services, maintaining customer trust and keeping a remote workforce connected. And ultimately, companies are looking for ways AI can save them money to that end, the pandemic has accelerated the need for AI, and has also made businesses more receptive to solutions able to automate complex, time-consuming tasks, he added. The study also shows that only 16% of UK company leaders are aware of AI being used within their organisation at present. Alongside this, 53% admitted they have a very limited understanding of AI and how it can be used 15% of businesses are confident that they have the skills needed internally to implement or take advantage of AI. READ MORE: Rishi Sunak admits unemployment will rise despite 'radical' job support scheme Interestingly, 57% of UK firms with 1 to 9 employees (micro businesses), believe that AI is over-hyped and would not deliver much value to their business, while just 26% of companies with more than 250 employees, hold the same view. Last week, the secretary for Business Alok Sharma, announced his support on Twitter after the UK and US signed an AI research and development (R&D) agreement. The R&D agreement is meant to promote collaboration between the countries on AI development as well as recommending priorities for AI planning and programming, such as student and researcher collaboration to empower and enable current and future generations of workers. Coronavirus-hit President Donald Trump is doing very well," his doctors said on Saturday although an insider with knowledge of his health voiced concern over his condition. In the first official update on the presidents condition since he was admitted on Friday to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, medics were upbeat about his progress. At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made," White House physician Sean Conley said, adding the president had been fever-free for over 24 hours." We have monitored his cardiac function, his kidney function, liver function. All of those are normal," Sean Dooley, another member of Trumps medical team, added. Trump tweeted later, thanking medical staff at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!!Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2020 But a source familiar with the presidents health painted a less rosy account. The presidents vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. Were still not on a clear path to a full recovery," the source said. Conley sidestepped journalists questions about whether Trump had received oxygen treatment at any point before revealing that the president was not on oxygen on Thursday or at any point since he arrived at Walter Reed. He said Trump was just 72 hours into the diagnosis now" implying that he was known to be sick a day before his test result was announced. But the White House later clarified that Conley meant to say Saturday was the third day since the presidents positive test result late Thursday. Soon after Trump arrived at Walter Reed, Conley said in a memo that the president was starting a course of therapeutic drug remdesivir and had received an eight-gram dose of an experimental polyclonal antibody cocktail. Conley would not put a hard date" on Trumps discharge from the hospital or disclose the presidents temperature. Trump, who showed mild symptoms" of COVID-19, was flown to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington DC, on Friday. Trump walked from his residence to take Marine One at the South Lawns of the White House to travel to Walter Reed hospital. Trump, 74, and his wife First Lady Melania Trump, 50, tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. Going well, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!! Trump tweeted on Saturday morning. While the president was taken to the military hospital, the first lady stayed back at the White House. Conley earlier said the president was fatigued but in good spirits". Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the strategically vital all-weather Atal Tunnel, which decreases the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by four to five hours at Himachal Pradeshs Rohtang. The Atal Tunnel, built by the Border Roads Organisation, is the longest highway tunnel in the world. Speaking at the inauguration, PM Modi said the completion of Atal Tunnel not only fulfilled the dreams of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee but put an end to the years of wait of the people of Himachal Pradesh. Atal tunnel will give new strength to Indias border infrastructure. It is an example of world-class border connectivity. There have been demands to improve border infrastructure but for a long time, such projects either couldnt get out of the planning stage or got stuck midway," PM Modi said. Talking about the delay in the project under the previous government, he said that after Vajpayees tenure ended, it appeared that the project, too, was forgotten. In the year 2002, Atal ji laid the foundation of Approach Road for this tunnel. After Atal jis tenure ended, it appeared that this project was also forgotten. The situation was such that by the year 2013-14, only 1,300 meters of work was done for the tunnel," Modi said. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had decided to construct the strategically important tunnel below the Rohtang Pass on June 3, 2000, and the foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. The Modi government decided to name the Rohtang Tunnel as Atal Tunnel in December 2019 to honour the former prime minister who had passed away the previous year. PM Modi said that it was after 2014, that the pace of the work on the Atal Tunnel was ramped up. When you have to move on the path of development, when the people of the country have a strong desire for development, then the pace has to be increased. Atal Tunnel work also accelerated after 2014." The prime minister added that as a result, where previously 300-meters of the tunnel was being built every year, its speed was increased to 1,400 meters per year. In just 6 years, we have completed 26 years of work," PM Modi said. Modi was accompanied by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat. PM @narendramodi reached Sasse in Himachal Pradesh. He is on the way to inaugurate #AtalTunnel, a futuristic infrastructure project that will benefit several citizens. pic.twitter.com/RjsPWFSszz PMO India (@PMOIndia) October 3, 2020 The 9.02-km tunnel connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley throughout the year, the Prime Ministers Office has said, noting that the valley was earlier cut off for about six months every year due to heavy snowfall. (with inputs from PTI) Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal Leaders of the ruling BJP in Assam asserted that no alliance or new party stands as a hindrance for the saffron party's return to power in the state for the second time in the assembly polls due in early 2021. State BJP president Ranjit Kumar Dass and senior party leader and Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also attacked the opposition Congress for the tardy development in the state and for going out of its way to "disrupt and destroy" Assam. Addressing the state BJP Executive meeting here on Friday, Dass claimed, "In front of our dedicated karyakartas (workers) no alliance/new party stands as a factor of hindrance". This was a reference to the coming together of AASU, AJYCP and KMSS to form an allaince and fight the polls. "If the 42 lakh karyakartas of BJP Assam bring even one new member we we will undoubtedly be successful in our Mission #BJP + = 100 +," he said. "Three Cs - that is Congress, Communist and Communalist have constantly gone out of their way to disrupt and destroy Assam," asserted the BJP state chief. A true Indian, patriot of Assam along with the karyakartas of BJP Assam should reject these three Cs, he said. Sarma said no alliance/new party was a hindrance to BJP's return to power for the second term in the state by winning the hearts of the people. Without referring to AASU, AJYCP and KMSS coming together with like-minded organisations and Congress, besides Congress' efforts for 'Mahajuth' for the assembly polls, Sarma said "There may be two political parties, three political parties and Mahajuth (grand alliance). "But they cannot stand one day in front of the three crore people of Assam. I tell those who (AASU) criticised the National Register of Citizens (NRC) or made public the report on the Clause 6 of Assam Accord without it being laid in assembly to face the people by fighting the coming assembly polls", he said. Clause 6 of Assam Accord provides constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people. Criticising the 15-year Congress rule in Assam under Tarun Gogoi, Sarma said only the national games held then defined the three terms of the Gogoi government when the BJP government is defined by the 55 stadia and the slew of development schemes it undertook for the welfare of the people and the development of Assam in just five years. Sarma was a powerful minister in the Congress regime till he fell out with Gogoi and joined BJP on the eve of the 2016 elections. Chief Mininister Sarbananda Sonowal in his speech asked whether Congress has the moral right to criticise BJP. "Look at Congress' history. Beginning with first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru down to their other premiers, Congress created history by being involved in corruption." "So do not engage in any arguments with Congress but concentrate on finding a place in the hearts of the people", exhorted Sonowal. Stating that Assam in the pre-Independence era was one of the most developed states of India, he said due to the misrule of Congress it got relegated as one of the most backward states. "Now under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi we want to go forward as a developed state. We seek the help of the people to make the youths of Assam self-reliant and able citizens of the state and country. I want to make our state economically developed," Sonowal said and urged the BJP workers to work for the party. WATERLOO REGION The team behind Pivot Airlines, the new carrier launching passenger service from the Region of Waterloo International Airport, brings years of aviation experience to the table. Pivots ownership and executive roots trace back to Air Georgian Limited, which for two decades operated tens of thousands of short-haul flights a year under contract to Air Canada. Pivots leadership, including its chief executive officer, Eric Edmondson, and its vice-presidents of operations control, maintenance operations and flight operations, all served in similar roles at Air Georgian. Airport officials and representatives of the regions business community are excited by Pivots arrival, entering a market thats seen its share of carriers come and go in recent years, leaving WestJets service to Calgary and Sunwings seasonal flights to Mexico and the Dominican Republic as the current scheduled choices available to travellers. The local airport and Pivot Airlines, based at Toronto Pearson International Airport, announced last month that it will offer scheduled service to Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor and Montreal; a launch date has not been announced. Pivots connections to Air Georgian and its years of experience as a regional airline initially flying for Canadian Airlines, and then Air Canada would seem to serve it well. But that experience comes with some excess baggage that Pivot Airlines appears eager to leave behind. An interview scheduled with Edmondson was abruptly cancelled last month after the Record would not agree to Pivots terms, including a guarantee that no questions about Air Georgian would be asked. Pivot Airlines was founded earlier this year, the product of a court-approved purchase of Air Georgians assets. In 2019, Air Canada notified Pearson-based Air Georgian that it would be terminating its agreement, turning off the taps on Air Georgians only significant source of revenue. Unable to find another similar contract and faced with millions of dollars of debt, Air Georgian filed a notice of intent to make a proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act on Jan. 31 this year, the day its agreement with Air Canada came to an end. There were approximately 260 Air Georgian employees until Jan. 31, when a number were laid off. According to an affidavit sworn by Edmondson in March, there were about 45 remaining full-time employees at that time. The legal process led to the asset purchase that created Pivot Airlines. Air Georgian was then deemed bankrupt in June, leaving 255 unsecured creditors, identified in court documents, owed a total of just over $41.5 million. A Pivot spokesperson said the new airline is unrelated to Air Georgian. This is such an exciting story for Kitchener/Waterloo, Kristen Menecola said in an email. Unfortunately, it is not appropriate for Pivot Airlines to comment on a company that is not related to us. The only association we have to Air Georgian is through an asset purchase. The common ownership thread between Air Georgian and Pivot lies with a man named John Binder. The purchase of Air Georgians assets was made by an Ontario numbered company, a party owned directly or indirectly by Binder, court documents said. Pivot Airlines website states it is owned by Binder Capital Corporation, a Calgary-based private equity firm established by John Binder. Those court documents state Binder is associated to the holding company that owned Air Georgian, and identify him as one of Air Georgians two directors. Despite its reluctance to discuss Air Georgian, Pivot Airlines references its teams roots in its own promotional materials. Along with its strong ownership group, the management team at Pivot Airlines has a proven track record with over 25 years of experience in providing high volume connecting traffic to two major Canadian airlines, where they connected millions of passengers annually by safely completing 200 flights daily under their partners marketing brand, stated a July press release outlining Pivots inclusion on an internationally-recognized aviation safety management registry. That background appealed to Chris Wood, general manager of the Region of Waterloo International Airport. Its the same people that ran Air Georgian, he said. Theyre very familiar with these routes. Unlike a couple of smaller operators whose attempts to offer passenger service from Waterloo Region failed in recent years, Pivot has a very experienced and well-funded owner, Wood said. They also have the experience of running a regional airline in Ontario as well. While Air Georgian safely operated tens of thousands of flights under Air Canada Express branding every year, four incidents since 2014 resulted in Transportation Safety Board (TSB) investigations. A 2016 incident in which the nose landing gear on an Air Georgian plane didnt fully extend upon landing led the TSB to identify numerous maintenance, training and quality control deficiencies. No one was injured in that incident. In response, Air Georgian took actions including hiring a manager dedicated to maintenance training, adding an inspection item to its maintenance tracking system, and launching a communication and awareness program for staff. After a former Air Georgian pilot published a book and gave media interviews critical of the airlines safety and maintenance practices a few years ago, Air Georgian responded with a $10-million libel suit against its former employee. Although a judge called the book provocative and sensationalized at times, the lawsuit was dismissed last year, as the judge ruled it sought to silence an important conversation about safety in the air. The prospect of a new carrier offering flights to popular destinations in Ontario and Quebec has excited officials in Waterloo Region, eager to boost scheduled service options at a facility thats still a far cry from the 250,000 passengers a year that would trigger the first phase of an airport expansion. About 80,000 passengers went through the airport in 2018; the pandemic has seen air travel plummet worldwide. In announcing its Waterloo Region plans, Pivot said its launch is contingent upon a loosening of COVID-19 travel-related restrictions. Tony LaMantia, president and chief executive officer of economic development organization Waterloo EDC, noted the airline industry and passenger confidence will have to recover before the new airline can flourish. Its a bold bet during a challenging time and, while there is significant business risk in the industry, the upside/blue sky is attractive. Pun intended, he said in an email. Pivots arrival strikes me as a confident call option on the future of Waterloo Region, LaMantia said. Pearson airport was facing capacity challenges (before the pandemic struck), positioning regional airports to absorb some of that demand. More businesses are migrating into Waterloo Region from the Toronto area, and employment lands are being developed near the local airport. Pivots service would no doubt be marketed to the business community, which has long called for more efficient transportation links to and from Waterloo Region. For people in Waterloo Region, travelling through Pearson can add considerable time and unpredictability to business trips, Communitechs chief executive officer, Iain Klugman, said in an email. Fast, frequent air connections are vital to tech companies, so we welcome any additional service from Waterloo Region. Wood, the airports general manager, believes the Pivot team has the experience to understand the market they intend to serve. That said, its going to boil down to we need all the support we can get from the community for the service to stay and thrive. Bill and Hillary Clinton have wished President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania a 'speedy recovery' after they were diagnosed with COVID-19 and the president was hospitalized. The former president and his wife, Trump's 2016 opponent in the presidential race, tweeted out separate but identical statements on Friday night, after Trump was airlifted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. 'We wish the President and First Lady a speedy recovery, and hope for the safety of the White House staff, the Secret Service, and others putting their lives on the line,' their statements said. 'This pandemic has affected so many. We must continue to protect ourselves, our families, and communities,' they added. Bill and Hillary Clinton have wished President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania a 'speedy recovery' after they were diagnosed with COVID-19 and the president was hospitalized The White House said that Trump was moving to Walter Reed purely as a precautionary measure and would remain there for monitoring for several days. However, White House officials are reportedly concerned about his condition. An unnamed official told CNN that he was experiencing difficulty breathing. Former President Barack Obama also extended his 'best wishes' to Trump following his coronavirus diagnosis. Obama said on Friday that even during 'big political battles' it's important to remember that 'we're all Americans, and we're all human beings.' He spoke during a virtual fundraiser with Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Obama says he and his wife, Michelle Obama, hope for a speedy recovery for the Trumps and anyone who has been affected by coronavirus around the country. Trump said in a tweet around 1am on Friday that he and Melania tested positive for COVID-19 President Obama wished the Trump's well during a virtual fundraiser on Friday afternoon 'Although we're in the midst of a big political fight, and we take that very seriously, we also want to extend our best wishes to the president of the United States, the first Lady. 'Michelle and I are hopeful that they and others that have been affected by COVID-19 around the country are getting the care that they need, that they are going to be on the path to a speedy recovery, and it's important I think for all of us to remember that even when we're in the midst of big political battles with issues that have a lot at stake, that we're all Americans and we're all human beings, and we want to make sure everybody is healthy. 'Michelle and I want to make sure we acknowledge the president and the first lady at this difficult time.' President Donald Trump waves to members of the media as he leaves the White House to go to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after he tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday The only other living former presidents, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, have not yet issued public statements on Trump's diagnosis, which comes 30 days before the presidential election and has thrown the top levels of government into chaos. For his part, Trump's Democrat presidential challenger Joe Biden said that Trump's coronavirus diagnosis shows the importance of taking the pandemic seriously, telling Americans that wearing masks is more important than being a "tough guy." Biden's remarks as he campaigned in the battleground state of Michigan hours after testing negative twice for the virus, served as an implicit criticism of the Republican president. Trump has played down the deadliness of the virus for months, frequently eschews masks and has held campaign rallies of thousands with little social distancing. Staff hand out self test kits at a coronavirus testing centre at the Last Drop Village Hotel in Bolton (Danny Lawson/PA) A further 726 cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed in Northern Ireland in the last 24 hours, the Department of Health has said. There has been one death, bringing the death toll to 583. The latest official data brings to 13,612 the total number of positive cases here. There are 65 patients in NI hospitals, with nine patients in intensive care units. In the Derry City & Strabane council area, the positive test rate is now 946 per 100,000 of population, according to the new figures. There have been 721 positive cases in the past seven days there. In other areas of concern, the infection rate per 100,000 of population in the Newry, Mourne and Down council district is up to 736 while Belfast has risen to 974. At a glance: Antrim and Newtownabbey: 966 cases (+130 in past 7 days) and 61 deaths to date Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon: 1,484 cases (+232 in past 7 days) and 69 deaths to date Belfast: 3,325 cases (+655 in past 7 days) and 168 deaths to date Causeway Coast and Glens: 627 cases (+126 in past 7 days) and 39 deaths to date Derry City and Strabane: 1,425 cases (+721 in past 7 days) and 21 deaths to date Fermanagh and Omagh: 376 cases (+80 in past 7 days) and 11 deaths to date Lisburn and Castlereagh: 1,011 cases (+144 in past 7 days) and 50 deaths to date Mid and East Antrim: 892 cases (+51 in past 7 days) and 46 deaths to date Mid Ulster: 869 cases (+253 in past 7 days) and 30 deaths to date Newry, Mourne and Down: 1,326 cases (+484 in past 7 days) and 38 deaths to date North Down and Ards: 754 cases (+93 in past 7 days) and 46 deaths to date Not known: 557 cases (+131 in past 7 days) and 4 deaths to date Read More Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump was airlifted to a military hospital less than 24 hours after his Covid-19 diagnosis on Friday. Mr Trump was taken by helicopter to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre on Friday and is expected to remain there for "a few days". A White House spokeswoman stressed that the hospital stay was "out of an abundance of caution" and that the 74-year-old would work from the hospital's presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to continue his official duties. Read More Health Minister Robin Swann said he was left "floored" after 934 cases were declared here on Friday, more than double the previous high for a single day. It's just two fewer than the highest daily total recorded in the Republic of Ireland back in April. Mr Swann urged people to "wise up" and "catch themselves on" - and warned that Covid-19 hospitalisations could soon exceed those of the first wave earlier this year. "Our Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor were warning that we could get to 1,000 cases per day in two to three weeks: we've got there today," Mr Swann told UTV on Friday night. Read More Addressing the NI Assembly in an urgent briefing, Mr Swann said the rapid increase in positive tests was forcing hospitals to reactivate their crisis plans. "Unfortunately, the warnings about the resurgent Covid-19 threat are coming true in the starkest of terms," he said. "Cases are doubling every nine days and hospital admissions every 13 days. "If the current trends do not change in three to six weeks' time, hospital inpatient numbers will exceed those witnessed during the first wave. "Some of our hospitals are already having to switch on their surge plans for coronavirus." Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times. PM Modi to inaugurate 9.02km Atal Tunnel connecting Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Saturday inaugurate the Atal Tunnel under the Rohtang Pass that connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh, which will be available for commuters throughout the year unlike earlier when the valley was cut off for about six months every year amid heavy snowfall. Read more Indias Covid-19 toll surpasses 100,000 The death toll from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in India surpassed the 100,000 mark on Friday, a grim milestone that comes exactly seven months from the day the first batch of cases were reported in the country. Read more Islamic State group Al-Hind plotted to build province in jungles of South India: NIA charge sheet An offshoot of IS operating in south India, known as the Al-Hind module planned to establish ISIS Daishwilayah (province) inside the jungles of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala as recently as in late 2019 according to a July charge sheet by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against 17 members of the module. Read more IPL 2020: Neither a finisher nor a powerplay bowler, why are they playing him, Aakash Chopra baffled at KXIPs team selection Former India opener Aakash Chopra blamed the team selection of Kings XI Punjab for their defeat to Mumbai Indians. Read more Milind Soman looks kohl lotta trouble as he nails the Arabian nights makeup in sizzling throwback picture Touted as a beauty staple for women for long, kohl in eyes has started trending among men and Bollywood actor Milind Soman showed how he nailed the Arabian nights makeup, much before it was a celebrity fashion trend. Read more Abhishek Bachchan hits back at troll who said hes a product of nepotism, calls him ill-informed, immature, naive Slamming a Twitter user who described him as a product of nepotism, actor Abhishek Bachchan said that the person was ill-informed, immature and naive. The actor, in recent days, has had to fend off a new wave of online hate. Read more IPL 2020: Priyam Gargs maiden fifty helps Sunrisers Hyderabad beat CSK by 7 runs Ravindra Jadejas maiden IPL fifty went in vain as Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Chennai Super Kings by 7 runs in Dubai. After choosing to bat first, SRH posted 164/5 following Priyam Gargs maiden IPL fifty. Read more A Philadelphia company that sells software used in hundreds of clinical trials, including the crash effort to develop tests, treatments and a vaccine for the coronavirus, was hit by a ransomware attack that has slowed some of those trials over the past two weeks. The attack on eResearchTechnology, which has not previously been reported, began two weeks ago when employees discovered that they were locked out of their data by ransomware, an attack that holds victims data hostage until they pay to unlock it. ERT said clinical trial patients were never at risk, but customers said the attack forced trial researchers to track their patients with pen and paper. Among those hit were IQVIA, the contract research organization helping manage AstraZenecas Covid vaccine trial, and Bristol Myers Squibb, the drugmaker leading a consortium of companies to develop a quick test for the virus. ERT has not said how many clinical trials were affected, but its software is used in drug trials across Europe, Asia and North America. It was used in three-quarters of trials that led to drug approvals by the Food and Drug Administration last year, according to its website. The prisoner exchange with representatives of the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas is delayed as the other party has not yet provided corresponding lists. "The logic here is very simple. We agreed that both parties should submit lists. We have submitted a list, but the other party has not yet submitted theirs. They started saying that they do not know where some people are, and their identities should be verified by representatives of the Red Cross," President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said during a working trip to Chernivtsi region on October 2, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. According to Zelensky, it is currently expected that representatives of the Red Cross will be given access to the occupied territories. After that, the issue of prisoner exchange may get under way. "At the last meeting of the advisers to leaders of the Normandy format countries, Andriy Yermak reached an agreement that the Red Cross would be given access to the temporarily occupied territory. As soon as this happens, the exchange will be held. But there is no specific date yet. We all are waiting for it," the President added. On September 30, a regular meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) was held via video conference with the participation of Ukrainian and Russian delegations and moderated by the OSCE. Head of the Ukrainian delegation Leonid Kravchuk called on Russias representative Boris Gryzlov "not to block the negotiation process and to focus on the issues which the Ukrainian citizens are interested in." Later, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Heidi Grau, said that discussion in the Trilateral Contact Group of issues related to the mutual release and exchange of conflict-related detainees had not brought results. ol Kabul: Afghanistan's top negotiator for intra-Afghan talks Abdullah Abdullah will visit India and start his four-day trip from October 6. He as the Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation represents the Afghan govt in talks with Taliban which started in September in Doha. This is his first visit to New Delhi in the current position and is expected to meet top officials of the Indian government. Joint Secretary, PAI or Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran division of Ministry of External Affairs, JP Singh had met him on the sidelines of the beginning of the intra-Afghan ceremony on September 12 in Doha. At the ceremony, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said, "Interests of minorities, women and vulnerable sections of society must be preserved and the issue of violence across the country and its neighbourhood has to be effectively addressed." India was present along with around 30 countries at the ceremony. India's policy towards the Afghan peace process is that it should be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled and "respect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan". Even as peace talks in Afghanistan has gained momentum, India has increased its reach out to a number of stakeholders in the country. September saw a visit by Afghan leader Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, during which he met External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and Foreign secretary Harsh Shringla. New Delhi is Afghanistan's major development partner and has built number infrastructure projects in the country like India-Afghanistan friendship dam in the western province of Herat and the Afghan Parliament in capital Kabul. Wrexham residents urged to nominate their local heroes in this years St Davids Awards This article is old - Published: Saturday, Oct 3rd, 2020 Wrexham residents are being encouraged to put forward the name of their colleague, friend, neighbour or family member who they believe is deserving of national recognition. Nominations are now open for this years St David Awards and local Member of the Senedd, Lesley Griffiths is urging members of the public to nominate their local heroes. Entering its eighth year, the St David Awards acknowledge the great deeds and outstanding achievements of people the length and breadth of Wales. This year a new award will recognise the critical workers who went above and beyond the call of duty during the coronavirus pandemic. The awards categories are Critical Worker, Bravery, Community Spirit, Culture and Sport, Business, Innovation, Science and Technology, Humanitarian and the First Ministers Special Award. Lesley Griffiths MS said: The St David Awards are the highest accolades the Welsh Government can bestow, with the respective awards celebrating the exceptional achievements of people from all walks of life. We are living through extraordinary times. I know there are local people who have made outstanding contributions during the pandemic and it is right a special award has been created this year to celebrate their admirable efforts. Wrexham-based entrepreneurs and residents have been recognised in the past and I hope local success can be repeated once again. Nominations close on 15 October 2020. FAIRFIELD Some Fairfield University faculty members say they want more of a role in the COVID-19 decision-making process and feel the schools virus dashboard should be updated daily. Irene Mulvey, mathematics department chairwoman and president of the American Association of University Professors, said professors have been receiving emails from students who say they will miss class for two weeks after they or their roommates have tested positive for the coronavirus. Without the dashboard being updated, she said, some faculty do not know what to make of it. As of Sept. 18, the university started updating its coronavirus dashboard twice a week. In a message posted to the schools website, Vice President for Student Life Karen Donoghue said the decision came after an increase in students testing positive as well as more students being monitored by the school for their exposure to the virus. You might have a bunch of students in your class, but maybe thats the only student that tested positive that week, Mulvey said. It isnt nefarious activity, but there could be more transparency. According to Mulvey, it can create a situation where a faculty member does not know whether to be concerned. Were the ones in the classrooms teaching the students, said Mulvey, who feels the dashboard should be updated daily. They should be telling us. We should be having full information so that we can protect our own health and our own families. In its latest update on Friday, Fairfield University reported 111 students have tested positive for COVID-19 since Sept. 1. As of Friday, two faculty and staff members had also tested positive. David Crawford, Fairfield Universitys AAUP chapter president, said the school has faced some challenges, including issues with its testing company, but said the biggest area of concern is transparency. We have a dashboard that gets updated twice a week, and many faculty find that insufficient, he said. Sharing information should not be so slow, nor should these difficulties have been unexpected. Crawford said the AAUPs view of the situation is that the virus could be spreading throughout classrooms, affecting professors and students. Therefore, he said, they feel faculty should be well-represented in the key decision-making bodies that deal with the virus. Our membership remains unconvinced that they are, Crawford said. There are faculty on committees, but does that mean their voices are heard by actual decision makers? Put another way, people have expressed frustration with knowing which committees are relevant to decision making, how to funnel concerns and questions to them, or how to get answers back. In a prepared statement, Vice President of Marketing and Communication Jennifer Anderson said the schools reopening plan and ongoing operation in response to the pandemic has involved employees, administrators and faculty working together to develop and refine strategies. Decisions regarding the universitys response to COVID-19 are made at the executive level with the benefit of input from the university task force, the public health advisory panel and the state Department of Public Health, Anderson said. Faculty have input through their deans, their shared governance channels, such as Academic Council and through a Public Health Advisory Committee, chaired by a faculty member with additional faculty representatives as members, she said. Anderson said faculty have already been instrumental in driving changes such as the doubling of the schools sentinel testing and moving to twice a week dashboard reporting as well as the use of tents around campus for outdoor classrooms. She said the university has also engaged the student government officers on various task force committees. Anderson also said it had the Academic Council, the highest elected faculty body, meet throughout the summer to ensure input. In addition, other shared governance committees also met throughout the summer to discuss and make recommendations regarding the current situation and reopening plans, she said. Fairfield is committed to its role in keeping our community safe and healthy, while working hard to deliver an exceptional academic experience to our students. Crawford said more faculty empowerment would help the situation. I do not believe this pandemic is going to be over very soon, and we on the (AAUP) will continue to agitate for our administration to work with our faculty representatives to continue to improve the way we manage it, he said. POLICE are appealing for information about a burglary that took place at the Post Office in Reading Road in Henley. The incident happened at 3.40am today (Saturday). The front door window has been smashed and the screens in front of the till have been pulled off. A spokesman for the Thames Valley Police said the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made. They ask that anyone with information call 101 or make a report online, quoting reference number 43200310886. Like many other U.S. public school magnets, Jeffersons largest ethnic group is Asians. They made up 70 percent of the students admitted to this years freshman class. My theory, for which I have no data, is that this is because Asian American parents have a respect for math and science courses and careers far above average for this country. Most U.S. parents want their children to get jobs that they enjoy and will pay the bills. But relatively few see a need for their kids to understand quantum mechanics or Eulers Identity. New Delhi: The AIIMS medical board has ruled out murder in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, terming it "a case of hanging and death by suicide", the premier institute's forensic chief Dr Sudhir Gupta said on Saturday. In its conclusive medico-legal opinion to the CBI, the six-member team of forensic doctors has dismissed the claims of "poisoning and strangling" made in the case of Singh''s death. "It is a case of hanging and death by suicide. We have submitted our conclusive report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)," Dr Gupta, who is also the chairman of the forensic medical board, said. There was no injury on the body other than that of hanging. Also, there was no mark of struggle and scuffle, he said but refused to divulge any further details stating the case is subjudice. Rajput, 34, who made his silver screen debut in the critically acclaimed "Kai Po Che" seven years ago, was found dead in his apartment in suburban Bandra in Mumbai on June 14. The CBI had taken over the probe from Bihar Police into the alleged abetment to suicide case filed by the actor's father KK Singh in Patna against Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family. Earlier this week, the central probe agency had said that it has not reached any conclusion in Rajput's death case and that all aspects were under investigation. (Photo : Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 03: The Instagram logo is displayed within the opened app on an iPhone on August 3, 2016 in London, England. (Photo : Photo by Mark Trowbridge/Getty Images) WALLINGTON, ENGLAND - JUNE 02: In this photo illustration, the photographer's wife looks at her husband's Instagram post for the #blackouttuesday social media campaign, showing solidarity with the ongoing George Floyd protests in the USA, on June 02, 2020 in Wallington, England. The death of an African-American man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis has sparked violent protests across the USA. A video of the incident, taken by a bystander and posted on social media, showed Floyd's neck being pinned to the ground by police officer, Derek Chauvin, as he repeatedly said "I cant breathe". Chauvin was fired along with three other officers and has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Many people are using Instagram to look for cheap holiday offers. Admit it or not, the images of stunning hotels and beaches are enticing. However, you must be careful when looking for deals, especially if they're too good to be true. A nationwide Instagram scam is currently selling "half-price" holiday packages, which allows the IG account to steal thousands of dollars from hotels, including a five-star resort called Landal Gwel an Mor in Cornwall. Th eEverything_Half account used the scheme to steal $9,698 or 7,500 from the resort in just one week. The IG account claims to secure guests' stays and accommodations, which only costs half of the advertised price. Customers are asked to transfer their payment directly to Everything_Half when they arrive at the hotel. However, the account won't send the money to the venue. Instead, it'll use a cloned or stolen credit card details to pay the hotel for full stay-in. When the credit card merchant deducts the original amount from the stolen credit cards, the original owners will complain. Landal Gwel an Mor is just one of the holiday companies and hotels used by the Everything_Half. Park Dean Resorts, Hoseasons, Heart of the Lakes, Haven, and Unique Home Stays are also included. "As soon as we became aware of this scam, we took measures to protect our customers and the business," said Matt Way, Landal Gwel an Mor's resort director. "Making it our mission to warn the other holiday businesses listed on this site too, all well-established names in travel spanning the country," he added. This is just one of the scams that are happening on the social media platform. Here are other types of schemes you need to know. Other kinds of Instagram Scams Romance Scam Scammers use this technique to send romantic messages to people they don't know, usually pretending to be in distress, widowed, or divorced. Their goal is to gain your trust, and once you and the scammer are in an online relationship, he or she will ask you for money for visas or flights. Job Scam Cybercriminals use this to fool people with misleading or fake job postings to have their money or personal information. It is highly advisable to avoid clicking links with job posts that are too good to be true. Lottery Scam This scheme uses fake messages, claiming that you're among the winners of a lottery. The scammers will then ask you for an advance fee to receive the money prize. They'll impersonate someone you know or an organization, usually a social media platform or government agency. Also Read: Security Experts Develop New 'Fingerprinting' Technique to Link Russian Hacking Groups to Windows Exploit Sellers This article is owned by TechTimes, Written by: Giuliano de Leon. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In her remarks, the Chairwoman underlined that efforts to realise the objectives of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action have strengthened legislative frameworks to empower women and create equal opportunities for women to take up decision-making positions. The High-level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fourth World Conference on Women (Photo: VNA) Importantly, these efforts have facilitated more cohesive national, regional and global implementation mechanisms, she added. Promotion of gender equality and women's rights is a consistent policy of Vietnam. This is enshrined in our Constitution and guaranteed in practice, Ngan affirmed. Vietnamese women have been a vital force and made immense contributions throughout the countrys history, be it in the cultivation of the Vietnamese cultural identity, or in the development of the Vietnamese society, the top legislator stressed. She also touched upon Vietnams contributions to promoting gender equality and womens empowerment at multilateral forums, including international and regional parliamentary ones. This year, in its capacity as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the ASEAN Chair and the President of the 41st ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, Vietnam has championed initiatives on women and girls at these critical institutions, she stated, pledging that Vietnam will continue working with all partners towards a truly equal society and a world of sustainable peace and development. At the meeting, participants spoke highly of the significance of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and achievements gained in gender equality and womens empowerment during the past 25 years. They also shared experience and discussed challenges in the building and implementation of policies and laws on gender equality, as well as put forth solutions to enhance the efficient enforcement in the field. The fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. With the determination to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere, it is viewed one of the most comprehensive documents on gender equality and womens empowerment./. MUMBAI: Retail borrowers and small businesses, perhaps among the worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic, will benefit the most from the governments decision to waive off "interest on interest" charges on loans up to 2 crore for six months through August. The benefit will be extended for loans availed by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), education loans, housing, consumer durables, credit card dues, auto loans, personal and professional loans and consumption loans, the government has informed the Supreme Court. While the final decision rests with the Supreme Court, the governments plan to bear the burden will also encompass borrowers who did not avail of the deferment benefit. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had on 22 May extended moratorium on term loans till 31 August amid the nationwide lockdown due to covid-19. In March, it had allowed a three-month moratorium from paying EMIs and payment of all term loans due between 1 March and 31 May. That said, bankers have pointed out that unless a borrower has not availed of the moratorium but defaulted during the six months of April-September, there is no compounded interest applicable. The top court will hear the case on 5 October. The finance ministry will have to seek the Parliaments approval in the Winter Session for additional funds to support the waiver of the compounding interest. The impact of the move on government finances was not immediately known. "This endeavour will be over and above the support of 3.7 trillion to MSMEs, 70,000 crore for home loans, etc. already exerted through the Garib Kalyan and Aatma Nirbhar packages announced by the government earlier," the government said in an affidavit to the Supreme Court. Last month, the Parliament had approved 20,000 crore infusion into public sector banks (PSBs) via government securities as the covid-19 crisis put borrowers under pressure, increasing the threat of a rise in non-performing assets. A senior government official told Mint that there will be more clarity on Monday after the Supreme Court hears the matter. Right now, this is what the finance ministry has proposed (as mentioned in the affidavit). The implementation and the modalities of how the benefit of the waiver will be given to borrowers will be decided once the final judgment is out," the official said. The official said the waiver may cost the government more than 20,000 crore, mainly due to the presence of large categories of lenders, including private and public sector banks, non-bank financiers, small finance banks, among others. According to a senior official at a private sector bank, the idea to bear the burden is a welcome decision, given that most Indian banks are starved for capital and this would have further depleted resources. Responsibility of such welfare initiatives rests with the government and it is a good move to not force banks bear such costs. However, the modalities need to be worked out and only then will a clearer picture emerge," the banker said. He added that it will lead to a mammoth equated monthly instalment (EMI) recalculation exercise by banks, already in the midst of a debt recast exercise. That apart, it also needs to be seen how long it takes the government to reimburse the compound interest cost to banks. Typically, in the case of farm loan waivers, state governments take six months to a year to reimburse banks. The apex court is hearing a petition pertaining to the issue of whether interest should continue to accrue on loans under moratorium. The government has also informed the Supreme Court that that the bearing this burden would naturally have an impact on several other pressing commitments being faced by the nation, including meeting direct costs associated with pandemic management, addressing basic needs of the common man and mitigating the common man's problems arising out of loss of livelihood." The pandemic has undoubtedly stretched the governments finances, forcing it to borrow more than what was initially budgeted. It amount raised so far this year is 7.7 trillion or 82% higher than the corresponding period last year, Care Ratings had said in a report on 25 September. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics Australia will become the first country in the world to publicly fund a new combination treatment for a deadly form of liver cancer in a $230 million promise in Tuesdays federal budget. The commitment will expand the listing, Tecentriq and Avastin, on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for use in combination to treat patients with advanced unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, which has become the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths. New drugs to treat liver cancer will be listed on the Pharmeceutical Benefits Scheme in Tuesday's budget. Credit:Tanya Lake Known as HCC, the aggressive cancer has limited treatment options and often occurs in people with other chronic liver diseases. It also has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancer types. Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt told The Sunday Age and The Sun-Herald that, from November 1, more than 500 patients a year could benefit from PBS listing of this treatment, which would otherwise cost more than $170,000 a course. SRINAGAR, Kashmir More than 100,000 people in India have died from the coronavirus, the government said on Saturday, even as officials plan to lift more restrictions in hopes of reviving the crippled economy. Indias health ministry reported 1,069 new Covid-19 deaths, bringing the official total to 100,842, though experts say the true toll is probably much higher. Until Saturday, only the United States and Brazil had reported more than 100,000 deaths from the virus. At 6.4 million, Indias official caseload is the second-highest in the world, surpassed only by the United States, which has more than 7.3 million cases. Indias death and infection rates have climbed in recent months, with September alone accounting for more than 40 percent of its cases and about a third of its deaths. The numbers have fallen somewhat since mid-September but remain high. Over the past week, India reported almost twice as many new cases as the United States did. And experts suspect that many Covid-19 fatalities in India have gone unreported. The proposed amendments fate in the hands of SC, Errors in Committee stage amendments Opposition to intensify protest campaign from tomorrow; lacklustre support for Karus effort to revive NMSJ As the Supreme Court adjudicates on 20A, both overt and covert moves are afoot by the Sri Lanka Podujana Nidahas Sanvidanaya (SLNPS) government to ensure a majority for the bills passage in Parliament. The Government now holds 149 seats. With the Speaker, who has a casting vote, it would be 150. That would be adequate but the leaders do not want a nervous photo finish. More so with rumblings from less than a handful who have been expressing reservations though the vast majority are in favour. Parliamentarian Vidura Wickremenayake has publicly declared that he was opposed to 20A. Asked about this, he told the Sunday Times, This is my private opinion. We actually do not need an amendment. What is needed is a new constitution. We do not need patch-up amendments. Wickremenayake, (SLPPKalutara district), son of onetime Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickremenayake, said 20A has just been tabled in Parliament. It is now being examined by the Supreme Court. I have not completely studied the amendments. We will decide whether to vote or not after the SC ruling. He added that a new Constitution should lay down the number of Ministers, deputies, and state ministers. It should safeguard the people and their rights. National policy in respect of transport, health and education should be enshrined in it, he pointed out. Another, who is miffed due to his non-inclusion in the Cabinet of Ministers, and one more holding extreme views are also known to be expressing reservations. The latter has openly expressed his views at government parliamentary group meetings. There is little doubt that defying the party line would compel them to face disciplinary action. Government leaders do not want to be taken by surprise. Behind the scenes moves are afoot to have members of opposition parties to vote in favour. The main thrust in this regard is being spearheaded by Basil Rajapaksa, the key strategist of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the predominant partner in the alliance. One of the main conditions he had laid out there would not be any quid pro quo in the form of official positions like ministers, deputy, or state ministers. The Sunday Times learnt that three each from two smaller parties are most likely to vote for 20A. In addition, there were indications this week, that one of the leaders now in the news may throw in his support unconditionally. He has been making several overtures to senior government leaders but with little success so far. He has thus conveyed to leaders about his stance, perhaps in the hope he could clinch a meeting and work out a deal. That involves pending legal action against him too. That the draft 20A has been made hurriedly drafted without detailed study is becoming increasingly clear. Just this week, SLPP Chairman and Minister G.L. Peiris told his regular news conference at SLPP headquarters in Battaramulla, that the amendments were being introduced to ensure the defence portfolio came under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His argument was that a person who had received an overwhelming mandate of the people should not be denied that portfolio. Those remarks, no doubt, place President Rajapaksa in an awkward position and tend to mislead the public. The President has not been impeded by the absence of the defence portfolio to the point of urgently bringing in 20A. That is laughable. The President has told his Cabinet and government MPs that he would take the full responsibility for the amendments which were necessary for governance. He is Commander in Chief of the armed forces and continues to exercise the functions of a Defence Minister. That was how he was able to deploy the armed services to counter the Covid-19 pandemic. He was able to keep the outbreak to exceptionally low levels compared to other countries. Besides, the setting up of a Parliamentary Council, appointment of judges, the power to dissolve Parliament or appoint an unrestricted number of Cabinet ministers some highlights of 20A are not functions that come under the defence portfolio. Not surprisingly, Prof. Peiris chaired a committee appointed by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to study the features of 20A. He is also an intervenient petitioner at the Supreme Court hearings on the amendments. The other is Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) senior Vice President Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva. Others included, Minister Gamini Lokuge and SLPP General Secretary Sagala Kariyawasam, There are 20A issues which are now engaging the attention of government leaders. One is when 20A, after the Supreme Court findings are known, should be introduced in Parliament. One aspect under consideration is whether there should be a special session after the upcoming sittings from Tuesday October 6 to 9 are over. In the alternative, it is expected to be when Parliament meets again on October 20. This date is the deadline for the SC to forward its ruling to the President and the Speaker. Another matter on which the Government is seeking legal advice is on the transition. From when 20A would become effective and forms a part of the Constitution? This is to ascertain how a Cabinet, expanded by a few, should be constituted. This has become necessary in the light of its first budget on November 17. Financial allocations to new ministries would have to be provided for and programmes of policy would have to be spelt out. Protests against 20A The main opposition Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) will hold a protest at Hyde Park on (Thursday). We are already educating the people through leaflets about the dangers caused by 20A. We will continue with this in the coming week too, SJB General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara said. He added that the SJB had not yet spoken to the UNP so far but declared they would be welcome to join our protests. They have also declared tomorrow (October 5) as a day of protest. They plan to hoist black flags on this day. For the opposition, former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, who has literally returned from retirement, to take over the leadership of the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), organised a meeting this week to protest against 20A. The event came a cropper with abstentions. Though invited, there was no representative from the United National Party (UNP). After a telephone call from Jayasuriya to Samagi Jana Balavegaya leader Sajith Premadasa, it was General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara who attended the event. Despite a series of telephone calls, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who was invited, did not take part. She told a friend that she did not want to get involved in political controversies. Nor did the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National Peoples Power (NPP). Its spokesperson Vijitha Herath said, Our members had other engagements. We said we will not therefore attend. An NMSJ petition against 20A was later handed over to the venerable Maha Nayakes of both the Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters. That failed to draw a statement from the leading prelates. The speech by former Minister, Rajitha Senaratne (SJB-Kalutara district) at the NMSJ event at Janaki Hotel in Thimbirigasyaya turned out to be an anti-climax. He told the Sunday Times, I talked about the social impact of 20A. I explained that civil society activists too were involved in creating 19A. I can clearly say that these civil society groups included the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), media associations, civil servants who served as presidential advisors and legal experts. It was the civil society groups that brought stipulations on dual citizenship and raised the age limit to run as presidential candidate from 30 to 35. We only approved it. We never knew those would affect them (the Rajapaksas). Apart from that I explained about the social impact of 20A. I also remarked that if the President acts in an authoritarian manner without any enhancement of his power, he would behave worse when 20A is implemented. Senaratne added: Already the President says that his words become circulars. Before him, King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe made such orders. Even the British submitted written orders to subdue heroes like Keppetipola. Even though the 1978 constitution gave more power to the executive, J.R. Jayewardene did not use the full extent of the powers. He remarked that the constitution is only incapable of changing the gender of people but never abused the powers as he was an intellectual. Even Mahinda Rajapaksa used his political sense and did not use powers as he was mindful enough to stay without being unpopular. Senaratnes remarks at the NMSJ event were akin to pouring cold water on the movements campaign to turn on the heat against 20A. PMs breakfast meeting In marked contrast, Premier Mahinda Rajapaksa resumed his breakfast news conference last Tuesday at Temple Trees. Sitting together with him were Ministers Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila, the duo who expressed reservations on some provisions of 20A a move that prompted the appointment of the G.L. Peiris committee. The message was clear those holding divergent views were together and still backing the amendments. Also present were ministers Douglas Devananda, Keheliya Rambukwella and State Minister Susil Premjayantha. The answers that Premier Rajapaksa and others gave to questions raised provide an insight into the government thinking. Here are excerpts: Q: You have not made your opinion clear on the 20th Amendment. PM: When we are in a government, we stand by one opinion. Q: What about the amendments. PM: I do not think there will be a problem. Q: The SLFP has appointed a separate committee to study the amendments. What is your opinion? PM: Every party has appointed its own committee and is studying the proposed amendments. Udaya Gammanpila: Parties have different positions. At the Cabinet and the Parliamentary group there are different opinions. But ultimately as the government, we arrive at one decision. That final decision is revealed to the country. Q: Was this discussed with political parties? PM: It was discussed at the cabinet. Q: You appointed a committee to study the proposals and make recommendations. This has not been made public. It was mentioned that amendments will be made in Parliament. PM: We collectively discussed the matter. Q: There is an opinion that the PMs powers will be reduced turning the post to a figure head PM: There is no issue as mentioned. It depends on who the Prime Minister is. Q: What about the proposed new constitution? Gammanpila: A team of experts have been appointed to make recommendations. They will do this in a short period. They will still study all reports related to this. Q: If there is a new Constitution, will there be a referendum for it? Gammanpila: Yes, there will be a referendum. Keheliya Rambukwella: During the election, a mandate of two-thirds was sought for constitutional amendments. As a short-term measure, first the 20th Amendment will be introduced and thereafter the new constitution. Q: Can you explain the changes (in 20A) Gammanpila: With the introduction of the 20th Amendment, certain clauses in the 19th Amendment are being replaced. There were two clauses in the 19th Amendment which needed a referendum if they were to be changed. One is the Presidents term of office which has been reduced from six years to five years. The other is the reduction of the Parliamentary term. Since there will be a referendum for the new constitution and to reduce expenses these two clauses in the 19th Amendment are being retained. In any case we need to go for a referendum for the new constitution. Q: Opposition parties say they will not allow the amendments to be passed by a two-thirds majority in Parliament while the government members say they will get 20 members from the opposition and get the amendments passed. What is the position? PM: We have the majority. Q: Is the SLFP supportive? PM: There are different opinions, but we will come to one decision. We will discuss it collectively and when it comes to Parliament, we will have one view. Q: So, you are confident of getting a majority to pass the amendments. PM: Yes, we are confident. Q: There is an opinion that after the passing of the 20th Amendment, the number of cabinet ministers will increase. Rambukwella: In the 20th Amendment, the number of cabinet ministers was not limited. That was not practical. Gammanpila: What they (previous government) did was to tell something else to the people and go on to appoint more than 40 members to the cabinet. In contrast when we can appoint 30 members, we have only 26 ministers and 28 ministries. They only spoke of it, but we have practically implemented it. Q: It seems you are short of some members to get a two-thirds majority in Parliament to pass the 20th Amendment. PM: we have the majority. Q: will they be given positions if they join the government. Gammanpila: You need not have to join the government to vote in favour of the amendments. You can be in the opposition and vote in favour. Therefore, the issue of obtaining positions or changing sides does not arise. The Tobacco Bill was passed in parliament unanimously. Therefore, if it is something beneficial to the country, it can be supported. Q: (Directed at Minister Wimal Weerawasna) You have had differences of opinion regarding some points in the 20th Amendment. Will your proposal be presented in Parliament during the Committee stage? Weerawansa: At a meeting presided over by the President and attended by the Prime Minister, it was stated that the amendments could be presented at the Committee stage. Q: What was the reason that the Committee appointed by you to study the 20th Amendment was not made public? PM: That was appointed for my knowledge (laughter). Q: There is an opinion created among the public that the 20th Amendment invalidates the 13th Amendment. PM: No. That does not happen. Errors in amendments More confirmation that a set of amendments to 20A, to be moved at the committee stage of the debate in Parliament, surfaced last Tuesday. This was when Attorney General Dappula de Livera handed to the Supreme Court an eleven-page document. These were the set of amendments formulated by the Legal draftsman. It bears their reference number LD O 7/2020. The Sunday Times learnt that these amendments in that form were not approved by the Cabinet. However, they had at times discussed different aspects. There were some silly mistakes in the document. For example, it says on page 2 of the amendment, delete line 1 and substitute the following- (d) to appoint as Presidents Counsel. This line in 20A draft, nevertheless begins with the words (d) to appoint as Presidents Counsel, It is also the same with Page 2 of the amendment which says delete lines 22 and 23 and substitute the following: (g) to declare war and peace; and (h) to do all such acts and things not being, 20A that has been gazetted retains the same provisions. Another gaffe in the amendments on Page 3 says delete lines 16 and 17 and substitute the following: exercise of any power pertaining to any subject or function assigned to the President or remaining. This is precisely what the relevant provision in 20A says. Another error is on Page 6 where it says, delete lines 10 and 11 and substitute the following: have failed to nominate the persons who shall be their nominees in the Council, the Speaker shall nominate. The same clause is there in the gazetted 20A. There are more such examples to show that the amendments have been drafted in a slipshod manner. Another error, once again more proof of it being rushed, is the resort to rectify the appointment of the Inspector General of Police. This office was left out when the amendments were gazetted thus empowering the President to only appoint the Attorney General, the Auditor General, the Parliamentary Commissioner for (Administration) and the Secretary General of Parliament. This will now make him the appointing authority for the IGP, a function hitherto exercised by the Constitutional Council. This will now be carried out with observations from the Parliamentary Council. The eleven-page amendments, to be carried out during the Committee stage, deal largely with the Presidents powers and duties. There are also a few procedural and consequential changes brought about. Here are some of the highlights: In the new provision to repeal Article 33 of the Constitution, a new clause has been added in 20A. That is to ensure the creation of proper conditions for the conduct of free and fair elections, at the request of the Election Commission. This is in adition to Presidents powers to make Statement of Government Policy in Parliament at the commencement of each session, to preside at ceremonial sittings and to appoint Ambassadors, High Commissioners, Plenipotentiaries, and other diplomatic agents, remain. This is also in addition to appointment of Presidents Counsel, the appointment of the Prime Minister, Cabinet of Ministers, Chief Justice, and other Judges of the Supreme Court. Nominees of the proposed Parliamentary Council can be removed by the President upon the request of the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition. This is upon a request made by either of them. The Speaker will be the Chairman of the Council. The President is empowered to seek their observations. The members are the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, a nominee of the Prime Minister, who shall be an MP and a nominee of the Leader of the Opposition. This Council replaces the Constitutional Council. The President is to be empowered to dissolve Parliament after two and half years. The original time frame in 20A was set at one year. However, Ministers Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila sought that it be extended to two and half years. The G.L. Peiris committee that examined this aspect had to report that there were two views one from the two ministers giving a two-and-half-year period and others in favour of one year. President Gotabaya Rajapaksas explanation for giving a one-years time frame was the result of political conflicts in the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government leading to serious governance issues. The two had pulled in different directions stalling the work of the government. The composition of the Election Commission has been made five members. At present, it comprises three members and the quorum too remains at three. As a result, meetings could not be held without the presence of all of them. There was an open conflict between the Chairman and one of the members and important decisions had to be put on hold. One of the members to be appointed to the Commission shall be a retired officer of the Department of Elections or Election Commission, who has held office as a Deputy Commissioner of Elections or above. The Auditor General will audit the office of the President as well as Prime Minister. He or she would have to be a qualified auditor. However, this has not been expanded to include in the 20A provision on audit of corporates that have 50% government shares. The Auditor General shall audit all departments of the government, the office of the Secretary to the President, the office of the Secretary to the Prime Minister, the office of the Secretary to the Cabinet of Ministers, the offices of the Ministers appointed, the Judicial Service Commission, the Parliamentary Council, the Commissions referred to, the Provincial Public Service Commission, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, the Secretary General of Parliament, Local Authorities, Public Corporations and business of other undertakings vested in the government under any written law, including the accounts thereof. Changes in 20A over oath of affirmation. A person referred to in this chapter shall not enter upon the duties until such person takes and oath and subscribes to the affirmation set out in the Fourth Schedule and the Seventh Schedule. The Fourth Schedule states I .do solemnly declare and affirm that I will faithfully perform the duties and swear discharge the functions of the office of .in accordance with the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the Law, and that I will be faithful to the Republic of Sri Lanka and that I will to the best of my ability uphold and defend the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka. The seventh schedule states: I .- do solemnly declare and affirm/swear that I will uphold and defend the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka and that I will not, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka. states: I .- do solemnly declare and affirm/swear that I will uphold and defend the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka and that I will not, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka. The President shall appoint another Judge of the Supreme Court, or the Court of Appeal, to act in the office of the Chief Justice or the President of the Court of Appeal, during such period. The earlier reference was to a person. The Public Service Commission to consist of not less than five and not more than nine members. Earlier, there was no minimum number. The Police Commission, which will now come under the President, to consist of not less than five and not more than seven members. The President will make appointments to the Commission against the current practice of the Constitutional Council. A public officer means a person who holds any paid office under the Republic, other than a judicial officer but does not include the Prime Minister, the Speaker, a Minister, a Member of Parliament, a member of the Parliamentary Council, a member of the Judicial Commission, a member of any Commission, the Commissioner General of Elections, the officers appointed to the Election Commission, the Secretary General of Parliament, a member of the University Grants Commission, a member of the Official Languages Commission, the Auditor General and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (Ombudsman). All applications instituted against the Attorney General in respect of anything done or omitted to be done by the President in his official capacity and pending on the day immediately preceding the date of commencement of 20A shall be continued and disposed of accordingly. The Supreme Court on Friday completed hearing 37 petitions against 20A. Two were rejected since the petitioners have not forwarded copies to Parliament as procedurally required. The court is now taking up the cases of intervenient petitioners which total twenty. Tomorrow, Attorney General Dappula de Livera will address the SC. Counsel have been advised to submit their responses in writing. Until the SC makes known its findings, 20A is in the hands of the judiciary. Thereafter, it is a matter of days before it is debated in Parliament and taken up for a vote. Thus, the opposition parties are left with little time. Their protests will neither slow down nor stop 20A entering the Constitution. For the SLPP-led alliance, however, there is a bigger responsibility when the draft new Constitution is ready. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has assured that all stakeholders will be consulted. One can only hope they will have more time to make a critical and objective study to make changes that will benefit the people and the country. That would be a must for the government which has far more challenges to meet than its predecessors in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. This comes in the backdrop of rising prices and increasing shortage of consumer goods. The people who voted the SLPNS to power remarkably are waiting for a change in their lifestyles a fact which a government cannot afford to forget. In the latest development in the Sushant Singh Rajput case investigation, Dr Sudhir Gupta, head of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) panel probing the late actor's post mortem and viscera reports has said this is a case of suicide and the murder angle was completely ruled out. The AIIMS panel was re-investigating Sushant Singh Rajput's post mortem and viscera reports based on the 20 per cent viscera available. Besides this, forensic agencies have examined a laptop, two hard disks, a canon camera and two mobile phones. AIIMS team had submitted its report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on September 29,2020. Findings of the AIIMS Medical Board coincide with the findings of the Cooper Hospital, where Sushant Singh's autopsy was conducted immediately after his demise. According to an India Today report, the Central Bureau of Investigation will continue its probe from the angle of suicide. All aspects have been left open in the CBI investigation. Section 302 may be added in case any evidence indicating otherwise surfaces. With the AIIMS report in, the CBI will take a final call on the basis of the evidence it has collected as of now. Meanwhile, Sushant Singh's family lawyer Vikas Singh had earlier alleged that the cause of the Chhichhore actor's death was "200% strangulation". The former Additional Solicitor General of India tweeted, "'Getting frustrated by the delay in CBI taking a decision to convert abetment to suicide to murder of SSR. The doctor who is part of the AIIMS team had told me long back that the photos sent by me indicated 200% that it's death by strangulation and not suicide." Getting frustrated by the delay in CBI taking a decision to convert abetment to suicide to Murder of SSR. The Doctor who is part of AIIMS team had told me long back that the photos sent by me indicated 200% that its death by strangulation and not suicide. Vikas Singh (@vikassinghSrAdv) September 25, 2020 Dr Gupta had dismissed these claims as "incorrect" and responded to Vikas Singh, "The investigation is still going on. What he is saying is not correct. We can't conclude simple murder or suicide based on just ligature marks and scene of crime. Need more investigation which is still going on and not concluded." The portal by which students can see if their Leaving Cert 2020 Calculated Grades were corrected upwards has opened. The Department for Education and Skills has revealed that 6,870 grades in total will increase affecting 6,100 students. This is broken down as follows: 5,408 students will receive a higher grade, by one grade band, in one subject. 621 students will receive a higher grade, by one grade band, in two subjects. 71 students will receive a higher grade, by one grade band, in three or more subjects. No student will receive a lower grade. Minister for Education Norma Foley TD announced the opening of the Calculated Grades portal at 6pm on Saturday, October. Students due to receive a corrected, higher grade can now access their amended, correct results. All students should receive a message letting them know if their grade is changing or not. Those whose grades have been corrected will also be contacted by email. In total, 614 schools and other centres recognised to hold the Leaving Certificate will have one or more upgraded results. This is out of a total of 741 schools and centres. Following the finding of errors in the code used by the Calculated Grades national standardisation process, the Minister for Education commissioned Education Testing Services (ETS) to provide an independent expert opinion on the coding. The ETS statement can be seen here: https://s3-eu-west-1. amazonaws.com/govieassets/ 89698/73e7a5b6-faaa-4bf7-a5e0- cf5f0d461ed1.pdf ETS raised two issues in their statement. The first is an error which occurred in the use of data, where a student did not sit all three core subjects at Junior Cycle. In those cases, the system was meant to use the average national Junior Cycle score, in the missing subject, of the group of students who took their Leaving Certificate in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Instead, it chose that students next best subject for inclusion in the group computation. The second issue raised by ETS is how the algorithm treated students marks at the extreme ends of the scale. ETS noted that the treatment does not exactly match what is described in the national standardisation groups report, and confirmed that this does not have any meaningful impact on results. This issue relates to those students whose marks are 99% and above, and those whose marks are one per cent and below. The ETS statement says that a student could not have received a lower grade as a result of this issue. Minister Foley said: Last week I expressed my regret to students for what had happened. I want to reiterate that today. You have had an exceptionally difficult year. Im sorry for that. And Im sorry this last week delivered more uncertainty to you. When we found errors in the code, I decided to seek independent expert oversight in the interest of certainty, particularly for students. I am glad that we can now provide students whose grades were lower than they should have been with their corrected results today and that this period of uncertainty is now over for all students. I wish you all every success in your choices and your journeys. The full set of student data has been re-run in the corrected model. The Departments Calculated Grades Executive Office and the Educational Research Centre have each run data checks independently of each other. The results that will now be published on the calculated grades student portal are the correct results under the model. A corrected file of results has been provided to the CAO. The CAO will now establish how many students are eligible to receive a new CAO offer. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science will work with the CAO and the higher education institutions to see how these students can be facilitated to commence the course that they would, in other circumstances, have been offered in an earlier round. Any student who has applied to a higher education institution outside the State who believes their grade change will impact those arrangements should contact the relevant higher education institution in the first instance. The Departments helpline on 01 8892199 and will be open on Saturday until 7pm and on Sunday from 11am to 4 pm. The email address is LC2020@education.gov.ie . The National Parents Council Helpline will re-open on Monday at 11 am. Full details of these arrangements are on gov.ie/leavingcertificate. A look at the many ways U.S. citizens and residents can move north. How to move to Canada from the U.S. How to move to Canada from the U.S. A look at the many ways U.S. citizens and residents can move north. How to move to Canada from the U.S. A look at the many ways U.S. citizens and residents can move north. How to move to Canada from the U.S. A look at the many ways U.S. citizens and residents can move north. Kareem El-Assal Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif Sans Font Size A A Google data shows a spike in searches on moving to Canada within the U.S. during the first debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Irrespective of this fact and the current political context in the United States, there is always interest among those in the U.S. to move to Canada due to the strong social and economic ties between the two nations. As such, the U.S. is among the leading source countries of immigrants, workers, and students, not to mention visitors, who come to Canada each year. Here are answers to common questions asked by those looking to move north. How can I immigrate to Canada as a skilled worker? Canada, like the United States, is a federal country. Unlike the U.S., however, Canadas sub-national governments share Constitutional authority with the federal government to select immigrants. This results in Canada having over 100 different merit-based immigration pathways for skilled workers. These pathways assess candidates based on their human capital such as their age, education, language skills, work experience, family ties in Canada, among other criteria. One popular criteria is whether the candidate has a job offer in Canada, however more often than not a candidate does not need a job offer to successfully obtain permanent residence as a skilled worker. The main way for U.S. citizens and residents to obtain permanent residence as skilled workers is through Express Entry. How to immigrate to Canada from the United States A step-by-step guide on how to immigrate to Canada if you live in the U.S. Fill out a free immigration assessment form for assistance: https://www.canadavisa Express Entry is Canadas flagship application management system for skilled workers. It is managed by the federal department called Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Every two weeks, IRCC holds Express Entry draws inviting the highest scoring candidates to apply for permanent residence. Candidates then go ahead and submit their permanent residence application to IRCC, which IRCC aims to process in six months or less. Get a free Canadian immigration assessment The next best way to obtain permanent residence as a skilled worker is the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). Nearly every province and territory operates the PNP in which they identify and nominate immigration candidates that best meet their local labour market needs. You can apply to a PNP directly to obtain a nomination certificate. With the nomination certificate, you can submit your permanent residence application to IRCC. You can get the best of both worlds by submitting an Express Entry profile. While in the Express Entry pool, provinces and territories can review your profile and invite you to apply for their PNP. If you are one of these lucky individuals, you are essentially guaranteed to obtain permanent residence under Express Entry and you also get to benefit from the processing standard of six months or less. Processing times are understandably delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic but Express Entry and PNP draws have continued throughout the pandemic and draw sizes have actually been increasing in some cases. Aside from these two popular options, there are many other skilled worker pathways into Canada such as through the province of Quebecs immigration system as well as other federal and provincial options for business immigrants such as self-employed persons. Get a free Canadian immigration assessment How can I get a Canadian work permit? There are also many options for U.S. residents and citizens who want to obtain work permits in Canada. Work permits fall under two categories. The first are work permits that require a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA). The LMIA is used by the Canadian federal government to review how the hiring of a foreign national may affect Canadian workers. Employers who wish to hire a foreign worker under an LMIA-required work permit stream need to petition the federal government that the hire will not hurt the wages and employment outcomes of workers in Canada. The second category does not require an LMIA. There are a broad range of work permit streams which exempt LMIAs due to Canadas social and economic interests. For example, there are various work permit streams which U.S. citizens are eligible for due to Canadas participation in the United States-Canada-Mexico-Agreement (USMCA). This agreement is known as CUSMA in Canada and is formerly known as NAFTA. The USMCA offers U.S. citizens with a more seamless way of working in Canada, so long as they have a job lined up either through their current employer or a new one, or they are looking to engage in substantial investments or trade in Canada. One popular option for workers in the U.S. in recent years is Canadas Global Talent Stream which offers priority work permit processing for tech talent. Are you a U.S. citizen or resident with a job offer in Canada? Contact a lawyer for work permit assistance. How can I immigrate to Canada under family sponsorship? Each year, over 25 per cent of all new permanent residents come to Canada through family sponsorship. The most common group of Canadas family class immigrants are spouses and partners of Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Despite recent delays due to COVID-19, the Canadian government usually aims to fast-track such applications and process them within 12 months. Canada also facilitates family reunification of dependent children and parents and grandparents. Looking for family sponsorship help? Complete a contact form for legal advice. How can I become a Canadian citizen? U.S.-born citizens and residents with a Canadian parent can automatically get citizenship. Such individuals need to submit to IRCC a Proof of Citizenship application. If you do not have a Canadian parent, then you can apply for Canadian citizenship after having lived in Canada while a permanent resident. Permanent residents are eligible for citizenship after living in Canada for at least three years (1,095 days) in the last five years. Some 85 per cent of Canadas permanent residents eventually become citizens of the country. Are you looking to submit a Proof of Citizenship application? Contact a lawyer for assistance. 2020 CIC News All Rights Reserved Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has sought Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanaths resignation over the gang-rape and death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman from Hathras, which has sparked protests and outrage across the country. RESIGN. You have no moral right to continue as Chief Minister of UP, Gandhi said in a late-night tweet on Friday and shared a notice by a news channel alleging that a conversation between one of their reporters with a family member of the victim was tapped and leaked. The statement shared on Gandhis Twitter handle comes as the Uttar Pradesh police deployed officers around the village in Hathras district where the woman was gang-raped two weeks ago. The police are preventing journalists from meeting the family members of the victim, and reports said that authorities have seized the phones of the victims relatives and put them under surveillance. The UP government is morally corrupt. The victim did not get treatment, did not write a complaint on time, burned the body forcibly, the family is in captivity, they are being pressurized - now they are being threatened that there will be a narco test. This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop bullying the victims family, the Congress leader said in another tweet in Hindi on Saturday morning. Also Read: Prohibitory orders clamped in Hathras, district borders sealed Her tweets came days after she and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi were briefly detained by the state police as they were going to meet the victims family, citing imposition of Section 144. They were later released and escorted back to Delhi by UP police. The Congress leaders will be visiting the family later in the day along with a team of party lawmakers. Among the dozens of software companies who rely on Google as an intermediary to ad buyers and sellers, six told Reuters that the company has become more collaborative on data privacy and other changes with them and industry groups. Small rivals of Alphabet Inc's Google say signs are emerging of more benevolent behavior from the online advertising leader amid accusations by the US government and states that the company uses its dominance to thwart competition. Among the dozens of software companies who rely on Google as an intermediary to ad buyers and sellers, six told Reuters that the company has become more collaborative on data privacy and other changes with them and industry groups, helping these entities instead of ignoring requests as they have done in the past. John Nardone, chief executive of Flashtalking - which works with advertisers to personalize messages - said Google recently agreed to open a pipeline to crucial data. It was an undertaking "that previously I might not have imagined they'd be open to," said Nardone, who publicly criticised Google's rigidity last year. Two other companies also said Google this year enabled them to use its services in ways previously restricted, one involving using outside algorithms to analyse Google data and the other gaining sales opportunities Google had reserved for itself. Also Read: Indian developers complain about fake apps on Play Store An executive at another ad software company said Google in the last year had not tried to poach any customers by offering discounted or early access to other products, tactics it had long aggressively pursued to lure lucrative accounts. Google also stopped using top executives to lure customers, the source added. "The fangs are down right now," the person said. The softening stances come during year-long antitrust investigations by the US Justice Department and states' attorney generals led by Texas. Federal prosecutors are expected to sue Google as soon as next week on search and search advertising while their probe continues into ad software. The search lawsuit will likely kick off years of court hearings over whether Google uses its outsized market power unfairly. Despite the increased responsiveness, sources said Google's small rivals continue to answer questions from investigators about the market shares of Google's ad tools and the practices it uses to promote their adoption. Those rivals eagerly await a possible resolution, including the break up of Google's ads business in an attempt to weaken its control. "They are both the dominant market operator while also a participant," one executive said. "It's hard to be a referee and player." Also Read: Google drops Australia from News Showcase launch amid regulator rancour Google rejected the assertion that its approach to competitors has changed due to the investigations, saying it always has sought to collaborate. Texas' attorney general and the Justice Department declined to comment. The antitrust scrutiny across Big Tech has prompted several concessions this year to smaller companies' longstanding gripes. For instance, Apple Inc started allowing browsers beside Safari as the default on iPhones, and Google on Monday vowed to better support alternatives to its Play app store on phones using its Android system. To be sure, other complaints about market power have not been addressed, and Google and other online powerhouses continue to defend their dominance as beneficial to customers and consumers. The state and federal investigations into Google followed complaints from advertising software companies and internet publishers that Google had cut them from prized data or selling opportunities. Google has said many of its actions have been needed to better safeguard users' information amid global scrutiny on online privacy. Google is still pursuing additional protections, including preventing tracking of its Chrome browser users, that rivals fear will hurt their ability to personalize ads. Also Read: Google to pay publishers $1 billion over three years for their news But rather than pursuing a "my way or the highway" change, Google this time around has publicly consulted rivals and demonstrated through its comments that its proposals for changing Chrome are amendable, two ad software executives said. "That's quite reassuring," said Colm Dolan, CEO of publisher software maker Publift and a former Google salesperson. Chetna Bindra, senior product manager at Google, said the company was "encouraged by the industry participation in the process and the positive feedback on a number of proposals." Northern Ireland beauty brand BPerfect has been labelled "a disgrace" by some bloggers after thousands attended the opening of its megastore in Belfast on Thursday. The backlash comes as 934 new Covid-19 cases were recorded today, more than double the previous record daily total rate registered two days ago. Read More The company stressed it asked all those attending to adhere to the coronavirus guidelines and requested they wear masks which were also handed out. It also said the queue inside the building was "strictly policed" by security and all were asked to sanitise their hands. Queues for the opening of the new CastleCourt store stretched far down Royal Avenue. The Eastenders star Jacqueline Jossa and her husband, television personality Dan Osborne as well as brand representatives, arrived at the event in an open-top bus. Pictures on social media showed customers, many of whom were not wearing masks, inside the shopping centre and standing close together outside while waiting for the opening. Founder of the cosmetics brand Brendan McDowell shared photos on his social media account of the opening of the megastore, which came as part of a 250k investment. Many on social media hit out at the event, including iRadio presenter Louise Clarke. "How is this acceptable?" she asked on Twitter. "As if it was ever going to be a controlled environment'. Shame on the influencers who attended and promoted the event and massive shame on BPerfect for holding it. "What's with certain 'influencers' thinking they're above Covid guidelines?" Read More Meanwhile, another Twitter user Rachel Murray branded the event "a disgrace". "This is actually a disgrace the BPerfect event went ahead in Belfast and the photos highlight how packed it was. Total joke." Newstalk radio presenter Susan Keogh added: "Unless theres a cure for Covid in your BPerfect carnival palette there is just no excuse for that event last night. 424 confirmed cases in Northern Ireland on Wednesday. The company who organised it and all those who attended clearly couldnt give a toss." A spokesperson for BPerfect Cosmetics said: Before, during and after the opening of our new BPerfect Megastore, we made numerous public pleas to anyone shopping with us on our opening night to ensure they adhered to all social distancing guidelines at all times. "This included asking everyone to be personally responsible for social distancing in the outdoor queue, wearing a mask when indoors, sanitising their hands and following all instructions from security." The spokesperson said the queue was "strictly policed" by security once inside the door of CastleCourt shopping centre, ensuring all customers queued at least two metres apart, masks were distributed to anyone not in possession of one and every person was asked to sanitise their hands upon entry to the store. "We personally employed teams of staff to remind the queue of the rules throughout the evening. We would like to thank everyone who adhered to these rules and for the huge support on our first day of trade," they added. After backlash, the brand issued a further statement on Instagram, where they said they were "sincerely sorry to everyone who feels let down." "We sincerely apologise for the upset that has been caused and fully appreciate the frustration some of you are feeling. We want our flagship store to bring positivity to the community and be an amazing, safe, welcoming environment for our customers to enjoy. We'd like to thank everyone for the love and support shown on the opening of our very first store," it read. The statement also said that advice was sought from the PSNI, CastleCourt, and Belfast City Council prior to the event and "encouraged those attending to take responsibility in terms of wearing a mask, sanitizing hands on arrival and adhering to social distancing guidelines." The megastore opening created 10 jobs and houses a range of beauty brands as well as two new tanning products created in collaboration with Ms Jossa. A spokesperson for CastleCourt shopping centre said: "We thoroughly examined BPerfects event management plans and were satisfied with the measures outlined and the focused approach taken to address public health guidelines and to promote safety advice at all times. "In addition, we also submitted a detailed safety plan to support the store opening with enhanced safety measures within the centre, which was approved by Belfast City Council. CastleCourt also liaised with the Police Service of Northern Ireland on its safety plan ahead of Thursday October 1st. "These additional safety measures included deploying 10 centre security officers stationed at various points on the ground floor to manage queues and to proactively promote social distancing at all times. CastleCourts security team cut off the queue once capacity had been reached and turned away over 200 customers to ensure safety compliance. A team of eight staff were also employed to regularly undertake a rigorous cleaning regime throughout the evening. "CastleCourt also provided increased customer signage, a barriered queuing system with staggered shop entry to ensure compliance with guidelines, as well as providing free face masks to all queuing members as required. Social distancing and associated safety measures within all of our retail stores remain the responsibility of the retailer." Pennsylvania Auditor General and Democratic congressional candidate for Pennsylvania's 10th District Eugene DePasquale in midtown Harrisburg on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020. KRISTON JAE BETHEL for the Inquirer Read more Auditor General Eugene DePasquale says Pennsylvanias student loan servicing agency one of the nations largest stands out for more than its size: Sixteen of its 20 board members are state legislators, ranking it among the most politician-heavy public boards in the nation, and it is lacking in outside financial experts. No other state has public boards composed so heavily of legislators or state-related members with such a small percentage of private-sector board members, said DePasquale, whose agency issued an audit Thursday of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA). DePasquale also is recommending that the state create an independent ombudsman or office of student rights to help families and borrowers make informed choices about paying for college. In the midst of a pandemic, students need more resources to help them make sound financial decisions, said DePasquale, who is running for Congress in Dauphin County near Harrisburg as a Democrat. PHEAA is one of the nations largest servicers of student loans servicing $1 out of every $10 of nonmortgage consumer debt in America. Its $450 billion loan portfolio is a big chunk of the nations $1.6 trillion in student debt, and borrowers commonly pay their loans under its brand FedLoan. PHEAA is also controversial: It faces lawsuits from the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general, alleging that it misled borrowers about repayment options and mishandled the Public Services Loan Forgiveness program, which provides breaks for nonprofit workers, teachers, and public defenders, among others. PHEAAs FedLoan employees also had the nations highest call fail rate which meant that they failed to give good information on repayment options to struggling student borrowers when they were were monitored in April and May 2017, concluded the U.S. Department of Educations watchdog last year. For too long millions of student loan borrowers have been forced to bear the brunt of PHEAAs incompetence, mismanagement, and illegal practices, said Seth Frotman, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center in Washington. The new report calls for sweeping changes within the agency to protect the teachers, public servants, and student loan borrowers across the country who need real accountability, not political patronage. Besides its Harrisburg headquarters PHEAA operates call centers around the state in Chester, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Mechanicsburg, and State College. Board chairman and State Rep. Michael Peifer, a Republican from Pike and Wayne Counties, could not be reached. Communications director Keith New said PHEAA shares the auditor generals goal of helping students make informed choices before, during, and after college, and we welcome all perspectives on how to do this more effectively. In the report, DePasquale cited increases in tuition and widespread student loan debt in Pennsylvania, as well as how students are being forced to leave college or risk going deeper in debt. Pennsylvania also ranks among the top states for total student loan debt, with the average burden at more than $37,000. PHEAA remains governed by a 20-member board of directors, with 80% of those directors being legislators. The board make-up consists of 16 state legislators, three members appointed by the governor, and the Pennsylvania secretary of education. Pennsylvania is an outlier among most other states, which largely have boards that are composed of voting members from diverse sectors of state legislatures, finance, education, banking, students, and other areas, said DePasquale. The report is available on the auditors website, paauditor.gov. . DePasquale can only make recommendations. He called on Harrisburg lawmakers to monitor expenses as well. Financially, PHEAA is not in great shape. The federal governments shift away from commercial lending and toward servicing hurt PHEAA, the report said. The agency experienced a steady and dramatic decline in net operating income, from $222 million in 2014 to $21.5 million in 2018. Former mining company chief Robert Murray, who bitterly fought federal coal-dust regulations, has filed an application with the U.S. Department of Labor for black lung benefits, according to a report from West Virginia Public Broadcasting and Ohio Valley ReSource. Miners operate a continuous miner machine [Source: Utah Geological Survey] Murray, now 80 years old, is the former head of Murray Energy, the largest privately owned underground mining company in the United States. The company went bankrupt in 2019. It has since restructured under the name American Consolidated Natural Resources. The company operates mines in Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Utah. According to the report, Murray says that he worked daily in coalmines for 17 years and went underground at least weekly until he was 75. He states that he is now on oxygen and near death. During my 63 years working in underground coal mines, I worked 16 years every day at the mining face underground and went underground every week until I was age 75, Murray wrote in his claim. Between 1995 and 2004, black lung killed 10,000 miners. Long-term exposure to coal dust causes black lung, or coal miners pneumoconiosis. The buildup of coal dust on the lung tissue progressively blocks the breathing pathways, scarring and hardening the lung tissue. While Murray is now himself seeking black lung benefits, his company fought miners claiming the benefits. Miners who worked for the company faced an uphill battle to obtain compensation. They had to deal with a series of company doctors who would claim that the disability was not completely incapacitating and that the symptoms were caused by smoking or some other factor not related to coal mining. Most miners receive no benefits for black lung. To receive benefits, a miner must have worked for 15 years in the mines and be 100 percent disabled. This places many miners in a Catch-22 situation when they begin to develop black lung. They are faced with a choice of either leaving mining, and giving up their source of income, or continuing to work until they are at deaths door. The fund that pays benefits to coal miners afflicted with black lung is severely depleted and is expected to run out of money by the third quarter of 2022. In October 2019, Murray Energy filed for bankruptcy. During the proceedings the company stopped paying $6 million a month for the health care benefits for 11,600 retired coal miners. The company also sought court permission to stop paying benefits for another 2,200 miners who retired before 1994. Scores of mining companies have filed for bankruptcy in the past decade. It is a tactic typically employed to get out of paying pensions, health care and other benefits to both active and retired miners. In addition, coal companies use the bankruptcy process to shield themselves from the financial consequences of the massive environmental damage they do. In 2017, the year before the company filed for bankruptcy, Murray was paid nearly $14.1 million, according to court records. Throughout his long mining career, Murray fought government environmental, safety and health regulations. He is a strong supporter of President Trump, donating more than $1 million to his 2016 campaign and again to his 2020 re-election effort, along with supporting various pro-Trump organizations. I gave Mr. Trump what I called an action plan very early, Murray told Frontline, referring to a meeting he had with Trump near the start of his presidential term. Its about three-and-a-half pages andof what he needed to do in his administration. At the top of the list was the rolling back of regulations from the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan and other regulations on the mining industry. The Frontline report recounts that Murray was in the meeting with Trump and then-EPA Director Scott Pruitt when he took the first steps to roll back the Obama plan. Trump and Pruitt went on to abolish dozens of federal regulations on coal mining and other environmental protections. In 2014, Murray Energy filed and lost a federal lawsuit against government coal dust standards limiting the allowed level of exposure for miners working underground. Murray claimed that the regulations were overly burdensome and costly to the industry. In reality, mining companies for the most part ignored the regulations knowing that Federal and State inspectors would look the other way or at worst impose token fines that amounted to little more than the cost of doing business. Court records show that Murray also paid $1 million to an Ohio law firm known for its work in opposing wind and solar energy projects in Ohio. After decades of a steady decline, black lung among miners began to rise again in the 1990s. Government health and safety officials have never bothered to find out why, but miners have told the World Socialist Web Site that the reason is the growth of long-wall mining, which releases huge quantities of coal dust into the air. Most disturbing is that new cases of black lung are affecting miners at a younger age, and they often come with fibrosis, another lung disease caused by breathing in rock dust. Fibrosis is even more aggressive and deadly than black lung. Long-wall mining cuts both coal and rock on the coalface, creating vast amounts of rock dust along with the coal dust. This problem has also gotten worse as coal companies continue operations in narrower and narrower coal seams to extract the most coal possible, but also running through much more rock. The massive growth in black lung is also attributable to the role of the United Mine Workers in suppressing the struggle by coal miners against the companies and the government. The previous decline in black lung cases was the result of massive struggles by coal miners in the post-WWII period through the early 1970s for improved working conditions and safety. Beginning in the 1980s, then-UMW President Richard Trumka, now head of the AFL-CIO, and current UMW President Cecil Roberts worked to isolate and defeat the powerful struggles of the miners. The UMWs pro-company policies lead to the defeats of miners at AT Massey, Pittston, Peabody, Consol, and Murray. The UMW no longer exists in Kentucky and is just a shell in West Virginia and Ohio, with fewer than 10,000 active miners. The UMW bureaucracy, however, is doing fine; it functions primarily as the directors of the vast multi-billion-dollar pension and health funds that it administers. Last year, Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell allowed the passage of a bill to funnel $750 million a year for ten years into the UMW health care fund, from funds set aside for the cleaning up of the environmental damage done by coal mining. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 21:13:45|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close by Pankaj Yadav NEW DELHI, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in India due to COVID-19 surpassed the 100,000-mark reaching 100,842 on Saturday, but the federal health ministry said the country maintained top global ranking with maximum coronavirus recoveries. According to the health ministry's data, India also has one of the lowest mortality rates in the world. "India continues to occupy the top global position as the country with the maximum number of recoveries. The total recoveries have crossed 5.4 million today. It accounts for 21 percent of the global recovered cases, while its share in the total cases stands at 18.6 percent," said a statement issued by the ministry. The statement added that India has maintained its global position with one of the lowest case fatality rates (CFR) when compared to several other countries. "While the global CFR stands at 2.97 percent as on date, the comparative figure for India is 1.56 percent," it added. The statement also stated that the deaths per million of population in India is one of the lowest in the world. "While the global average is 130 deaths per million population, India is reporting 73 deaths per million population." As many as 75,628 people recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic in the 24 hours preceding Saturday morning. The overall recovery rate in the country is said to be 83.84 percent. On Saturday India became the third country globally to report over 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, after the United States and Brazil. As many as 1,069 people died due to the pandemic from Friday morning till Saturday morning. The southwestern state of Maharashtra recorded the maximum of 37,450 deaths, followed by 9,652 in the southern state Tamil Nadu and 9,124 in the southern state of Karnataka. With 79,476 new cases since Friday morning, the total COVID-19 tally in the country reached 6,473,544. Still there are 944,996 active cases in the country, while 5,427,706 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 77,850,403 COVID-19 tests have been conducted, out of which 1,132,675 tests were conducted on Friday alone. India continues to be among the worst COVID-19 affected countries in the world, as the scientists are busy developing a vaccine at the earliest. Earlier this week, the country's Health Minister Harsh Vardhan pinned hopes on development of the first vaccine by early next year. The minister reportedly told the media that research on developing as many as three vaccines was being done expeditiously. "There are at least three viable such vaccine candidates that are in the phase of clinical trials right now in the country. We're hopeful that within the first quarter of 2021 it will be available," he was quoted as saying. Enditem government has announced that the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib Corridor on its side has been reopened as COVID-19 situation in the country has improved. As per the notification issued by Ministry of religious affairs on Friday, Indian visitors are allowed to come daily from dawn to dusk as per the bilateral agreement made in 2019 between India and Pakistan, The News reported. Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, a 4.7-kilometre-long passage that connects Dera Baba Nanak Sahib in India's Gurdaspur and Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur. It was inaugurated last year. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the was shut down by the Indian government in March. Pakistan's government had also imposed a ban on Pakistani nationals from travelling via the It was reopened briefly in June to commemorate Maharaja Ranjit Singh's death anniversary, with India rejecting Pakistan's offer and refusing to open the corridor on its side. (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 gruesome gang rape and subsequent death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh earlier this week, has caused massive uproar across the country. It has raked the debate of the prevailing caste-divide, and safety of women forcing scores of people to come out in support of the victim's family. AFP Many political parties, activists and human rights' organisations representing India's downtrodden Dalit community held protests in several cities on Friday. Delhi even saw CM Kejriwal reach Jantar Mantar to protest Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal joined the protest at Jantar Mantar where around 3,000 people, including political party workers and non-profit organisations gathered to demand justice for the gangrape victim. He said strictest punishment should be given to the perpetrators. "The whole country would like to appeal to the Uttar Pradesh government that the culprits be given stringent punishment and must be hanged till death," Kejriwal said. The protest that was initially supposed to be held at the India Gate was later shifted to the Jantar Mantar, 3 km away, owing to the prohibitory orders in place in the Rajpath area. After sunset, the protesters lit up candles and stood holding them in the dark, as policemen watched over them. Inhouse Also present at the protest were Bollywood actor Swara Bhaskar, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury and Bhim Army Chief Chandrasekhar Azad. Celebrities also joined in Speaking to the crowd at the protest site, Swara said that an epidemic of rape has "plagued India, especially Uttar Pradesh". "The UP government has no right to stay in power. Our demand is that justice should be served," said Yechury. Slamming UP Police's inaction, Chandrashekhar Azad said, "The police burnt her (victim's) with petrol even though the family did not give permission. She was burnt like garbage. They have no right to do that." ANI Date of protest significant - October 2 Gandhi Jayanti The date of protests was significant - Friday was Gandhi Jayanti, or the anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, who was among the first to fight for oppressed members of the lower castes. Meanwhile, a delegation of Trinamool MPs, including Derek O' Brien, Dr Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Pratima Mondal and Mamata Thakur, was stopped by the Uttar Pradesh Police from entering Hathras. Today, Congress delegation led by Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi will meet victim's family. after they were briefly detained on Thursday. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too, will lead a protest march in Kolkata. The 20-year-old woman, who died on Tuesday, suffered fractures, paralysis and a spinal injury after a savage assault by four men from the so-called upper castes. The police said there was a gash in her tongue because she had bitten it while being strangled. Ukraine says no casualties have been reported. Russian invaders on October 2 four times violated the latest ceasefire agreements, as well as five times from day-start on Saturday, October 3. That's according to a morning update by the Joint Forces Operation Headquarters. On October 2, militants opened fire four times, employing grenade launchers and small arms, at positions of Ukraine's Armed Forces near Avdiyivka and Vodiane. At the same time, the Ukrainian military "unswervingly adhere" to the ceasefire agreements, the Command notes. Read alsoViolations of truce by enemy provoke wildfires in Donbas Ukraine officials (Video)There were no combat losses or injuries as a result of enemy attacks. From day-start on October 3, the enemy had already fired at Ukraine's defense positions near Maryinka: twice using a hand grenade launcher and three times shooting small arms. Ukrainian military did not return fire. Donbas ceasefire: Background Hathras village borders opened Two days after a village in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras district was sealed due to the outrage over the brutal gang-rape and death of a 19-year-old girl, the borders have been re-opened on Saturday. The media will now be allowed to enter the district. "Since the SIT probe in the village is complete, the restriction on media has been lifted. More than 5 media persons are now allowed to gather as Section 144 of CrPC is in place," Sadar SDM Prem Prakash said. Advertisement UP PoliceCongress leader Rahul Gandhi along with a group of other Congress MPs will visit Hathras today afternoon. Rahul Gandhi said that no force in the world can stop him from visiting Hathras. No force in the world can stop me from visiting Hathras and condoling with the grief-stricken family over there, Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet today. However, only the media is allowed to enter Hathras. When orders come in to allow delegations, we will let everybody know. All allegations about phones of the family members being taken away or confining them in their homes are absolutely baseless, Hathras Sadar SDM Prem Prakash Meena said. Advertisement Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi Several opposition leaders have been stopped from entering the village even amid the ongoing protests. On Thursday, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were stopped when they were leading a march to the village. Chinese President on Saturday wished a speedy recovery to his US counterpart and first lady Melania who have tested positive for President Trump revealed his diagnosis on Twitter on Friday, with leaders across the globe sending their well wishes. "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! 74-year-old Trump tweeted, just weeks before the presidential polls. In a message to Trump, Xi, 67, said that after learning President Trump and Melania have tested positive for COVID-19, he and his wife Peng Liyuan extend sympathy to them and wish them a speedy recovery, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier, Chinese diplomats wished speedy recovery to the US President and his wife. Chinese Ambassador to US, Cui Tiankai said in a tweet: "My best wishes to President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS for a speedy and full recovery." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, "Saddened to learn President and the FirstLady of the US tested positive. Hope they both have a speedy recovery and will be fine," she tweeted. Leaders and prominent figures from around the world on Friday sent their best wishes to Trump and his wife. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind wished Trump and the first lady a quick recovery. "Wishing my friend @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS a quick recovery and good health," Modi tweeted. "Our prayers and best wishes are with you during this time," Kovind said. In a message posted on his official web page, Russian President Vladimir Putin wished Trump well, saying: "I am sure that your inherent vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus." British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who himself contracted the virus in late March, at the height of his country's pandemic, also sent well wishes. "My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady. Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus," Johnson tweeted. Trump and Melania were tested for COVID-19 hours after one of their close aides, Hope Hicks, tested positive for Hicks, 31, is the closest aide of the president to have tested positive with She had travelled with the president on Air Force One early this week. Trump, in an interview to Fox News on Thursday night, said he and the first lady spend a lot of time with her. Several White House staffers have tested positive with COVID-19 in recent months, including the National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary. (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.) Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 05:48:19|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close People walk past a public school in New York, the United States, Sept. 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) "Teachers tend to say more but are defied by distance and space, and technical difficulties and failures drive students to be less willing to inquire," says one 12th grader. NEW YORK, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- As New York City's public schools re-opened in tandem, online education began to rule while showing the two sides of a coin: avoiding cluster infection but causing academic limitations, local media said on Friday. On Oct. 1, the good news was that all public middle and high schools re-opened, making New York the first major city in the United States managing to do so against the COVID-19 pandemic which is still raging nationwide, said The China Press. The bad news was that despite school re-opening, most students opted not to go to school, but stay at home and study online. The rates in some schools ran as high as 70 percent, added the Chinese-language daily. People walk past a public school in New York, the United States, Sept. 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) While the education mode went hybrid with some students attending classes in person and others learning through computers, teachers started to lose full command of the academic scenario, the newspaper quoted school staff as saying. Communication between teachers and online students was weak, because their virtual talks were not as effective as in-person discussions, they said. "Teachers tend to say more but are defied by distance and space, and technical difficulties and failures drive students to be less willing to inquire," one 12th grader told the paper. A man walks past a public school in New York, the United States, Sept. 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) As academic effectiveness was not guaranteed, students were unable to get fully informed. They became absent-minded or were prone to cheating on examinations, said the report. What's more, physical distance made supervision insufficient, and justice was hard to achieve in evaluation and grading, it added. According to government figures, there are approximately 500,000 students registered at NYC public middle and high schools, and around 500,000 in the city's public primary and pre-schools which had already re-opened consecutively in September. Faced with a budget deficit and the inability to find a viable operator for the National City Aquatic Center, the city has turned over the waterfront facility to the Port of San Diego. The shift in management was agreed upon by the Port and city in recent weeks. With the Port set to operate the center, the city expects to cut its budget by $255,000 a year, as well as save $125,000 in one-time capital expenses for equipment. In its current budget, the South Bay city of more than 60,000 residents faces a $4.1 million deficit. Advertisement Located in Pepper Park near the citys marina, the 4,700-square-foot center cost $5.3 million. The Port paid for most of the costs more than $4 million through its Capital Improvement Program. The center includes two multipurpose classrooms, storefront/office space, locker rooms with showers and restrooms, and storage rooms for boats and equipment. Envisioned for more than a decade as a way to provide residents recreational access to San Diego Bay, the center opened in the summer of 2016. It has offered minimal programming, including summer, fall and winter boating camps put on by Community Rowing of San Diego. Efforts to find a long-term operator began a year before the center opened. Over the years, the city at least twice launched a bidding process, to no avail. Deputy City Manager Brad Raulston said talks with interested organizations, including the YMCA and Southwestern College, fell through, mostly because of costs to manage the facility. Considering the citys budget deficit, the City Council in May authorized city staff to begin discussions with the Port to terminate the lease and hand over the center, which the city did not pay rent for because it serves a public purpose. A formal agreement to terminate the lease was approved by the City Council on March 5 and by the Board of Port Commissioners on March 12. It does not include a penalty free to terminate the lease. Port Commissioner Dukie Valderrama, who represents National City, said the Port invested too much to not support the city and the facilitys success. We have no problem taking it over and turning it into a useful facility for the community, Valderrama said, adding the center has never been utilized to its full extent. A spokeswoman said the Port is in talks with groups including Community Rowing of San Diego, the YMCA, Sweetwater High School and the Sailing Events Association to expand the use of the center. Future uses may include environmental conservation and educational aquaculture the farming of fish, plants and other organisms, said Port spokeswoman Brianne Page. The Port is committed to public access to the San Diego Bay waterfront in National City, Page said in part in a statement. City staff said the city will partner with the Port to promote programs to residents via social media, fliers and the citys quarterly newsletter. City staff also said the Port will allow the city to use the center for meetings or special events based on availability. Paige said the Port will oversee the center for now but may in the long run look for an operator to manage day-to-day operations. The Port already maintains the 5.5-acre Pepper Park. Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com Phone: (619) 293-1876 Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez Hyderabad, Oct 3 : Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan said on Saturday that self-sufficiency of villages was vital for the livelihoods of the people and the development of the nation. She called for ensuring the all-round development of villages so as to make them self-sufficient in the true spirit of 'Gram Swarajya' as envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi. She was addressing the valedictory of the 150th Gandhi Jayanti Utsav, organised by the Gramodaya Chamber of Commerce and Technology (GCOT). She said self-sufficient villages would immensely contribute to the 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' mission initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Referring to the migration of people from rural to urban areas, the Governor said that had the villages been self-sufficient, they would have been able to ensure the livelihoods of all sections of people and migration would not have been there on such a scale. The Governor pointed out initiatives like Swachh Bharat, Aatmanirbhar Bharat, National Educational Policy and the recent agricultural legislations, which are aimed at fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi's visions and ideals. She appreciated the GCOT for unveiling a global declaration, "Reimagining India for the new world order". She called it a "new Swadeshi movement". She said the vision, mission and various activities of GCOT showcase the power of the alumni of any institution coming together for a cause and working together to fulfil the Gram Swarajya dream of the Father of the Nation. "GCOT's efforts in understanding the various challenges that villages are facing, and evolving a model called Village Monograph is highly commendable. Gandhiji strongly believed and advocated that 'India is in its Villages'. I am also happy to note that GCOT is working closely with PJTSAU to set up an incubation centre, promote Telangana sona rice, and several other initiatives," she added. As the Chancellor of universities in Telangana, she urged all the universities to work with GCOT for developing village monographs and empower rural Indians in line with the 'Unnat Bharat Abhiyan' initiative of the Centre. Utsav committee Chairman Pratap Reddy, GCOT Chairman Shyam Prasad Reddy, Chief Advisor Shyam Mohan, and General Secretary Ram Reddy were among those who spoke on the occasion. Bigg Boss 14 contestant Pavitra Punia Age, Height, Journey, boyfriend/husband, Personal Life, Salary: TV actress Pavitra Punia has been ruling the headlines for her entry in the controversial reality show Bigg Boss 14. Here's all you want to know about her. Bigg Boss 14 contestant Pavitra Punia Age, Height, Journey, boyfriend/husband, Personal Life, Salary: Bigg Boss 14 is all set to be premiered tonight, and the makers are leaving no stone unturned to tease the fans with short promos. The promos released on the social media platforms of the channel is increasing the curiosity of the fans.The sensuous moves, the body art and the grace seen in a sneak peek video into the contestants entry performances of the premiere night have got the fans to guess Pabitra Punia to be a contestant of this season. Pavitra Punia is an Indian actress and model who works in the Hindi television industry. She is known for playing the role of Paulomi Roy in Naagin 3 and an evil queen named Timnasa in Balveer Returns.Pavitra came into limelight after participating in MTV Splitsvilla Season 3.Heres all you need to know about the stunning actress. Pavitra Punias Age/Height/Weight: Pavitra Punia was born on 22 August in 1988.Her age is 32 Years as of 2020 and her height is 56 approximately.Pavitra weighs around 62 kgs. Pavitra Punias Journey: Pavitra Punia was born and brought up in a middle-class family from Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh.She went to Abhinav Public School in Rohini, New Delhi for early education. After that, she enrolled herself at All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, Delhi from where she completed her graduate course in Hospitality.She wanted to become an IPS officer and started preparation for UPSC along with her graduation. Pavitra Punia started her career as a model during her college days. She participated in various modeling events and walked the ramps in fashion shows.In 2009, she started her career with the TV reality show MTV Splitsvilla Season 3 and emerged as a finalist.After that, she made her acting debut with the TV serial Geet Hui Sabse Parayi.After that, she got her first lead role in the Star Plus drama serial Love U Zindagi.Since then she made her prominent appearance in various TV serials like Ritz Jeele Ye Pal, MTV Making The Cut 2, Hongey Judaa Na Hum, Sawaare Sabke Sapne Preeto, Yeh Hai Mohabbatein, Ganga, Naagin 3 and Balveer Returns.Along with her television career, she also worked in a Bollywood movie, Siddhartha: Love, Lust, Peace. Pavitra Punias Personal life: Pavitra was engaged to businessman Sumit Maheshwari. However, their engagement was soon called off. While the reason of their split still remains a mystery, Pavitra then started dating Bigg Boss 13 contestant Paras Chhabra. Pavitra and Parass relationship reached its end after Paras got back to her ex-flame Akanksha Puri. As per latest reports, Pavitra is currently dating Pratik Sehajpal, who has been a part of many TV reality shows like Roadies, Love School and Ace Of Space. Pavitra Punias salary: Pavitra Punia has an estimated net worth of $0.5 million dollars as of 2020. MONTCALM COUNTY, MI -- A Montcalm County resident diagnosed with Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) has died, state health leaders said. Officials did not identify the person or give an age or gender. The person is the second human case of EEE in Michigan. A Barry County man became severely ill but is now recovering. Our sympathies to the family and friends of this Michigan resident, said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive and chief deputy for health at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, in a Friday, Oct. 2 written statement. EEE is one of the most dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in the United States, which is why we made the decision to conduct aerial treatment last month. We continue to urge Michiganders to take precautions against mosquitoes," she said. While announcing the death, health leaders said a horse from Baraga County in the Upper Peninsula was diagnosed with EEE. Its the first animal case of EEE in the Upper Peninsula this year. So far this year, the state has recorded 36 animal cases of EEE across 15 counties. Last year, by the time the mosquito season ended, the state had 50 animal cases and 10 human cases. Health officials say the threat of EEE will continue until areas receive a hard freeze, equating to temperatures below 28 degrees for several hours. A vaccine is available for horses. The state veterinarian says horse owners should consider having them vaccinated. More from MLive Michigan finishes aerial mosquito treatments, 462,000 acres sprayed to control EEE State confirms first human case of mosquito-borne EEE Gov. has no authority to continue state of emergency, Michigan Supreme Court rules (Reuters) - A mass roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine in Britain could be finished in as little as three months, the Times reported, citing government scientists. Scientists working on the Oxford vaccine hope regulators approve it before the beginning of 2021, the newspaper said. A full COVID-19 immunization programme, which would exclude children, could be quicker than experts predicted, the Times said, adding that health officials estimate that every adult could receive a dose of the vaccine within six months. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Thursday it has started ... Three months after her re-election as Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo has divulged her plans for the urban transformation of the French capital in the run up to the 2024 Olympics. "Crossing Paris from east to west by car is something you'll have to forget, she said in an interview with daily newspaper Le Parisien, published Saturday. Hidalgo's plans including opening seven new coronapistes dedicated bike paths on major boulevards adding another 10km to the 50km of paths that were hastily created when France came out of lockdown in May. I have just given the go-ahead for the creation of seven new bike paths of this type: on rue Marx-Dormoy, on the major boulevards between Republique and Boulevard des Italiens, on Boulevard de l'Hopital, rue Linois, Avenue d'Ivry, rue Claude-Bernard and rue de la Grange-aux-Belles. It won't all be done in a day, the Socialist mayor said, adding that once the lanes are made permanent, the makeshift yellow blocks marking their passage will be replaced with dedicated bike path markings. For Hidalgo, the 2024 Olympics deadline is a metaphorical foot on the accelerator for plants to transform Paris and improve mobility. In her sights are moves to ban petrol-consuming vehicles from the upper quays of the river Seine. "Shouldn't they be reserved for clean vehicles, buses and cabs? asks Hidalgo. Other plans include a revamp of the Peripherique ring road that surrounds Paris including a lane dedicated to buses and carpooling. Tougher restrictions With new restrictions expected to be announced Saturday evening, Hidalgo told Le Parisien she was not in favour of closing bars and restaurants to stem coronavirus infections a move that has cause much anger in the southern cities of Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. We have to do everything we can to maintain the bulk of our economic and social life, she said, though she conceded that if orders to temporary close bars and restaurants were given by police authorities, they would need to be applied. After meeting with Prime Minister Jean Castex to discuss the health situation, Hidalgo praised government efforts to re-establish a constructive dialogue and therefore a relationship of trust with the mayors and local communities. I have told the Prime Minister that I am ready to support the measures taken by the health authorities, as long as they are targeted and legible to Parisians, Hidalgo said. During the interview, Hidalgo confirmed that ephemeral terraces where restaurant tables have spilled over into streets, occupying parking places and other public spaces would be extended until June 2021. Restaurateurs will be given advice on reducing noise levels, which have led to complaints from residents, but there will be no meaningful move to tighten controls. These terraces have given Parisians back some joie de vivre, Hidalgo said. We all need them. Celebrating the first International Day for Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hailed Egypts projects aimed at reducing food loss and waste in partnership with the organisation. The FAO posted on its Instagram on the sun drying tomato project in Egypts Nubaria, which is part of the project "Food Loss and Waste Reduction and Value Chain Development for Food Security in Egypt. The project is being implemented in partnership with the FAO and the Egyptian ministries of international cooperation and agriculture. The FAO website reported that 14 percent of the world's food is wasted, and a large percentage of food is lost at various levels of consumption, with the global waste rate reaching 20 percent. The Ministry of International Cooperation said it seeks to mitigate COVID-19 effects on agriculture through implementing a number of joint projects with the World Food Programme and FAO in Egypt to achieve food security, reduce food loss and waste, support small farmers, strengthen value chains, and provide farmers with modern technological tools. Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat emphasised that agriculture is one of the most vital sectors for national development, representing 14 percent of Egypts GDP growth, 28 percent of job opportunities, and 55 percent of rural employment. As such, the ministry focuses on developing the skills of farmers and their families to meet the demands of the economy. Thirteen agricultural projects, with a total of $545.4 million, are being implemented across 27 governorates, reaching 1.5 million women and men and providing 15,000 job opportunities, said Al-Mashat. Since the coronavirus outbreak, the ministry has organised regular multi-stakeholder platforms to coordinate efforts over food security and to pinpoint areas that need support. Over the past decade, there has been a 40 percent increase in export revenues in vegetables, which has contributed to the achievement of several sustainable development goals (SDGs), mainly through providing job opportunities, reducing inequality, and improving livelihoods, according to the Ministry of International Cooperation. Search Keywords: Short link: In a bid to further raise awareness about China's "genocide" in the last 71 years, American Association (UAA), along with other organizations, staged a rally in front of the US Capitol on October 1. As a mark of protest, Americans created a mock scene in which Uyghurs, in their homeland were seen being taken away to the "Chinese concentration camps by the Chinese security forces". "To further raise awareness about China's ongoing Uyghur Genocide and Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) crimes in the last 71 years, Uyghur American Association, along with other organizations, staged a rally in front of the US Capitol on October 1," UAA wrote on Twitter. "Uyghur American community expresses the deepest appreciation to Congressman Rep Ted Yoho for showing support for the oppressed by joining our protest against China's Uyghur Genocide," Uyghur American Association said in another tweet. This protest comes on the occasion of 71st National Day of the People Republic of put a million or more Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities into detention camps and prisons in over the last three years, according to reports in US media. However, regularly denies such mistreatment and says the camps provide vocational training. Uyghur activists and human rights groups have countered that many of those held are people with advanced degrees and business owners who are influential in their communities and have no need for any special education. People in the internment camps have described being subjected to forced political indoctrination, torture, beatings, and denial of food and medicine, and say they have been prohibited from practising their religion or speaking their language. Now, as Beijing denies these accounts, it also refuses to allow independent inspections into the regions, at the same time, which further fuels reports related to China's atrocities on the minority Muslims. (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.) CHANDLER: Intel Corp on Friday said it has won a second-phase contract in a project aimed at helping the U.S. military make more advanced semiconductors within the United States. Under the project, Intel will help the military develop prototypes of chips using its semiconductor packaging technology at factories in Arizona and Oregon. The packaging technology allows pieces of chips called "chiplets" from different providers to be combined into one package, helping cram more features into a smaller finished product while lowering its power consumption. "As more and more semiconductor manufacturing has moved offshore, the (Department of Defense) is very interested in ensuring that they have advanced microelectronics for national security manufactured here in the U.S.," Bob Swan, Intel`s chief executive, told Reuters in an interview as he toured a recently completed $7 billion factory expansion in Arizona, where Intel`s workforce totals 12,000. "As a U.S.-based company, it`s important to us to be able to address some of the fundamental concerns that the U.S. would have about access to these critical technologies going forward," he said. Intel declined to disclose a dollar figure for its portion of the contract, which is being overseen by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division. Intel won part of the first phase of the contract in 2019. Intel`s work with the Defense Department comes as U.S. officials focus on boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing in response to the rise of China as a strategic competitor. About 75% of the world`s chipmaking capacity is in Asia, with many of the most advanced plants in Taiwan and Korea, within the reach of the Chinese and North Korean militaries. I think one of the areas where we can have the most impact on China broadly is re-shoring microelectronics," Ellen Lord, the Pentagon`s chief weapons buyer, told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing on Thursday. Intel is one of three companies in the world that can make highly advanced computer chips. The other two - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd <2330.TW> and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd <005930.KS> - have packaging technology similar to Intel`s. But Intel has been working on the technology longer and can perform the work in the United States, which the other two cannot, said Dan Hutcheson, chief executive officer of VLSI Research. "There`s no one else with the mix of technology that they have in the United States," he said. "Packaging is a big win for them." With Washington`s relations with Beijing at their worst in decades, U.S. officials have cracked down on suppliers to Chinese firms such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], with new rules on Sept. 15 barring most U.S. companies from selling to the Chinese telecommunications giant. Intel confirmed last month that it has licenses to keep supplying some products. Swan said that global market access was "very important" to helping Intel generate the cash needed to build chip factories, called "fabs" in the industry. "We make money, we take that money, and we reinvest predominantly here, in fabs in the U.S. and in research and development," he said. Sacred Heart University officials said 22 students tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday and Friday, as the school has started using a rapid saliva test to ramp up testing. Seven of the new cases were reported Wednesday, five of which were among off-campus students, university officials said Friday. The two remaining cases involved students living at Scholars Commons and Frassati, both residence halls on campus. The 15 new infections reported Thursday involved five students living off campus. Of the remaining 10 cases among campus students, five were living in the same suite at Scholars Commons where students had previously tested positive, the university said. We have heard some reports of students who have symptoms of the virus not reporting them and getting a test, a press release said, noting students should not feel any stigma about testing positive for coronavirus. SHUs data shows 109 active cases among students 41 on-campus, 68 off. The school will start using a saliva-based test kit developed by the Yale School of Public Health with the intent of ramping up testing next week. This week, the university said it performed more than 1,200 tests on students and some faculty. SHU President John Petillo handed out gift cards last week to students he found following the schools social distancing rules. SHU has also installled scent tents on campus containing bouquets of flowers. The tents are intended to help students figure out if they have lost their sense of smell an early symptom of coronavirus infection. Its not the only school looking for early warning signs. At the University of Connecticuts Storrs campus, the school is testing samples from the campuss wastewater in the hopes it will alert officials to an outbreak of the virus before symptoms start to appear. On Friday, that university reported three new cases of COVID-19 one among off-campus students, two among students living on campus. The school currently has 45 active cases among residential students. No new cases were reported among UConn employees, or at the schools four other campuses around the state. Quinnipiac University in Hamden reported one new case this week. The school has seen two confirmed cases of COVID-19 this semester. The University of Bridgeport said four students two residents, and two commuters have tested positive as of Tuesday. The University of New Haven reported one new case in the past seven days. As of Thursday, 37 students on campus were in quarantine, along with 38 students living off campus. Fairfield University, which updates its case totals on Tuesdays and Fridays, reported 10 new cases among students and two among school employees Friday. The two employee cases are the first reported this semester. Including the new cases, the university has recored 113 COVID-19 cases this semester. Central Connecticut State University in New Britain reported one new case, a residential student, on Wednesday, the most recent data available. Yale University in New Haven saw one new case on Wednesday among school employees. One school employee, a grad student, and an undergrad student also tested positive on Tuesday, for a total of four new cases within the last seven days. Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic recorded eight new cases this week three among residential students, five among commuter students. The school has recorded nine cases among residential students and 20 among off-campus students this semester. Perhaps they have mused on how fragile life is and our civilization is. How our planet burns. How there may be more to discover in just being still than in running. How less may be more. How much a loved one may be missed. How hollow the temples of consumption are; and how, one morning through the mist, the towers of Manhattan may look like the medieval towers of San Gimignano, relics from another era. Trump, now at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, is alone battling the virus within him. Alone with his thoughts and a tenacious, unpredictable thing that he belittled. It was an angry, barking, surly, rude, defiant Trump who showed up for the first debate with Joe Biden and made no secret of his contempt for American democracy. He said of the balloting that has already begun, Its a fraud, and its a shame. Perhaps his supporters saw in him a muscular American self-reliance. I saw a parody of that a relentless aggression as veneer over desperation and a clear and present danger to the Republic. Before Trump tested positive for the virus, he boasted on Twitter, I won the debate. Thats loony. There was one clear loser: America. I was on a French radio show a couple of hours after the debate ended, and the segment opened with a 20-second clip of Trump, Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace, all shouting at once. Thats the worlds image of Trumps America: chaos and gobbledygook. What now, at less than five weeks from the election? We have our October surprise. Trumps symptoms are relatively mild, the White House says, but of course they could worsen. Trump may have to quarantine for almost half the time that remains before Election Day. No more big rallies full of unmasked people. No more mocking of Biden for wearing a big mask. Trumps braggadocio, part of his appeal to millions of Americans, is in tatters. He is mortal, and truth, like science, is relentless. Perhaps there will be a sympathy vote for him. Perhaps he will recover quickly with a redoubled conviction that the virus is an exaggerated threat, or declaring that his enduring through the illness means that God wants him to be president. But what I feel is the curtain coming down and closing a chapter of American derangement. The virus is Trumps deus ex machina. Not his retribution but his salvation, because the road he has trodden can only lead to disaster. I wish him a good recovery, and Americans the desperately needed renaissance whose name is Joe Biden. 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. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Advertisement The Northern lockdown could get tougher as pubs may be closed in the worst-hit areas despite young drinkers still flooding the streets in Newcastle while staff at a city centre university with 770 Covid cases threaten to strike. Environment Secretary George Eustice warned a decision has not been made on further restrictions but confirmed 'discussions have been taking place' over Merseyside and Liverpool. It comes as revelers last night hit the streets of Newcastle and flouted the 'Rule of Six' and social distancing guidelines as they queued up outside kebab shops when the 10pm curfew kicked in. Police officers wearing masks and gloves tried to separate the groups and were seen talking to a McDonald's manager as a crowd of around 20 stood outside. Meanwhile staff at Northumbria University - which has 770 students self-isolating with coronavirus - have threatened to strike due to Covid-19 fears and feel they are 'having to choose between their health and their work'. As the country reeled from mounting Covid-19 infections in UK universities: Halton, in Cheshire, rose to sixth place in the UK after cases spiked 22 per cent to 195 per 100,000; Sunderland hit eight position, behind Bolton, after a 42 per cent spike took it to 172 cases per 100,000; Sefton, in Merseyside, was next with a 64 per cent spike taking its case rate to 167 per 100,000, while Bury, in Greater Manchester, came tenth with a six per cent rise and 166 per 100,000; Middlesbrough recorded one of the highest rises in coronavirus cases in the country after infections shot up 136 per cent to 116 per 100,000; Darlington also saw its infections leap by 210 per cent, taking its case rate to 90 per 100,000. A large crowd - who are breaking the 'Rule of Six' - in Newcastle city centre is spoken to by police officers who try to break them up Two women wave during their night out in Newcastle city centre on Friday. The city is now number one on the Covid hotspot list A group of eight youngsters break the 'rule of six' during their night out in Newcastle city centre on Friday evening Pictured is a map of the majority of student accommodation for Northumbria University, which had numerous bars and pubs nearby Police officers wearing face masks attempt to disperse a crowd of revellers in Newcastle on Friday night as they wait outside a kebab shop in the city centre The government's 'rule of six' was thrown by the wayside in Newcastle city centre as young students and locals mixed in large groups A man and a woman lie on the floor laughing as three other friends stand nearby on a wet night in Newcastle city centre on Friday A man wears a face covering as he watches groups of students in Newcastle city centre wait for food at a kebab takeaway last night Police officers wearing blue face masks try to break up a group of revellers in Newcastle city centre on Friday night as they work to enforce the 10pm curfew on pubs, bars and restaurants Mr Eustice said a decision had not yet been made on further coronavirus restrictions being put in place in Merseyside. He told BBC Breakfast: 'I know that there are some discussions, I understand, that are going on about the situation in Liverpool, but no decisions have been taken yet. 'It's not really possible for me to say what they may or may not do since I think there's currently dialogue between health officials and the local council there.' When pressed, he added: 'My understanding is a decision hasn't been made, but I am aware that discussions have been taking place about what further restrictions might be needed, I think particularly around Merseyside and Liverpool.' Union demands students 'trapped in halls' be allowed to return home from university and study online if they want as Covid outbreaks sweep UK campuses Students 'trapped in halls' should be allowed to return home from university and study online if they wish to do so, unions have demanded. The National Union of Students (NUS) and the University and College Union (UCU) have called for urgent action from the Government as coronavirus outbreaks have hit university campuses across the UK. Larissa Kennedy, NUS president, said students have been left struggling to access food and wellbeing resources, which she warned is needlessly risking lives. It comes after Boris Johnson said students will be able to go home for Christmas despite Covid-19 cases rising 'quite rapidly' among young people. Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Gavin Williamson suggested a shift to online learning could be applied in 'specific cases' to enable students to safely return home at the end of term to be with their families over the festive period. But the education unions are calling for a move to online learning wherever possible and they say students should be given a safe way to leave campus now if they want to. Students should not face any financial detriment for giving up accommodation, or choosing to defer or leave university, they say. Advertisement Meanwhile 770 students tested positive for coronavirus in Newcastle, with a union blaming Northumbria University for reopening its campus and causing the 'preventable' public health crisis. All the students in the area - which is England's new coronavirus hotspot - are self-isolating for 14 days along with their flatmates and close contacts. The students have posted signs on their windows reading 'Covid +' and 'send beer' as they are provided with food, laundry, cleaning materials and welfare support by authorities and the city council. Those who miss out on face-to-face tuition during their quarantine will also receive additional academic support from the university. A spokesman said the increase in cases comes in the week after students returned to the area and 'reflects the good access to and availability of testing as well as rigorous and robust reporting systems'. They refused to say if the outbreak has taken place in one hall of residence or multiple halls and private flats across Newcastle as infections in the city rose by 60 per cent to a rate of 250 cases per 100,000 this week. But the University and College Union blamed the outbreak on the decision by university authorities to open up their campus to students, suggesting they are responsible for the 'preventable crisis'. General-Secretary Jo Grady said: 'We warned last month that, given the current restrictions in the region, the direction of the infection rate and the problems with test and trace, it was clearly far too soon for a mass return to campus. 'We told Northumbria University they had a civic duty to put the health of staff, students and the local community first and we take no pleasure in now seeing another preventable crisis play out. The university sector and the Government must address this public health crisis immediately.' Staff at the university are threatening to strike due to the fear of the virus and say they are 'having to choose between their health and their work'. The University College Union say workers are 'worried for themselves and their families, for the students, and for the community'. If a 'significant majority' of members vote for industrial action then it could lead to a strike which may mean students miss out on what little face-to-face teaching they are currently getting. At least 50 universities across the UK are now dealing with confirmed Covid-19 outbreaks amid fears Britain's second wave is well underway, with 1,800 cases identified among students and staff. Glasgow University has seen 124 confirmed cases and there have been 221 recorded at Manchester University as thousands of lockdown-weary students flocked to campuses to start term on September 21. Student Becca Croft told ITV that her whole flat tested positive for the disease. She said: 'There was a bit of a panic at first when we realised we all needed to start self isolating. We managed to get a shop sorted but it took about a week.' A member of staff at Northumbria University, who asked to remain anonymous, said there was more face-to-face teaching there than at other universities in the region. The source said: 'We have high anxiety levels among staff and students who have a sense that the establishment is not listening to those anxieties about face-to-face teaching. 'There's a lot of frustration because almost everything that we deliver face-to-face could be done much more safely online. 'There's confusion about why we are not following other universities in the region who I think moved online earlier, pre-empting this.' Northumberland, Newcastle, Gateshead, North and South Tyneside, Sunderland and Durham are all locked down, while Hartlepool and Middlesbrough will be locked down from Sunday. Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton and Darlington are open All England's top ten coronavirus hotspots are in the North, revealing its North-South divide. Newcastle, which contains the Northumbria University outbreak, is one on the list The member of staff said many students were staying away from face-to-face sessions, with some lessons attracting fewer than half the course members. Many Northumbria University undergraduates live at their family homes rather than staying in student accommodation, so may be staying away to protect relatives, the employee said. The source added: 'We are worried about their access to full teaching, this is not just about anxiety for health but fairness and who is able to access teaching, and who is not.' A spokesman for the university said: 'The increase in numbers comes in the week after students returned to university and reflects the good access to and availability of testing, as well as rigorous and robust reporting systems. 'In parts of the UK where universities started term earlier, numbers of student cases surged in induction week, and then reduced. 'We are making it clear to students that if they break the rules they will be subject to fines from police and disciplinary action by the universities which may include fines, final warnings or expulsion.' They added: 'Both Northumbria and Newcastle universities have Covid response teams on call that are working closely with NHS Test and Trace, Public Health England North East and the City to identify and get in touch with anyone who has been in close contact with those affected.' Students also being encouraged to download the NHS Covid-19 app. Messages are placed in the windows of student accommodation in the areas surrounding Northumbria University this morning Nearly 800 students have tested positive for coronavirus in Newcastle as one of the UK's biggest university unions blamed Northumbria University for reopening the campus and causing the 'preventable' public health crisis (pictured, Northumbria University students posed for photos at windows in Shieldfield as they posted signs reading 'send beer') A student takes delivery of take away food near Northumbria University as hundreds remain locked away due to the spread of coronavirus there Welfare packages are delivered by Northumbria University staff to a private student accommodation block on Saturday afternoon Chinese students at Northumbria University sort out care packages for other Chinese students attending the university on Saturday Nearly 800 students have tested positive for coronavirus in Newcastle as one of the UK's biggest university unions blamed Northumbria University for reopening the campus and causing the 'preventable' public health crisis Revellers and students enjoyed a night on the town in Newcastle on Wednesday. Several were seen wearing protective face masks Revellers were seen talking to the police as they took to the streets of Newcastle on Wednesday. Infections in Newcastle have spiralled by 60 per cent to a rate of 250 cases per 100,000, according to health officials Revellers were seen posing for pictures as they took to the streets of Newcastle for a night out. Seven partygoers are pictured here Four revellers huddled underneath an umbrella to shelter from the rain as they enjoyed a night out in Newcastle on Wednesday A large group of partygoers gather outside a takeaway in Newcastle on their wet and cold night out in the city A group of women in Middlesbrough make the most of their Friday night before even stronger regulations are brought into place on Saturday, with one woman catching a ride on a friend One girl, wearing no shoes, climbs some steps as her friends look on in Middlesbrough on Friday evening before tougher drinking regulations are enforced. At least 50 universities across the UK are now dealing with confirmed Covid-19 outbreaks amid fears Britain's second wave is well underway Councillor Irim Ali, Newcastle City Council's cabinet member for neighbourhoods and public health, praised the 'incredible lengths' Newcastle and Northumbria universities had gone 'to create Covid-secure environments'. She added: 'Sadly, a small number of students are undermining these efforts and, at a time when Covid infection rates are rising across the region, it is welcome that the universities are recognising this and warning those who break the rules about their conduct. 'We are working alongside both universities to support those students who are self-isolating, and have mobilised volunteers to deliver food packages and other essential items to those confined to their accommodation. 'But while work continues to control ongoing outbreaks, we need all students to comply with the regulations and guidance.' She added: 'While in Newcastle, it is essential that all students act with the same responsibility as other residents and do their bit to protect our city from the virus.' A surge in coronavirus cases on campuses in recent weeks has led to thousands of students having to self-isolate in their halls at some universities - including Manchester Metropolitan and Glasgow University. There have been more than 200 cases at the Sheffield University and 177 Liverpool University staff and students have tested positive, according to a survey which contacted 140 institutions. Around 56 universities across the UK have had at least one confirmed case of Covid-19, an analysis of university responses and media reports suggests. At least 1,798 positive cases of Covid-19 have been identified at these universities, the analysis suggests. Self-isolating students at Northumbria University are being provided with food, laundry, cleaning materials and welfare support by the university - working alongside the students' union and Newcastle City Council. Pictured: Police talking to revellers on the street on Wednesday The highest number of cases among students and staff appear to be in northern cities in England as well as Scottish universities - which reopened first - but there have been cases at institutions across the UK. Pictured: Revellers and students on a night out in Newcastle on Wednesday MORE THAN 50 UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE UK HAVE COVID-19 OUTBREAKS, SURVEY FINDS More than 50 universities in the UK have confirmed cases of coronavirus as thousands of students return to campus. Nearly 1,800 Covid-19 cases have been identified among university students and staff, a survey suggests. A surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks has led to thousands of students having to self-isolate in their halls at some universities - including Manchester Metropolitan and Glasgow University. There have been more than 200 cases at the University of Sheffield and 177 University of Liverpool staff and students have tested positive, according to a survey which contacted 140 institutions. Around 56 universities across the UK have had at least one confirmed case of Covid-19, an analysis of university responses and media reports suggests. At least 1,798 positive cases of Covid-19 have been identified at these universities, the analysis suggests. The findings come as the University of Manchester - where there have been 221 cases of Covid-19 - apologised for 'conflicting information' given to students from some residential staff about isolation. The BBC reported that students were told that a member of an isolating home could go to the shops for food if they could not get deliveries, and they could use laundry services as long as they wore a mask. A university spokesman said: 'The safety and wellbeing of our students is our main concern. We are proud of the work carried out by our Residential Life Team who live in halls alongside our students. 'If some members of that team have issued conflicting information, we apologise. All students have now been sent a single clear message.' The highest number of cases among students and staff appear to be in northern cities in England as well as Scottish universities - which reopened first - but there have been cases at institutions across the UK. There have been 47 cases among students at Oxford Brookes university, while at Sussex University one member of staff and 10 students are self-isolating after testing positive for Covid-19, the PA survey shows. But not all cases among students and staff have been reported 'on campus'. Some have occurred in local communities or in private halls of residence. Advertisement The highest number of cases among students and staff appear to be in northern cities in England as well as Scottish universities - which reopened first - but there have been cases at institutions across the UK. There have been 47 cases among students at Oxford Brookes university, while at Sussex University one member of staff and 10 students are self-isolating after testing positive for Covid-19, the survey shows. But not all cases among students and staff have been reported 'on campus'. Some have occurred in local communities or in private halls of residence. The findings come as Manchester University - where there have been 221 cases of Covid-19 - apologised for 'conflicting information' given to students from some residential staff about isolation. The BBC reported students were told a member of an isolating home could go to the shops for food if they could not get deliveries, and they could use laundry services as long as they wore a mask. A university spokesman said: 'The safety and wellbeing of our students is our main concern. We are proud of the work carried out by our Residential Life Team who live in halls alongside our students. 'If some members of that team have issued conflicting information, we apologise. All students have now been sent a single clear message.' Surging infections in the North West have pushed Knowsley and Liverpool to second and third worst-affected in the country after a 50 per cent jump in cases in both cities. They now have 246 and 239 cases per 100,000, respectively. But Bolton, which was at the heart of England's outbreak for four weeks, has dropped out of the top five after seeing a 10 per cent fall in cases to 180 per 100,000. The fall in the Greater Manchester town suggests stringent Covid-19 restrictions have begun to take effect, offering a glimmer of hope for other regions facing draconian measures. Despite warnings of further restrictions, London has no boroughs in the top 50 most infected areas in England, highlighting England's North-South coronavirus divide. Redbridge has the highest rate at 56 cases per 100,000, after the local authority recorded a 40 per cent spike in infections. The Public Health England data is based on Covid-19 swabs carried out across the country between August 21 and September 27, and daily indicators up to September 29, which reveal up to one in 14 tests are now positive. Experts fear infections across the country could be higher than the numbers suggest. Manchester was the fourth biggest hotspot in the country, the data reveals, after cases rose 36 per cent to 200 per 100,000. And St Helens, in Merseyside, shot up to the fifth most infected area in England after it saw an 82 per cent rise in infections which pushed its rate to 200 per 100,000. The lowest levels of infection were seen on the Isle of Wight, where the NHS Covid app was first trialled. Its rate stands at 4 per 100,000. The second lowest was Suffolk, with 6.1 cases per 100,000, followed by Dorset, with 7.7 per 100,000. The Government and local health authorities have clamped down with tightened coronavirus restrictions in areas with higher cases, in a desperate attempt to curb spiralling infections. Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough became the latest cities to face tighter lockdown restrictions yesterday as officials attempted to put a lid on mounting cases. The rules require people not to attend professional or amateur sporting events, not travel unless essential - such as to school or work - and not to visit care homes except in exceptional circumstances. This map reveals areas that have seen the fastest growth in coronavirus cases, with the North seeing the fastest spread alongside some areas of London Top 15 coronavirus hotspots in the UK Newcastle , 250 cases per 100,000, UP 60 per cent Knowsley , 247 cases per 100,000, UP 53 per cent Liverpool , 239 cases per 100,000, UP 51 per cent Manchester , 200 cases per 100,000, UP 36 per cent St Helens , 200 cases per 100,000, UP 82 per cent Halton , 195 cases per 100,000, UP 22 per cent Bolton , 180 cases per 100,000, DOWN 10 per cent Sunderland , 172 cases per 100,000, UP 42 per cent Sefton , 167 cases per 100,000, UP 64 per cent Bury , 167 cases per 100,000, UP six per cent South Tyneside , 166 cases per 100,000, DOWN seven per cent Warrington , 155 cases per 100,000, UP 50 per cent Rochdale , 151 cases per 100,000, UP 22 per cent Oldham , 150 cases per 100,000, UP three per cent Salford , 146 cases per 100,000, UP 16 per cent Advertisement The regions follow much of the North West and North East in tightening restrictions amid an ever-growing outbreak in the North of England. The latest data reveals the stark coronavirus divide between the North and South of England, with 49 of the most infected regions being in either the North of the Midlands. Slough, on the outskirts of Windsor, was the only local authority in the South to reach the top 50, with 61 cases per 100,000 after a 200 per cent spike. Experts have suggested that this division is due to a combination of factors including the weather, level of deprivation and differences in levels of immunity between the regions. The South East and London were the driest, warmest and sunniest areas in the UK in August, according to data from the Met Office, as summer drew to a grim end across most of the country. Dr Andrew Preston, an expert in infectious diseases from the University of Bath, told MailOnline it was 'entirely reasonable' to draw a link between this and spiking coronavirus cases. It is thought the showers and cooler weather are likely to have encouraged people to spend longer indoors, where the virus is more capable of spreading, in the North. Level of deprivation may have also spurred on a surge in cases, as this would leave people less able to self-isolate or work from home, putting them at greater risk of spreading and contracting the disease. Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Knowsley, Hull and Manchester, all in the North, have the highest levels of deprivation in the country according to a Government report. Other experts have said, however, the difference could be down to immunity - with some arguing the virus was infecting up to 100,000 people a day at the height of the outbreak that were mostly in the South. London's top ten coronavirus hotspots Redbridge , 57 cases per 100,000, UP 42 per cent Barking and Dagenham , 53 cases per 100,00, UP 64 per cent Hounslow , 50 cases per 100,000, UP 139 per cent Newham , 49 case per 100,000, UP 77 per cent Tower Hamlets , 46 cases per 100,000, UP 39 per cent Havering , 46 cases per 100,000, UP 68 per cent Hillingdon , 46 cases per 100,000, UP 80 per cent Ealing , 43 cases per 100,000, UP 105 per cent Brent , 40 cases per 100,000, UP 95 per cent Hammersmith and Fulham , 36 cases per 100,000, UP 97 per cent Advertisement This would mean it had higher rates of immunity to the virus than the North, putting a downard pressure on any subsequent second wave. Boris Johnson and his two top scientific advisers wheeled out a striking set of statistics earlier this week that laid bare the different coronavirus outbreaks in the North and the South. An average 1,595 cases of Covid-19 are being diagnosed in the North West every day now, compared to just 150 in the South West, while Yorkshire and the Humber and the North East face the second highest infection rates. All of the 10 areas with the worst case-per-person ratios are in the north, while eight of 10 of those with the lowest are in the south. Professor Whitty said there was a 'heavy concentration' of coronavirus towards the top of England. In a plea to the public the Prime Minister said: 'If we put in the work together now then we give ourselves the best possible chance of avoiding that outcome and avoiding further measures.' 'I know some people will think we should give up and let the virus take its course despite the huge loss of life that would potentially entail. I have to say I profoundly disagree. I don't think that is what the British people want. I don't think they want to throw in the sponge. They want to fight and defeat this virus and that is what we are going to do.' The Prime Minister displayed these slides at a No10 press conference last night, as he warned of a clear north-south divide in the resurgence of the disease A rookie prison warder was left in charge of an entire wing of violent offenders at a privately-run jail. The 21-year-old was just ten months into the job after giving up employment as an installer of stair bannisters. Succumbing to pressure from a Mr Big who threatened to have his family home torched, Levi Simic smuggled in phones to inmates. Simic was working on B wing at HMP Forest Bank, a category B jail in Salford run by Sodexo. He has now been jailed for six months for concealing two iPhones in his work boots. They were found when he was searched on clocking in for duty last October. Succumbing to pressure from a Mr Big who threatened to have his family home torched, Levi Simic smuggled in phones to inmates. Simic was working on B wing at HMP Forest Bank, a category B jail in Salford run by Sodexo When challenged, he insisted: They have threatened my family its not something I wanted to do. Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester was told Simic had to deal with 97 inmates often single handedly even though many were in jail for violence. The Mr Big, who was serving 12 years behind bars for a torture kidnapping, had him followed home after a shift and then issued threats against his family saying: I know where you live. The 33-year-old gangster warned Simic, pictured, that his grandmother, mother, seven younger siblings and his six-month-old niece would be harmed if he refused to co-operate. Simics lawyers called for him to be given a suspended sentence but Judge Mark Savill told him: Bringing phones illegally into the prison system is a serious issue. You are a young man and before this offence had lived a life full of promise. Simic was working on B wing at HMP Forest Bank, a category B jail in Salford run by Sodexo But unfortunately while working hard and successfully as a prison officer you succumbed to threats and pressure brought upon you by an inmate to throw all this away. John Kennerley, prosecuting, told the court: He knew full well that articles such as phones cannot be taken into prison. He didnt even take his own phone into prison. The background he told was that he must have been followed home and a prisoner then said he knew where he lived. That prisoner then threatened to have the defendants house petrol-bombed and the defendant agreed to take the phones into prison. Ronan Maguire, defending Simic, who admitted bringing a prohibited item into prison, said: This is a very sad case for a young man who perhaps was given responsibilities he should not have been given at a very early stage in his career. Tory MP Sir Bob Neill, who is chairman of the Commons justice committee, said: The Justice Department needs to have a full report on why it happened. Its important that there are sufficient people to man the wings properly and securely. A spokesman for HMP Forest Bank said a custody officers job was often demanding and preventing illicit items entering a jail was vital. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The citys plan to conduct random coronavirus (COVID-19) testing at public schools throughout the current academic year, beginning this month, has parents outraged -- with some stating they will not allow their kids to be tested in school. Every school is doing this testing monthly, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference in September. It is random. I want to be clear about that -- so its a mix of members of the school community who will be tested every month. Every union is going to work out their specific approach to it. Seoul, Oct 3 : North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has wished US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump a quick recovery after the couple tested positive for the novel coronavirus, a state-media report said on Saturday. According to the report by Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim in his message "offered his sympathy to the President and the First Lady". "He sincerely hoped that they would be recovered as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it. He sent warm greetings to them," Yonhap News Agency quoted the KCNA report as saying. This is the first time that Kim has sent a message to a leader of a country wishing recovery after they tested positive for Covid-19. Trump tweeted early Friday morning that he and his wife had tested positive for coronavirus. The President has been admitted to the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington from where he will be working for the few days, limiting his campaigning in the month before the presidential election. Melania Trump is staying on at the White House. -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Viruses are ancient. They predate the divergence of life, thus infecting our last universal common ancestor. Viruses are deadly. They kill twice as many people as cancer does around 15 million people every year. Viruses are simple. They are made of an outer shell of protein which carries the virus DNA (or RNA), the genetic protein code with instructions for making new copies of the virus. Viruses are not alive. They grow or move themselves, or eat or use energy and they cannot reproduce on their own. This is why they must invade our cells so they can take advantage of the complex machinery, nutrients and energy in our cells and force the cell to make millions of copies, using the genetic blueprint carried in the virus. We are aware that all this is well-known and we are being redundant in our description, but the alarming news of a second wave of the dreaded coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has raised our ire and curiosity. It is more than painful to have to revisit a subject we thought that we at could escape from after so many moons had come and gone as we gazed at the skies and recited our fervent prayers. But its back, and we find ourselves delving into more facts, information, reasons and explanations, as this spooky little organism once again stampedes around the globe. How did we fare during its first visit in what seems like a century ago? On 11 March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the danger of the pandemic. The disease was discovered in Wuhan, China in late December. Over 25 million Chinese had already travelled to other shores. In just three months more than a million people in 180 countries had fallen sick from the virus. The UN described it as the worlds most challenging crisis since WWII. It is easy to understand why so many nations and leaders were unable to fathom the gravity, the speed, and the scope of this highly infectious disease. Opportunities were indeed missed for immediate action. It was already too late. Yet some leaders earned good marks for acting as soon as the WHO moved. New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Anderns response, was bold and clear. On 11 March 11, travel was restricted, a nationwide lockdown was implemented, and citizens were ordered to limit contact. They already had 52 confirmed cases, but the damage was contained. Eighty per cent of the public approved. Moon Jae-in, South Koreas president, also received praise for similar decisiveness. On 11 March, Donald Trump, president of the US, immediately stopped travel to and from China and Europe, but he gets no credit for that as the matter had been politicised, and his feeble attempt to avoid panic turned against him. Angela Merkels aggressive management of the crisis was considered the best in Europe. Brazil, India, Mexico and most of Europe sustained great losses of life and innumerable infections. Some leaders in Indonesia, the Philippines and especially Israel abused or misused their power to muddle the issue for their own political benefit. Egypt managed to shield itself for three months, and the people felt a false sense of security until the disease came calling, affecting certain celebrities. Masks, lockdowns and space restrictions were enforced. A quick review of what took place may help us deal with a second wave. However, the symptoms are different and people around the world are weary of isolation and loneliness. So much remains unknown, but what is known is that life as we have known it has changed. France is experiencing a second wave now and it did not fare well during the first one. Even when we know our mistakes we ignore, forget or neglect them as Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the UN said, The world is facing an unprecedented test. This is the moment of truth. As far as we are concerned, the moment of truth is this: why are scientists creating, developing, producing artificial viruses when the earth is already drowning in them? Hundreds of laboratories around the world are becoming virus factories. Their purpose is to better understand the disease and prepare potential vaccines. It is all well and good if it stays within the lab, however, accidents happen, lab personnel are infected, they infect others and so it goes. Several incidents of such accidents have been recorded in Singapore, India, Russia, France, Texas, etc. The medical world is torn between the desire to eliminate disease, and the need for further knowledge. Some argue it is not worth continuing to create transmissible versions of deadly viruses in labs, because the risk is high. We agree. Viruses mutate and it is hard to keep up with those changes. Flu vaccines are often useless for that reason. It is hard to avoid scepticism as to the legitimacy of those experiments. Biological warfare comes to mind. Why are governments funding such projects? Why did the US under the Obama administration donate $5 million to the Wuhan lab in China? To discover whether bats were responsible for the coronavirus? Germ warfare in nothing new. Bacteria, viruses, insects and fungi were commonly used since the Middle Ages to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants. Admittedly, biological warfare has been outlawed since 1971. A Treaty between 170 nations was ratified in 2013, yet, those labs are still working, accidents are still happening, people are still dying and we are still wondering. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Dozens of Angolans marched on Saturday against alleged state corruption after Portuguese media accused the president's chief of staff of embezzlement, damaging the credibility of an ongoing anti-graft campaign against the former regime. Private Portuguese broadcaster TVI 24 last month investigated several public contracts awarded to firms owned by Angolan President Joao Lourenco's chief of staff and right-hand man Edeltrudes Costa. The tenders included a multi-million dollar contract to renovate Angolan airports. TVI alleges that Costa transferred public money paid to his businesses to offshore accounts in Panama and Portugal, where it was used to purchase luxury properties. Neither Lourenco nor Costa have commented on the investigation, which did not get much traction in Portugal, Angola's former colonial ruler. But the report sparked outrage in Angola, where large pockets of the population live in poverty despite vast oil and mineral reserves. Around 200 protesters took to the streets in the capital Luanda on Saturday, denouncing high-level corruption and calling on Costa to resign. Chanting anti-graft slogans, they marched to the presidential palace behind a long white banner that read: "Edeltrudes-Out". Posters advertising the demonstration showed a photo of Costa against a backdrop of US dollar bills. "If Mr president does not make the right decision us young people will not stop," 34-year-old protester Palu Antonio de Mello told AFP. "Thieves should not continue to stay in power... the population wants to be governed by honest people." The TVI investigation was released in the midst of a Lourenco-led anti-corruption campaign mainly directed at relatives of ex-president Jose Eduardo dos Santos who were appointed to key positions during his almost four-decade rule. The former president's son Jose Filomeno dos Santos was sentenced to five years in prison in August for diverting oil revenues from Angola's sovereign wealth fund, which he oversaw from 2013 to 2018. His half-sister Isabel dos Santos is meanwhile being probed for a long list of crimes including mismanagement, embezzlement and money laundering during her stewardship of state oil giant Sonangol. Both have repeatedly denied the accusations. Lourenco took power after dos Santos voluntarily stepped down in 2017, leaving a legacy of poverty and nepotism. "One of the president's stated missions is to fight against corruption" activist Teresa Luterking, 24, said at the protest. "So we want him to start with the man that shares his desk." Debra Oconnor, of Fairmount, Philadelphia, holds a sign reading #Equity during a rally in honor for Breonna Taylor and in solidarity with Louisville, Ky., at the Philadelphia Art Museum steps in Philadelphia, Pa., on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2020. I support Black Lives Matter and opposed to racial injustice, Oconnor said. Read more Rage continued to boil among Black activists Saturday, days after a Kentucky grand jury declined to indict three white Louisville police officers in the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was fatally shot in her Louisville apartment during a botched narcotics investigation. We have to organize like our lives depend on it, because they do, said Krystal Strong, 35, an organizer for the Black Lives Matter chapter in Philadelphia and the Black Philly Radical Collective, a group that advocates for the Black community and has called to defund and restructure the policing system. Standing on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art before a crowd of a couple hundred people in masks, she spoke into a bullhorn. This is a system willing to kill us in our sleep." In the wake of highly publicized Black citizens being killed by police Taylor and Minneapolis George Floyd commanded headlines nationwide Strong and other Black activists encouraged more protests and organizing to protect the Black community. They emphasized there had to be further attention toward guarding vulnerable populations, which included female, transgender, and disabled Black people. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency-room technician, died in the hallway of her apartment after the three officers Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove, and Jonathan Mattingly swarmed her apartment after midnight as part of a drug raid in March. A recently released grand jury recording stated that Taylor and her live-in boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in bed watching a movie with the lights off, not sleeping. The details have further jumbled a report that has been rife with conflicting statements. Walker took the police to be home invaders and shot once, striking Mattingly in the thigh. The police fired 32 shots in return, at least five of which hit Taylor, killing her immediately. Louisville officials said they suspected that Taylors ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover had been using her apartment to receive drugs. A search subsequently turned up no drugs. The Louisville police chief dismissed Hankison from the force but kept on Cosgrove and Mattingly. The anger in Philadelphia mirrored that of global shock and dismay when only Hankison was indicted on three counts of wanton endangerment. The charges held him responsible for indiscriminately shooting around Taylors apartment and endangering three of her neighbors. None of the officers were charged in Taylors death. Philadelphia activists said they were disgusted that the grand jury prioritized the shots Hankison missed over the shots that hit Taylor. Theyre speaking truth to power, Marta Guttenberg, 73, a retired pediatric pathologist at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, said of the Black Lives Matter movement. She said she admired the women in the movement, calling them models who stand for all women. In a news cycle that has rotated around two prominent women the recently deceased Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her potential replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, whom President Donald Trump quickly nominated after Ginsburgs death Guttenberg said Barrett was an example of the false view of the role of women. The Philadelphia activists said they will continue to protest the deaths of Black people. They also emphasized that more support is needed for those arrested during protests. Some of those arrested have been unable to post bail, leaving them in jail, said Anthony Smith, 28. Smith was arrested over the summer in West Philadelphia during a protest. When protesters were released from jail, he said, they were sometimes let out at night without their belongings, leaving them without money or a cellphone. An Inquirer investigation last year found that about 73% of people booked in jail, or roughly 16,000, were allowed to leave after the citys Cashiers Office had closed, effectively stranding them. The city revised its policies after the investigation. That s--- is demoralizing, Smith said. Despite some setbacks and blows to morale, the organizers said support for local organizers and protesters remained of paramount importance in Philadelphia. Stay socially distanced, but bring it in, yall, Strong said, wearing a red sweatshirt printed with the uniquely Philadelphia-to-South Jersey term Jawn, with the iconic statue of Rocky in the background. All Black lives matter. Launching a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said that the country is moving towards a presidential form of government. The country is moving towards presidential form of government one nation, one leader, one political party. Super-autocracy is going on in the country. There is no democracy in India. Media, NGOs, political parties, government officers are not being allowed to speak. Agency-raj is going on, she said on Saturday, tagging the BJP as the biggest pandemic the country is facing today. Banerjee was addressing a rally in the heart of Kolkata to protest against the alleged gang rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Uttar Pradesh. This is her first rally after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. I felt like rushing to Uttar Pradesh. Today my heart lies in that village. The Dalits and minorities are facing maximum atrocities. If I raise my voice, they (BJP) accuse me of minority appeasement. Today I am a Dalit because a Dalit girl has been murdered. Tomorrow I will be a member of the scheduled tribe community if some tribal person is tortured, the TMC supremo said, with most of her 30-minute speech being delivered in Hindi. The TMC is seeing an opportunity to reach out to voters from backward classes, who supported the BJP in several of the 18 Lok Sabha seats the latter won in 2019. There are about 10 million people from the Namasudra community (Dalits) in Bengal. Before the 2019 polls, the All India Matua Mahasangha, a Dalit body, had played host to a rally addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Attacking the BJP over the Hathras incident, Banerjee said that she had tried to contact the victims family over the phone but was unable to speak as their phones were seized. The chief minister hinted that she may visit Hathras any day. BJP may have directed the UP police not to allow anyone to enter the village. But for how long will it continue Today, tomorrow and day after? A time will come when I will visit the village and you wont get to know about it. I will surely meet the victims family, she said. She ordered party leaders to continue protest rallies at block level every day till October 16 before the countdown for Durga Puja starts. The TMC chief used the platform to lead an all-out attack against the BJP-led Union government starting from farm bills, to disinvestment plans and GST, unemployment among others. Over the past few days a political drama is going on in Mumbai. We want justice to be delivered. But the fact remains that whenever election approaches political vendetta comes into play, she said. MOUNT PLEASANT, MI A two-vehicle traffic crash in Isabella County has resulted in the death of a 20-year-old man. About 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2, troopers from the Michigan State Police Mount Pleasant Post responded to the crash scene on Shepherd Road at US-127 in Coe Township, located southeast of Mount Pleasant. The investigation revealed that a 20-year-old St. Louis man had been driving a passenger car north on the Shepherd Road overpass. Witnesses told troopers the driver had been driving erratically and at high speeds. The driver was found deceased upon troopers arrival. The vehicle caught fire due to the crash and was extinguished by responding police. There were no other occupants in the vehicle. The second vehicle involved was a full-size pickup truck driven by a 22-year-old St. Louis man. The truck had been heading south when the collision occurred. The driver sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries and was airlifted from the scene. There were no other occupants in the truck. North- and southbound traffic was blocked on Shepherd Road for the duration of the incident. The crash is still under investigation. Police have not disclosed the deceased mans name. Troopers were assisted by the Isabella County Sheriffs Department, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Police Department, Central Michigan University Police Department, the Shepherd Township Fire Department, Flight Care, and MMR EMS. Read more: Bay City man arrested after 4-hour standoff with police Convicted murderer with terminal illness seeks clemency to die at home with mother Man, 61, charged with armed robbery of Saginaw Township 7-Eleven New palliative funding could expand end-of-life care in Wheatland County and make dying at home close to family more feasible. On Sept. 9, the government of Alberta announced $6 million in funding to two palliative care organizations, a commitment to $14 million of additional palliative care funding and the elimination of co-payments for end-of-life drugs. When families are faced with a family member who has a serious or life-limiting illness, they should be able to remain as long as possible in their communities, said Joni McNeely, a physician and president of Wheatland and Area Hospice Society (WAHS). Its very encouraging to see the government of Alberta coming on board with that rather than having patients leave their community and go to Calgary to access care. In the past, the hospice societies have always advocated for increased government involvement, whether its running a hospice or providing programs and services, and thankfully, both the federal and provincial governments are listening, added McNeely. The Alberta Hospice Palliative Care Association is receiving $1 million in funding to create in-person and online support groups and develop a grief support telephone line. The funding will also be used to expand the organizations roadshow workshops that travel each spring to different communities for an educational day to twice a year. The Covenant Health Palliative Institute, which provides care at institutes across Alberta (though not in Wheatland County) is receiving $5 million to increase its services and promote advance care planning. Another approximately $14 million will be allocated to palliative care over the next three years. Dan Williams, MLA for Peace River, is consulting with stakeholders to direct how this funding will be spent. Really, $14 million over three years is not a whole lot of money but were very gracious for any money that gets distributed to the field of palliative care, said McNeely, who added WAHS will be applying for operational funding. Its good that the government is involved in providing some funding, but its also not just about government funding its more about community and using their resources, and finding out for each community what is the best available practice to improve awareness and to support the patients and their families, she added. That way, we get double the bang-for-our-buck because we improve our community as well. The elimination of the co-payment will lessen the burden on people who chose to stay at home for palliative care, which could also help reduce health care spending, said McNeely. Often in palliative care, patients start new drugs, resulting in increased drug costs. While a patient is in hospital, those costs are absorbed by the health care system. But when patients are at home, there is a $25 co-payment per drug with Alberta Blue Cross. If youre on four or five new palliative medications, thats four or five, times $25 per month, which can be a bit problematic for some people, noted McNeely. So, patients would sometimes choose to go into the hospital, when perhaps that wasnt their wish, just because they didnt want to be a burden financially on their family. Eliminating the co-payment will help fulfill the wishes of families and patients to stay at home for as long as possible, and perhaps choose dying at home, explained McNeely. But the province will benefit as well because its more expensive for a patient to be in hospital than it is for them to be in the community. Governments across Canada are trying to encourage families and patients to stay at home for as long as possible, she said. At some point the government realized yes, even though were spending money, it is a cost-saving measure. Read more about: Last week at a campaign rally in Jacksonville, Florida, President Trump made a puzzling claim. Near the end of a story about Kamala Harris, Trump said The great state of Iowa where I made ethanol possible for them I cant even begin to understand what that means, but lets review some ethanol history. The ethanol industry was kicked into high gear in the U.S. with the implementation of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The RFS was first passed into law with the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and it was subsequently expanded in 2007 (both under President Bush). The RFS established quotas of renewable fuels that had to be blended into the fuel supply, and an enforcement mechanism to ensure those quotas were met. The RFS resulted in an explosion of ethanol production in the U.S. When the RFS was passed, the U.S. produced under 4 billion gallons of ethanol. By 2008, President Bushs last year in office, ethanol production had more than doubled to over 9 billion gallons. In 2016, President Obamas last year in office, U.S. ethanol production stood at 15.4 billion gallons. This represented an increase of 67% over President Bushs last year in office, but the production increase had been set in motion years earlier by the RFS. In 2019 the most recent full year of production ethanol production stood at 15.8 billion gallons. That represents a 2.6% increase under President Trump from President Obamas last year in office. (Ethanol production has actually fallen sharply this year as a result of the fuel demand slump caused by Covid-19). Certainly the U.S. ethanol industry was well-established before President Trump was elected. In fact, I warned after he was elected that some of his picks signaled trouble for the ethanol industry, and that trouble did materialize. But the President was talking about Iowa, which is the countrys leading ethanol producer. Did he perhaps do something in Iowa to make ethanol happen? No, Iowas ethanol production statistics mirror those of the rest of the country. Under President Trump, Iowas ethanol production has risen from 4.1 billion gallons during President Obamas last year in office to 4.23 billion gallons in 2019. That represents an increase of 3%. So, what is President Trump really claiming here? I have no idea. He definitely didnt make ethanol happen for the U.S. or for Iowa. President Bush could legitimately make that claim, but not President Trump. Related: Iraq Ships More Crude Oil Despite OPEC Output Cut Pledge But its not the first time Trump has made an exaggerated claim about U.S. energy production. Last July, President Trump made the following statements in West Texas during a speech: Under the Trump Administration the United States has increased oil production by 3.1 million barrels per day. Thats some number, never been anything like that number. For the first time in nearly 70 years, we have become a net energy exporter, and the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas on the face of the earth. It is true that oil and gas production have continued an ongoing surge during President Trumps administration. But the crude oil surge started in 2008 under Barack Obama. During Obamas tenure, U.S. oil production rose at the fastest rate in history. The natural gas surge started in 2005 under George Bush, and also led to an unprecedented increase in natural gas production. The reason for the production surges was the fracking boom. Thus, the claim lacks context. Further, the U.S. had become the number one producer of both oil and natural gas during President Obamas administration. In any case, neither claim is completely true, but the ethanol claim would appear to be completely false. By Robert Rapier More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The moviegoing experience is central to American life, the letter reads. Theaters are great unifiers where our nations most talented storytellers showcase their cinematic accomplishments. Among other sobering numbers, the letter provides an estimate that 69% of small and mid-sized movie theater companies will file for bankruptcy or go out of business if the status quo continues, costing 66% of the sectors 150,000 jobs. Some cinemas have already permanently shuttered since March, including New York Citys Landmark at 57 West. The signatories urge Capitol Hill to work on a bipartisan basis to provide support, whether by redirecting unallocated funds from the CARES Act to struggling theaters or enacting new proposals like the RESTART act. Otherwise, theaters may not survive the impact of the pandemic. As many as three quarters of theaters in the U.S. have reopened, albeit with reduced capacity. Yet with few films on the short-term release schedule and little marketing behind those that are playing they are struggling to do business. Some are reportedly remaining shut, despite being authorized to open, as they see no commercial sense in reopening now. Warner Bros. tested the waters last month by releasing Nolans Tenet (image at top) domestically. The box-office data, which the studio was initially hesitant to divulge, shows that the film had grossed $41.2 million by last weekend, its fourth. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. pushed Wonder Woman 1984 back from October 2 to December 25, which says all we need to know about how it views Tenets performance. Earlier today, MGM delayed the release of the next James Bond film, No Time to Die, from November 20 to April 2, 2021, while Universal pushed back Fast & Furious installment F9 from April 2 to May 28, 2021. UPDATE (Oct. 3, 10pm ET): Following MGMs decision to delay the release of the next James Bond film, the second-largest U.S. theater chain, Regal Cinemas, announced today that it would close all of its locations for an unspecified period of time, potentially until 2021. This puts a big question mark on upcoming theatrical releases, including animated films like Soul, The Croods: A New Age, and Connected. Regals parent company Cineworld is also shuttering all of its U.K. cinemas, where it is the largest cinema operator. According to Variety, Cineworld is writing a letter to U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson and culture secretary Oliver Dowden to inform them that the current exhibition market is unviable. Read the letter in full below: Dear Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, and Leader McCarthy: Thank you for your leadership at this challenging time for our country. As you consider forthcoming COVID-19 relief legislation, we ask you to prioritize assistance for the hardest-hit industries, like our countrys beloved movie theaters. No doubt you are hearing from many, many businesses that need relief. Movie theaters are in dire straits, and we urge you to redirect unallocated funds from the CARES Act to proposals that help businesses that have suffered the steepest revenue drops due to the pandemic, or to enact new proposals such as the RESTART Act (S. 3814/H.R. 7481). Absent a solution designed for their circumstances, theaters may not survive the impact of the pandemic. The pandemic has been a devastating financial blow to cinemas. 93% of movie theater companies had over 75% in losses in the second quarter of 2020. If the status quo continues, 69% of small and mid-sized movie theater companies will be forced to file for bankruptcy or to close permanently, and 66% of theater jobs will be lost. Our country cannot afford to lose the social, economic, and cultural value that theaters provide. The moviegoing experience is central to American life. 268 million people in North America went to the movies last year to laugh, cry, dream, and be moved together. Theaters are great unifiers where our nations most talented storytellers showcase their cinematic accomplishments. Every aspiring filmmaker, actor, and producer dreams of bringing their art to the silver screen, an irreplaceable experience that represents the pinnacle of filmmaking achievement. As well as their critical cultural impact, theaters are economic force multipliers. In addition to the 150,000 employees working in cinemas nationwide, the industry supports millions of jobs in movie production and distribution, and countless others in surrounding restaurants and retailers that rely on theaters for foot traffic. Movie theaters are also leaders in employing underrepresented groups, including people with disabilities, senior citizens, and first-time job holders. Cinemas are an essential industry that represent the best that American talent and creativity have to offer. But now we fear for their future. Theaters need specific relief targeted to their circumstances. We urge you to come together on a bipartisan solution that provides this relief, by reallocating unspent funds from the CARES Act toward programs designed for industries like movie theaters, or by enacting new proposals such as the RESTART Act. These solutions would fulfill Congresss intent in helping severely distressed sectors of the economy and ensure that our resources are focused on the industries that need them the most. Please fight for our countrys beloved and essential cinemas by including relief for them in any forthcoming COVID-19 legislation. Thank you for your leadership and for considering this request. Sincerely, John Fithian, President & CEO, NATO Russ Hollander, National Executive Director, DGA Charles Rivkin, Chairman & CEO, MPA Thomas Schlamme, President, DGA Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Agustin Almodovar Pedro Almodovar Wes Anderson Judd Apatow Jon Avnet Sean Baker Noah Baumbach Michael Bay Susanne Bier Barbara Broccoli James Cameron Antonio Campos Damien Chazelle Jon M. Chu Sofia Coppola Alfonso Cuaron Lee Daniels Dean Devlin Clint Eastwood Andrew Erwin Jon Erwin Paul Feig Shana Feste Scott Frank Cary Joji Fukunaga Greta Gerwig Evan Goldberg Paul Greengrass Leslie Greif Luca Guadagnino Catherine Hardwicke Alma Harel Albert Hughes Allen Hughes Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Barry Jenkins Patty Jenkins Rian Johnson Miranda July Nicole Kassell Jon Landau Francis Lawrence Mimi Leder Ang Lee Rob Letterman Shawn Levy Richard Linklater James Mangold Sam Mendes Adam McKay Steve McQueen Ted Melfi Reed Morano Christopher Nolan David O. Russell Todd Phillips Guy Ritchie Seth Rogen Joachim Rnning Michael R. Roskam Martin Scorsese M. Night Shyamalan Zack Snyder Steven Soderbergh Joey Soloway David E. Talbert Betty Thomas Emma Thomas Liesl Tommy Denis Villeneuve Taika Waititi James Wan Lulu Wang Chris Weitz Paul Weitz Michael G. Wilson Edgar Wright Joe Wright Cathy Yan David Yates Chennai, Oct 3 : In a major setback for P.R.Venketrama Raja, President All India Chess Federation (AICF) and his faction, the Madras High Court has clarified the electoral college that existed in February this year is no more valid, said an advocate of the rival faction. He also said the AICF is to be managed by its general body and there are no office bearers as on date as their three-year tenure had come to an end in June itself. "The Madras High Court on September 28 had said there is no need for any clarification on its order dated 18.2.2020. The court said the issue of forming new electoral college was not a matter that was raised in that case. So, there is no bar for AICF to have new electoral college," said Sanjay Chadha, advocate for AICF Secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan. Chadha said his client has the support of 22 out of the 33 state chess federations affiliated to AICF. The AICF is split into two factions - one headed by Raja and the other by Chauhan. Raja had approached the court for a clarification on the orders issued on 18.2.2020. In a case filed by Raja, the court on February 18 had set aside the election of five office bearers of AICF and had asked the Returning Officer to convene a Special General Body Meeting to conduct fresh elections. Appearing for Raja seeking clarification on the 18.2.2020 order, Senior Advocate P.S. Raman submitted that by misinterpreting that order, Chauhan and his supporters held a general body meeting via video conferencing on 22.4.2020 and to tamper with the Electoral College finalised by the erstwhile Returning Officer. Raman stated at the said AICF meeting on 22.4.2020, resolutions were passed disaffiliating five state associations and also suspended the key office bearers of AICF without any power and authority so that they cannot contest in the election. On his part, Chadha submitted that on the reading of paras 16 and 17 of the court's earlier order (18.2.2020), it was clear that the entire proceedings of the Returning Officer subsequent to 05.02.2020 were set aside and, therefore, there is no prohibition for preparing the new Electoral College. "In fact, a conjoint reading of paragraphs 16 and 17 of the order, dated 18.02.2020, would reveal that we have directed the Returning Officer to convene the Special General Body Meeting of AICF to conduct fresh election, by sending notices to all the Members along with date, time and place of the meeting and also to fix the date for filing nominations. This would only mean that the direction was only for convening the Special General Body Meeting and we had not issued any direction for finalising the Electoral College," the court said. Chadha said an appeal has been filed against the single-judge order of the high court granting an ad-interim injunction against the special/extraordinary general body meeting held on April 22, said the federation. The special/extraordinary general body meeting was called by supporters of Chauhan. Setting up of a five-member committee to run AICF; declaration that three officials including Raja are no more office bearers; disaffiliation of some state chess associations are some of the decisions taken at the April 22, general body meeting. On 28.8.2020, the Madras High Court held that the calling and conduct of the meeting and the resolutions adopted are totally contrary to the bye-laws and the Act and granted an ad-interim injunction. "The three-year tenure of all the AICF office bearers got over in June 2020. The way out is the elections," Chauhan said. (Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in) (HP): Attacking the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the country's defence interests were compromised for a long time as their governments kept "playing around with files" and delayed procurement of fighter jets, arms, ammunition and other strategic equipment. Addressing public meetings in Himachal Pradesh after inaugurating strategically-important Atal Tunnel, the prime minister also took a swipe at the opposition's protest against farm and labour laws, saying those parties also had similar ideas but lacked the courage to implement these measures because they focussed on elections while his government looked at the country's and farmers' welfare. "Nothing is more important for us than the defence of the country. But for a long time, the country has also witnessed an era when the defence interests of the country were compromised. The Air Force of the country kept demanding a modern fighter plane, while they kept opening and closing files after files, and kept playing around with those files," he said at Rohtang after inaugurating the tunnel. Modi's reference assumes significance in the wake of the government's repeated assertion that the UPA regime had delayed decisions on the acquisition of Rafale fighter jets from France. "Be it ammunition, modern rifles, bulletproof jackets, equipment that are used in cold weather conditions, everything was kept in abeyance. There was a time when the strength of our ordnance factories would make many jitters, but the country's ordnance factories were left on their own," he said after inaugurating the 9.02-km tunnel, which reduces the travel distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and the travel time by four to five hours. It has been billed as the world's longest highway tunnel, connecting Manali and Leh and built at a cost of over Rs 3,000 crore. Hitting out at the Congress, which headed the coalition government at the Centre during 2004-14, Modi cited a number of strategically important projects, from Atal Tunnel to the airstrip at Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh and Tejas fighter aircraft production, to assert that they were delayed or almost forgotten. A world-class organization like the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited was created for indigenous fighter aircraft, helicopters, but attention was not given to strengthen it, he said. The selfishness of people who had been in power for years prevented our military capabilities from being strengthened, Modi said. He questioned as to what "compulsion" and "pressure" might have been behind the delay in projects, without directly naming the Congress. His government, the prime minister said, has deployed all its strength to develop border infrastructure, adding that never before has work been done at such a big scale, be it building roads, bridges, or tunnels. For long, he said, border projects could never come out of the planning stage and those which did got stuck or were kept on the back burner and neglected. The then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had inaugurated the approach road to Atal Tunnel in 2002, but the project was almost forgotten after his government was gone, Modi said, targeting the Congress-led UPA dispensation. Work on only 1,300 meters was completed by 2013-14, he noted, adding that the project would have been completed by 2040 by this pace before his government took charge in 2014 and speeded it up at an unprecedented rate. "Our govt increased the pace of construction from 300 meters/year to 1400 meters/year and completed the project in 2020," Modi said. In just six years the government completed the work of 26 years, he said. He said that according to a 2005 assessment, the tunnel would have been ready in about nine and a half crore rupees but due to continuous delays, today it has taken about Rs 3200 crore. Just like the Atal Tunnel, this treatment was meted out to several such projects, the prime minister said, adding that Daulat Beg Oldi airstrip remained closed for four to five decades. "There was no political will. I can talk about dozens of projects that are important from the strategic point of view, but for years they were neglected," he said, hitting out at the previous Congress-led governments. In this context, he also referred to the Kosi mega-bridge in Bihar which was envisaged by the Vajpayee government and inaugurated by him last month. Former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader Veerbhadra Singh recently said the project was originally envisaged by former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1972, while a foundation stone was laid for the tunnel in 2010 by the then UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Later, addressing his public meeting in more than six months ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic forced a nationwide lockdown in March, Modi said the inauguration of the Atal Tunnel is part of the central government's resolve that the benefit of development should reach every part of the country and to every person. "The reason was that some districts did not serve the political benefit of some people. Now work is being done with new thinking of 'Sabke saath se, sabke vishvaas se, sabka vikaas ho raha hai' (Development for all is happening with help of everyone and with the trust of everyone)," Modi said at the public meeting in Sissu village of Lahaul-Spiti region of Himachal Pradesh. "There has been a transformation in the government's way of work. Now, schemes are not made based on how many votes are there in an area. Now the effort is that no Indian is left out," he said. At his second public meeting at Solang Valley, Modi took a swipe at the opposition's protest against farm reform laws, saying those parties also had the same idea but lacked the courage to implement these measures because they focussed on elections while his government looked at the country's and farmers' welfare. Modi said those protesting against the laws wanted farmers to live in the previous century, and are now jolted by his government's attack on middlemen. The ruling BJP has cited the Congress manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to assert that the opposition party had also promised the same laws which the Modi government has enacted to allow farmers to sell their produce outside state-controlled 'mandi' but is now criticising them for political reasons. Modi also spoke of the benefits of new labour sector laws and said reforms will continue as his government works to realise its goal of "Aatmanirbhar Bharat" (Self-Reliant India), asserting that regulations of the previous century will not work in a new century. Our reforms have troubled those who have always worked for political benefits, he said, adding that new labour reforms have given women the same salary and opportunities as men had so far. Their mindset remained the same while the century changed, he said, attacking the opposition. "You can't enter the next century with the mindset of the past century," he said. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and Union minister Anurag Thakur were also present at the three events. Singh highlighted the strategic importance of the tunnel, saying it will make soldiers' deployment and movement of weapons and ration easier. The prime minister said that such border connectivity projects will also aid the security forces in ensuring regular supplies to them and also in their patrolling. India and China are locked in a five-month-long bitter border standoff in eastern Ladakh that has significantly strained bilateral ties. Both sides have held a series of diplomatic and military talks to resolve the row, but no breakthrough has been achieved to end the standoff. Modi said Atal Tunnel is also going to give new strength to India's border infrastructure and would be living proof of world-class border connectivity. He said despite the longstanding demand to improve the infrastructure and overall development of the border areas, plans were made only to languish for decades without any progress. He also travelled in the tunnel from the South Portal to the North Portal and also visited the emergency egress tunnel that was built into the main tunnel itself. He also witnessed a pictorial exhibition on 'The Making of Atal Tunnel' on the occasion. The Victorian government has spent $14.4 billion to help the state get through the pandemic, or 3.1 per cent of gross state product, while the federal government has spent $314 billion nationally, or 15.8 per cent of gross domestic product. The Treasurer believes the Victorian government has not done enough to support the state economy, leaving the federal government to do the heavy lifting. Premier Daniel Andrews criticised Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Saturday during his daily press conference for giving "lectures" on infrastructure development and being "out of the loop" with Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Mr Frydenberg responded to The Age by saying Mr Andrews "is feeling the pressure". Frustration over approvals of major infrastructure projects such as the East West Link and the Airport Rail is fuelling tensions between the Morrison and Andrews governments on the eve of the most important federal budget since World War II. The federal government also claims Mr Andrews has failed to get some big and small projects off the ground. The Andrews government dumped the East West Link tollway in 2015 at a cost of more than $1 billion saying it did not stack up, then refused to accept $4 billion from the Morrison government in 2019, claiming the total project would cost more than $11 billion. Pledges to remove level crossings at Mont Albert and Surrey Hills train stations and build commuter car parks at Surrey Hills, Canterbury, Camberwell and Glenferrie stations, all in Mr Frydenberg's electorate of Kooyong, have not yet been fulfilled. Commuter car parks, however, are federally funded and organised with local councils and a source close to the Victorian government said a level crossing on Toorak Road in Kooyong was removed six months ahead of schedule. The Mont Albert and Surrey Hills level crossings are due to be removed in 2022 according to the state government authority running the program. The Melbourne airport rail link, which the state and federal government are providing $5 billion each to build, has also run into difficulties. Both governments were both accused of "mixed messaging" earlier this year by IFM Investors chairman Greg Combet whose business led a superannuation consortium proposing to build the airport rail link. Mr Frydenberg encouraged the super funds to do more to back major infrastructure projects but the Victorian government preferred a cheaper option. A senior Victorian government source claimed the state was ready to start building the airport rail in December but action was held up by the federal government. Tuesday's federal budget will include billions of dollars worth of additional infrastructure spending and the Victorian government has a wish-list of projects worth $1.8 billion it is ready to start work on over the next three months if funding is provided. Mr Frydenberg told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald this week that the federal government wanted to build in Victoria specifically to prevent a $14 billion hit to the economy driven by the state's lockdowns during the pandemic. . An enduring conflict between the right to expression and its suppression in different forms and to different degrees by various forces, including the state and its apparatus, has become a chronic problem for democracy. It is quite unfortunate that the state and its different arms, particularly the police aided by a section of motivated media, both print and visual, have been providing the stimuli that, by implication, invokes the resultant response from those who feel increasingly pushed into a corner. Arguably, the disagreement with the structure and institutions that are accused of suppressing such disagreement is not arbitrary. In fact, it is the result of the arbitrariness on the part of these institutions. The expression of constitutionally defensible thought and the sets of individual rights become a possibility only when they are accompanied by an act of agreement as well as disagreement. But the present dispensation does not seem to respect or appreciate such a possibility. On the contrary, the act of disagreement has been seen as a threat to the political system and social order. However, it would be unfair to prejudge the act of disagreement or dissent as objectionable, especially when the political activists themselves have been claiming that their public expressions are supportive of peace and harmony in society. And yet, such a commitment to democratic values has been seen by the police as possible grounds for the arrest of some of the political activists. The police are further accused of acting selectively, thus leaving others explosive expression untouched. A briefing by the county's top roads' official, indicating an expectation that a decision will be made by December on the long awaited Cork-Limerick motorway route, has been welcomed by Charleville councillor, Ian Doyle. Speaking at a meeting of the Roads Committee on Monday, County Council Roads Director Padraig Barrett said the corridor which had been earmarked within the vicinity of the N20, via Charleville and Mallow, was being looked at and he expected that the options would be narrowed down by Christmas this year. Mr Barrett said this will give a clearer picture of what the 80km motorway will look like and finalise what route will be used. Former County Mayor Mr Doyle now feels the increasing clarity around the Mallow - Charleville route between the two major cities will allow the north Cork town to plan for the bypass era. "The reality is that everything we're trying to do to make Charleville more appealing for people to come and shop here and live here has been stopped because we didn't know what was happening with the M20. "Now we're clearer about what's happening, local business groups will be able to make plans and invest to get things moving." He added that the one thing townspeople are looking forward to is the diversion of large vehicles from the centre of town. "It will be great to get the HGVs off our main street." The next big battle is to get the on and off ramps to the motorway as close as possible to the town on both sides," he said. "It would be no good to us if the on/off ramp to the north of the town would be beyond ...O'Rourke's cross which is a short distance to Limerick." Ronan O'Meara has been scouring the TV schedules (free-to-air channels only) to find films to watch over the next week here are 16 to choose from. Hopefully you'll find something to hit the spot and maybe you'll even be introduced to a future favourite. The Meg (12): Saturday, RTE One @ 9.20pm This is the ideal Saturday night film. Jason Statham plays a marine scientist fighting to protect those he loves from the gigantic beast his experiments have freed from the deep. This is Jaws on steroids and while it takes a while to get going the latter half of it is highly enjoyable and packed full of action and in-jokes from the world's most famous shark movie. The Stath leads a solid cast that includes Cliff Curtis, Rainn Wilson and Li Bingbing. Yardie (15): Saturday, BBC2 @ 9.45pm A young Jamaican man called D has always been haunted by the spectre of his brother's murder and a move from his homeland to the streets of London in the 80's stirs up the past once again. Idris Elba's directorial debut is a gritty look into a subculture of British life that's rarely seen on screen. It's quite even but the personal touch Elba brings to the film makes it worth a watch. Aml Ameen is a solid lead and the ever reliable Stephen Graham brings the menace. Inside I'm Dancing (15): Saturday, TG4 @ 9.50pm Rory O'Shea has muscular dystrophy. Michael Connolly has cerebral palsy. They meet and become best friends in the residential care home they share and push each other to explore the world outside. This film is a exemplary example of Irish cinema's ability to make you laugh while punching you in the stomach at the same time. A lovely watch led by two excellent performances by James McAvoy & Steven Robertson. A Hard Day's Night (PG): Sunday, BBC2 @ 12.20am A day in the life of The Beatles as they travel from Merseyside to London and all the crazy & wacky adventures that happen in between. A humorous, surreal and unique watch that helped introduce John, Paul, Ringo and George and their very English sense of humour to the world. Far more entertaining than the usual concert films you see and a brilliant snapshot of a particularly famous time in pop culture history Master & Commander: The Far Side Of The World (12): Sunday, Sony Movies @ 1.30pm Russell Crowe stars in this immense adaption of the Patrick O'Brian book as the captain of a ship tasked with chasing down a French battleship during the Napoleonic wars. A cracking story full of tension and action, gorgeous scenery and sublime performances. This is still Crowe's finest role (imo) but Paul Bettany more than holds his own as the ship's doctor. Really worth a watch. Oh and turn up your speakers because this will give them a real workout. Murder On The Orient Express (12): Sunday, C4 @ 8pm 12 knife wounds. A dead man in a cabin onboard a train across Russia. Who did it? Who knows? Luckily Hercule Poirot is onboard and he just happens to be the best detective in the world. This 2017 take on the famous tale was unfairly maligned on its release but it's well worth a watch. Even if you know the ending it's fun stuff, twisty turny and packed with all manner of famous faces. Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Cruz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe and Judi Dench amongst others. I Am Not A Witch (12): Monday, C4 @ 12.15am In a remote Zambian village a small girl called Shula is accused of witchcraft. The laws are strict and her young age doesn't matter. It's rare an African film appears on TV and this one is a great introduction to African cinema & a culture mostly alien to western audiences. It's a harsh watch about female subjugation but also a very humane one and surprisingly in places it may even make you laugh. Little Maggie Mulubwa is wonderful in the lead role. First Blood (15): Mon, ITV4 @ 9pm John Rambo is a homeless Vietnam vet who turns up in a small town to visit a friend and he soon finds out that his kind are not welcome. The first entry in the Rambo franchise is a lowkey masterpiece and a rare thriller that will make you think about your own prejudices while delivering all the action you'll need. Sylvester Stallone gives a very underrated performance and Brian Dennehy's bad guy sheriff is a memorable piece of work. Milk (15): Monday, TG4 @ 9.30pm Harvey Milk was the king of San Francisco's Castro district and his political activism saw him go from neighbourhood hero to the city's first openly gay member of government. Gus Van Sant's 2008 drama sidesteps the dodgy aspects of Milk's life but there's still plenty here to like especially Sean Penn's Oscar winning turn as the man himself. Nice support from Alison Pill, James Franco and Josh Brolin adds a lot. My Life As A Courgette (PG): Tuesday, Film4 @ 2.40am When tragedy hits his life, a young boy is sent to a foster home where he struggles to find his place in the world before slowly rebuilding his existence. 66 minutes of perfection right here, an animated drama that's far more humane than most live action films. It's sincere without being cheesy, sentimental without being mawkish. It's just fantastic, trust me and record it. The November Man (15): Tuesday, Sony Movie Channel @ 10pm Peter Devereaux is forced back into action when an old pupil of his stirs up a hornets nest of intrigue and murder that involves the CIA and Russian politics. Ignore the reviews of this one. It's silly but it's a compelling watch. Imagine a Bond film not constrained by the 12A certificate and you'll have this. Bloody mayhem ensues but beware, it does get rather rough in places. Pierce Brosnan makes for a very solid lead. The Leisure Seeker (15): Wednesday, RTE One @ 9.35pm The Leisure Seeker is the name of Ella and John's RV and it becomes their home when they decide to drive from Boston to Key West in an attempt to revisit older, better times. A poignant watch that doesn't skimp on the realities of growing old while at the same time shows us a type of love and understanding that only exists after decades of being together. Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland work very well together as the leads. In Bruges (18): Wednesday, Film4 @ 11pm Two hitmen are on the run after a disastrous job and they're hiding out in a beautifuk Belgian city. One is happy with the holiday he's found himself on the the other is the exact opposite. Try as they might they can't outrun their sins. A superb comedy drama from Martin McDonagh, haunting, hilarious, profane, violent and in the end very effective. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play their parts flawlessly. Itsy Bitsy (15): Thursday, The Horror Channel @ 11.55pm If you, like me, are an arachnophobe then this one will stay with you for a while. A woman and her kids move to the country to take care of an old man. In his house they find something strange and strangeness turns horrifying fast. A nice atmosphere and some petrifying special effects will keep you watching this even when every aspect of your being is screaming at you to turn it off. Elizabeth Roberts is a decent lead. Black '47 (15): Friday, Virgin Media One @ 9pm Martin Feeney has arrived back home to find his country decimated by famine and his sister in law kicked out of her house by a British landlord and his vichy Irish henchmen. Things then get even worse and soon Martin has British blood on his hands. This 2018 Irish western is magnificent stuff. It's upsetting of course as it's a look at a horrifying period but it's a satisfying revenge thriller too. James Frecheville, Moe Dunford, Jim Broadbent, Sarah Greene and Stephen Rea all do mighty work. Carrie (18): Friday, Film4 @ 11.10pm Carrie White has just become a woman in the most embarrasingly public fashion possible and it's the start of a journey that sees her go from timid mouse to the stuff of legends. Brian De Palma's adaption of Stephen King's penny dreadful novel is loads of fun, especially when Piper Laurie as Mama White turns up. Sissy Spacek is an affecting lead but let's be honest, this one is all about the showstopper prom set climax. Read more at hamsandwichcinema.blogspot.com/ On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan organised a screenplay of Mahatma Gandhis life and works to commemorate his 151 birth anniversary on Friday, October 2. As per reports, Ambassador Rudrendra Tandon spoke about the relevance and importance of Gandhian ideals at the event and stressed that the Swachh Bharat campaign must be made part of our daily lives. Gandhi Jayanti celebrated in Afghanistan India consulates in Afghanistan also celebrated Gandhis birth anniversary with various events. The Consulate General of India in Kandahar marked the day by planting tree saplings, while Balkh University, Mazar-e-Sharif, held a conference on Thursday, October 1 to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi's ideas and teachings. The CGI commemorated #GandhiJayanti today. The event was followed by swachhta abhiyaan and planting of tree saplings #MahatmaGandhi pic.twitter.com/t6L6wPESZt India in Kandahar (@IndKandahar) October 2, 2020 #celebration of 151st #BirthAnniversary of Mahatma Gandhi at Balkh University, Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. A Conference was held by Public Policy and Administration Dept to talk about "Peace in Mahatma Gandhi's Thoughts" on Oct 1, 2020.#GandhiJayanti #MannMeinBapu @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/oNBv5B5vfn India in Mazar (@IndianConsMazar) October 1, 2020 Read: Sri Lanka PM Mahinda Rajapaksa Pays Tribute To Mahatma Gandhi On 151st Birth Anniversary Read: Guatemala Vice President Reyes Pays Homage To Mahatma Gandhi On 151st Birth Anniversary Rajapaksa pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday, October 2 paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on the occasion of his 151st birth anniversary. According to a series of tweets posted by the Indian Embassy in Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa was accompanied by officers from the Indian High Commission and paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi in Temple Trees. In a tweet, the Indian Embassy said the ideals that Mahatma Gandhi followed and preached belong to the world at large. It added: Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills' Mahatma Gandhi said. These precepts also given to the world by The Buddha continue to be the bedrock of the idea of India. A touching gesture by Hon PM @PresRajapaksa who paid a tribute to #MahatmaGandhi on his birth anniversary at Temple Trees in #SriLanka along with officers of the High Commission of India @PMOIndia @DrSJaishankar @MEAIndia @IndianDiplomacy pic.twitter.com/VNoUsSOwmD India in Sri Lanka (@IndiainSL) October 2, 2020 (With ANI inputs, Image: ANI) Read: UN Chief Guterres Remembers Gandhi's Message Of Non-violence, Urges Global Ceasefire Read: Burj Khalifa Honours Mahatma Gandhi On 151st Birth Anniversary With Marvelous Light Show I tend to appreciate the diversity of perspectives that we enjoy in our community, especially around election time. Our democracy is built upon a robust and earnest exchange of ideas, and political disagreement can often be an opportunity to learn, grow, and find new paths forward through compromise. Or, at least, it used to be. Ideas and concepts that we all once held true have suddenly become controversial. Doing honest work should allow you to make a living and support your family thats not controversial, right? Yet when our Norwalk General Assembly Representatives Lucy Dathan, Chris Perone, and Travis Simms supported a gradual increase of the minimum wage here in Connecticut, their Republican counterparts acted as if its so controversial to pay fair wages. When Stephanie Thomas, running in the 143rd District this year, talks about paid family medical leave and the crisis of childcare in our state, is that controversial? Her Republican opponent seems to think so. Keeping Connecticut residents safe and healthy during this pandemic, especially in the minority communities that are hardest hit, should not be controversial. Thats exactly what our Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff has been working to do, while Republicans criticize him for it. He has demonstrated consistent leadership, standing up for us even when its hard. It should not be hard to stand up for American ideals against foreign threats. U.S. Congressman Jim Himes has been tirelessly pushing for more transparency and accountability when it comes to Russian attacks on U.S. troops. How can Republicans see this as controversial? Few leaders have done more to stop the current President from undercutting the pillars of our government. Its amazing that no Republican has tried to keep the President in check as hes systematically made dishonesty and disorder the hallmark of his tenure. Thankfully, it doesnt have to be this way. In Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we have a choice to move our country back to a place of decency, always striving to be better. I dont think any of this is controversial. All I want is for our representatives and leaders to serve our community in a way that uplifts us individually, economically, and socially. I think thats what most other people want, too. Thats why Ill be supporting our Democratic candidates on Row A on Nov. 3, and I encourage you to, as well. Lets be controversial together. Colin Hosten is an At-Large member of the Norwalk Board of Education. The transaction combines Conrads existing assets with over 320MW from Viridis Power, for an aggregate portfolio of 1.1GW of flexible generation assets in operation or various stages of construction and development. Significant acceleration in investment for constructing flexible generation and storage assets with a platform strategy to grow the portfolio up to 2.2GW, making Conrad Energy the largest flexible generation platform in the UK. Conrad Energy, a portfolio company of I Squared Capital and an independent power producer focused on flexible power generation, battery storage and energy management services for network and commercial customers, today announces a significant acceleration in its plans to support the UK energy transition. Conrad Energy has agreed to acquire Viridis Power, more than doubling its share of flexible generation for the UK power market, and bringing its operational portfolio to over 440MW at 28 sites across the UK and equivalent to the average hourly electricity needs of one million homes. The acquisition further strengthens the power generation, trading and operational capabilities of Conrad Energy, which specialises in innovative energy solutions that provide critical grid support. Conrad is already providing commercial customers with solutions for their energy needs, including flexible generators, storage and solar. This support will be critical as the UK integrates more renewable sources into its energy mix and to mitigate the fluctuations in electricity consumption patterns from Covid-19. Alongside Conrad Energys generation capacity, the company is deploying battery technology that can store up to four hours of electricity to supply power during peak demand periods, mitigate grid constraints, and moderate excessive price volatility for consumers. The company is looking at building a total storage portfolio of 200MW. Established in 2017, Conrad Energy is one of 18 global platforms created by I Squared Capital to meet a pressing demand for infrastructure.Gautam Bhandari, Managing Partner at I Squared Capital, said, The UKs energy market is at a pivotal point. Demand and usage patterns are changing and the future of nuclear remains uncertain. Localised, flexible generation will be vital to bridge the gap as the country integrates more renewables into its energy mix. Renewables are here to stay, and we need a cost-effective solution that will smooth the transition. This investment will help ensure the future security and stability of the UKs national energy supply as the country pursues its net zero ambitions. This acquisition marks a significant step forward in the growth of Conrad Energy and in providing reliable, flexible power to the National Grid. The businesses complement each other well and we look forward to combining the expertise of the teams, said Damian Darragh, Executive Chairman of Conrad Energy. We are creating a modern utility company from the ground-up that will drive the clean energy transition by supporting the integration of low carbon energy solutions that are cost-effective for consumers. Localised generation, smart grids and behind the meter solutions are crucial pieces of the puzzle in creating a modern utility. About Conrad Energy Radically transforming the way the energy market works, Conrad Energy is delivering a path toward the future of a flexible low carbon economy. Supporting a radically changing energy market, Conrad Energy is powering the transition to a flexible low carbon economy. A full-service independent power producer (IPP), Conrad Energy optimizes energy supply within the market by delivering fast and flexible power generation when needed. Its embedded power plants supply power in local networks and range in size from 2.5 to 40MW. Conrad Energy has a highly skilled team and is a portfolio company of I Squared Capital. About I Squared Capital I Squared Capital is an independent global infrastructure investment manager focusing on energy, utilities, telecom, transport and social infrastructure in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The firm has offices in Hong Kong, London, Miami, New Delhi, New York and Singapore. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001006000/en/ It seems the ultimate Batman villain, the Joker, is writing the script for the US Presidential elections. As if it was not chaotic or messy enough, President Donald Trump has declared that he and the first lady of the United States have tested COVID-19 positive. Thats the cue for global markets to dive and they duly complied. Not only stocks fell, but oil futures too shed value Brent is at a three and half month low - as the demand for safe haven assets rose. This follows a rather sedate September when the S&P 500 index lost 4 percent, its first monthly fall since March. That was not only because technology stocks, which led the decline, were perceived to be expensive, but also politics. In the US Congress, the Democrats and Republicans have been unable to reach an agreement on a second stimulus. Meanwhile, Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden citing his problems with mail-in ballots and alleging fraud in such voting. Now, the President testing positive has added a new twist because Trump, 74, is in an age group that is considered vulnerable to COVID-19 complications. A delayed or close election, which could lead to a round of legal wrangles, is the last thing nervous investors want especially when COVID-19 cases are still rising and the US economys recovery is questionable with unemployment at 8.4 percent in August. As investors choose to take risk off the table, the US dollar is strengthening. The volatility in global markets will, of course, cause ripples in Indian stocks as well. This is happening at a time when some green shoots are visible in India as the unlocking widens and more businesses come back on stream. The India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for September rose to 56.8 from 52 in August. Steel output rose for the first time since COVID-19 struck. Goods and Services tax collections were strong in August and the highest since March. E-way bills, a measure of goods movement across the country, surpassed Februarys number at 57.4 million. Unemployment had fallen to 5.84 percent by the end of September, while vehicle sales too are buoyant, as our economic recovery tracker showed. These numbers should come as music to ears of investors, like for example, in GMR Infrastructure which is heavily dependent on a recovery. They have implications for firms such as Transport Corporation of India and Shriram Transport. Overall, the rise in high frequency indicators portend well for the economic gloom to lift in the coming festival season. When the India Services PMI numbers are released next week, we will get more clarity. Still, it is too soon to be popping a bottle of champagne. Despite the recovery, Indias economic output is set to shrink this financial year. The consensus among pundits calls for a second round of stimulus, especially since the first round that relied on bank lending doesnt quite seem to be working (look here and here). But we dont know when that will happen. The governments fiscal space is shrinking. It needs to find out ways to augment revenue quickly, which it seems confident of doing so given that the borrowing plan for this year remains unchanged at Rs 12 lakh crore. The obvious way to do so will be to raise money from disinvestment. The primary markets in India have been doing quite well with issues such as Mazgaon Dock Shipbuilders and UTI Asset Management Co (read here and here) getting a good response. Reliance Retails fund raising continues with General Atlantic, Silver Lake and Mubadala becoming the latest investors to pick a stake. Thus, the time is ripe for the government to raise big money from the markets. We had written on BPCLs strategic sale and why it is important, but the Centre has deferred it citing the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the fourth deadline extension. Given that the government also could not seem to appoint three members to the Reserve Bank of Indias rate setting panel, because of which a monetary policy review was postponed, we pondered whether it has a blase attitude towards economic policymaking. Moreover, the fact that Harley Davidson quit India (even if owing to internal compulsions) also does not look good for the nation. On the flip side, though Harleys exit spells new opportunities for the Royal Enfield division of Eicher Motors. The divestment of the Life Insurance Corporation of India remains the silver bullet for the government. One hopes that goes through quickly. The farm bills continue to remain a hot button issue and we called the reforms a valiant attempt to integrate agriculture with capitalist development in the rest of the economy. The reforms are also positive for staples companies although such firms face the near-term risk of flagging sales in urban markets. The other politically tough reform is that of electricity distribution where some baby steps for privatisation have been taken. The coming week will see the release of the minutes of the US Federal Reserves meeting. TCS will set the ball rolling for the July to September earnings season. For the retail investor, disciplined investment is the key, says Nilesh Shah in an exclusive interview. Stay safe. Dont be like Donald and wear a mask. Cheers Ravi Krishnan P.S. Your regular correspondent Manas Chakravarty is on leave. He will return soon. The Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday embarked on the third edition of the back to village (B2V) programme. The 10-day edition will focus on implementation and execution of all that was conceived and achieved in the previous two editions. The first edition of the B2V programme was held under former Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) governor Satya Pal Malik in June 2019 and the second edition under former lieutenant governer (L-G) GC Murmu in November. A senior official, tasked with supervising the project, said, B2V-3 aims to build on the foundations of B2V-1 and B2V-2. This will be an action edition with focus on implementation and execution. Shortly, after the constitution of panchayats in the UT, a first-of-its-kind week-long interface programme was devised. The programme focused on energising the panchayats, collecting feedback on delivery of government programmes, capturing specific economic potential and undertaking an assessment of the needs of the villages, the official said, adding that as part of the programme, a gazetted officer spent two days and one night in each of the 4,129 panchayats of the erstwhile state. The programme won plaudits across the country, the PM called it a festival of development, public participation and public awareness, in his radio programme Mann Ki Baat. The exercise of sending a gazetted officer to a village for three days was repeated again in the second phase in November. This time the objective was to follow up on B2V1, focus on 100% implementation of individual beneficiary-oriented schemes, focus on schemes and activities that can be undertaken to double farmers income, assessment of implementation of all measures and schemes aimed at empowerment of panchayats and spread awareness about them, said the officer. The programme again found mentioned in the PMs Independence Day speech. While the first B2V-focussed on interaction and information getting to know the difficulties of the people and taking the administration to the grassroots, the second B2V focused on strengthening and institutionalising panchayats, handholding the newly elected PRIs and focussing on saturation and 100% coverage of beneficiary- oriented schemes. In both phases, visiting officers participated in gram sabhas and learnt about peoples grouses. The third edition aims to address the problems, grievances and demands through concrete action, said the official. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON (Bloomberg) -- Former President Barack Obama wishes the Trumps a speedy recovery. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will campaign for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. And the monthly jobs report for September showed a risk for President Donald Trump among women voters. There are 32 days until the election and 73 days until the Electoral College meets. Other Developments: Biden Calls for Masks, Science After Trump Covid Diagnosis Trump Donor Says President Was Reckless to Attend Fundraiser Trump Kept Regular Schedule After Learning Close Aide Had Covid Trump Diagnosis Prompts Calls for More Virus Testing in Congress Obama Sends Well-Wishes to Trump As President is Hospitalized Former President Barack Obama wished a speedy recovery to President Donald Trump while headlining a fund-raiser to defeat him on Nov. 3. Let me start, by the way, by just stating that although were in the midst of a big political fight and we take that very seriously, we also want to extend our best wishes to the president of the United States and the first lady, Obama said during a joint fundraiser with Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Even during a campaign, Obama said, Were all Americans and were all human beings and we want to make sure that everybody is healthy. Michelle and I want to make sure that we acknowledge the president of the United States and the first lady at a difficult time. Trump and his wife, Melania, were diagnosed early Friday with Covid-19. The president was to be taken Friday afternoon to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment and was expected to remain there for a few days. Harris also wished Trump well. I join the presidents comments in saying that Doug and I are sharing our deepest prayers for the health and recovery for the president and the first lady, she said. Sanders to Campaign for Biden in New Hampshire Sanders will campaign for Biden Saturday in New Hampshire, where the Vermont senator roundly defeated the now-Democratic presidential nominee in the primary. At a socially distanced rally in Lebanon, Sanders will highlight election issues as well as tips on the various ways New Hampshire residents can vote. Sanders remains popular in his neighboring state, where he came in first in the February Democratic presidential primary and Biden came in fifth. The Trump campaign has said at times that New Hampshire might be up for grabs in November, but Biden leads by 8.4 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Jobs Report Shows Risk for Trump Among Women Voters (1:47 p.m.) Trump faces a gender gap among voters thats more like a chasm, but the September jobs report released Friday revealed one way it could get wider. Labor force participation figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that around 865,000 women dropped out of the labor force in September, compared to only 216,000 men. Economists blame the coronavirus pandemic, which has added child care and remote learning burdens that have largely fallen on mothers, especially those who work in retail jobs where hours are not as predictable. As Trump has tried to shift the campaign from the coronavirus to the economy, that means he has a tougher sell with women, especially working-class women. Recent national polls have shown women prefer Biden over Trump by double digits, with some putting the figure as high as 31 percentage points, according to data compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Poll Shows Biden Ahead in Arizona, But Its Close (11:58 a.m.) Biden is ahead in the battleground state of Arizona, but it remains a close race. In a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Friday, 50% of likely voters in Arizona backed Biden and 46% backed Trump. Recent polls of the state have shown everything from a tie to a 9-point Biden margin, but the RealClearPolitics average puts it at 3 points. In a sign of the states importance, Biden had planned to travel to Arizona for his first joint event with running mate Kamala Harris, though its unclear if that is still on after Trumps coronavirus diagnosis. The poll of 500 likely voters in Arizona was conducted Sept. 26-30, both before and after the first presidential debate. It has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. Trump Could Get Sympathy Bump After Diagnosis (11:12 a.m.) Trump could see a short-term spike in approval due to his coronavirus diagnosis, pollsters say. Past presidents have gotten so-called sympathy bumps in polls when facing personal adversity. Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed an already high 71% approval rating in September 1955 when he had a heart attack. His approval shot up to 78% -- the highest for any peacetime president except John F. Kennedy. And President Ronald Reagan also got an 11-point bump following his assassination attempt in 1981. The key difference between those events and President Trumps sickness is those events were caused by an outside force, and Trumps exposure to Covid was caused by his own behavior, said Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan Survey Research Center. Trump long resisted wearing a mask in public and still wears them infrequently, mocking Biden at Tuesdays debate for how often he wears them. He has also continued to hold rallies and large gatherings in recent weeks, despite concerns from public health officials. A more direct comparison might be to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who tested positive for Covid in March while he was at the height of his popularity during the crisis. By the time he left the hospital in April, his personal approval climbed to 60% --but that bump evaporated within a month. -- Gregory Korte Biden Schedule Unclear After Trump Diagnosis (7:01 a.m.) Biden had a busy schedule lined up for the coming days, but its not clear if hell stick to it. He was expected to travel to Grand Rapids, Michigan on Friday to deliver remarks on his economic agenda and then participate in a voter mobilization event. He also is scheduled to appear at a virtual fundraiser. But Trumps positive coronavirus test complicates things, since the two shared a stage on Tuesday for an hour and a half during the debate. Biden shared a stage with Trump on Tuesday for the debate. They observed social distancing but were near each other in an enclosed space. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment about whether that trip will still happen. Senator Kamala Harris, Bidens running mate, is slated to be in Nevada to participate in a drive-in voter mobilization event in Las Vegas. -- Tyler Pager Trump Cites Anti-Catholic Bigotry as a Reason to Defeat Biden Speaking at a dinner named for an unsuccessful Catholic presidential candidate, Trump said Thursday that the best way to beat anti-Catholic bigotry would be to defeat another one. At the annual Al Smith Dinner, named for the 1928 Democratic nominee who lost to Herbert Hoover, Trump argued that the Democratic Party is now full of anti-Catholic prejudice, citing opposition to Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who is Catholic. Anti-Catholic bigotry has absolutely no place in the United States of America, he said. It predominates in the Democrat Party, and we must do something immediately about it, like a Republican win -- and lets make it a really big one. Trump has called Biden, one of four Catholic presidential nominees in history, all of whom were Democrats, against God and said he was not a man of deep religion because of his support for some liberal proposals. At the National Prayer Breakfast in February, he attacked Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is also Catholic, saying he did not believe her when she said she prays for him. Dog Lovers Group Think Trump Should Be Fired Like One Trump is the first president since William McKinley not to have a dog. A group of Biden supporters think thats reason enough to kick him out of the White House. In a video shared widely online, the group Dog Lovers for Joe shows photos of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama with their dogs. It then shows a clip of Trump at a 2019 rally questioning how he would look with a dog on the White House lawn. Trump is the first President without a dog in the White House in over a century, the ad copy says, before cutting to a photo of Biden with his German Shepherd, Champ. Choose your humans wisely. At the rally, Trump went on to say that he had been advised that getting a dog would look good politically but he thought it would feel a little phony. Biden Marks a Diverse List of Holidays on Twitter The Biden campaign is making sure no holiday is left behind. In recent weeks, Bidens official Twitter account has made note of a diverse list of cultural celebrations, including some that are held by key battleground state voters. On Thursday, Biden wished the Korean-American community a happy Chuseok, a harvest festival, and in a separate tweet wished everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese celebration. Hes also recognized a few holidays celebrated by Hispanics in states like Florida: the feast day of Cubas patron saint la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre; the feast day of Our Lady of Mercy, important to people in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela; and the Independence Day of Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Hes also noted Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year; Womens Equality Day, the anniversary of the amendment that guaranteed women voting rights; the beginning of Ramadan, which is celebrated by Muslims; St. Patricks Day; the Fourth of July and Best Friends Day, when he posted a tribute to Barack Obama. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Hal Cumpston was in Los Angeles in February, about to experience the difference scoring a lead role in a major American TV series can make in the life of a 20-year-old Australian lad, when everything changed. "It was supposed to be the time I took meetings, acted like a real actor, possibly got some traction on the scripts I had written, paid for an apartment," the Bondi-born star of The Walking Dead: World Beyond says. "And then the sky fell in." Hal Cumpston at Bondi Pavilion. Credit:Louie Douvis That's the term the four young leads in the second spin-off from the long-running zombie series use to denote the start of the End Times. But he is, of course, referring to the start of the pandemic or at least the point when we all realised we were in one. "My dad is a doctor, and I thought he was being too anxious when he said, 'I think you should come back', but it very quickly went from being a novelty to, 'Oh my God, get me out of here'." Celebrity The Daily Beast Reuters/Arnd WiegmannTheatrical rock superstar Meat Loaf, whose Bat Out of Hell is one of the bestselling albums of all time, has died at the age of 74. Reports say the singer and actor had recently fallen sick with COVID-19.In an emotional statement posted to Facebook early Friday, the performers family said he was with his wife when he died and had said his final goodbyes to his two daughters in the past 24 hours. The star sold 100 million albums in his five-decade career and starred in movie 'We ask God for his recovery and safety, and the same for his family, and all coronavirus patients in Egypt and the World,' the statement added The head of the Christian Evangelical community in Egypt, Pastor Andre Zaki, has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, a statement released by the community said late on Friday. "The medical tests confirmed his infection with the coronavirus and he is now under home isolation," the statement added. "We ask God for his recovery and safety, and the same for his family, and all coronavirus patients in Egypt and the World," the statement added. Search Keywords: Short link: Rick Moranis as Ghostbusters' Louis Tully (Credit: Columbia Pictures) Rick Moranis is recovering after being attacked on the streets of New York City on Thursday morning. Police have confirmed that the beloved star of Ghosbusters, Little Shop Of Horrors, Spaceballs, and The Flintstones was walking on the Upper West Side on Central Park West, near 70th Street, at 7:24 am when he was punched in the head by a stranger. Moranis then fell to the ground, as the attacker walked away. Read More: Rick Moranis comes out of retirement to star in advert with Ryan Reynolds The 67-year-old initially went to the hospital with pain in his head, back, and hip. After being treated he then went to a local police precinct where he reported the crime. A representative for Moranis has since provided an update to The Hollywood Reporter, telling them, He is fine but grateful for everyones thoughts and well wishes. Moranis recently returned to the news after he popped up in an advert for Mint Mobile, alongside fellow Canadian Ryan Reynolds. Rick Moranis stars in Mint Mobile advert (Credit: Twitter) That was his first on-screen appearance since 1997. Moranis took a break from acting to raise his two children, after his wife Ann Belsky died of cancer in February, 1991. Since then, Moranis has only provided voices in the likes of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer And The Island Of Misfit Toys, Brother Bear, and Brother Bear 2. Read More: Bill Murray missed Harold Ramis and Rick Moranis on 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' Reynolds was quick to respond to news of Moranis attack, taking to Twitter to write: Should have known not to subject Rick to the year 2020. Glad to hear hes okay. Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) October 2, 2020 Moranis will be making a return to acting in the very near future. Earlier this year it was announced that Moranis would be reprising his role as Wayne Szalinski in Shrunk, a sequel to the Honey, I Shrunk The Kids films, while hell also appear in Martin Scorseses Netflix documentary on the reunion of the Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television. Photo credit: Bryn Lennon - Getty Images From Autoweek Lewis Hamilton was assigned two five-second penalties at Sochi for practicing starts too far down pit lane. Hamilton and his fans have accused stewards of putting a microscope under the Mercedes team this year to help improve the show. Mika Salo, one of the stewards at Sochi, made 109 starts as a Formula 1 driver between 1994 and 2002. Former F1 driver and one of the stewards for the F1 Russian Grand Prix, Mika Salo says that he thought Lewis Hamilton's penalties at Sochi were a bit harsh. Salo came under fire this past week after Hamilton and his fans accused the governing body of unfairly targeting the six-time world champion. Salo was also criticized for allegedly leaking information about the penalties to a Finnish broadcaster. Photo credit: Charles Coates - Getty Images Salo is again defending the stewards' decision amid claims the penalties assigned to Hamilton for illegal pre-race practice starts too far down the pit road were too harsh. Those penalties included two five-second penalties which were served on Hamilton's first pit stop. He came into the pits leading the race and was able to get no higher than his finishing position of third after the penalty. "It was a clear violation of the rules, so some sanction had to be imposed," Salo told Iltalehti newspaper, a media outlet in Finland. "We also thought it was harsh, but we acted according to the penalty table." However, the stewards later rescinded the decision to add two penalty points to Hamilton's Super Licence, which would have moved him closer to a race ban. "After the race, we were showed a radio conversation between Hamilton and the team which said that the team had given permission for the practice start to take place," Salo said. "It was a communication problem, because Mercedes didn't mean for Hamilton to do the start as far away as he did. They accepted the other penalties." However, Salo disputes the notion that Hamilton is routinely targeted by the FIA. Story continues "The stewards have so much information and data at their disposal that decisions always stand up to reasoning," he said. "A couple of years ago, there was a death threat from the Netherlands when we penalized Max Verstappen, but there was nothing questionable about it. Max committed a clear foul." Salo also dismissed reports that he is unlikely to work for the FIA again after the latest controversies. "This is completely voluntary. No one forces me to do it," he said. "The teams chose me for this role and I certainly haven't heard any complaints from them. And the drivers should know that I am the steward judging from the drivers' perspective. I'm on their side." JUBA: Sudans power-sharing government and several rebel groups are due to formalise a peace agreement on Saturday aimed at resolving decades of regional conflicts which left millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead. Three major groups signed a preliminary deal in August - two factions from the western region of Darfur and one from the southern region - after months of peace talks hosted by neighbouring South Sudan. Another powerful rebel group, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, which had not participated in initial peace negotiations, agreed last month to hold new talks hosted by South Sudan. Tut Gatluak, the South Sudanese chief mediator, told Reuters ahead of Saturdays ceremony in Juba that the goal is to sign deals with all armed groups. The parties will sign their final agreement and from there, we shall continue engaging with the other holdout groups of general Al-Hilu and Al-Noor," he told Reuters on Friday. Leaders from Kenya, Ethiopia, Chad, Egypt as well as the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia will also attend the event, he added. Sudan has been wracked by simmering conflicts for decades. After the oil-rich south seceded in 2011, an economic crisis fuelled protests that led to the overthrow of veteran president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019. Sudans new civilian and military leaders, who have shared power since then, say ending conflicts is a top priority to help bring democracy and peace to a country in crisis. The deal sets out terms to integrate rebels into the security forces, be politically represented and have economic and land rights. A new fund will pay $750 million a year for 10 years to the impoverished southern and western regions and the chance of return for displaced people is also guaranteed. Analysts have welcomed the agreement but questioned its inclusiveness and comprehensiveness because of how prominent the role of armed groups and the military is. Jack Mohamoud Jack, the spokesman of the al-Hilu faction, said his group will not participate in the ceremony, but is ready to start separate negotiations with the Sudanese government. (Writing by Giulia Paravicini; Editing by Katharine Houreld and William Maclean) 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 West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Mounting a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on October 3 said "dictatorship is going on in the country instead of government for the people". "A dictatorship is going on across the country. Instead of government for the people, it is running a government against the people, the Dalits and the farmers," Banerjee said. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief made the remarks during a rally in Kolkata to protest against the alleged gangrape and death of the 19-year-old woman at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh. Banerjee also said the BJP is a "pandemic" which is torturing dalits the most, adding that she will stand by the Dalit community till the end since her caste is "humanity", and she does not believe in differentiation on the grounds of caste and religion. "COVID-19 is not a big pandemic. The BJP is the biggest pandemic. It is the biggest pandemic of atrocities against Dalit and backward communities," Banerjee said. The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last. She was cremated in the early hours of September 30, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. So there I was at the Outer Banks of North Carolina late this summer, ensconced like a prince in the house of my friends brother. The weather was muggy but clear, the food and the conversation plentiful and nutritious, the pace of life slow and sweet. For four days, I went nowhere outdoors but the beach, the front porch, the patio, the swimming pool, and an outdoor shower, and never once put on a mask, which for me was a pandemic record. The online sites I daily visit were abuzz with news, but these pieces, most of them unread by me, were no more a pest than the yappy little dog next door. Life for a change seemed as bright as a tidewater sun. Then a casual conversation led me to investigate the summer reading lists at some of our elite private schools. Extremes Ninth graders at the Potomac School in MacLean, Virginia, were to select one book from a list featuring such titles as The Hate U Give, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, and comedian Trevor Noahs autobiography Born a Crime. Only Anne Franks The Diary of a Young Girl might be considered a classic. Though rising 10th graders were assigned Cry, the Beloved Country, which I once taught, English 11 students had a choice of four books: Chang-rae Lees Native Speaker, Julia Alvarezs How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Junot Diazs The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Americanah. Because I have read and taught F. Washington Jarviss With Love and Prayers, a collection of addresses he delivered to Bostons Roxbury Latin School, I have long felt an abiding affection for that institution. In these talks, the headmaster gave wise advice about life and virtue to his students and readers alike, and I was certain the young men of that school must be reading inspirational material. Not so. That ship has left the dock. With Love and Prayers is a compilation of addresses delivered by Headmaster F. Washington Jarvis to his students at Bostons Roxbury Latin School. Highly recommended for high school students and their parents. (David R. Godine) The Roxbury Latin reading list for the summer of 2020 might serve as a template for a course in brainwashing. Every week, the makers of this list required their students to watch videos or listen to podcasts on racism in America, and to read short articles with titles like White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack and What White Children Need to Know About Race. Students were also required to read Robin DeAngelos White Fragility, Ta-Nehisi Coatess Between the World and Me, and Ibram X. Kendis How to Be an Antiracist. Middle of the Road Some schools I looked at offer a less lopsided and more eclectic list. Deerfield Academy, for example, gave its 11th-grade students the option of reading not only contemporary writers, but also such well-known American authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and Sylvia Plath. As I skimmed these titles, however, I realized that very few authors from the 19th century or earlier, writers like Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were in supply. Only Stephen Crane with The Red Badge of Courage and Edgar Allan Poe short stories made the cut. Some schools offer some classics, but nothing from the 19th century or earlier. Mark Twain did not make the list. (Public Domain) When I stumbled across Richmonds Saint Marys Catholic School, which does not belong to Americas elite private schools, I found at last a more balanced selection. Eighth graders must choose one book written by contemporary authors and must also read a classic like Around the World in Eighty Days, Little Women, or The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Why the Classics? When I taught literature and history to seminars of home-educated students, every year someone would ask me why I selected so many old-fashioned books for their reading. Why did my list include such works as Treasure Island, Antigone, and Doctor Faustus? Less elite schools may offer more balance in their offerings, including books like Little Women. (Simon & Schuster) Always my reply was the same. By entering into these classics of literature, I would explain, students were also entering into the great conversation, a term used to describe thinkers through the ages discussing or referencing the work of their predecessors and thereby refining Western values and ideas. Writers like Homer, Sophocles, and Jane Austen endure because they address truths about human beings that resonate with us today. By reading their books, we not only travel into the past but also bring the gifts of that past into the present. Subsequently, these writers enlarge our humanity. Moreover, I would tell my students, if you dont read these classics while in school, the odds in favor of your reading them as an adult sharply decline. Once out of the classroom, most of us read for pleasure and would be unlikely to pick up Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment or Kiplings The Man Who Would Be King. By studying authors like Homer, students can participate in a conversation that has engaged readers for centuries. Bust of Homer, Roman, early imperial period, first century. The British Museum, London. (Kati Vereshaka/The Epoch Times) The Sound of Silence Having looked at the lists from five or six schools, I now wonder whether the great conversation will someday fall silent for lack of education and interest. If teachers at such institutions as Potomac, Roxbury Latin, and the Deerfield Academy are giving up the literary classics, if those students are no longer reading Charles Dickens, George Eliot, or even moderns like Flannery OConnor or William Faulkner, what will become of our past and our culture? A true liberal arts education means some familiarity with literature and history, and yet so many of our secondary schools, and the great majority of our colleges, focus on the contemporary. Surely these schools do teach literary classics during the academic year. Its also possible that many of the instructors who compose these lists avoid the classics of literature because they underestimate the abilities of the young, believing that teens are unable to grasp the beauty of Shakespeares plays or the irony and wit in the poetry of John Donne. Instead of leading students through Hamlet or Beowulf, they find it easier to give students a simpler book set in the modern world. Such works, they doubtless believe, will appeal to the young and will improve the chances they will read them. Yet without realizing it, these teachers are making their students prisoners of their own time and place. The Usual Advice Readers of my articles here at The Epoch Times frequently find me arguing that only we as individuals or as members of small communities can bring changes to our culture, that we must stop looking to our schools and our government to revive virtue and instead set ourselves the task of providing our children with the education they deserve. Well, once again I must sound that same trumpet call. Its up to us to fight and to stand for culture and learning. In the case of literature, we should steal President Obamas campaign slogan in 2012, which he in turn lifted from writer Alice Walker: We are the ones weve been waiting for. If our culture is to be passed to the next generation, we who revere and love our civilization must be the ones who pass its values along to our children. A final note: Whether youre paying tens of thousands of dollars for your 16-year-old to attend some prestigious academy or whether your child attends public school free of charge, take a few minutes to see what theyre reading, and then ask yourself: Is this the education I want for my children? Are they being exposed to the great books of our culture? Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C., Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va. See JeffMinick.com to follow his blog. Manitobans who collected emergency federal pandemic payments on top of provincial social assistance are scrambling to try to stop their benefits from being cut off. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Manitobans who collected emergency federal pandemic payments on top of provincial social assistance are scrambling to try to stop their benefits from being cut off. Roughly 2,200 Manitobans were taken off provincial social assistance between April and July, a Families Department spokesperson said. Thats a five per cent drop in caseload. The province hasnt specifically linked the decrease to people collecting the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), but a spokesperson acknowledged thats likely the most common reason for people to be taken off social assistance in recent months. The provincial government counts CERB payments as income for Manitobans on social assistance, and if their income is too high to be eligible for social assistance, they can be cut off. Others are receiving smaller social assistance cheques to account for the "overpayment." CERB payments of $2,000 per month which began in March and ended Sept. 26 were meant to be used as emergency funds for Canadians who lost their jobs due to the pandemic and had earned at least $5,000 in employment income last year. Although people on disability or social assistance were not considered automatically ineligible for CERB, many people were able to access the federal funds even though they didnt meet the requirements. When Barry Smith applied for the federal COVID-19 emergency response benefit last spring, the 57-year-old North End resident was in panic mode. "I got to stock... everything, because youre terrified. Its almost like, all systems could go down," said Smith, whos been living on social assistance for more than a decade after he broke his back. When the CERB money landed in his bank account, Smith said he spent it all on groceries, toilet paper, dog food, supplies for family and friends, an LG smartphone, which he called "a lifeline," and takeout food. "(We) are the lowest income, our fridges arent packed. They want us to stay home, but we have to go to the store more often than other people to replenish because were out of food quick," he said. "I ordered in so I could keep myself safe. I wouldnt have been able to do that without CERB." When he applied for the emergency benefit, he said he provided his birthdate and social insurance number to an automated phoneline run by the federal government. He said he figured if he wasnt eligible, the deposits wouldnt be authorized. Six months later, Smith is panicking again after realizing his provincial cheques can be clawed back because he collected CERB. Hes worried his disability and Employment and Income Assistance (EIA) benefits will be cut off. "Im scared. Im panicked. But do I regret taking the money? No. No, I helped people... people who didnt get CERB, I helped them with stocking up on stuff," Smith said. "And now Im going to pay for it." Manitoba, along with Alberta and Saskatchewan, decided CERB would count against peoples eligibility for provincial social assistance. Other provinces, such as B.C., allowed people to keep both federal and provincial payments. In the spring, the federal government lobbied provinces not to claw back payments from people who received CERB while on social assistance. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "(The province) will not recover or deny provincial benefits if someone received CERB, reported it to Employment Income Assistance, and was later found to be ineligible for the federal benefit. EIA may assess overpayments if a client received CERB benefits, but did not declare them to EIA," a Families department spokesperson wrote in an email. The number of Canadians who received CERB even though they were ineligible is unknown. The Canada Revenue Agency has said those people will need to pay it back, and it will be assessed at tax time next year. Manitobans who relied on EIA to pay their rent are worried about being evicted if they also received CERB, said Kirsten Bernas, chair of the Right to Housing coalition. "I think it was a mistake to have counted CERB as income in the way that the province has decided to do it, because now were seeing the impact that thats having on peoples ability to maintain their tenancies. Its making very vulnerable peoples lives worse right now for having made that decision," she said. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay Moscow, Oct 3 : Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukasheko, during which the two leaders confirmed their mutual intention to keep strengthening the alliance between the two countries, the Kremlin press service reported. The two leaders spoke on the phone on Friday, TASS news agency quoted the press service as saying in a statement. "It was underlined with pleasure that the governments, ministries and agencies of the two states are taking specific steps to keep strengthening bilateral cooperation in all spheres, including inter-regional ties," the statement reads. "Overall, the mutual intention to keep strengthening the alliance between Russia and Belarus was reaffirmed." The phone call was initiated by Belarus and touched upon the current issues on the bilateral agenda with an emphasis placed on implementation of agreements reached during their meeting in Sochi on September 14. During the call, Lukashenko also thanked his Putin, for anti-coronavirus vaccine supplies to his country. Before Sochi, Putin and Lukashenko met on June 30 at the Rzhev Memorial unveiling ceremony in the Tver region. The Belarusian leader also attended Moscow's Victory Parade on June 24, TASS news reported. Since the mass unrest in Belarus after Lukashenko, who has been in power since 26 years, won another six years in the August 9 election, Russia has reiterated its support to the eastern European country. Putin recognises Lukashenko as the legitimate Belarusian leader had earlier said that he has forces ready to intervene if the unrest gets out of control. Mumbai: Filmmaker Gopi Puthran is outraged after learning about the two back-to-back crimes that saw innocent girls being gang-raped, tortured and killed. The Hathras and Balrampur horrors have shaken our country and the acclaimed director, who has written and directed Mardaani 2 based on the same crime, is hugely troubled seeing the constant spike of violence against women. We contacted Gopi to know his views on the horrific crimes being committed against women across India and he said, Yes, I'm deeply outraged. Yes, I want swift and harsh action against the monsters who are committing such barbaric acts. But since when have predators ever bothered about mere punishment! And it's so easy for us to get outraged and bay for blood, sitting at home. Gopi added, What's more difficult is to practise empathy and sensitivity towards women and neglected sections of our society on a day to day basis. As long as we keep worshipping our Goddesses in temples but keep demeaning our women at home and around, we'll make no progress and such cases will keep on happening. Gopi feels when the stigma against women victims is uprooted, we could see a societal shift. For every single case reported there are hundred that are not. Rape is less about the act of sex and more about a blatant exhibition of power. We need to re-look at our definition of this toxic masculinity and remove the shame and stigma attached to such assaults if we ever intend to stop such heinous crimes from happening, says the talented story-teller. Sen. John Stinner of Gering, who introduced the resolution for the study, said he had been part of an effort to begin closing the gap in funding for high-quality child care before the pandemic when 90% of the states counties lacked adequate child care. Then the pandemic hit, and the need to have adequate child care became even more important to help get people back to work, he said. Obviously, weve got a problem, he said. Before the pandemic, an Early Childhood Workforce Commission released a report that concluded Nebraska had a $452 million gap in funding it hoped to close by 2030 with a combination of local, state and federal funding and private funding from families and businesses. The system was and is being subsidized by the low wages of providers and staff, many of whom rely on public assistance to make ends meet, work long hours or additional jobs, said Catherine Huddleston-Casas, associate director of workforce planning and development for the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska. A nationwide analysis suggests that surgery may be safer and more effective than nonsurgical treatment of a ruptured or abscessed appendix during pregnancy CHICAGO: Pregnant women who underwent immediate surgery to treat a ruptured or abscessed appendix and their fetuses had significantly better outcomes than those whose condition was managed without an operation. Results from a nationwide study presented at the virtual American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020 form the basis for the potential development of a consensus on optimal management of complicated appendicitis in pregnancy. Currently, the management of appendicitis in the general population is somewhat controversial and is especially true for complicated appendicitis. Increasing numbers of surgeons prefer a trial of nonsurgical management; others recommend an immediate operation," explained Kazuhide Matsushima, MD, FACS, an assistant professor of clinical surgery, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. "This study is a great first step toward a consensus regarding the optimal management of complicated appendicitis in pregnant patients. Randomized clinical trials are necessary to provide that consensus," he added. "Based on the current evidence we have, which includes this study, our recommendation would be for surgeons to pursue immediate operation for pregnant patients with complicated appendicitis. Every day of delay to surgery means worse clinical outcomes for the patients as well as the fetus," said Vincent Cheng, MD, a general surgery resident and lead author of the study at USC. Since the 19th Century, surgery has been the most widely accepted treatment for appendicitis; more than 300,000 appendectomies are performed annually in the US.1 Laparoscopic appendectomy is the most common surgical treatment.2,3 Despite this history, the management of acute appendicitis is still open to debate in terms of such questions as the timing of appendectomy, the safety of in-hospital delay, and the indications for performing appendectomy following a course of antibiotics.4, 5, 6, 7 Moreover, increasing numbers of patients in the U.S. are being treated for appendicitis non-operatively. The number has doubled in the last 20 years, according to results of a study presented at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2017.8 Appendicitis during pregnancy is relatively uncommon. While the raw number and incidence of appendicitis during pregnancy is low, it is actually the most common non-obstetric emergency during pregnancy. It is also the most common non-obstetric reason for surgery during pregnancy, Dr. Cheng said. About 0.1 percent of pregnant women have appendicitis; in one study, 25 percent of 713 pregnant patients with appendicitis had a perforated appendix.9,10,11 Nonetheless, the condition carries a high risk of serious complications, including loss of the fetus.9 Perforation of the appendix increases the risk of death of the mother.11 Because of the low incidence of complicated appendicitis in pregnancy, there are no specific recommendations or guidelines on management. A team of surgeons from USC therefore set out to evaluate current treatment of complicated appendicitis in pregnancy by comparing maternal and fetal complications after operative and non-operative management. The researchers reviewed the National Inpatient Sample dataset from 2003-2015 to identify 8,087 cases of complicated appendicitis in pregnancy. Most (55 percent) had immediate non-invasive surgery. Forty-five percent began a course of non-operative management, which involved a course of antibiotics with or without percutaneous drainage of the inflamed organ. Of the 45 percent of patients who began non-operative management, 74 percent failed and later required an operation (either a laparoscopic procedure or an open appendectomy). Preterm labor, delivery, and pregnancy termination were more common in the group of women who had non-operative management or delayed surgery than in those who had immediate surgery; the odds of developing these complications were one to three times higher for the non-operative group. Sepsis also was two to four times more common in these groups of patients. The rate of any complication was lowest among patients who had immediate surgery (30 percent) and overall length of stay was two days shorter for these patients. While further study is needed to eventually arrive at a consensus for treating complicated appendicitis in pregnancy, findings from the study may help guide surgeons and patients. Dr. Matsushima stressed the importance of telling patients that the management of this condition is controversial and explaining the treatment options and risks. Dr. Cheng pointed out that "every situation is different and every patient is different so the discussion about how to manage this disease process should be a joint process between the patient and the surgeon that presents the pros and cons of the treatment options." ### Other authors are Matthew Ashbrook, MD; Kulmeet Sandhu, MD; Kenji Inaba, MD, FACS; and Demetrios Demetriades, MD, FACS. Authors report no financial disclosures related to this research. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Citation: Management of Complicated Appendicitis during Pregnancy: A Nationwide Analysis. Scientific Forum, American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020, October 3-7, 2020. 1Addiss DG, Shaffer N, Fowler BS, et al. The epidemiology of appendicitis and appendectomy in the United States. Am J Epidemiol. 1990;132:910-25. 2Jaschinski T, Mosch C, Eikermann M, et al. Laparoscopic versus open appendectomy in patients with suspected appendicitis: a systematic review of meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials. BMC Gastroenterol. 2015;15:48. 3Yu M-C, Feng Y, Wang W, et al. Is laparoscopic appendectomy feasible for complicated appendicitis? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Surg. 2017;40:187-97. 4Kim JW, Shin DW, Kim DJ, et al. Effects of Timing of Appendectomy on the Risks of Perforation and Postoperative Complications of Acute Appendicitis. World J Surg. 2018;42:1295-303. 5van Dijk ST, van Dijk AH, Dijkgraaf MG, et al. Meta-analysis of in-hospital delay before surgery as a risk factor for complications in patients with acute appendicitis: In-hospital delay before surgery and complications after appendicectomy. Br J Surg. 2018;105:933-45. 6Hall NJ, Jones CE, Eaton S, et al. Is interval appendicectomy justified after successful nonoperative treatment of an appendix mass in children? A systematic review. J Pediatr Surg. 2011;46:767-71. 7Senekjian L, Nirula R, Bellows B, et al. Interval appendectomy: finding the breaking point for cost-effectiveness. J Am Coll Surg. 2016;223:632-43. 8Turnbull, IR, Horn, CB, Tian D., et al. Rate of Nonoperative Management of Acute Uncomplicated Appendicitis in the United States Is Accelerating and Is Associated with Significantly Increased Mortality. J Am Coll Surg. October 2017; 225(4S2) e23. 9Mourad J, Elliott JP, Erickson L, Lisboa L. Appendicitis in pregnancy: new information that contradicts long-held clinical beliefs. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2000;182(5):1027-9. 10Yilmaz HG, Akgun Y, Bac B, Celik Y. Acute appendicitis in pregnancy--risk factors associated with principal outcomes: a case control study. Int J Surg. 2007;5(3):192-7. 11Mahmoodian S. Appendicitis complicating pregnancy. South Med J. 1992 Jan;85(1):19-24. About the American College of Surgeons The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 82,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org. Beijing: China sharply criticised the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Saturday for his "amateurish" suggestion that he would encourage talks between Beijing and Dharmsala-based Tibetan government in exile apart from warning the Trump administration of "endless trouble and burden" if it uses the Dalai Lama against it. The US should stop using Dalai Lama to create trouble for China, as it brings no benefit to the US but damages Sino-US relations, Zhu Weiqun, head of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said. "The US government had used the Dalai Lama to create problems for China's unity and stability, which has brought no benefit to Washington while it caused damage to Sino-US relations," he said apparently referring to former US Presidents including Barack Obama's meetings with the Tibetan spiritual leader. Reacting to Tillerson's reported remarks that he will continue to encourage dialogue between Beijing and Dharmsala-based "Tibetan government-in-exile," Zhu told state-run Global Times that it's impossible for the Chinese government to "have a dialogue" with the illegal group that is aiming to split China. Tillerson's remarks shows he is a "complete amateur" on Tibet-related questions, he said. The US Secretary of State in a response to the US SenateCommittee on Foreign Relations, said he will continue toencourage dialogue between Beijing and representatives of "Tibetan government-in-exile," the daily report quoted thetibetpost.com as saying. Tillerson also gave an affirmative answer to whether he would commit to receiving and meeting with the Dalai Lama, it said. Taking exception to Tillerson's comments, Zhu said the one and only sensible thing the 'government-in-exile' can do is to "dissolve itself". China in the past had held talks with the Dalai Lamarepresentatives to discuss his return to Tibet but the talkswere discontinued for several years. Beijing has made no move for dialogues with him after Chinese President Xi Jinping took over power in 2013. Zhu said China will not change its policy to support the development of the Tibetan society, nor will the country stop protecting its sovereignty over the region. "The new US government should carefully study the policyand that its attention to the Tibet question will only bringendless trouble and burden for the US," he said. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Octopuses have often been likened to creatures from other planets, or galaxies. They can morph into almost any shape, colour and texture; they squirt ink, jet-propel water, squeeze into tiny bottles, can unfurl long capes or inflate into circus tents, can recognise humans (one dumping water on people it didnt like) and unscrew jars with their tentacles. A life of awe and wonder ... a scene from My Octopus Teacher. The term "cephalopod" comes from the Greek for head-foot; an apt description of these creatures without torsos, squid and octopus and cuttlefish, with limbs sprouting from their heads. Octopuses eight arms are crammed with neurons, which can touch, taste and function separately from the brain. And now, with the new hit documentary My Octopus Teacher on Netflix, we can all watch a man fall in love with an octopus and document its startling ways in the most intimate of fashions. The days after it was released, my phone buzzed for days with dozens of people telling me to watch it (knowing I had revealed my love of the cephalopod and the deep sea in my book). I did and its stunning. The Cut called it "The love story we all need", Pedestrian TV "An unbelievable doco that will make you weep." On Friday, Tesla Inc chief executive Elon Musk once again indicated that the U.S. electric carmaker will make a foray into India in 2021. Next year for sure," Musk said on Twitter in reply to a post with a photograph of a T-shirt with the message: India wants Tesla". A Twitter account called Tesla Club India shared images of two black graffiti t-shirts which read, India wants Tesla" and India Love Tesla". The caption to the post read, Hey Elon, just thought wed put this out here. We wait and hang on to hope wrt hopefully soon" for India Tesla entry. Would love to hear of any progress in this regard." While Tesla fans often take to social media to express their love for Tesla, Musks response seemed to breathe new energy into Desi fans who couldnt keep calm and flooded Twitter with responses. Some good news coming for moto-enthusiastics from @elonmusk . get ready for something great in automobile. https://t.co/MX4BByKDDm Sanjay Singh solanki (@SanjaySingh0815) October 2, 2020 Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!! yes yes yes!!! . Thank you @Tesla @elonmusk . I am so happy. https://t.co/SlGoCU5e7n Soubhikpailan (@soubhikpailan) October 2, 2020 Many pointed out that they had been fans of Tesla and Musks disruptive work for years now and it was time the AI giant finally entered Indian markets. My 15yr young son been @elonmusk fan since 7+ years now.. got to buy one. The Indian market is waiting for this disruption https://t.co/DGDbGQaQWh Jitendra Agrawal (@Jitu_Agrawal) October 3, 2020 A Reply we had been waiting for years! https://t.co/4QqU6jpmCR Subikash (@subikash_r) October 2, 2020 A seemingly touched Musk even replied to some of the comments himself! Thanks for waiting! Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2020 Some, however, seemed unimpressed by the announcement. Reminds me of my non Resident Indian days in the US @elonmusk when I kept saying, Ill go to India next year for sure . Youve been saying this for some time too https://t.co/YbqzCS9zlt Vaishali Nigam Sinha (@vnigamsinha) October 3, 2020 We need cars a bit cheaper than Model 3 https://t.co/0VqjkVbUwZ Arul Prakash (@arulprakash) October 2, 2020 This wont be the first time that Elon Musk has said that Tesla will be coming to India. In 2018, the CEO of the electric car company had said on Twitter that Tesla could be hopefully be entering India next year, in 2019. This was followed by a statement issued by IIT Madras in 2019, which mentioned that Elon Musk had said that the companys entry to our country is probably going to happen in a years time. If Tesla is coming to India, its entry could come at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is increasingly becoming focused on promoting the use and manufacture of electric vehicles. But will it come in 2021? Musk commented last year about coming to India, in response to someone on Twitter who asked What about India sir?. Would love to be there this year. If not, definitely next! he said in March 2019. Looks like Musk knows how to keep his fans waiting. Sushant Singh Rajputs sister, Shweta Singh Kirti has shared a social media post amid reports that the actor died by suicide after all, and wasnt murdered, as many, including the family lawyer, had led the public to believe. On Saturday, the doctor in charge of the AIIMS panel re-evaluating Sushants post-mortem report said unequivocally that the actor died by suicide. Shweta took to social media, and wrote, We Will Win! She also posted a picture of the actor, with a tilak on his forehead. On October 1, she had tweeted, We have faith in CBI, we are an inch closer to finding the truth! Next few days are crucial... We might hear some good news. Very hopeful. I know God is with us for sure. We are calling it #Revolution4SSR ARE YOU WITH US?? On Saturday, India Today quoted Dr Sudhir Gupta as saying, Sushant death is a case of suicide. Murder completely ruled out. The AIIMS doctors had submitted their findings to the CBI on September 29. Vikas Singh, the lawyer representing Sushants father, had previously claimed that an AIIMS doctor had told him that the ligature marks on Sushants neck were consistent with strangulation. AIIMS doctor told me that Sushants death was by strangulation, he had said in a press conference. In a tweet, Vikas Singh had written, Getting frustrated by the delay in CBI taking a decision to convert abetment to suicide to Murder of SSR. The Doctor who is part of AIIMS team had told me long back that the photos sent by me indicated 200% that its death by strangulation and not suicide. Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs death was a suicide, not murder: AIIMS panel chief NDTV quoted sources as saying that the Central Bureau of Investigation will continue probing the abetment to suicide angle. Sushants father has accused Rhea Chakraborty of abetting his suicide and misappropriating his funds. Rhea is currently in jail, on drugs-related charges pertaining to the case. Sushant died on June 14, at the age of 34. The Mumbai Police in its initial investigation had concluded that the actor was suffering from depression. Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 22:39:38|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BANGKOK, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The local police in Thailand's northeastern Khon Kaen province have arrested a young man with 198,000 speed pills, a pistol and many rounds of ammunition, local media reported on Saturday. Police made the arrest and the seizure in raids on the suspect's rented house in Kohn Kaen and his another house in the nearby Kalasin province. The 24-year-old man was held in police custody over drug and illegal possession of firearms charges. Thai authorities had seized 22.19 million pills of methamphetamine, 638.5 kg of crystal methamphetamine and 6,240 kg of marijuana between October 2019 and June 2020. Enditem New Delhi: The D-Day is finally here when crazy Bigg Boss fans will be glued to their TV sets for flat three months once again. Salman Khan will entertain the viewers as the perfect host of 'Bigg Boss 14' which will have a super grand premiere tonight at 9 pm. Looking at the history of the reality show, expecting some controversies, high-voltage drama, romance and laughter moments will not be too much. But what's new this time is that the makers are also taking all precautions amid the deadly novel coronavirus pandemic. The channel airing the show has been sharing some interesting promos and sneak-peek videos, taking the excitement levels up by a notch! Take a look at what you can expect to watch tonight on the show: Paani mein aag lagane, kaun hai jo aayi hai sabke dilon pe chaa jaane? Stay tuned to know! #BB14 Grand Premiere tomorrow at 9 PM on #Colors. Catch #BiggBoss before TV on @VootSelect.#BiggBoss14 #BiggBoss2020 @BeingSalmanKhan pic.twitter.com/L3JWYyr4sQ COLORS (@ColorsTV) October 2, 2020 Yeh hain iss season ke kuch gharwale, can you guess who they are? If not, toh karlo bas kal tak ka intezaar; #BB14 Grand Premiere episode tomorrow at 9 PM on #Colors. Catch #BiggBoss2020 before TV on @VootSelect.@BeingSalmanKhan #BiggBoss #BiggBoss14 pic.twitter.com/wWtHmc2z5b COLORS (@ColorsTV) October 2, 2020 Every year, ahead of a fresh season, speculative list of contestants floods the internet. This time big names from the television industry such as Rubina Dilaik and husband Abhinav Shukla, Pavitra Punia, Eijaz Khan, model Nikki Tamboli are rumoured to be part of the show. Also, the controversial figure 'Radhe Maa' will be seen on the show, taking the buzz value higher than ever. So, the Bigg Boss 14 grand premiere will be a star-studded affair with host Salman Khan anchoring the ship like he always does - with elan. The night will see performances from previous years popular contestants including 'Bigg Boss 13' winner Sidharth Shukla, Gauahar Khan, Hina Khan amongst others. 'Bigg Boss 14' is kickstarting on October 3, 2020, at 9 pm on weekends and at 10.30 pm on weekdays. Stay tuned for all updates on 'Bigg Boss 14'. Griffin is growing increasingly desperate to ensure he can keep the special deal he gets under our current tax system that allows him to pay the same tax rate as our essential workers, Foulks said. Mr. Griffin and his fellow opponents have already made clear they want to raise taxes on working families and retirees rather than pay their fair share. The centralised network is the first of its kind to be set up in response to a pandemic A major non-profit health emergencies group has set up a global laboratory network to assess data from potential COVID-19 vaccines, allowing scientists and drugmakers to compare them and speed up selection of the most effective shots. Speaking to Reuters ahead of announcing the labs involved, Melanie Saville, director of vaccine R&D at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), said the idea was to compare apples with apples as drugmakers race to develop an effective shot to help control the COVID-19 pandemic. The centralised network is the first of its kind to be set up in response to a pandemic. In a network spanning Europe, Asia and North America, the labs will centralise analysis of samples from trials of COVID-19 candidates as though vaccines are all being tested under one roof, Saville said, aiming to minimise the risk of variation in results. When you start off (with developing potential new vaccines) especially with a new disease, everyone develops their own assays, they all use different protocols and different reagents - so while you get a readout, the ability to compare between different candidates is very difficult, she told Reuters. By taking the centralised lab approach ... it will give us a chance to really make sure we are comparing apples with apples. The CEPI network will initially involve six labs, one each in Canada, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and India, Saville said. Hundreds of potential COVID-19 vaccines are in various stages of development around the world, with shots developed in Russia and China already being deployed before full efficacy trials have been done, and front-runners from Pfizer PFE.N, Moderna MRNA.O and AstraZeneca AZN.L likely to have final-stage trial results before year-end. Typically, the immunogenicity of potential vaccines is assessed in individual lab analyses, which aim to see whether biomarkers of immune response - such as antibodies and T-cell responses - are produced after clinical trial volunteers receive a dose, or doses, of the vaccine candidate. But with more than 320 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in the works, Saville said, the many differences in data collection and evaluation methods are an issue. As well as potential variations in markers of immunity, there are differences in how and where samples are collected, transported and stored - all of which can impact the quality and usefulness of the data produced, and make comparisons tricky. And with a range of different vaccine technologies being explored - from viral vector vaccines to ones based on messenger RNA - standard evaluation of their true potential becomes very complex, she said. With hundreds of COVID-19 vaccines in development ... its essential that we have a system that can reliably evaluate and compare the immune response of candidates currently undergoing testing, she said. By centralising the analysis in a lab network, much of what Saville called the inter-laboratory variability can be removed, allowing for head-to-head comparisons. CEPI says all developers of potential COVID-19 vaccines can use the centralised lab network for free to assess their candidates against a common protocol. For now, the network will assess samples from early-stage vaccine candidate testing and first and second stage human trials, but CEPI said it hoped to expand its capacity to late stage (Phase III) trial data in the coming months. Results produced by the network will be sent back to the developer, with neither CEPI nor the network owning the data. CEPI itself is co-funding nine of the potential COVID-19 vaccines in development, including candidates from Moderna, AstraZeneca, Novavax NVAX.O and CureVac. Search Keywords: Short link: Los Angeles: Oscar winner Alicia Vikander says the much-awaited Tom Raider 2 is expected to start shooting in 2021. Vikander, who took over the role from Angelina Jolie, made her debut as the globetrotting titular protagonist with 2018s Tomb Raider. Sharing an update on the sequel, the 32-year-old Swedish star told Good Morning America that the plan for the films shooting has been changed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The plan was for us to start making one this year, of course due to the [pandemic] situation, thats now very different. Were still in discussions about it, so I hope we can probably get to it next year, Vikander said. Roar Uthaug, who directed the first movie, is not coming back for the sequel, which will now be helmed by Ben Wheatley of Free Fire fame. Tomb Raider also featured Dominic West, Walton Goggins and Daniel Wu. Vikander currently stars alongside Julianne Moore in The Glorias, biopic on veteran journalist and activist Gloria Steinem. NORRISTOWN Officials authorized another secure drop box for voters to submit their mail-in ballots for the upcoming general election during a recent Montgomery County Board of Elections meeting. Conshohocken joined the list of 10 other municipalities with drop boxes in Montgomery County, which are available for use starting Oct. 3. Ballots placed in the drop boxes will be delivered to the countys Office of Voter Services each day and date stamped when they are received, county officials said in a statement. The drop boxes will be available for use from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays at the following locations: Cheltenham: The Cheltenham Wall Park, located at 1 Wall Park Drive in Elkins Park Conshohocken: 225 Washington St. in Conshohocken Lansdale: The Lansdale Church Road Parking Lot, located at 226 Station Square Blvd. in Lansdale Lower Merion: The Lower Merion Ludington Library, located at 5 S. Bryn Mawr Ave. in Bryn Mawr Norristown: Airy Street Parking Lot, located at the intersection of DeKalb and Airy streets in Norristown. Pottstown: The Pottstown Montgomery County Community College West Campus at the Hanover Street Building, located at 95 S. Hanover St. in Pottstown, Royersford: The Royersford Municipal Building, located at 300 Main St., in Royersford Skippack: The Skippack Municipal Building, located at 4089 Heckler Road in Skippack Upper Dublin: The Upper Dublin Municipal Building, located at 801 Loch Alsh Ave. in Fort Washington Upper Frederick: Green Lane Park, located at 2144 Snyder Road in Green Lane Upper Moreland: The Willow Grove YMCA, located at 3300 Davisville Road in Hatboro Drop boxes will also be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, and from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 2 and on Election Day, Nov. 3. Voters must have their ballots submitted via drop box or by way of the countys voter services office by 8 p.m. on Election Day. Due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, we still see a high demand for mail-in voting, and mail delivery times are slower than normal, Ken Lawrence Jr., chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said in a statement on Friday. We are doing everything we can to help voters meet the Nov. 3 General Election Day deadline by providing these secure ballot drop-off boxes. Although people are only permitted to return their own mail-in ballot, a county spokesperson said there are exceptions for voters with an illness or disability that will prevent them from dropping off their ballot. Those voters can designate an agent in the same household to return a ballot on their behalf to the countys voter services office. To obtain a certification form, as well as more information, visit www.montcopa.org/VoterServices. Pennsylvanias voter registration deadline is Oct. 19. The last day to request a mail-in or absentee ballot is at 5 p.m. on Oct. 27, according to Lawrence, who stressed that postmarks dont apply for either deadline. Mail-in ballots and absentee ballots have started to be sent so people should be checking their mailboxes for them, Lawrence said during the Oct. 1 Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting. To check the status of a mail-in or absentee ballot, visit the Pennsylvania Department of State Voter Services website at www.pavoterservices.pa.gov. As for the in-person section of the general election, officials proposed poll locations at the following precincts: Collegeville, Conshohocken, Douglass, Lower Gwynedd, Lower Merion, New Hanover, Plymouth, Pottstown, Springfield, Upper Dublin, Upper Frederick, Whitpain, and the Upper Merion Town Center, according to the Montgomery County Board of Elections agenda. However, there wasnt a ruling on these, and 15 locations have yet to be confirmed, according to a county spokesperson. Listings of polling locations can be found at www.montcopa.org/voterservices. Most of our polling locations have already been approved so if you do want to know you can go to the website and check that as well, but every registered voter in Montgomery County will receive a letter to let you know your polling location, Lawrence said. County officials urged those voting in person to wear a mask to their respective polling location, and added there will be sanitizing and social distancing protocols enforced. County officials also clarified in a statement that voters who requested a mail-in ballot can opt to vote in person instead. Either bring your ballot and envelopes to the polls with you so that they can be voided by a poll worker, enabling you to vote in person, county officials said in a statement on Friday. Or, fill out a provisional ballot, which will only be counted once after verification that the Election Board has not received your mail-in ballot. Those with questions can contact the Montgomery County Office of Voter Services from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days per week at 610-278-3275, or email voters@montcopa.org. For more information about the general election in Montgomery County, visit www.montcopa.org and click on Election 2020. Area residents can get additional updates on the countys Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, and Twitter pages. As the Montgomery County ballot drop-off boxes become operational Oct. 3, the District Attorneys Office has established a tip line to report suspicious activity around ballot boxes as well as election issues on Nov. 3. The tip line is 610-278-2020. Shared legal services In other business, the Montgomery County Commissioners authorized a contract, Aronchick, Segal and Pudlin, of Norristown for shared legal services for Bucks County, Chester County and the City of Philadelphia for litigation related to the 2020 presidential election, the contract stated. According to the agreement, law firm partners would receive $360 per hour, $300 per hour for associates and $150 per hour for paralegals. Along with Montgomery County, Berks and Chester counties, as well as Philadelphia, would share a quarter of the cost, according to Barbara OMalley, Montgomery Countys deputy chief operating officer. [The] contract provides for legal fees related to the lawsuit Donald J. Trump for President Inc. vs. Kathy Boockvar brought by the Trump Campaign against the commonwealth and all 67 Pennsylvania counties, OMalley said. Atheists sue Alabama over so help me God voter registration oath Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit against Alabamas Secretary of State John H. Merrill claiming that the states voter registration form is unconstitutional because it includes an oath that says so help me God. Alabama is the only state in the country that requires voters to register on a form mandating they swear so help me God, without allowing any option of a secular affirmation, the Wisconsin-based atheist group said in a statement announcing it filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division this week. The Alabama secretary of state excludes Alabama citizens from being able to vote if they are unable to swear a religious oath, states the lawsuit, filed on behalf of four Alabama residents who have encountered and objected to this religious test when trying to register to vote. It continues, The secretary of states official policy is to hinder the registration of voters who are unable to swear so help me God. This policy violates the rights of the plaintiffs and others under the First and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. Randal Cragun, an atheist and one of the four plaintiffs, said the bottom of the voter declaration section warns, Read and sign under penalty of perjury. If you falsely sign this statement, you can be convicted and imprisoned for up to five years. Cragun said when he contacted the secretary of states office, the director of elections informed him, There is no legal mechanism to register to vote in Alabama without signing the oath as it is stated. If you cross out a portion, the board of registrars in your county will reject the application and ask you to resubmit, Cragun was quoted as saying in the FFRF statement. The office of the secretary of state reportedly told FFRF that the voter registration forms are prescribed by statute and would therefore require legislative action. The lawsuit cites a 1961 U.S. Supreme Court opinion, adding: The United States Supreme Court has held as a settled First Amendment principle that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. The atheist group is urging the court to require the secretary of state to create additional forms that allow individuals who are unable to swear so help me God to be able to register to vote. The naturalization oath for U.S. citizenship also includes the words so help me God, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in April rejected claims that the words violate First Amendment rights of atheists. We follow the Supreme Courts most recent framework and apply American Legions presumption of constitutionality to the phrase so help me God in the naturalization oath because we consider the inclusion of similar words to be a ceremonial, longstanding practice as an optional means of completing an oath, the judgment stated in a federal lawsuit that was filed in 2017 by atheist Olga Paule Perrier-Bilbo who moved to the U.S. from France and applied for naturalized citizenship in 2008. And because the record does not demonstrate a discriminatory intent in maintaining those words in the oath or deliberate disrespect by the inclusion of the words, Perrier-Bilbo cannot overcome the presumption. The phrase so help me God is optional in the Oath of Allegiance of the U.S. Friday Orobator, a principal lecturer of the defunct College of Education, now Tayo Akpata University in Ekiadolor, Edo State, on Friday committed suicide by hanging himself at his Obakhazbaye residence in Benin City, the state capital. Mr Orobators lifeless body was discovered behind his apartment at about 1.30 p.m., with the rope which he used to hang himself, tied around his neck. The tragic incident attracted a large crowd of neighbours, sympathisers and passers-by, who expressed shock over his death. The late Mr Orobator, said to be in his 50s, was a member of the College of Education Academic Staff Union, (COEASU), and a principal lecturer at the Department of Adult Education. He was said to have complained bitterly to close associates over his inability and lack of money to tend to his failing health. PREMIUM TIMES learnt that on Wednesday, the late lecturer told a colleague that he was tired of begging for money from friends to cater for his family needs and his health challenges. Attempts to get his family members at his Obakhazwaye residence to comment on the incident were unsuccessful as they were mourning the demise of their breadwinner. However, the Chairman of the College of Education Academic Staff Union, (COEASU), Fred Omonuwa, said their colleague died as a result of lack and inability to access medical care. He appealed to the state government to pay the workers their 13 months unpaid salary. According to Mr Omonuwa, It is clear the death came as a result of lack and inability to access medical facilities. Some months ago, he became very sick and depended on friends for assistance but very recently he started complaining of getting tired of consistently begging to survive. Of course, everybody knows that the Edo State Government owes us 13 months of salary, which we have continued to agitate for even before the election, but it was tagged political agitation. The man couldnt provide for himself. His wife just had a baby. We were surprised yesterday (Friday), that he took his own life. Before he committed suicide, he spoke to some colleagues on Wednesday, complaining bitterly on his inability to access medical facility and becoming very ashamed of begging friends for money to treat himself. We are aware some friends in Lagos and Benin have done their best in the past few weeks by providing money for him and yesterday he took his life by hanging. We are very much aware that the suicide he committed was as a result of lack of money. As far as we are concerned, we, staff of the college, are pained. Our people are going through a lot and dying but this is an extreme case because of the way he took his own life. Edo State government should please listen to us. Now, school is about to resume. Our members cant even pay the school fees of their children. What have we done to deserve this? We are pained by the loss of this senior colleague, a principal lecturer. We are not happy. The remains of late Mr Orobator have been deposited at a mortuary by men of the Oba market Police station. He is survived by his wife and four children. Adityanath's recommendation comes hours after Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police HC Awasthi meeting the victim's family Facing nationwide outrage on the handling of the Hathras gangrape and murder of a Dalit girl, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday recommended a CBI probe into the case. The 19-year-old Dalit girl who was brutally gang-raped in her village on 14 September, succumbed to her injuries on 29 September. Adityanath's recommendation came hours after Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police HC Awasthi met the victim's family at their home, and days after the local police 'forced' cremation of the girl's body in the dead of night. "Chief Minister @myogiadityanath Ji has ordered the CBI to conduct a probe into the entire Hathras case," the chief minister's office tweeted. Reacting to the announcement, the family members of the victim said they want a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry. After meeting the victim's family on Saturday, Awasthi said that the SIT will look into all issues raised by the gangrape victim's family, and the strictest action will be taken against the culprits. A decision has also been taken for providing security permanently in the village, the senior official said. "It is an extremely sad incident. We met everyone in the family. We spoke to them and assured them that the strictest action would be taken against all those found guilty," Awasthi told reporters. "The SIT inquiry is on and it will continue to do its work. The family members have raised certain issues. Whatever points and the complaints they have raised, the SIT will note them, and we will make all efforts to ensure that each of them is addressed," Awasthi said, without elaborating. The officer had said that they will submit a report to the chief minister. The visit by the two top officials came as a massive controversy raged over the incident with the opposition targeting the Adityanath government. "The first report of the SIT was received yesterday evening and within two hours orders were issued for the suspension of the then SP, CO, inspector, senior sub-inspector and constable," Awasthi said. The victim, who was attacked on 14 September, died of her grievous injuries in the early hours of Tuesday in a Delhi hospital and was cremated in the dead of night near her home on Wednesday with her family alleging that they were forced to carry out her last rites by local police. Another case of a Dalit woman's death after alleged rape has surfaced in the state. The woman died in Balrampur on her way to the hospital. Taking to the Twitter on Friday, Adityanath said, "Total destruction of those who even think of harming the self-respect of women in UP is inevitable." "They will get such a punishment that will set an example for future. The UP government is committed to the safety and development of mothers and daughters," he said, adding that "this is his government's resolve and promise". A total of 6,100 students are set to get improved marks after a review into coding errors in the Leaving Cert exams grading system. Education Minister Norma Foley said students could log onto the calculated grades portal from 6pm on Saturday to find out whether they were affected. She added that all of the affected students would be informed by text and email on Saturday evening. The minister made the announcement on Saturday following the completion of the review into the system by US company Education Testing Services (ETS). Statement from the Minister for Education @NormaFoleyTD1 and the Department of Education and Skills regarding Leaving Certificate 2020 Calculated Grades Process https://t.co/11n4C3BZP1 Department of Education (@Education_Ire) October 3, 2020 It emerged on Wednesday that two computer coding errors had left thousands of students with at least one grade lower than they should have received when they got their results last month. The minister reiterated her regret to students for the errors that happened. You have had an exceptionally difficult year, Ms Foley said. Im sorry for that. And Im sorry this last week delivered more uncertainty to you. Of the 6,100 students affected, Ms Foley said 5,408 students will receive a higher grade, by one grade band, in one subject. Some 621 students will receive a higher grade, by one grade band, in two subjects, while 71 students will receive a higher grade, by one grade band, in three or more subjects. 614 schools and other centres recognised to hold the Leaving Certificate have been affected. The calculated grades model was introduced after the traditional Leaving Cert June exams were disrupted by the coronavirus shutdown. Ms Foley said the Department sent a corrected file of results to the CAO on Saturday afternoon. The CAO will now establish how many students are eligible to receive a new CAO offer. Up to 1,000 extra college places could be needed to address the errors in the system. The extra college places could cost an extra 10 million euro. No student will receive a reduced grade in any subject as a result of this process. Ms Foley said: It is important to clarify that theres an established practice that where a students grade improved as a consequence of no error of the student that student maintains that higher mark. That has been custom and practice in previous years and that will continue this year also. She added that her chief and principal concern now was that any student who is entitled to improved marks would receive those marks and that the CAO would where necessary make available higher preference offers if that is what is due to a student. She said she hoped that there would be confirmation that where they are entitled to an upgrade that they would receive it. With the voter registration deadline closing in, Hamilton County Election Commission will be open for extended hours on Monday. Their office at 700 River Terminal Road will remain open until 6:30 p.m. that day to give Tennessee residents extra time to register to vote prior to the upcoming Nov. 3 election. Monday is the registration deadline and all registration forms must be in their office or postmarked by that date Anyone who needs to register to vote or update their address is welcome to come by our office on Monday during these extended hours, said Scott Allen, interim administrator of Elections. Our office stands ready to assist them. We are also happy to discuss the absentee ballot process, Early Voting options, or advise them where to cast their ballot on Election Day. We want all Hamilton County voters to be fully prepared to participate in the November 3 election. "Voters also have the option of registering online at GoVoteTN.com, a safe and secure way to register to vote without leaving home, officials said. "Whether voters decide to register in person or online, the important thing is to get registered by the Monday deadline." Visit www.hamiltonelections.com or call the Election Commission office at 423-209-8683 for more information. How much should presidential candidates tell the public about their health? Hillary Clinton, 68, was recently diagnosed with pneumonia, and the public didnt know about it until two days later, when she abruptly left a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony feeling unwell and needing to be helped into a vehicle. If Donald Trump, 70, were elected, he would be older than any previous president at the start of his first term and, like Clinton, he hasnt released detailed records about his health beyond a doctors letter. Both candidates promised Monday to release more detailed medical records soon. But the idea of presidential candidates, or sitting presidents, disclosing their health history is relatively new. And though recent presidents have released detailed updates about their health, there is no law mandating disclosure. Advertisement America has a rich history of presidents and presidential candidates hiding their health problems from the public, sometimes successfully and sometimes with serious consequences. What have recent presidential health disclosures looked like? The report for President Obamas most recent physical examination, in February, by White House physician Ronny L. Jackson is two pages long. It lists basic vital information such as his height, weight, body mass, resting heart rate and blood pressure, as well as numbers from laboratory tests for his cholesterol, glucose and vitamin D levels, among other information. The report also lists the results of tests for Obamas physical and neural health, lists the medication he is taking (which includes the occasional use of nicotine gum) and says he drinks alcohol only occasionally. All clinical data indicates that the president is currently very healthy and that he will remain so for the duration of his presidency, the report concludes. A similar report for George W. Bush in 2006 was four pages long and included a lengthy medical history. What have Trump and Clintons doctors letters looked like? In 2015, Clinton released a two-page letter from her doctor that discussed Clintons medical history, including her hypothyroidism a type of hormone deficiency and the concussion she suffered in 2012 after she was weakened by a stomach virus and dehydration. The letter also disclosed her blood pressure, respiratory rate, cholesterol levels, as well as her exercise habits, which include yoga, swimming and weight training. She is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as president of the United States, wrote Dr. Lisa Bardack, chairwoman of internal medicine at CareMount Medical in Mount Kisco, N.Y., who has been Clintons physician since 2001. The letter released by Trumps doctor in December is four paragraphs long, and said Trump had had no significant health problems over the last 39 years. The letter gives figures for Trumps blood pressure and his prostate blood test, says he takes 81 milligrams of aspirin and a low dose of cholesterol-lowering statin daily, and variously describes Trumps health as astonishingly excellent, extraordinary and excellent. If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency, said Harold N. Bornstein, a gastroenterologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York who has been Trumps physician since 1980. Why does it matter? Nearly half the presidents in the nations history have had significant illnesses or injuries while in office, including most of the presidents since the start of the 20th century, according to academic research on presidential health. Many of those presidents hid their health problems from the public. Grover Cleveland had a secret surgery for oral cancer during his second term in 1893, survived and served until 1897, and his surgery was not revealed to the public until 1917, nine years after his death. Woodrow Wilson had a serious stroke in 1919 that in effect ended his ability to run the country, yet his condition was kept secret. His wife, Edith, quietly took over his work until his term ended in 1921. Wilsons successor, Warren Harding, didnt have much better luck: In poor health for years, he died in office in 1923 while traveling in San Francisco. His wife declined to have an autopsy done. Paralysis caused by polio did not prevent Franklin Roosevelt from taking office and serving with distinction starting in 1933. But by Roosevelts fourth campaign in 1944, his health was failing. He won and then died of a cerebral hemorrhage in April 1945, leaving Vice President Harry Truman to finish World War II. Dwight Eisenhower had a well-publicized heart attack during his first term in 1955. Doctors werent sure whether he would survive a second term, but he ran for reelection the next year, won and lived until 1969. Among other health problems, his successor, John F. Kennedy, had Addisons disease, an adrenaline deficiency, which his team denied during his 1960 campaign a lie that may have helped Kennedy win the razor-thin election against Richard Nixon. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Lyndon Johnson, Kennedys successor, flouted that type of discretion. After Johnson had gall bladder surgery in 1965, he lifted up his shirt to show reporters his scar. How much should candidates disclose? Since vice presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton dropped out of the 1972 presidential race after the disclosure that he had been hospitalized for depression, the health status of presidential candidates has been seen as fair game by the press, George J. Annas wrote in a 1995 article for the New England Journal of Medicine. Health disclosures by modern presidential candidates, although generally standard since then, are still sometimes an uneven affair. Democratic hopeful Eugene McCarthy refused to release his medical records in 1976, calling them private. Bill Clinton resisted releasing his health records during his first run in 1992, leading the New York Times doctor-reporter Lawrence K. Altman to declare that the Democrat had been less forthcoming about his health than any presidential nominee in the last 20 years. Clinton continued to resist releasing his full records during his reelection in 1996, which led Republicans to repeatedly raise questions about whether he was hiding a secret health issue. His opponent, Bob Dole, issued detailed medical results and made his doctor available for an interview. Obama initially released a one-page letter from his doctor in 2008 with no supporting documents, then later released lab tests and echocardiograms. His opponent, John McCain, gave reporters several hours to review 1,200 pages of health records. The release of health records has not been standardized practice compared with the release of tax records, which is common for candidates (with the notable exception of Trump, who has declined to release his). Although 96% of respondents in a 2004 Gallup poll said the presidents health was important, 61% of respondents said presidents should have a right to choose to keep their health records private like everyone else. Without a legal mechanism to force disclosure for such records, you really need the public to hold them accountable, said Robert Streiffer, associate professor of bioethics and medical history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But the bar for disclosure should be high, Streiffer said. He defined the threshold as a condition that has a significant chance of seriously undermining the persons ability to perform the core competencies of the presidency if they are elected. Former White House physician Lawrence C. Mohr said that althought the American people are entitled to know the health status of their president and presidential candidates ... the release of any medical information has to be the decision of the candidate and not the doctor. If disclosure happens, Mohr said, the information should be accurate, it should be complete, it should be timely, and it should include whatever medicine is being prescribed, and the physician should offer some prognosis about how long it will take to get well. Mohr, who was a White House physician during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, said public understanding was also an important part of disclosure. Just because a president has an illness doesnt mean thats a disqualifying factor if that illness can be effectively treated, Mohr said, pointing to Roosevelts long years in office. The things that are really important, Mohr said, are not the name of the illness or the specific diagnosis, but whether the president can think clearly, act appropriately and communicate effectively. Email: matt.pearce@latimes.com Follow me on Twitter: @mattdpearce It was bound to happen. President Trump has become the worlds most-watched coronavirus test subject. This is the guy who said, dont concern yourself about the virus it will go away. This is the guy who made a point of carrying a mask but rarely wearing it. This is the guy who brought his supporters together in big rallies, outdoors and indoors. Now hes got it. Trump is a confessed germophobe. He doesnt even like to shake hands. I suspect that he is scared half out of his wits, but it wouldnt be part of the Trump facade to demonstrate anything but confidence. In fact, he has to put on a brave face, politically. Its a month from election day. People are already voting. Its the worst possible time to be in the penalty box, because his base wants him out there, being defiant, being personal in front of large crowds and having fun. He cant do that now. And it is going to cost him. Reset: California Sen. Kamala Harris is scheduled to be on her biggest campaign stage to date Wednesday in a debate with Vice President Mike Pence. Harris demeanor wasnt always consistent in the primary debates last year. The Democratic ticket will be best served this week if she strives for presidential, rather than playing the attack dog or tossing out canned zingers that come off as contrived and phony. Particularly after last weeks debacle, in which President Trump made a mockery of the first presidential debate, Harris will win simply by quietly and in a measured way displaying her intelligence and sobriety. And no matter what Pence says, she needs to appear respectful of the office and be the grownup in the room. Plain talk: Joe Biden did better than I expected in the debate, but he still came across as a bit befuddled at times. Assuming there is another debate, he can turn his sometimes halting approach into a plus. He should open by explaining frankly that he sometimes has difficulty because of a stuttering problem that he has worked hard to overcome. It could go something like, This is not easy for me at times, because I stutter. Donald Trump says Im suffering from dementia. The truth is, its all part of the challenge I have lived with for years. If you know anyone who has the challenge of having a stutter, you will understand. This kind of frank talk would instantly put the issue of his slow, deliberate and at times confusing syntax to rest. It could also knock back Trump a few steps out of the gate. Table time: I had lunch with former Supervisor Jane Kim the other day at Johns Grill. She arrived on an e-bike. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. We havent seen much of Kim since her mayoral run. Shes working for a housing nonprofit. But after talking with her, Im convinced she still has the bug for elected office. So dont be surprised if you see her running again, perhaps for Nancy Pelosis seat should the speaker ever retire. I also had lunch recently with Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting. Hes raising money and gathering endorsements for the state controllers job. Old friends with new faces: I ran into former Chronicle reporter and current supervisorial candidate Steve LuLu Schwartz outside Caffe Greco the other day. Schwartz was resplendent in a tight dark-purple miniskirt, black fishnet stockings and 3-inch nails. Hey Willie, my wife asked me after the debate if the Proud Boys are a gay group, Schwartz said. Whaddya think of that? What did I think? Just another day in North Beach. Want to sound off? Email: wbrown@sfchronicle.com By PTI NARSINGHPUR: A policeman has been arrested in Madhya Pradesh's Narsinghpur district for allegedly not registering a Dalit "rape victim's" complaint for four days, following which she ended her life, a top officer said on Saturday. The arrest was made after Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took serious cognisance of the alleged lapse and ordered that a case be registered against the local police official. Two senior officials were also shunted out as per the orders. The woman, who was allegedly raped by three men four days ago, died by suicide on Friday, police said. An official in Bhopal said that Chouhan had ordered on Friday night that Assistant Inspector of Police (ASI) Mishrilal Kodapa of Gotitoriya police outpost in Gadarwara tehsil, some 50 kms from Narsinghpur district headquarters, should be booked and arrested for not registering the victim's complaint of gang-rape. Besides, as per the orders, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rajesh Tiwari and Gadarwara Sub Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) S R Yadav were shunted out from Narsinghpur, he said. "A case was registered against Kodapa and he was arrested under 166 (c) (public servant failing to record information) of IPC on Friday night," Jabalpur Zone Inspector General of Police Bhagwat Singh Chauhan told PTI. The ASP and the SDOP have been transferred from Narsinghpur, he added. Kodapa had been suspended on Friday after a video went viral in social media, in which the husband of the deceased woman accused the policeman of not registering a complaint of rape, police said. The man was purportedly heard saying in the audio- visual clip that instead of taking action in the case, he was held based on a complaint lodged by the accused and had to cough up Rs 50,000 as a bribe for his release. "Three men identified as Arvind and Parsu Choudhary, who belonged to the same community as the victim, and another accused Anil Rai, allegedly gang-raped the 32-year old woman on Monday. They trio has been arrested," Narsinghpur SP Ajay Singh said. According to police, the accused allegedly raped the woman when she was in a field cutting grass for the cattle. The police, however, said on Friday that the woman's two nieces said that the accused caught hold of her and teased her, but did not confirm that she was raped. As per the girls' version, when they raised an alarm, the accused fled from the spot, police added. SDOP Yadav, who has been shunted out, had said on Friday that the woman and her husband had orally complained to the police on the same day but there was no clarity in the complaint. On Friday, when the victim went to fetch water from a tap, a local woman had allegedly taunted her, after which the victim returned home and hanged herself, police said. Police said they have have already arrested that woman. "Besides, Motilal, Arvind's father, too, was arrested under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) as he had said something insulting to the woman," Yadav had said. After the Dalit woman hanged herself, the police registered a case of gang rape against the three accused on Friday after four days. Ana de Armas revealed that her Knives Out co-star Jamie Lee Curtis helped her land the role of Marilyn Monroe in the upcoming film Blonde. 'She is my biggest cheerleader,' said the 32-year-old actress of Jamie Lee in the latest issue of Flaunt magazine. 'I showed her my screen test for Marilyn and of course I had on like a random wig they found which didn't fit me, so-so makeup and so-so wardrobe but even then, seeing me in the part like that, she got very excited.' 'My biggest cheerleader': Ana de Armas (pictured) revealed that her Knives Out co-star Jamie Lee Curtis helped her land the role of Marilyn Monroe in the upcoming film Blonde Ana added that playing Marilyn in Blonde, which is based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, was 'very intense.' The fame she has experienced so far has helped her relate to Marilyn. 'It was her worst nightmare,' said de Armas. She was radiant in fall fashion from Saint Laurent while talking about the challenges of being in lockdown in Los Angeles away from her family in Cuba as she gets used to her newfound fame. The girlfriend of Ben Affleck is promoting the next James Bond film No Time To Die. 'I feel I have been talking Bond for so long now,' said the star as the film has been delayed several times due to COVID-19. The current release date is November 11 in the US. 'It's been such a long time coming.' Collaborators: Jamie Lee and Ana are pictured together in Knives Out alongside their co-star Don Johnson of Miami Vice fame The way she was: The real Marilyn Monroe is pictured on the set of her last movie The Misfits which bowed in 1961, the year before her tragic death New images: Ana is smoldering in her latest photo shoot. The 32-year-old beauty was radiant in fall fashion for the latest issue of Flaunt magazine A new life: The versatile actress talked about being away from her family in Cuba and dealing with fame in Los Angeles The star - whose full name is Ana Celia de Armas Caso - added that she is happy the movie theaters are now opening up and they 'finally' get a chance to 'celebrate all the hard work.' Ana stars as CIA agent Paloma. The pinup, who wore Tiffany & Co T1 jewelry for her Flaunt shoot, added that she does not know if she will see her co-stars for a big party when the film is released, but added it is Daniel Craig's last Bond movie and that is a 'big deal.' Ready for release: The star is promoting the next James Bond film No Time To Die; seen with Daniel Craig 007 time: 'I feel I have been talking Bond for so long now,' said the star as the film has been delayed several times due to COVID-19. 'It's been such a long time coming' Bond beauty: She added that she is happy the movie theaters are now opening up and they 'finally' get a chance to 'celebrate all the hard work' Ana is still adjusting to life in the spotlight. Being away from her family while on lockdown in Los Angeles has been hard on her. 'I miss my family so much,' said the star whose relatives are in Cuba. 'It's a different experience for me to be in LA,' she said. The actress is often photographed walking her dog or being next to her Dark Water costar Affleck whom she has been dating this year. The two have not been photographed together in months as he has been in Ireland making The Last Duel with Matt Damon. Then Ana said she did not think of fame before she started acting. 'It is just a consequence of my job,' said the star matter of factly. Stunning in citrine: Ana stars as CIA agent Paloma. The star added that she does not know if she will see her co-stars for a big party but added it is Daniel Craig's last Bond movie and that is a 'big deal.' Away from her loves: Being away from her family while on lockdown in Los Angeles has been hard on her. 'I miss my family so much,' said the star whose relatives are in Cuba Hard on her: 'It's a different experience for me to be in LA,' she said But there is BEN: The actress is often photographed walking her dog or being next to her Dark Water costar Ben Affleck whom she has been dating this year The fame game: With her beau Ben in July in LA. Ana said she did not think of fame before she started acting Rational: 'It is just a consequence of my job,' said the star matter of factly She also talked her breakout role in Knives Out, an ensemble murder mystery with Don Johnson. When she got the offer all it said was she was going to play a 'Latina, caretaker, pretty.' 'I really pay attention to what that little description is,' she said. 'I'm sure whoever did it wasn't thinking about what that mean but for me, I was just like, "Oh no, I'm not doing this!" What do you mean, "Latina, caretaker, pretty?"' Life as Ana: The fame she has experienced so far has helped her relate to Marilyn Monroe Fame is hard: 'It was her worst nightmare,' said de Armas, who has had to research Monroe Next: Ana also shared that her Knives Out co-star Jamie Lee Curtis helped her land the role of Marilyn Monroe in the upcoming film Blonde And she added she is very proud of being Latina. 'Even if you are playing a Latina, not all Latinas are the same... I want to think and believe that I can play anybody, anywhere in the world because the stories I want to tell are universal.' When she read the script she was thrilled and felt comfortable with her character that she describes as a 'diamond' but she was 'terrified' as her insecurities about her talent and her ability to speak English well crept in. De Armas also said, 'I think there needs to be a push for better roles for Latinas overall.' As far as her next project, there is nothing due to COVID and she hopes 2021 will be better. The star also mentioned a Knives Out sequel which she hopes will happen. Portland officials used an emergency aid agreement with a questionable promise of indemnity to request help during protests from six police agencies in May and June, including two Washington agencies, emails from Mayor Ted Wheelers public safety adviser show. The agreement not intended for policing only applies to agencies and resources that are within Oregon, the Oregon Office of Emergency Management confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive Wednesday. The agreement contains no guidelines for use of force or who is liable if force is used. U.S President Donald Trump holds an event to announce his nominee of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett - REUTERS The Republican Partys plan to push through the confirmation of Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee before the election has been thrown into doubt by the new coronavirus outbreak in Washington DC. Party leaders have been determined to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed by the Senate while they still have the majority, something that could change depending on the results of the November 3 election. The hearings were already hugely controversial, with Republicans accused of pushing through Mr Trump's nomination to stitch up a conservative majority on the court for a generation. Two politicians who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds hearings where the nominee is grilled and must be approved before a vote of the full Senate, have tested positive for Covid-19. Mike Lee, the Republican senator for Utah, and Thom Tillis, the Republican senator for North Carolina, both announced on Friday that they had caught the virus, with other senators scrambling to get tested. The first day of the committees in-person hearings is scheduled for October 12, just a little over a week away. On Saturday one more senators tested positive. Senior Democratic senators who are bitterly opposed to Republican attempts to force through the confirmation before the election called for an immediate delay. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, tweeted: It is irresponsible and dangerous to move forward with a hearing, and there is absolutely no good reason to do so. It is possible that Mr Lee and Mr Tillis, who are both self-isolating, could dial into the hearing remotely - something that has been seen regularly in committee hearings during the pandemic - and vote by proxy. However Mr Schumer joined with Dianne Feinstein, the most senior Democratic senator on the committee, to voice oppose that idea. There is bipartisan agreement that a virtual confirmation hearing for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench is not an acceptable substitute, the two senators said. Story continues The process is being dictated by the Republicans, because of their Senate majority, and they indicated there would be no change to the timetable. Full steam ahead with the fair, thorough, timely process that the nominee, the [Supreme] Court and the country deserve, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, tweeted on Friday, having said he discussed the confirmation process with Donald Trump. Mr McConnell also said during an interview on Hugh Hewitts radio show the same day that there needs to be an all hands on deck mindset from Republicans because they are unlikely to get any votes from Democratic senators. Ron Johnson yesterday became the third Republican senator to announce a positive test for Covid-19 in this latest outbreak. He is not on the Senate Judiciary Committee but would take part in any final full Senate vote. The confirmation is of huge significance to the future of the country. If Republicans can get Ms Barrett confirmed before the election they will have extended the conservative majority on the countrys top court on the land. Ms Barrett, a devout Catholic and conservative, would fill the seat vacant due to the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was the most liberal justice on the court. It would take the conservative majority on the court to six justices to three. Given Ms Barrett is only 48, she could conceivably be on the court for another three decades or more. Critics fear the court would be more likely to water down abortion rights and Barack Obamas health care legislation if she gains a seat. However if the Republicans fail to confirm her until after November 3, the politics could change. If the Democrats win either the White House or the Senate, or both, then Republicans would be under immense pressure to stop pursuing the confirmation. Should Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, take office at the inauguration on January 20 and the seat was still open then he would in all likelihood nominate a different, liberal judge more in line with Ms Ginsburgs positions. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate compared to 47 for the Democrats and independents. Just four Republican rebels could likely block the confirmation even before the election, given a tie is decided by US vice president Mike Pence. Only two Republicans have voiced their opposition to a confirmation before the election. However if Covid-19 spreads further than feared it is possible other Republican senators would be unable to vote in person for the final full Senate vote. A Republican Senate aide was quoted telling the Wall Street Journal: Its a razor-thin margin. If anyone else in the Republican caucus gets sick this week, we have lit ourselves on fire. Ms Barrett tested negative for coronavirus on Friday. There were US media reports that she had the virus earlier in the year, which could mean she is less likely to catch it a second time. Wallops Island [US], October 3 (ANI): A commercial cargo spacecraft bound for the (ISS) launched on Thursday night carrying the name of deceased astronaut Kalpana "K.C." Chawla, the first Indian-born woman to enter space, for her key contributions to human spaceflight. The S.S. launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 09:38 p.m. EDT. The spacecraft, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus, will arrive at and be attached to the space station two days later. On the NG-14 mission, the S.S. will deliver approximately 3,630 kilograms of cargo to the station. Research flying aboard the Cygnus includes the test of a biologic drug that could be used for the treatment of leukemia, a plant growth study that will cultivate radishes as a model for future crops in space, a compact toilet for astronauts to use on deep-space exploration missions and a 360-degree virtual reality camera that will be used to film during a spacewalk for an immersive cinematic production. Robyn Gatens, acting director of the at headquarters, said that the flight is carrying 6,000 pounds of cargo including refined radishes and a 3D camera, that's going to go on the outside of the space station to take images when the crew is doing a spacewalk. "Well, we've got a little bit of everything on this flight we've got 6000 pounds of cargo going up, we have the. We have several things enabling future exploration missions, beyond the space station, so our missions to the moon and to Mars. Not only do we have the toilet, that you've heard about but we have another one in our series of fire safety experiments called Sapphire, we have a component of our new spacesuit that we'll be testing in microgravity on the space station," Gatens said. "We have an advanced particulate monitor to measure airborne particulates and several things than that. That's going to help us enable future exploration missions. We also have science experiments. So we have, we have cancer research going on on this on this flight rehab. We have refined radishes. In our advanced plant habitats. And then we have outreach," Gatens added. Melissa McKinley, project manager for the universal waste management systems project, elaborated about the newly-designed toilet which was sent to the station on a cargo ship. The toilet is "Smaller than you know usually what's the primary concept for this project is to reduce mass and volume for exploration missions. With that in mind, the UW MS is 65% smaller and 40% lighter than the current toilet on ISS. If you think of it in terms of the toilet at your house it's similar in size, except that it doesn't have a tank behind it so it's very similar to a unit you might see here on the ground, but obviously much more complex," Mckinley said. When the spacecraft lift off its launchpad atop a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket it marked a special moment for many, including Kalpana's husband. "I would say that Kalpana would be very flattered that this rocket is named after her," Jean Pierre Harrison told ANI. In an interview he further added that the launch even had a larger context, "Indians can compete with the rest of the world to be successful." NASA Smaller than you know usually what's the primary concept for this project is to reduce mass and volume for exploration missions. With that in mind, the UW MS is 65% smaller and 40% lighter than the current toilet on ISS. If you think of it in terms of the toilet at your house it's similar in size, except that it doesn't have a tank behind it so it's very similar to a unit you might see here on the ground, but obviously much more complex. While Chawla made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the space program, her legacy lives on. She has not only inspired her colleagues but also many back in India, to follow in her footsteps. Her final research conducted onboard Columbia helped understand astronaut health and safety during spaceflight. Robert Curbeam, Kalpana's fellow astronaut friend and now the Vice President Business Development, Tactical Space Systems Division for Northrop Grumman spoke to ANI remembering Kalpana. "She was an absolutely brilliant woman. And I am so proud to count her as a friend. I think the most important thing we learned from the Columbia disaster was that the hardware talks to you. And when things don't act as they're designed to act, you have to pay very very close attention because all the different pieces of the spacecraft interact with one another." Northrop Grumman, an American global aerospace and defence technology company said that this mission is named after Chawla in memory of the mission specialist who died with her six crewmates aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 2003 Northrop Grumman stated that it is proud to celebrate the life of Kalpana Chawla and her dream of flying through the air and in space. "It is the company's tradition to name each Cygnus after an individual who has played a pivotal role in human spaceflight," said Northrop Grumman. Born in Haryana, India, Chawla moved to the United States to earn her master's and doctorate degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas in 1984 and the University of Colorado in 1988, respectively. She then began her career at NASA, conducting research in fluid dynamics at the Ames Research Center in California. After becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, Chawla applied for and became a NASA astronaut as a member of "The Flying Escargot," NASA's 15th class of trainees. In 1997, she launched on STS-87, a 15-day shuttle mission that was dedicated to the science flying as part of the fourth United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-4). Chawla's second spaceflight, STS-107, came to a tragic end on February 1, 2003, following 16 days of conducting science onboard the space shuttle Columbia. A small piece of foam that struck the orbiter's left wing during launch created a hole that went undetected during the mission. Upon Columbia's return to Earth, hot plasma entered the wing, tearing it apart, and the resulting loss of control led to the vehicle disintegrating and the death of the crew. (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.) In a nutshell: On Friday, President Trump announced on Twitter that he had contracted the coronavirus. Twitter has subsequently placed a ban on tweets that express a desire for Trump's death. Offending users will have their tweets deleted and their accounts placed in a "read only" mode, and repeat offenders will have their accounts suspended. Twitter has referenced an "Abusive behavior" rule they implemented in April. It explicitly states: "we do not tolerate content that wishes, hopes or expresses a desire for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against an individual or group of people." Twitter's rationale ascribes the rule's importance to the need to "facilitate healthy dialogue on the platform, and [to] empower individuals to express diverse opinions and beliefs." They state that this "abusive behavior may also lead to physical and emotional hardship for those affected." Twitter told Motherboard that they "wont take enforcement action on every Tweet," which, from a quick peruse of the #Trump page, would be a difficult undertaking. Instead, theyre "prioritizing the removal of content when it has a clear call to action that could potentially cause real-world harm." For example, perhaps dont suggest to Trump that he should inject bleach as a cure. However, slightly vaguer tweets like the one below appear to be permissible. My thoughts are with the virus at this difficult time Watch that Space (@slimtimcann) October 2, 2020 Intriguingly, Facebook isn't enforcing the same rules as Twitter in this case. Although Facebook doesn't generally allow such dark content, they make an exception for public characters, including politicians. As long as there's no threat of violence or personal attack, theres no violation of Facebooks rules. Hence, if you dont tag Trump in whatever insult you'd like to level against him, you wont get deleted. Trump is presently suffering "mild" symptoms according to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, while Lawrence Kudlow, the director of the national economic council, has described his case as "very moderate." The president is receiving treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Photograph by Charles Deluvio A part-time primary school teacher and entrepreneur from Essex has shared how the spirit of her local community and getting on Instagram helped get her business back on track. Heather Syrett, 28 and from Leigh-on-Sea, runs Leigh Calligraphy which specialises in calligraphy design and workshops. Her passion for the craft started in 2017, when she wanted to design her own wedding invitations, signage and table decor, and so taught herself the art of calligraphy using videos and books. Heather Syrett runs Leigh Calligraphy, which specialises in calligraphy design and workshops She soon became hooked and set up her own classes to teach others, started exhibiting at arts and crafts festivals and designing stationery for weddings. After two successful years and ever-increasing demand, Heather decided to take the leap and go part-time at the school she worked at in order to focus more on the business at the end of 2019. However, just months later, the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide lockdown hit and meant her two biggest sources of income - workshops and weddings - were put on hold. 'The coronavirus had a huge impact on my business. I had to cancel all the workshops, most of which were sold out, and so I had to give a lot of refunds,' she says. 'They are my main income from the business, and I earn around 1,000 per month from them, so being unable to book dates for later in the year was really detrimental. 'Luckily, most attendees opted to save their ticket for a future workshop but not knowing when I was safely going to be able to host them again was a weight on my shoulders. Before coronavirus, Heather ran two-hour calligraphy workshops which often sold out 'On top of this, I had to hit pause on all of my wedding orders - which includes invitations, place cards, table plans welcome signs - which is my second biggest income, particularly in the spring and summer months.' This additional blow came after specific Government rules which banned large weddings and led to many being postponed or cancelled altogether. In the latest update, the Government said from 28 September, only 15 people, including the couple, can 'attend a marriage or civil partnership, where this can be safely accommodated with social distancing in a Covid-19 venue'. Heather also collaborates with others in the wedding industry to put together styled shoots to give ideas to those looking for inspiration for their big day, but this has also come to a halt due to Covid. Falling through the Covid support net Heather is one of those who slipped through the net of government income support schemes. She had recently cut her hours as a full-time teacher and was unable to take advantage of any of the Government small business support schemes. Heather says: 'Leigh Calligraphy had grown so much over the first two years so I decided to reduce my teaching to three days a week in September 2019, just a few months before Covid-19 hit. 'I was ineligible for any grant or government support because during the first two years of self-assessment for my business, my business income was less than 50 per cent of my overall income as I was teaching full-time.' I feel almost punished for taking a leap and putting more time into working for myself While her overall income fell significantly when the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March, Heather said she knows she is lucky as she was still receiving her teaching salary and her husband was still working and so the mortgage and other household bills were still covered. She adds: 'It's a shame though, that I seem to have fallen through a support gap having only just reduced my hours at school and I feel almost punished for taking a leap and putting more time into working for myself.' Instagram: a supportive hub for SMEs Leigh-on-sea is a close-knit town, says Heather, and it boasts a network of small businesses and independent shops, meaning she was able to keep going and keep growing, after an initial setback. 'I am so lucky to have such a supportive community who already love to shop small. 'We have some fantastic local pop-up craft markets where I have showcased my work over the years so people already know me and follow me on social media.' Prior to lockdown, Heather often showcased her work at craft fairs and markets across Essex Instagram has been an important tool throughout Heather's entrepreneurial journey as it started off as a platform to showcase her new hobby before becoming a marketplace for customers to buy products and book workshops. During lockdown, when the nation found themselves at home and with nothing to do, some took up baking bread, crocheting and other weird and wonderful skills, while others turned to calligraphy. Heather adds: 'There has been a huge drive to support local, small businesses with lots of people wanting to learn new skills at home with more spare time inside. 'I therefore set up a pre-recorded online workshop where people would be sent their calligraphy beginners kit and worksheets in the post, then watch the online video in their own time. 'They have lifetime access to the video so they can go back and practise whenever they like. I had a fair amount of sign-ups which was a great way for me to still make a small income. 'But I wouldn't have been able to market any of this without social media and followers sharing my page. Instagram has been a great supportive hub for small businesses during lockdown.' Personal touches and a positive outlook The platform will also be pivotal for Heather to showcase her new products, which she has used her own time at home to develop. She spent much of lockdown improving and learning new skills, as well as designing new wedding stationery, greetings cards, and Christmas products, the latter of which she hopes will help make up some of her losses when Christmas season approaches. Heather spent her lockdown learning how to engrave items such as fragrance bottles 'Customers not being able to go out to shop at the start of lockdown, meant they turned to small businesses like mine for thoughtful birthday and anniversary gifts,' she adds. 'I was lucky to get some commissions for bespoke birthday cards and personalised calligraphy gifts. 'This local support instantly gave me the confidence to continue to grow and develop my product range and so my time at home was not wasted worrying about what might happen.' Heather also spent some of her lockdown learning how to do free-hand electric calligraphy engraving onto items such as champagne and fragrance bottles. She said: 'This is already opening doors to collaborating with some exciting big companies, so this "time out" should pay off in the future.' 'My personalised Christmas range is already available on my website and Not On The High Street and I have lots of new and exciting products this year. 'Orders are already coming in for Christmas gifts as I think people need something to look forward to after such a horrible year.' Though the year has undoubtedly been tough - as it has been for everyone across the world, and for different reasons - Heather has remained positive and hopeful that things will return to 'normal' eventually. Leigh Calligraphy's personalised gifts are now available to buy on Not On The High Street She says: 'The unknown has not been easy and it has been terrible timing in terms of the stage my business is at and not being able to get any financial government support but I am by no means the worst affected. 'I am keeping positive that things will be back to how they once were and people will be able to enjoy birthdays, weddings and other events with their loved ones again soon.' New online outreach offers Chickasaw information, interaction during public health crisis This article appeared in the October 2020 edition of the Chickasaw Times Connecting our Community offers a wealth of great information to Chickasaws across the country. The web page is an online outreach that brings Chickasaws and our communities together. Connecting our Community provides information on Chickasaw history, culture, language, healthy recipes and much more. During this time of responsible distancing, Chickasaw.net/COC offers a new way to connect and get informed. No matter where you are in the world, you can always stay connected with the Chickasaw Nation, Gov. Bill Anoatubby expresses on the page. Chickasaws live in all 50 states and 10 different countries, he said. In this fast-paced world where technology is ever changing, there are many ways to stay informed. We are committed to providing the most up-to-date information regarding programs, services, events, news and more to keep Chickasaws informed and engaged. The Connecting our Community page has something for everyone. Most of the content is presented in a series of short videos. Videos share information about a variety of topics from health and wellness to cultural and cooking resources. New videos are added weekly. Fitness & wellness The fitness & wellness videos offer conversations regarding physical and mental health. The category features workout tips for all ages plus ways to stay mentally fit while at home. The videos in this section address mental health, grief, depression and general wellness. A series of videos guides the viewer through working out at home. Another explores elder fitness. A handful of martial arts lessons are mixed in. Home & community Looking for new recipes and ways to spruce up your home? Healthy meals and treats for the whole family, tips for home maintenance, guides to crafting your own face masks and more are available with home & community videos. Recipes and lessons are offered through the GetFresh! Program. GetFresh! promotes healthy eating habits and versatile cooking techniques through recipe demonstrations, nutrition education and wellness tips. Medical news Health experts discuss the latest and most up-to-date medical news and updates in the medical news section of Connecting our Community. There you can view video interviews with Chickasaw Nation doctors, nurses and health employees on the continued efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This section features a survivors story, COVID-19 testing and safety tips for shopping. Chickasaw culture To watch videos with lessons about the Chickasaw Homeland and history, visit the Chickasaw culture section of Connecting our Community. Available videos explore topics including regalia, language, dance, art and music. Much of the content here comes in the form of conversations with Chickasaw artists, musicians and citizens. Youth & family Videos ranging from stories to lessons and tips to keep youth and families engaged can be found in the youth & family section. You can listen to Chickasaw tales regarding the crayfish, red-headed woodpecker, the duck and coyote, and the creation story, among others. Conversations with students and professionals offer insight into what its like to attend college and enter the workforce today. New Delhi, Oct 3 : Union minister Piyush Goyal has said that India needs to move beyond exporting raw materials and improve its manufacturing capabilities to supply high-quality products to the world. He said that 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' effectively is all about building Indian capabilities, quality, scale, implementing good manufacturing practices, bringing best of technologies along with improving the standards that Indians expect in India. Goyal said in a video posted on his Twitter handle that India will have to identify areas in which it can excel and become a major global supplier. "We will have to identify areas where sensible policies can help us get there. As the Prime Minister said on August 15, look at areas where we need to create value...where we can go beyond exporting raw materials," the minister said. Elucidating his stress on exporting more of finished products compared to raw materials he said that China's production of steel is way higher than India and it imports iron ore from India, although it has its own reserves. "India at 100 million tonnes of steel, China at 800 million tonnes of steel and even then I think we are the second largest manufacturer. Look at the gap and we are exporting iron ore to China," he said. "I am told China has iron ore but they are conserving it. Can we think of some smart options?" He also said India can provide a "true partnership" to the world in terms of supplies and make the global supply chain more resilient and foolproof. (Natural News) The federal government has overruled a request by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to end the deputization of local law enforcement officers, which continue to battle Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa mobs throughout the city. After earlier marching with protesters to show solidarity for George Floyd and other black criminals who reportedly died during encounters with police officers, Wheeler is now insistent that Portland be allowed to burn while police officers stand idly by and watch it all happen. In case you are unfamiliar with the term, deputization means that law enforcement officers from other agencies and divisions can now provide aid in the fight to restore law and order in Portland. They are permitted to perform arrests that have the option to include federal charges, particularly when apprehended individuals are charged with harming police officers. According to reports, 56 Multnomah County Sheriffs deputies and Portland police officers, including a mix of officers, sergeants and lieutenants, were deputized last weekend a move that was intended to hold violent criminal protesters accountable for committing serious crimes under the guise of free speech. It also aims to protect law enforcement officers from continued violent aggression, which has resulted in many of them being harmed over the past several months. Law enforcement and law-abiding citizens of Portland have endured months of nightly criminal violence and destruction, said Billy Williams, U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, and Ross Burger, U.S. marshal for the District of Oregon, in a joint statement. Officers have been repeatedly assaulted with bottles, bats, sledgehammers, lasers, rocks, and other weapons of convenience. In addition, the public has seen repeated efforts by criminals to burn down public buildings. Despite normally lasting a year, this deputization is scheduled to last only through the end of 2020. It reportedly has nothing to do with Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, whom you may recall announced back in August that some people apprehended during protests in Portland would not be facing criminal charges. Should law enforcement maintain deputization status in Portland indefinitely? Wheeler, however, who currently serves as police commissioner, does not approve of this deputization. He indicated in a statement that law and order is basically not a priority in Portland, adding that there are already systems in place to deal with protesters who assault or otherwise harm police officers. Portland is fortunate the Governor and the Multnomah County Sheriff helped protect public safety this weekend, including by federally deputizing some Portland Police officers, Wheeler is quoted as saying. Now that Governor Browns executive order has expired, Ive asked the U.S. Attorneys office to withdraw the designation. The executive order that Wheeler referred to was issued by Gov. Kate Brown in anticipation of a violent confrontation between the so-called Proud Boys group and BLM protesters during a planned rally. Dozens of BLM demonstrators ended up being arrested, and Brown proceeded to rescind the order after the night passed. Law enforcement, however, wants to keep its deputization status indefinitely, which Wheeler says is a no-go. A key feature of the designation is that anyone who assaults a federally deputized official could be subject to federal charges, he explained. Fortunately, I am confident the Multnomah County District Attorney will continue to prosecute anyone who assaults or otherwise harms police officers or others. I take assaults against our officers seriously and so does the district attorney. We need to end the violence. Anyone engaging in illegal violent behavior, regardless of their beliefs or position, must be held accountable. For more related news about the ongoing BLM and Antifa violence that plagues Portland, be sure to check out CivilWar.news. Sources for this article include: TheEpochTimes.com NaturalNews.com Prince Rupert has a long and storied history in the seafood industry, once home to large-scale commercial fishing operations, canneries and processing plants. But much of that history is just that history. Now, Coastal Shellfish, an Indigenous aquaculture company, is slowly changing the tides as it builds its business and sells its first product: Great Bear Scallops. Prince Rupert produces some of the most iconic seafood in the world, Michael Uehara, president and CEO of the company, said in an interview. Coastal First Nations an alliance of nine nations on B.C.s central and north coast started exploring the viability of shellfish aquaculture in the region in 2003, testing various species including oysters and geoducks. In 2013, the nations formed Coastal Shellfish, with Metlakatla First Nation as the majority owner, and started producing scallops. Three-quarters of employees are Indigenous. The decision to focus on scallops was based on sustainability, Uehara said. Scallops are filter feeders, so farming them in the ocean means they clean the water while they grow. Our idea essentially establishes what amounts to a restorative ocean patch that would create ecological benefits, but more importantly, not create ecological harm, and delivers, at least calorically, a tremendous amount of sustenance. Coastal Shellfish operates a hatchery and ocean farm sites, and last year opened a processing plant. Uehara said its the first seafood plant on the north coast to open its doors in about 15 years. A couple of years ago, I said that once we started selling scallops live in Prince Rupert, we would become the live scallop capital of North America by virtue of the fact that nobody else is doing it, he said with a laugh. The concept of establishing sustainable Indigenous-led businesses on the West Coast was a prominent part of the Great Bear Rainforest Act, an agreement between the B.C. government, the Coastal First Nations and other First Nations whose territories are within the area. The agreement became official in 2016 and had been in the works since the late 1990s. The agreement includes land and marine use management plans, which were announced in 2006. As part of these plans, the provincial and federal governments each contributed $30 million to support conservation and sustainable economic development projects, matching $60 million contributed by philanthropists and conservation groups. The donors, governments and First Nations agreed to set up a trust called Coast Funds to administer the money to Indigenous projects that meet the goals of the agreement. Coastal Shellfish was the first project Coast Funds supported. Brodie Guy, executive director of Coast Funds, said the trust has invested $4.7 million to date in Coastal Shellfish, including providing funding last year to support the development of the processing plant. He added the intent of all this investment is to shift the north coast economy from one based on extraction by outside interests to one that is driven by local and First Nations interests. Coastal Shellfish is really an amazing result of the vision that communities had 20 years ago, he said. Uehara said seeing the vision become reality is gratifying. Our goal has been fairly ambitious to produce an economy of inclusion for Indigenous communities in coastal British Columbia, Uehara said. And quite frankly, nothing says inclusion like ownership. Marine biologist Brian Kingzett is vice-president of the company and runs the technical side of operations. He said the project has had its fair share of challenges. Scallop larvae are microscopic and extremely sensitive. If you look at them sideways, they die, he said in an interview. Scallops produce as many as 30 million eggs in a single spawning event, he said. The idea is that one will survive. To successfully grow scallops for a commercial operation, the Coastal Shellfish technical team had to figure out how to increase that survival rate. In the hatchery environment, naturally occurring bacteria in the water can either sustain the scallops or kill them. It took years of trial and error to determine the right mixture of bacteria that allows the animals to survive and thrive. Weve found a recipe of probiotic marine bacteria just like the probiotics in your yogurt, Kingzett said. In the hatchery, the scallops also need a food source. They have very high nutritional requirements, so we spend most of our time actually growing the food, the phytoplankton that we feed them, he said. From the hatchery, the shellfish are transferred to the ocean, where they are susceptible to the smallest changes in the marine environment. Were a lot like a terrestrial farmer trying to learn what his farm will do, except we cant add nutrients to the soil, Kingzett said. Unlike farming fish such as salmon, shellfish aquaculture poses very little ecological risk. Farmed fish are fed a variety of ingredients in pellet form, while farmed shellfish get their food from the natural environment. Wasted pellets and faeces from farmed fish enter the marine landscape and can cause the oxygen content of the water to decrease, impacting other aquatic species. Fish aquaculture also introduces chemicals into the ocean from feed, disease treatments and cleaning products used on containment structures. Farmed salmon in particular can transfer diseases and sea lice to wild salmon. Farmed fish can also escape from containment areas and compete with wild populations. The very nature of shellfish like scallops means the chance of escape is slim. And in restorative aquaculture operations like Coastal Shellfish, sustaining the natural ecosystem is embedded in the process. Because there are very few scallop aquaculture operations in North America, Coastal Shellfish has largely had to rely on ingenuity to achieve success. The company recently hired a young biologist from Hokkaido, Japan, with experience in scallop aquaculture. At least on the farming side, were trying to borrow more tech and ideas from Japan, where its very well established, Kingzett said. He added that there are still a lot of unknowns, but Coastal Shellfish has steadily increased its operations and the product itself is quickly becoming a sought-after item in high-end Vancouver restaurants. While Vancouver makes up a large part of Coastal Shellfishs market, Uehara stressed the importance of creating food security in the northwest and pointed to the pandemic as an indicator of that need. B.C. imports much of what ends up on grocery store shelves in the early days of the pandemic, a lot of those shelves were suddenly empty. Were facing incidental shortages of things that we have no idea where they came from, Uehara said. I think we owe it to ourselves to start exploring the possibility of supplying ourselves. Kingzett agreed and said its a global issue. Were gonna hit 10 billion people whether we like it or not by 2050. And because seafood consumption is increasing rapidly, the pressure on the worlds oceans is huge. The commercial fishing industry in northwest B.C. still exists, but much of what is caught is shipped south for processing and isnt available to locals. The long and short of it is the seafood economy of Prince Rupert and the north coast is a shadow of its former self, Kingzett said. How do you revive that local seafood economy? Look for long-term sustainability. Weve got a history of resource extraction, either in wood or fish or mining or whatever, and to a certain degree thats still happening, Kingzett said. The idea here is to hit all pillars of sustainability. The new plant is located in a former fish processing plant and offers jobs to people who previously worked there. Before the plant opened, Coastal Shellfish wasnt able to sell the live scallops directly to local businesses because they had to first go through a licensed plant. The nearest plant was in Vancouver, 16 hours away by truck. As soon as the company opened the local plant, its first customer was Daisuke Fukasaku, owner and chef of Fukasaku restaurant on Prince Ruperts waterfront. The focus of my business is sustainability and locality, he said in an interview. The first thing I want to do is to show my customers how fresh scallops are. So having scallops on the shell in my fridge is one of my greatest appreciations. Before Coastal Shellfish, Fukasaku could only buy scallops from Vancouver, after theyd been shucked and cleaned. All I wanted was scallops in the shell. Now, he proudly features the product on his menu. They have [a] really great mindset, he said of the people behind Coastal Shellfish. I always have fun working with them and they support my business in so many ways. We are like good partners, like best partners. Uehara said Coastal Shellfish has been steadily selling scallops to several local businesses. I was so happy to see that the local consumers here have become a viable part of the market. One unlikely customer is the local brewery, Wheelhouse Brewing. Head brewer Craig Outhet wanted to try reviving an old beer recipe hed stumbled upon. He said the history of oyster stouts goes back to Victorian times, when oysters were a bar snack. In the 1920s, some breweries in New Zealand started adding oysters directly into their stouts during the brewing process, he said in an interview. Outhet thought it would be interesting to try substituting scallops for oysters, so he bought a large quantity from Coastal Shellfish, shucked and cleaned them, and put them in during mashing, the first part of the brewing process. I took the scallops out of the mash and they were warm and partially cooked, so I ate them and they were good. When he transferred the partially brewed beer to the kettle, it had already acquired a strong briny flavour. He had intended to add a number of shells but found he didnt need to. Now I use a lot less scallops than Id originally intended and I eat them all. Uehara said he hasnt tried the stout but is a regular Fukasaku customer. With local and regional markets established and growing, Coastal Shellfish is starting to explore expansion plans and the possibility of producing other species. The company is also looking into vertical farming, which involves suspending apparatuses at different levels in the water. Coastal Shellfish is considering farming kelp and sea urchins, also known as zombie urchins due to their insatiable appetite for kelp. When sea otters were hunted to near-extinction in the 19th century, sea urchins suddenly had no predators and decimated kelp forests. While sea otters have made a comeback, there is still an imbalance in the ecosystem, which the company thinks it could help rectify. Kingzett said the idea is to take the urchins out of the fishery, bring them to the vertical ocean farm and feed them with farmed kelp until theyre big enough to sell. Sea urchin gonads, known as uni, are a delicacy in Japan and popular in sushi. Kingzett said he can grow more kelp in Prince Rupert than anywhere on the coast because of its clean, cold and productive waters but doesnt have a market to sell it. By using farmed kelp to feed urchins, the company could provide a solution that not only helps the ecosystem but also continues to build a sustainable local economy. The idea is to use what were doing with the scallops as the backbone of rebuilding this Indigenous-driven seafood economy. Read more about: (Newser) A pair of right-wing operatives are facing serious charges in Michigan that could put them behind bars for years, the Washington Post reports. Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkmanfamed for their conspiracy theories and aggressive tacticsallegedly intimidated urban voters with robocalls designed to suppress mail-in voting. The calls targeted nearly 12,000 people in Detroit and falsely warned residents that personal information put on the ballots would be given to credit card companies collecting debt, police following up warrants, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enforcing mandatory vaccines. The caller, claiming to be from a civil rights group, urged people not to be "finessed into giving your private information to the man." Hear the robocall here. story continues below "Any effort to interfere with, intimidate or intentionally mislead Michigan voters will be met with swift and severe consequences," said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Officials in Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania say similar calls reached urban voters in their states. Now Wohl and Burkman have been charged in Michigan with four felony courts of conspiring to violate election law, intimidating voters, and using a computer to commit a crime. They face up to 12 years each. Back in August, the pair denied any involvement in the scheme: "We've never done any robocalls," Wohl told CNN. "We are categorically uninvolved." They are yet to be arraigned in Michigan and might be formally extradited if they don't appear on their own, per Nessel's office. (Read more robocalls stories.) Some locals in Shillelagh say they are worried about the upkeep of the historic graveyard beside Aghowle Church. While Aghowle church and its neighbouring High Cross are national monuments under the care of the Irish State, the graveyard itself falls under the guardianship of the local authority. There is a concern among some local people that an increase in overgrown grass in the graveyard area could suggest that it is becoming neglected. They say they are worried this long grass is obscuring an important part of the county's built heritage and creating hazards for visitors to the area. Aghowle Church is situated about 6km outside of Shillelagh off a country lane on the Tullow Road leading close to the Wicklow/Carlow county border. The ruins of the the church are a striking feature of this rural landscape. Its stand nestled among agricultural lands that have been in use for almost 1,500 years, according to research. Coolkenno man and archaeologist Colm O'Rouke said the land has also been home to a monastery, which is reputed to have been founded by St Finian in the 6th century. As Colm explained, the story is that St Finian asked the King of Leinster for a piece of land on which to build a monastery. He started building it on a hill above Aghowle, however, 'his cape blew off and it landed down here in an orchard of apple trees,' Colm said. The area has a long history as a place of worship, but the church that stands there now was built in the 12th century. At various stages in its history, both Catholics and Protestants used the church building to practice their faith. This is reflected in the graveyard itself, which contains the graves of people of both denominations. Colm has built a database of the names recorded on the headstones and his research also includes the Coolattin estate and local parish records. A website is being constructed and Colm currently shares local stories on the 'History of Coolkenno' Facebook page. The oldest headstone in the cemetery dates backs to the 17th century and there are also medieval stone crosses in the graveyard. These small stone markers are national monuments, yet some are hidden beneath the long grass in sections of the graveyard. When this reporter visited, a number of local people spoke of their concerns that visitors may slip on small grave markers hidden in the grass. Aside from the safety concerns, the upkeep of the graveyard is important, Colm said, because it is part of the stories about the area. 'If the community doesn't have its stories, it has no character. Landscape archaeology is very important. We have to remember in a hundred years' time, we won't be here, no one will remember us so who were the people here before us? 'We have the evidence here that there were people here 1,500 years before us, a monastery flourishing and there's no evidence of them today, bar the church and its grounds. It shows we are only guests in this area,' Colm said. A committee was formed in 2012 to look after the graveyard beside Aghowle Church. Their efforts have included the erection of a monument to remember those who were buried on the outside of the graveyard walls, including unbaptised children. Members of the community at the graveyard on the day of this reporter's visit spoke very positively of the work carried out by the National Monuments Service to look after the ruins of the church building and the High Cross. Referring to photos of the church from the 1920s when it was covered in ivy, Colm said the National Monuments Service has 'maintained [it] quite well. They touch it up when stones start bulging, they do an amazing job here.' Aghowle Church was built in the Romanesque style in the 12th century. Its roof and one side wall may have collapsed, but it is still an imposing structure. Stone dogs were carved on the exterior, possibly to ward off evil and point to the sanctuary available inside the church's walls. There is also evidence in the interior of an upstairs gallery area. Two local families used part of the ruins as a private crypt. A local story says that the wall collapsed due to the Big Wind of 1839, however, Colm said evidence suggests the church was in ruins before this. 'We believe the families buried in there, the Nixons and the Hodsons, pulled down the wall or it was starting to crumble and they pulled it down to build a private crypt. The local story had been the night of the big wind had knocked the wall, but that's not the case.' Behind the Church is the 4m-tall High Cross, which was carved from granite, There are no ornate carvings on the cross as are seen on other examples of High Crosses, possibly due to the difficulty of carving granite. Records suggest the high cross was damaged in the early 20th century and repaired by the National Monuments Service. Colm said he has always been interested in the history of the area and its stories. 'I used to study for my Leaving Cert up here. I've always been interested in history and the history of the church always fascinated me.' 'It was quite a wealthy part of Ireland in the medieval period. The King of Leinster was based in Ferns and we can see the evidence of a strong community around here.' Colm said the church's design suggests there was a lot of wealth in the area at the time it was built. However, later years were not as kind to this corner of south Wicklow. The area 'got hit very badly here during the famine period. With the assisted emigration from the Fitzwilliam estate, hundreds went to Canada from this area.' The ruins of the Aghowle Church are listed among the county's attractions for visitors, however, the site's location in a rural area along the Wicklow/Carlow border may mean it is slightly off the beaten track for some tourists. It is visible from the Wicklow Way which skirts nearby. Despite this, the church is very popular with the descendants of people who emigrated from the south Wicklow area and settled in Canada and America. Many come across the church and its graveyard as part of their research into their family history. Councillor Vincent Blake said: 'Nowadays people in America look at it and even if they never get there, at least they know there is some history to it; if it's derelict, it looks bad,' The graveyard is still visited by people in the area, including Michael Carty whose parents are buried there. He said: 'I'd like to see it kept decent'. Tommy Byrne said the council cut the grass in the graveyard 'once a year, but it was getting less every year due to the ditches growing in. Years ago it was all cut, but it ended up they were only cutting a little bit in the middle.' A worker on a community employment scheme had been assigned to cut the grass and look after the graveyard, but some locals said they are concerned this is unsustainable into the future. The Covid-19 crisis has also had an effect on the maintenance of the old cemetery. Councillor Blake, who has family members buried in the graveyard, said part of the issue is a lack of personnel on Community Employment Schemes due to other job opportunities in the area. He said he would like to see Wicklow County Council, the National Monument Service and the community come together to maintain Aghowle graveyard over the longer term. 'This is the early days of what we are trying to get done. It's impossible doing [maintenance] once a year. If you come in now, it's going to take two weeks to get it back in order. But if someone comes here every two to three months and does a bit of work, it's easier to maintain. 'It's about the council, the National Monuments Service and the community working together to keep it in some shape. You're never going to be able to straighten every headstone, but at least you keep it in some order.' For someone unfamiliar with the Wicklow/Carlor border area, Aghowle Church is not the easiest place to find. This reporter had to stop twice to ask for directions after taking a wrong turn. In 2019, a grant allowed for five signs to be erected to guide visitors to the ruins of the church, which dates back to the 12th century. A sign erected outside the site by the National Monuments Service gives some history of Aghowle Church, but there is a worry that the stories associated with it and the local area could be lost over time. 'I know from my age group, a lot don't know of these stories,' Colm said. 'This is happening across Ireland, these stories and legends are getting lost. I created a Facebook page and I wanted to put these stories out, even if something happens to me, the stories are down for the next generation for someone who is interested in history and they can have the stories.' 'People are very attached and proud of the area, if you have your history and stories passed down, you have that character,' Colm said. At the time of going to print, Wicklow County Council had not yet responded to questions from this paper about the maintenance of the old graveyard beside Aghowle Church. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Three persons including a dentist with the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital and a television actor were arrested by the Fort police for allegedly sending photoshopped nude pictures of a housewife in Varkala to her husband and his relatives. The arrested men were identified as Dr Subu, serial actor Jaseer Khan and Sreejith who was involved in giving fake SIM cards to Subu and Jaseer. According to the police, Subu is the kingpin as the complainant was his cousin. Jaseer had morphed her image. Sreejith had handed over the SIM cards to the duo for sending fake obscene pictures to the complainant's relatives. According to the police, the woman and her husband were living separately for the past three months and their married life was on the verge of collapse. The woman used to tell her worries to Subu. However, Subu had malicious intentions on her and hence wanted the woman and her husband to get divorced. Therefore, he sought the help of Jaseer and Sreejith to make morphed nude pictures of the woman, police said. "When they got fake SIM cards from Sreejith, they started sending these pictures to her husband and relatives via Whatsapp so that Subu thought that her husband would divorce her legally and he could enter her life. Incidentally, she approached the police with a complaint along with Subu. She was unaware about his intentions. On the basis of her complaint, we have investigated and got digital evidence that Subu, Jaseer and Sreejith were guilty," said J Rakesh, Fort CI. The police have charged them under Section, 67, 67 A of IT act, Section 409 (criminal breach of trust) and Section 416 (punishment for cheating by impersonating) of the Indian Penal Code. The arrest was recorded by the team led by Fort Assistant Commissioner of Police R Prathapan Nair. The accused landed in the police net after the SIM card numbers were traced. Though the SIM was originally owned by a person from Vattappara, police got evidence that Sreejith had managed to get a duplicate of the SIM card. The arrested were later remanded in judicial custody for 14 days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who travelled from the South Portal of Atal Tunnel in Rohtang to the North Portal in Sissu of Lahaul Valley after its inauguration on Saturday, said it is a historic day for the residents of the area as they will benefit in many ways. With the construction of Atal Tunnel, the farmers of Lahaul-Spiti and Pangi, people associated with horticulture, cattle-rearers, students and traders will benefit, he said during his address in Sissu. He also said the tunnel will connect the youth of this entire region with many employment opportunities. Tunnel will help provide new markets for handicrafts, other products from Himachals Lahaul-Spiti region, he also said. Further lauding the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for the construction of the tunnel, PM Modi said, Transformation has been brought in governance and the policies are no more based on votes. But they are aimed at development of all. Also read: PM Modi questions previous regimes over Ladakhs Daulat Beg Oldi, says they compromised on security Our government is committed to giving basic amenities to all sections of the society, he also said. Named after former prime minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Atal tunnel has been built at the altitude of 3,000 metres from the mean sea level. The tunnel reduces the road distance between Manali and Leh by 46km. It has been built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas. It will remain open throughout the year as opposed to the valley being cut off for about six months every year amid heavy snowfall. The single tube double lane tunnel with a roadway of 8 metres and an overhead clearance of 5.525 metres is horse-shoe shaped and has been designed for a traffic density of 3,000 cars per day and 1,500 trucks per day with a maximum speed of 80 km/hr, according to a statement by the Prime Ministers Office. Unrest has reached Agra as clashes broke out briefly between Valmiki community members and the policemen over Hathras incident today afternoon. Scores of Valmiki community members who were protesting against the 19-year-old woman's gang rape, murder and police's inaction clashed with the cops on Saturday. Twitter Visuals of the clash showed angry protesters throwing stones at the police and shouting slogans, while dozens of cops, equipped with riot gear and lathis, tried to restore order. Some visuals purportedly showed that thee Valmiki community members from Rajnagar in Lohamandi reached the municipal corporation office and pelted stones at the civic body's garbage collection vehicles at around 12 noon. Twitter The violence has been contained for now but there are significant police forces still deployed in the area. Adequate police force has reached the incident site with senior officials. Efforts are underway to restore normalcy and law and order, a statement by Agra police said. The incident wherein a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras by four men on September 14 has been widely condemned across the country. Paper cranes folded by an Arklow artist are due to go on show as part of the latest exhibition at Arkow Visual Arts Gallery. Local origami artist Michaela Bertsch has spent the last few months folding 1,000 paper cranes, also known as peace cranes. The origami crane has become a symbol of peace due to the story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who was at Hiroshima when the bomb fell.Sadako Sasaki, spent her last 14 months in hospital folding cranes in the hope that her wish to get well and bring peace to the world would come true. Former Irish president Mary Robinson has encouraged people to fold paper cranes to mark the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US forces with nuclear weapons. Japanese folklore says the person who folds 1,000 paper cranes will have a wish granted. Earlier in the year, Michaela made a tropical island out of folded paper. Her origami cranes will be among the works by local artists on show at the Arklow Visual Arts Gallery's member exhibition which continues until Friday, October 5 at their Main Street premises. The gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entry is free and all are welcome to come along and admire the art on display. She appeared as a new judge on MasterChef Australia alongside Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo this year. And on Saturday, fan favourite Melissa Leong said she feels 'very fortunate' viewers of the show resonated positively to the revamped season. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the chef, 38, said: 'We feel very fortunate and continue every day to thank our lucky stars the audience resonated so positively with it.' 'We continue every day to thank our lucky stars': MasterChef's Melissa Leong (pictured) said she 'feels very fortunate fans resonated positively' to the revamped season of the show 'In many ways MasterChef Australia belongs to its audience, the audience has been with this show for over a decade, they have loved every moment of it, they have shouted it from the rooftops, they've applied to compete and won,' she added. Melissa is also set to appear on Junior MasterChef alongside her co-judges Andy and Jock, and said she's 'very excited to meet the talented kids'. 'We were all just so excited and enthusiastic for the idea of it but then in practice, meeting these super-talented little juniors and observing their excitement for life and new discovery and for everything the show entails, it was such a beacon of light for us three,' she said. She said: 'We feel very fortunate and continue every day to thank our lucky stars the audience resonated so positively with it' Melissa and co-stars Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo replaced veteran judges George Calombaris, Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston on MasterChef in April. The former trio had previously hosted MasterChef for 11 years before being dumped by Channel 10 in July 2019 after reports of a pay dispute. Last month, Melissa told The Weekend Australian she's 'very humbled' by the show's success. New roles: Melissa and co-stars Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo replaced veteran judges George Calombaris, Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston on MasterChef in April According to the publication, the average live-to-air and catch-up audience was 1,105,000 viewers - representing a 45 per cent increase to last year. The food writer and TV personality of Singaporean heritage said: 'Ratings aren't really within our control... (but) it's a wonderful thing to feel that it has resonated with the viewers in Australia and overseas.' Melissa also recently hinted she would be returning for the thirteenth season of the show, after this year's season was a surprise ratings smash. 'I'm very open-minded to the possibility of doing MasterChef season 13,' she told Who magazine, but didn't confirm her spot on the next season. Documentarian Michael Moore suggests Donald Trump may be faking his coronavirus diagnosis to garner sympathy before the election. Trump political advisor Hope Hicks, as well as another White House staffer and two reporters working in the White House also have tested positive since Mr Trump was diagnosed. (Getty Images North America) Documentarian and left-wing activist Michael Moore has floated a conspiracy theory on his Facebook page that suggested Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis was faked. Mr Moore justified his scepticism of Mr Trump's diagnosis by citing the president's many lies and incorrect statements. "There is one absolute truth about Trump: He is a consistent, absolute, unrelenting, fearless, and professional liar. A serial liar. A factually proven liar. How many lies now has the Washington Post proven in these four years? 25,000? A lie at least twice during every waking hour? Think of all the bad people youve known in your life. Even the worst ones you couldnt say that about.," he wrote. Mr Moore then asked "so why on earth would we believe him today? Has he earned your trust now?" He pondered why Mr Trump would "all of a sudden just start telling the truth." "Why would you believe him now?" he asked. "...Trump has a history of lying about his health. His longtime New York doctor, Dr Bornstein, admitted a few years ago that Trump dictated his perfect doctors letter during the 2016 campaign. Then there was the White House doctor who said Trump could live 200 years! What about his lying about that emergency trip to Walter Reed to complete his physical? Mr Moore said that Mr Trump may have the virus, but said the president lying about the virus had to be considered. He went on to speculate as to why Mr Trump would fake having the virus after spending months downplaying its danger and publicly undermining guidelines meant to mitigate its spread. Mr Moore believes the president is responding to polling data that suggests he is falling behind his campaign rival in the 2020 US election, Democrat Joe Biden. Under Mr Moore's theory, Mr Trump hopes to change the media narrative and garner sympathy amoung the public by pretending to have the virus. "Democrats, liberals, the media and others have always been wrong to simply treat him as a buffoon and a dummy and a jackass. Yes, he is all those things. But hes also canny. Hes clever. He outfoxed Comey. He outfoxed Mueller. He outfoxed 20 Republicans in the GOP primary and then did the same to the Democrats, winning the White House despite receiving fewer votes than his opponent," Mr Moore wrote. "Hes an evil genius and I raise the possibility of him lying about having Covid-19 to prepare us and counteract his game. He knows being sick tends to gain one sympathy. Hes not above weaponizing this." Story continues He then went on to claim that Mr Trump may use his potentially phony diagnosis to attempt to delay or otherwise postpone the election. Mr Moore notes that the US Constitution does not grant the president the power to move the election, but says Mr Trump and his administration will simply ignore it. "He and his thug Attorney General Barr have no shame and will stop at nothing to stay in power. He may even use this as an excuse for losing," Mr Moore wrote. He concluded by admitting that Mr Trump "probably does" have Covid-19, and calling on voters to stick to their plans to vote and to be sceptical about what they read and hear. He then offered his well-wishes - mixed with a sizeable amount of indignation - to Mr Trump. "Finally, on a personal note: Stay alive Mr. President. Your exit from public life must happen in the right and decent way. You have many years to live. You have a child to raise. Grandchildren who need you. A base that loves you," Mr Moore wrote. "And the families of nearly the quarter-million dead who might be alive today had you done your job, had you cared, had you not played politics with people's lives. Over 200,000 lost souls and YOU KNEW! You told Woodward in February it was a plague. 200,000 dead because of decisions you made, because you denigrated science and ignored the doctors." Just before Mr Trump and First Lady Melania Trump announced their diagnosis, White House staffer Hope Hicks tested positive for Covid-19. Since their diagnosis, several other individuals in Mr Trump's orbit over the past few days have tested positive as well, including the president of Notre Dame, a White House staffer, and two reporters who work in the White House. Read more Trump coronavirus news - live: Doctors reveal Trump on cocktail of drugs with 'cough, fever' and fatigue Cleveland reports at least 11 cases of coronavirus linked to presidential debate Contact tracing teams stationed across Victoria are set to become permanent fixtures of the health system, working to contain outbreaks ranging from influenza to sexually transmitted infections and food poisoning. The Department of Health is working on a plan for contact tracing teams to run surveillance on communicable diseases beyond the coronavirus pandemic while remaining on standby to respond to future pandemics. The Barwon Health contact tracing team at work. Credit:Jason South Local contact tracing teams, embedded in COVID regional response units, have proven instrumental in controlling coronavirus clusters in regional Victoria particularly those overseen by the Barwon Health network in the south-west of the state. There are now just two active cases recorded in regional Victoria. WASHINGTON - The Latest on coronavirus infections hitting President Donald Trump and others in his circle (all times EDT): 6 p.m. President Donald Trump has told his longtime friend and sometimes lawyer Rudy Giuliani that hes going to beat the coronavirus. The New York Post says Trump called Giuliani on Saturday to assure him hes doing fine following a sobering assessment from the White House chief of staff. Trump reportedly told Giuliani on the call: I feel I could get out of here right now. But theyre telling me there can always be a backstep with this disease. But I feel I could go out and do a rally. Trump also reportedly explained that he continued to engage in high-risk activity despite the pandemic because hes the president of the United States. I cant lock myself in a room. I had to confront (the virus) so the American people stopped being afraid of it so we could deal with it responsibly. He also said he hopes that by beating the virus he will be able to show people we can deal with this disease responsibly, but we shouldnt be afraid of it. Trump is being treated around the clock by a team of doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. ___ 5:45 p.m. Joe Biden says he urged some governors who wanted to endorse his presidential campaign to refrain from doing so because the Trump administration might retaliate by withholding medical supplies critical to COVID-19 relief. Addressing a virtual town hall of the Amalgamated Transit Union town hall from Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday, Biden said, I probably shouldnt say this. I told some governors, dont endorse me who wanted to endorse me. Dont endorse me because youll pay a penalty, Biden said. You wont get what you need from the federal government in terms of COVID prep. He added: Not a joke, my word. Bidens campaign has drawn the support of some leading Republicans who have broken ranks against their own party and President Donald Trump. Asked what he would do differently in handling the coronavirus pandemic than Trump, Biden responded, I dont want to be attacking the president and the first lady now because they now have contracted the coronavirus. Jill and I pray for their quick and full recovery, he added, referring to his wife, Jill. ___ 5:30 p.m. With President Donald Trump in the hospital, his campaign is launching an effort its calling Operation MAGA to maintain momentum. The operation entails a full marshalling of top-level surrogates, campaign coalitions and Trump supporters to carry the campaign until Trump can return to the trail, according to a campaign statement. Vice-President Mike Pence and Trumps family will be prime players in the effort, which will feature a series of online events leading up to Wednesdays vice-presidential debate before moving to in-person events. Its unclear how the new plan differs from the campaigns operations before Trump was hospitalized. Pence and the first family was already actively campaigning. Pence outlined the effort in an all-staff conference call Saturday afternoon with campaign manager Bill Stepien, who has also been diagnosed with COVID-19. I want to encourage you to stay in the fight, Pence told the staff. ___ 2:55 p.m. President Donald Trump says hes feeling well and has voiced his appreciation for the medical professionals treating him for COVID-19 at a military hospital. On Saturday, Trump tweeted, Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!! He also says, With their help, I am feeling well! It comes as White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Trump went through a very concerning period Friday and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. Trumps doctors painted a rosy picture of the presidents health in a press conference at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. But the briefing raised more questions than it answered. The White House says Trump is expected to stay at the hospital for a few days and would continue to work from the hospitals presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties. ___ 1 p.m. A person familiar with President Donald Trumps medical condition says the president had been administered supplemental oxygen at the White House on Friday before he was hospitalized. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The revelation follows a press conference by Trumps doctors where they refused to confirm the president had been on oxygen following his COVID-19 diagnosis Thursday. The doctors would only say that Trump was not on oxygen at the hospital. First lady Melania Trump also has tested positive for COVID-19 and is recovering at home. ___ 1 p.m. White House doctors said President Donald Trump began exhibiting clinical indications of COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon, earlier than previously known. Trumps doctors held a press conference Saturday at Walter Reed Medical Center, where the president was transported Friday. They said he was doing very well and his symptoms were improving. However, a person familiar with the presidents illness said Trumps condition was very concerning but he has been improving since going to the hospital. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. Trump sent a tweet around 1 a.m. Friday confirming he had been diagnosed with coronavirus, along with first lady Melania Trump. On Thursday evening, Trump called into Fox News host Sean Hannitys show, where he discussed aide Hope Hicks diagnosis and that he had been tested for the illness. But he did not say whether he had suffered symptoms. A statement from Trumps doctors early Friday did not mention the president having symptoms. ___ 1 p.m. Presidential aide and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has tweeted that hes tested positive for COVID-19. Christie said Saturday that he will be receiving medical attention and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition. He did not say whether he had symptoms. Christie had said the last time he was with President Donald Trump was Tuesday during preparations for the first debate with former Vice-President Joe Biden in Cleveland. He was not at Trumps Bedminster fundraiser in New Jersey on Thursday. He had tweeted Friday morning that he had last tested negative ahead of Tuesdays debate. ___ 12:30 p.m. Senate Republicans have cancelled legislative work until Oct. 19 as the coronavirus sweeps through their ranks and lawmakers increasingly call for comprehensive testing on Capitol Hill. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Saturday that confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett are still on. One by one, President Donald Trump and a series of GOP lawmakers have fallen ill with the virus that has killed more than 208,000 Americans. Over the last week, many of the politicians who tested positive attended events at which few people wore masks and mingled in the halls and tunnels of the Capitol complex. Just since Friday morning, Trump, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin announced that they have tested positive. The Senate was to reconvene this week ahead of its confirmation proceedings for Barrett. McConnell has said those hearings, scheduled to begin Oct. 12, are full steam ahead. ___ 12:15 p.m. A person familiar with President Donald Trumps COVID-19 illness says some of his vital signs over the past 24 hours were very concerning but theyve improved since he was admitted to a military hospital. The person has knowledge of the presidents medical condition but was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. It contradicted Trumps doctors, who said during a press conference Saturday that the president was doing very well and felt as though he could walk out of a military hospital. They said he had not been on oxygen Saturday or when he was with their medical team Friday, and that his symptoms were subsiding. Trump was admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday after saying he had contracted COVID-19. First lady Melania Trump also has fallen ill. The person described the next 48 hours as critical and said there was no clear path yet on a recovery and that it could be days before he was discharged. ___ 12 p.m. President Donald Trumps doctors say the president is doing well, is fever-free and isnt having difficulty breathing after contracting the coronavirus. Doctors said Saturday that Trump was not on supplemental oxygen, and while he had fatigue, nasal congestion and coughing, his symptoms are now resolving and improving. Dr. Sean Conley, Trumps physician, refused to say whether Trump had been on supplemental oxygen at any point during his illness, saying he was not on it Saturday or Thursday or Friday while he was with the medical team from Walter Reed Medical Center. Trump was transferred to the military hospital on Friday afternoon in what doctors say was a precaution after he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19. He has not transferred powers. Conley says the president has a lot of work to do and is doing it. Doctors say the president told them: I feel like I could walk out of here today. ___ 10:50 a.m. Three Republican congressmen from Minnesota are facing criticism for taking a commercial flight home from Washington just two days after they were on Air Force One with President Donald Trump. Reps. Pete Stauber, Tom Emmer and Jim Hagedorn were on a Delta Air Lines flight Friday night despite its restrictions on passengers recently exposed to COVID-19. Trump announced early Friday that he had tested positive for the virus. Deltas policy says customers who know they were exposed to the virus in the past 14 days cannot travel. The airline defines exposure as face-to-face contact with someone with the virus or sustained contact for more than 15 minutes less than 6 feet (2 metres) apart. State Democratic Party chairman Ken Martin said the three congressmen put the health and safety of other passengers at serious risk. Hagedorn pushed back in a post on his campaign Facebook page Saturday, saying the three men had tested negative and had not been exposed to someone carrying the virus longer than 15 minutes and closer than 6 feet (2 metres). He said they also informed the airline and the flights captain of their situation and Delta made the decision to fly based upon the facts. Delta spokeswoman Gina Laughlin told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the flight was less than 40% full and that no one left the plane before it took off to protest the mens presence. ___ 10:20 a.m. The White House says President Donald Trumps doctor will provide an update on his condition Saturday morning as the president undergoes treatment for COVID-19 symptoms at a military hospital. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany says Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley will address reporters at 11 a.m. from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In a late Friday letter, Conley reported that Trump had been treated at the hospital with remdesivir, an antiviral medication, after taking another experimental drug at the White House. He added that Trump is doing very well and is not requiring any supplemental oxygen. The White House said Trump was expected to stay at the hospital for a few days out of an abundance of caution and that he would continue to work from the hospitals presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties. ___ 10 a.m. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson says hes tested positive for the coronavirus. Johnsons office announced the diagnosis in a statement Saturday. Hes the third Republican senator to report a positive test this week, following Utah Sen. Mike Lee and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. Johnsons announcement is adding to the swirl of tension in Washington since President Donald Trump announced his positive test Friday. Johnson, a second-term Republican, had reported exposure last month to someone who tested positive for COVID-19, and quarantined for 14 days without developing symptoms. Johnson said he tested negative twice during that time. He returned to Washington on Sept. 29 and said he was exposed soon after that to someone who tested positive. Johnson says he was tested Friday afternoon after learning of the exposure, and it came back positive. Johnson said he feels healthy and doesnt have symptoms, but will isolate until cleared by his doctor. She's a doting mother-of-four. And Sadie Frost, 55, made sure to pull out all the stops as she celebrated her actor son Rafferty Law turning 24 on Saturday. During the birthday festivities, the mother and son duo enjoyed some relaxing spa treatments, two meals out and also went to get matching tattoos. Throwback: Sadie Frost marked her son Rafferty Law's 24th birthday on Saturday with a series of sweet throwback snaps, including one with her ex Jude Law Sadie also shared a selection of throwback snaps, including one of Rafferty's father Jude Law with their little boy as a toddler. In the snap Sadie is seen holding Rafferty on her lap while she cradles a cat with her other hand and her ex-husband reaches down for something on the ground. Other pictures posted to Instagram included sweet pictures of the young actor as a child playing with a trumpet at the beach and wearing an eye-patch. While others showed Rafferty with his siblings - Iris, 19, and Rudy, 18. Sadie is also mum to her eldest son Finlay Munro Kemp, 30. Quality time: The mother and son duo enjoyed some spa treatments together on Friday She captioned her gushing post: 'Happy giving birth-day to me.. and happy birthday to Rafferty jellicoe my curly wurly tops @rafflaw. 'You have brought music and laughter to our lovely family.. your energy is infectious and your kindness endless.. we all love you @rafflaw .. have a great day - may all your dreams come true.' Making the most of the birthday weekend, Sadie treated her son to some 111skin treatments in London. Luxury: Birthday boy Rafferty got to have an infra-red treatment during their pampering session Special day: Clearly in good spirits, Sadie and Rafferty showed off their impressive dance moves at the spa The actress shared several snaps showing her and Rafferty appearing to be in good spirits as they sported in face masks during their spa day. Rafferty was also seen having a 'womb-like meditation and infrared' treatment which involved his body being covered by a machine. While in another image the pair showed off their moves and did a 'birthday boogie' while soaking up their luxurious treatments. They also enjoyed a dinner out on Friday, where the birthday boy was presented with a special dessert, and the table sang to him. Making it permanent: Sadie also revealed she was planning on getting a matching tattoo with her son Treats: During dinner on Friday night the table sang happy birthday and Raff was presented with a special treat Relaxed: Rafferty looked suave as he rocked his natural curls while eating some cake at brunch While on Saturday morning Sadie revealed they had gone for brunch, with her son again getting treated to a delicious pudding to mark his special occasion. After filling up on food, Sadie and Rafferty appeared to be making the celebrations a little more permanent with writing 'getting a tattoo to match @rafflaw' In the Stories post someone could be seen drawing a design with a ruler and black pen however it was not clear what the tattoo would be. Rafferty's birthday comes after the action-packed trailer for his upcoming Sky film Twist was released on Wednesday. Mum and me: Sadie shared several sweet throwback snaps to mark her son turning 24 So sweet: She wrote that Rafferty had 'brought music and laughter to our lovely family' in the loving post Putting a modern spin on the classic tale of Oliver Twist, the star-studded production boasts Rafferty in the title role as well as Michael Caine, 87, as gang mastermind Fagin. A first look at the film shows Rafferty as a graffiti artist in London before he catches the eye of a leather-clad Rita Ora in her cool portray of Dodger. Twist brings Dickens' iconic novel into the 21st Century, as a group of street smart young hustlers plan the heist of the century for the ultimate payday in the heart of bustling London. Traditionally a male character, Artful - the assumed name of child criminal Jack Dawkins - was originally presented as an adept pickpocket, famed for his incredible skill in separating unsuspecting victims from their wallets and purses. Happy birthday! Rafferty's mum Sadie shared several throwback snaps to when he was a toddler to mark him turning 24 Cutie: The Twist actor was seen sporting an eye-patch around his sweet blonde curls in one Growing up: Another picture showed Rafferty as a child holding a guitar But in keeping with the new film's present day setting, the character's criminal background has been appropriately tweaked - along with his gender. The film's cast was announced in October 2019, just as production was underway. A source close to the project told MailOnline: 'Shooting for the new film starts today and everyone is very excited to get started. 'Rafferty impressed with his screen presence and his edginess brings a whole new dimension to the role of Oliver. All together: Sadie included one snap of Rafferty with siblings Iris and Rudy Proud mum: Sadie wrote 'happy giving birth-day to me.. and happy birthday to Rafferty jellicoe my curly wurly tops @rafflaw' alongside her post 'It's an all-star cast with David in the mix after arriving at today's first rehearsal not to mention Rita and Sir Michael Caine.' Rafferty added: 'I'm excited to play such a well-loved literary character. 'I'm looking forward to working with Martin Owen to bring to life his new take on the character in modern-day London.' The film will be available on the Sky Cinema pay-TV service on the same day as its theatrical release, according to Variety, though a set date is yet to be revealed. CHRISTIANSBURG Montgomery County is partnering with a small Southwest Virginia company in hopes of improving available bandwidths in pockets that still have little to no access to high-speed internet. The county is awaiting a decision on a nearly $1 million grant that it is requesting from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Developments Virginia Telecommunication Initiative. The county partnered with the company GigaBeam Networks and the New River Valley Regional Commission to submit the grant application. The $1.4 million project will target the eastern Montgomery County communities of Elliston, Shawsville, Lafayette and Alleghany Springs. Of that projected amount, $919,569 is slated to be covered with grant money. The county will provide a 10% match, while GigaBeam will match the rest via a combination of cash and in-kind contributions. The project would mark the first real step in the countys most recent call to close the existing internet service gaps across the locality. The collaboration also comes as county officials have raised concerns about whether local students who have had to move much of their school work online due to classroom restrictions prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have access to adequate internet. The partnership comes just months after the completion of a study that found that the portion of the Montgomery County and Radford population unserved by high-speed internet falls at 7.6%, which is slightly above the national rate of 6%. The report highlighted that rate while pointing out Montgomery Countys role as an economic and innovative hub for Southwest Virginia. The communities the project aims to first serve comprise nearly 1,300 households, according to an estimate in the broadband report. While the partnership was formalized in August, GigaBeam founder and President Michael Clemons did appear before the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors last week to speak about the companys history and services. We strongly believe this partnership is the only way to do it, to do it feasibly, said Clemons, whose company has offices in Rich Creek and Bluefield. If a private company could do it on their own, they would have already built it but the numbers just dont work. You have to have something to make up the difference. Clemons comment was in reference to the need for grant money to address rural areas. He also said the often conservative approach from major providers in sparsely populated communities, where returns on their broadband investments arent as immediate as in larger localities. GigaBeam specializes in fixed wireless broadband, which utilizes equipment on fixtures such as poles to transmit signals to a stationary antenna at a customers home. The antenna is wired to the home, Clemons said. With plans starting at $45 a month, the companys typical fixed wireless package provides speeds to the home of 10 to 50 megabits per second. The Federal Communications Commission defines broadband the general term for high-speed internet as at least 25 megabits. Clemons told supervisors this past week that there are plans to raise the speed of the minimum package and that his company will provide 100 megabits soon. For comparison, leading local provider Shentel runs its 50 megabit package in Christiansburg at $65 a month, but the plan does include a discount of $25 for each of the first two months, according to an advertisement on the companys website. The equipment GigaBeam is looking to use in Montgomery County is capable of providing top-tier speeds but at more affordable costs than fiber-based internet, Clemons said. Fiber, which Clemons said allows for the best overall service on the market, is the cable conduit often associated with top speeds such as 1 gigabit. Clemons, however, did note that his equipment does come with some drawbacks such as needing a direct line of sight. If a trees in the way, it doesnt work, he told supervisors. Clemons said the tentative Montgomery County project would specifically employ a hybrid network, which will provide fiber to the more densely populated areas and then extend the service to the rural pockets using fixed wireless. The county and its partners expect to know by either December or January if theyve been awarded the grant. What were talking about is helping almost 1,300 homes. Its very exciting. Its a start, said Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve Fijalkowski. I know our citizens have been looking for something to happen. Unfortunately, it does take time. Theres a lot of planning involved, including with GigaBeam. Fijalkowski said he hopes the activity drives some competition and spurs the larger providers to expand their own broadband offerings in the future. Im very hopeful that it does spur competition and that other internet service providers come forward and want to do other things, he said. But what it takes is probably somebody like GigaBeam to take that step. While the bigger goal is to extend high-speed internet availability in numerous pockets identified in the countys broadband report, GigaBeam is already providing some services to the locality. The company is providing the equipment for 20 hotspots that the county is deploying in some of its most poorly connected areas. The units, part of an existing initiative called Wireless on Wheels, are solar-powered carts that provide a satellite-based connection with a 150-foot radius. County officials say funding for the carts comes from a fraction of the localitys CARES Act allocation, a federal relief package that was passed earlier this year to provide financial relief to institutions, workers and families amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Montgomery County received a total of $17.1 million from the CARES Act, retaining $5 million and distributing the rest to the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg and a local task force that was formed earlier this year to handle much of the local response to the pandemic. County officials say the first wireless cart was slated to be placed at the Longshop McCoy Fire and Rescue Station at the end of this past week. While the speeds provided by the carts wont be exceptionally fast, the service is primarily for email and the downloading and uploading of assignments by local school students, county officials have said.. 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. COMPLETE SCRIPT TO FOLLOW VIDEO SHOWS: INTERVIEW WITH MANCHESTER CITY'S NEW SIGNING RUBEN DIAS / B-ROLL OF DIAS SIGNING CONTRACT AND POSING WITH CITY SHIRT SHOWS: MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, UK (SEPTEMBER 29, 2020) (CITY TV - NO RESALES, DO NOT OBSCURE LOGO) 1. RUBEN DIAS HOLDING MAN CITY SHIRT (OVERLAID WITH QUESTION FROM REPORTER ABOUT HOW IT FEELS TO BE A MAN CITY PLAYER) 2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MAN CITY DEFENDER RUBEN DIAS SAYING: "Thank you it feels really well. For many years I have been watching the Premier League and for the years that have just passed I have seen Man City won, Man City on top, so for me to be here now means that I am on top. That is what I wanted and I am really glad to be here." 3. RUBEN DIAS SIGNING CONTRACT (OVERLAID WITH QUESTION ABOUT WHY HE WANTED TO JOIN THE CLUB / FIRST PART OF SOUNDBITE) 4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MAN CITY DEFENDER RUBEN DIAS SAYING: (PART OVERLAID WITH SIGNING CONTRACT) "Basically that is it, top club and for me to have the opportunity to be at a club like this in this league, it is everything I could ever wanted. So I am happy to be here but also ready to start and a lot of ambition to get it started." 5. DIAS WALKING DOWN TUNNEL AT ETIHAD STADIUM / OVERLAID WITH QUESTION ON HIS PLAYING STYLE 6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MAN CITY DEFENDER RUBEN DIAS SAYING: (PART OVERLAID WITH SIGNING SHIRT) "I am a player that loves to win. I am a player for the team, for the fans, a player that loves this family spirit. I am feeling it a lot since I have been here. And I am an aggressive player. I love what I do and I love the game. That is it. Without getting in much details that is something that you will see when I start playing. I think that the most important thing to start saying is that I love to win. That is the thing that you most need to know about me." STORY: Manchester City have completed the signing of Portugal defender Ruben Dias on a six-year deal from Benfica, the Premier League club said on Tuesday (September 29) as they moved to strengthen their defence two days after a 5-2 home defeat by Leicester City. Story continues Argentine defender Nicolas Otamendi moved the other way as part of the deal, ending a five-year spell with City. Benfica announced earlier that 23-year-old Dias, who has played 19 times for Portugal, had moved for a transfer fee of 68 million euros ($79.83 million) plus 3.6 million in variables while they agreed to pay 15 million euros for Otamendi. City will hope Dias can help solve their problems at the back with six goals conceded in their first two games of the Premier League campaign, having conceded 35 last season which was their worst defensive record in the last three years. (Production: Iain Axon) An Australian health minister has been slammed for taking a swipe at Donald and Melania Trump as the US president was rushed to hospital with COVID-19. The president confirmed the couple tested positive on Friday and Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles sent him a tweet referencing Trump's earlier comments about the potential for disinfectant to be used to fight the virus. 'Have you considered intravenous disinfectant?,' Labor minister Mr Miles wrote on Twitter. Earlier this year, Trump seemed to suggest injecting bleach or disinfectant could have an impact on fighting against coronavirus, for which he was widely mocked. The president has since insisted his remarks during a White House press conference were sarcastic. Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles was slammed over his vile tweet (pictured) directed at Donald Trump after the US president tested positive for coronavirus Mr Miles (pictured) made reference to Trump's earlier comments about injecting disinfectant to fight against COVID-19. His suggestion was labelled 'extremely inappropriate' The president was moved to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on Saturday morning, Friday evening in the US, for COVID-19 treatment. He will remain at the military hospital in Maryland for a 'few days' where the White House said he will be working from the presidential suite while he undergoes tests. An adviser to President Trump revealed there is 'reason for concern' after the president had 'trouble breathing'. 'This is serious,' the source told CNN, stating that Trump was 'very tired, very fatigued'. The White House has stayed mute on the severity of Trump's symptoms and continued to say that the president will be fine yet officials told CNN that his condition was much more severe than First Lady Melania Trump. Mr Miles on Saturday morning said it appeared he'd kicked an 'internet hornet's web' after tweeting at the president. 'I think it gave me a chance to highlight that some of the treatments that he suggested don't work, he won't be using them himself,' he said. 'He as a world leader has repeatedly made ridiculous comments about this disease. 'I won't apologise. I hope he apologises... to everyone who believed him,' Mr Miles said. Mr Miles' followers condemned the Health Minister for his 'disgraceful' tweet. 'Extremely inappropriate and clearly lacking medical understanding,' one user wrote. 'I am completely opposed to Trump. But I would never poke fun at anyone who has caught this disease. 'You're a health minister and should know how this impacts on those post 70,' another commenter said. 'What an inappropriate publication from someone in your role... Absolutely disgraceful. I trust those above you will reconsider your role.' Trump (pictured left) and his wife Melania (right) tested COVID-19 positive on Friday Trump pictured disembarking from the Marine One helicopter after arriving at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where he will be working 'for the next few days' Trump's diagnosis came just days the first presidential debate on Tuesday with Joe Biden, which was slammed as 'outrageous' and 'a dumpster fire' after the pair talked over one another. Queensland has also announced it will open its borders to all of New South Wales from November 1 - as long as the state continues to record zero 'unlinked' cases of community transmission. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on Friday she would consider relaxing the harsh restrictions that have crippled Queensland's tourism industry. But NSW must go 28 days without community transmission of COVID-19 before residents can holiday in the Sunshine State. 'If they do not have any community transmission for 28 days, we said very clearly that at the end of the month we review the plans,' Ms Palaszczuk said. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Queensland Health and Mr Miles for comment. gofundme The Graham family An embattled family who recently lost their home in a wildfire is facing more difficulties after all seven of its members contracted the novel coronavirus. Matthew and Jessica Graham along with their five children: Constantine, 10, Claudia, twins Zoe and Adele, 7, and Darius, 5 tested positive for COVID-19 after their house and barn in Malden, Washington, was destroyed by one of the devastating wildfires ravaging across the west coast, The Spokesman-Review reported. The Grahams started experiencing flu-like symptoms shortly after staying with family following the blaze, according to the outlet. Matthew said he began developing a cough, though he initially thought it was due to the heavy smoke. Jessica told CBS affiliate KREM TV that her family "caught it from my parents and then we spread it to Matthew's mother," who babysat the children after the fire and later tested positive for COVID-19. gofundme The Graham family's home after the fire RELATED: 30th Birthday Bash in Texas Leads to COVID Infections in 18 Family Members: Its Heartbreaking While the children have experienced mild symptoms, Matthew and Jessica said they still continue to suffer from fatigue and partial loss of their sense of taste. "Before our house burned down, we were being really good about isolating and not having that much contact with other people and wearing masks and stuff," Matthew said. "And this thing is totally miserable and you really do not want to catch coronavirus." To make matters worse, the Grahams said before testing positive they also unknowingly infected another family after having dinner with the household of nine. "Its horrible realizing that they reached out to us and have been so welcoming to us, and we spread it [coronavirus] to them," Jessica said. The Grahams have since quarantined themselves at a hotel in Spokane Valley, putting a damper on their plans to find a new home. Story continues "At this point, we really dont have any plans. All that we have are questions that lead to more questions, and no answers anywhere to be found," Matthew said. The Grahams left their house on Labor Day not knowing that a wildfire would shortly burn through their property, according to a GoFundMe page set up in support of the family. "By the time they received news of the mandatory evacuation, it was too late to return home to collect their things," a description for the page read. gofundme The Graham family's home after the fire RELATED: What to Know About the Deadly Wildfires Ravaging the West Coast and How You Can Help Though the fundraiser said in an update that the family recently learned that their dog and chickens survived the fire, they "are having to completely start over" after losing all of their belongings. "Its just surreal, like being in a bad dream and youre like, this cant be real," Jessica told Q13 FOX. Still, the Grahams said they're keeping their heads up during this trying time. This will be a year that we look back on and well all probably be vastly stronger people for it," said Matthew. "At least for us, theres a light at the end of the tunnel, and Ive explained to the kids they should be grateful because there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we just need to get there and not everybody has a light at the end of their tunnel." As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from CDC, WHO, and local public health departments. PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMe to raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, click here. A key government led body designed at underpinning the State's hard pressed small and medium firms sector will have a Longford voice among its ranks over the coming months, in the form of Longford County Councillor Seamus Butler. The experienced local businessman took his place a the first meeting of the Government's new SME Growth Taskforce. The Taskforce, by its design, is composed of a broad range of business people with expertise across a range of sectors, as well as SME representative groups and other individuals all with the aim of breathing new life into the sector. I think when they saw my CV, the fact I have been chair of ISME (Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association) as well as an exporter was appealing to them as one of the things they are looking at is internationalising SMEs, said Cllr Butler. The Fianna Fail group leader inside Longford County Council has long advocated the need for greater supports to be made available to small and medium sized firms. In describing the industry as a cinderella sector of commercial life which has suffered from economic hardship in recent times, Cllr Butler said he hoped his input would help arrest that tide over the weeks and months ahead. I have been over 40 years in business and whatever expertise I can bring to the table I will, he said, adding he also served as President of the Forum on Public Procurement. One aspect of the SME sector Cllr Butler hopes to address is the deluge of bureaucratic red tape companies continue to face. We have one of the most centralised governments there is, he said. For example, Longford County Council can't even buy stationary from ratepayers in its own county. That's the type of nonsense that is going on. The former Chamber of Commerce President also revealed he has since applied for membership to sub committee specifically dealing with entrepreneurship and internationalisation. It's envisaged the forum will press ahead with plans to devise a report by the middle of November as it bids to revive an industry still reeling from the after-effects of Covid-19. According to CSO figures, the SME sector accounts for 99.8pc of business in the economy and employs more than two-thirds of its workers. KEY FACTS 2:48 p.m.: TPH no longer tracing close contacts of people who test positive 1:13 p.m.: Trump given oxygen before admission to hospital, source says 10:49 a.m.: Ontario reports 653 new cases of COVID-19 The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Saturday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available. 9:15 p.m.: As of 8 p.m. Saturday, Ontarios regional public health units are reporting another 684 confirmed or probable COVID-19 cases and three deaths, according to a tally from the Stars Ed Tubb. The seven-day average has increased by 29 to 646 cases a day and to 3.1 deaths a day. That pace, which has been sustained for about 3 weeks or so, would see Ontario averaging around 1,000 cases a day sometime next weekend. Meantime, the seven-day average in Toronto is currently doubling every 8-9 days. 8:30 p.m.: Two nursing homes in Toronto appear to be among the hardest hit long-term-care facilities by a COVID-19 outbreak, in the latest numbers released by the province Saturday morning. The 108-bed Fairview Nursing Home, near Dufferin Street and Dundas Street West, reported 42 residents and 12 staff members testing positive, making it Ontarios largest active outbreak at an LTC home. Less than five deaths have been reported, although its not clear why there isnt a more exact figure. The 130-bed Vermont Square nursing home on Bathurst Street, north of Bloor Street West, reported an active outbreak with 35 confirmed cases 25 residents and 10 staff. No deaths have been reported there. The Stars Akrit Michael has the story. 7:30 p.m. (updated): President Donald Trump went through a very concerning period Friday and faces a critical next two days in his fight against COVID-19 at a military hospital, his chief of staff said Saturday in contrast to a rosier assessment moments earlier by Trump doctors, who took pains not to reveal the president had received supplemental oxygen at the White House before his hospital admission. Trump himself offered an upbeat assessment Saturday evening in a four-minute video from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. While sounding winded, the president said he was beginning to feel better and hoped to be back soon. Hours earlier chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters outside the hospital, Were still not on a clear path yet to a full recovery. The changing, and at times contradictory accounts, created a credibility crisis for the White House at a crucial moment, with the presidents health and the nations leadership on the line. With Trump expected to remain hospitalized several more days and the presidential election looming, his condition is being anxiously watched by Americans. Moreover, the presidents health represents a national security issue of paramount importance not only to the functions of the U.S. government but to countries around the world, friendly and otherwise. 6:18 p.m.: As COVID-19 cases continue rising across the GTA, minor hockey players will have to wait before they can hit the ice again. On Saturday, the Greater Toronto Hockey League announced that it is postponing all sanctioned activities until at least Jan. 1. I think we would be the first to acknowledge that we dont know when the right time to return is, Scott Oakman, executive director and CEO of the league, told the Star. The January date was just to get our organization and parents some degree of certainty in a very uncertain time. Read the story from the Stars Kevin Jiang 5:50 p.m. (updated): Toronto Public Health will no longer reach out to close contacts of people with confirmed COVID-19 infections in the community, to triage resources amid an overwhelming number of new cases in the city. Known as contact tracing, finding and isolating those who have been in contact with people who have tested positive is seen as a crucial part of the strategy to fight the virus in clusters from the White House to local bars and restaurants. Outside of outbreak settings, the agency will now focus on finding people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 through a lab test, assessing their symptoms and determining if they can self-isolate away from others, said spokesperson Lenore Bromley in an email, Saturday. Read the story from the Stars May Warren. 5:40 p.m.: Toronto is reporting an additional 326 cases as of 2 p.m. Friday, for a total of 20,473. The city is reporting 17 more people in hospitals for a total of 85. There are no new deaths and 222 more people have recovered for a total of 16,842. 4:30 p.m.: A man who travelled from Central Africa to western Newfoundland has died while in self isolation after being diagnosed as the provinces latest case of COVID-19. A release from the province says the man was between 60-69 years of age and the case was travel-related. Health officials say the man arrived in Toronto from Central Africa on Sept. 29, and travelled to western Newfoundland on Sept. 30. They say he flew from Toronto to Halifax on Air Canada Flight 604, and from Halifax to Deer Lake on Air Canada Flight 8876. The province says public health guidelines were followed, and the man died while in self-isolation on Thursday. The public health agency says contact tracing is underway, and anyone considered a close contact has been advised by public health to quarantine and call 811 to arrange for testing. Provincial officials say the deceased man didnt show signs of illness during travel. However, they have requested people who travelled on the flight from Halifax to Deer Lake on Sept. 30 to self-monitor for symptoms and contact 811 for testing. Newfoundland and Labrador currently has three active cases of COVID-19. 3:40 p.m. (update): President Donald Trump went through a very concerning period Friday and the next 48 hours will be critical in his care as he battles the coronavirus at a hospital, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Saturday. Meadows comments contradicted the rosy assessment of Trumps condition offered by his staff and doctors, who took pains not to reveal the president had received supplemental oxygen at the White House before his hospital admission. Were still not on a clear path yet to a full recovery, said a weary Meadows. It was a dramatically different picture than the one painted by the White House staff since Trump revealed his diagnosis as well as by his doctors, who updated the public at a press conference at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The briefing by Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley and other doctors raised more questions than it answered as Conley repeatedly refused to say whether the president ever needed supplemental oxygen, despite repeated questioning, and declined to discuss exactly when he fell ill. Conley also revealed that Trump began exhibiting clinical indications of COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon, earlier than previously known. Thursday no oxygen. None at this moment. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen, Conley said. But according to a person familiar with Trumps condition, Trump was administered oxygen at the White House on Friday before he was transported to the military hospital. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Conley said Trumps symptoms, including a cough and nasal congestion, are now resolving and improving, and said the president had been fever-free for 24 hours. But Trump also is taking aspirin, which lowers body temperature and could mask or mitigate that symptom. Hes in exceptionally good spirits, said another doctor, Sean Dooley. Trump is 74 years old and clinically obese, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has infected more than 7 million people nationwide and killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S. The Stars Washington correspondent Edward Keenan writes on how its difficult to reliably determine how he is doing. 3:30 p.m.: Two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have tested positive for the coronavirus, raising questions about the timing of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett and whether additional senators may have been exposed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the confirmation process was going full steam ahead. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Utah Sen. Mike Lee both said Friday that they had tested positive for the virus. Both had attended a ceremony for Barrett at the White House on Sept. 25 with President Donald Trump, who announced Friday that he had tested positive and was later hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Lee, who did not wear a mask at the White House event, said he had symptoms consistent with longtime allergies. Tillis, who did wear a mask during the public portion of the event, said he had no symptoms. Both said they would quarantine for 10 days ending just before Barretts confirmation hearings begin on Oct. 12. The positive tests come as Senate Republicans are pushing to quickly confirm Barrett in the few weeks they have before the Nov. 3 election. 2:48 p.m.: Toronto Public Health confirms that it will no longer be tracing close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19, due to the overwhelming number of cases. The agency will still contact people who test positive for COVID and theyll also continue to investigate outbreaks in retirement homes, schools, day cares, etc. Theyve had to reprioritize resources because there are just too many cases. More to come from the Stars May Warren. 1:30 p.m.: The Patriots-Chiefs game has been postponed until Monday or Tuesday due to positive coronavirus tests. Patriots quarterback Cam Newton reportedly is one of the players who tested positive, and the NFL said a player with Kansas City also did so. Kansas City has struggled over the years to stop the run, regardless of who was directing the defence, but showed in last weeks win over the Ravens that it could rise to the challenge. 1:15 p.m.: Canadas chief public health officer says the country is running out of time to prevent a large resurgence of COVID-19. Dr. Theresa Tam says the chance of doing so narrows with each passing day of accelerated epidemic growth. Her comments come as the countrys two most populous provinces continue to post their highest daily case counts in months, while imposing greater restrictions on virus hot spots. Quebec reported 1,107 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, while Ontario reported 653. It was the second straight day Quebec reported more than 1,000 new cases, after staying below that threshold since early May. New Brunswick also reported a new case of the virus today that local health officials say is tied to travel outside of the Atlantic bubble. 1:13 p.m.: President Donald Trump on Friday was administered supplemental oxygen at the White House hours after being diagnosed with COVID-19 and before being flown to a military hospital. A person familiar with Trumps condition confirmed that Trump was given oxygen at the White House, after the presidents physician, Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley, sidestepped the question at a press briefing Saturday. Conley said Trump was not administered oxygen on Thursday or since he has been a patient at Walter Reed Medical Center. 12:45 p.m.: Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tested positive for COVID-19, he tweeted Saturday morning the latest in a string of virus cases connected to President Donald Trumps inner circle. Christie said that he will be receiving medical attention and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition. He did not say whether he had symptoms. 12:36 p.m. Senate Republicans have cancelled legislative work until Oct. 19 as the coronavirus sweeps through their ranks and lawmakers increasingly call for comprehensive testing on Capitol Hill. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Saturday that confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett are still on. One by one, President Donald Trump and a series of GOP lawmakers have fallen ill with the virus that has killed more than 208,000 Americans. 12:13 p.m.: Three Republican congressmen from Minnesota are facing criticism for taking a commercial flight home from Washington just two days after they were on Air Force One with President Donald Trump. Reps. Pete Stauber, Tom Emmer and Jim Hagedorn were on a Delta Air Lines flight Friday night despite its restrictions on passengers recently exposed to COVID-19. Trump announced early Friday that he had tested positive for the virus. Deltas policy says customers who know they were exposed to the virus in the past 14 days cannot travel. The airline defines exposure as face-to-face contact with someone with the virus or sustained contact for more than 15 minutes less than 6 feet (2 metres) apart. State Democratic Party chairman Ken Martin said the three congressmen put the health and safety of other passengers at serious risk. Hagedorn pushed back in a post on his campaign Facebook page Saturday, saying the three men had tested negative and had not been exposed to someone carrying the virus longer than 15 minutes and closer than 6 feet (2 metres). He said they also informed the airline and the flights captain of their situation and Delta made the decision to fly based upon the facts. Delta spokeswoman Gina Laughlin told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the flight was less than 40% full and that no one left the plane before it took off to protest the mens presence. 12 p.m.: President Donald Trumps doctors say the president is doing well, is fever-free and isnt having difficulty breathing after contracting the coronavirus. Doctors said Saturday that Trump was not on supplemental oxygen, and while he had fatigue, nasal congestion and coughing, his symptoms are now resolving and improving. Dr. Sean Conley, Trumps physician, refused to say whether Trump had been on supplemental oxygen at any point during his illness, saying he was not on it Saturday or Thursday or Friday while he was with the medical team from Walter Reed Medical Center. Trump was transferred to the military hospital on Friday afternoon in what doctors say was a precaution after he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19. He has not transferred powers. Conley says the president has a lot of work to do and is doing it. Doctors say the president told them: I feel like I could walk out of here today. 11:34 a.m.: Pope Francis has travelled to the homeland of his nature-loving namesake to sign an encyclical laying out his vision of a post-coronavirus world built on solidarity and care for the environment. In his first outing from Rome since the coronavirus lockdown in February, Francis celebrated Mass on Saturday in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Francis in the Umbrian hilltop town of Assisi. He was to pray at the tomb of the saint and sign his encyclical, which is to be released to the public on Sunday. The document, entitled Fratelli tutti, or Brothers all, is in many ways expected to be a synthesis of the main priorities of Francis pontificate, which have focused on the need for greater solidarity with the poor, dialogue with others and care for Gods creation. 10:49 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 653 new cases of COVID-19 Saturday, with 284 of those in Toronto, 104 in Peel Region and 97 in Ottawa. Provincial health minister Christine Elliott clarified that many cases that occurred in the spring and summer are being reported today due to a backlog. Nearly 46,300 tests were completed yesterday, with case numbers showing a 10.8% decrease from yesterdays figure of more than 700 new cases. Read the full story here. 10:29 a.m.: Today is the last day you can walk-in for a COVID-19 test without a prior appointment in Ontario. The province will be moving towards an appointment only testing strategy to cut down on line-ups starting Oct. 3, according to a statement by Premier Doug Ford on Friday. A Toronto resident has created a crowdsourced tracker for wait times at testing centres in the GTA. More about this can be read here. 9:48 a.m.: Ontarios newly released school screening rules are not yet in effect in Toronto, where the medical officer of health indicated Friday that she may push back against the changes, and a growing chorus of physicians are raising questions about the policy. The province touted its new, less stringent guidelines as a shift that would clarify rules around symptom screening and ease burdens for parents of sniffly kids who have been thrown into days or even weeks of COVID-testing chaos. But in Toronto it has so far compounded the anxiety and confusion for families whose daycares and schools are taking direction from Toronto Public Health. Read the full story about how Dr. Eileen de Villa indicates she may push back against the changes in Ontarios newly released school screening rules. 9:31 a.m.: Three close aides to Nepals Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli have tested positive for the coronavirus. Olis political adviser Bishnu Rimal, press adviser Surya Thapa and foreign affairs adviser Rajan Bhattarai announced on social media separately about their test reports on Saturday. These three were the closest officials who worked with Oli mostly out of his official residence in Kathmandu. They are also the highest-level officials to test positive for the virus in Nepal. It was not clear if the prime minister had taken any tests recently. Nepal has so far 84,570 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 528 deaths. 8:28 a.m.: As the president of the United States boarded the Marine One helicopter for hospital on Friday, he was leaving behind a dizzying array of questions. Donald Trump was bound for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he will be treated for COVID-19, the disease that has consumed the attention, and the health, of the country he leads for the past six months. Trumps diagnosis, announced on Twitter the previous night, has speculation swirling about his condition, an already-fraught election campaign and what would happen should he become incapacitated by the virus that has shaken America and the world. Read the full story from the Stars Alex McKeen, who talked to political observers about some of the most pressing implications of the presidents health problems. 8 a.m.: Ontarios pandemic response feels frantic. The provinces COVID-19 testing backlog reached 90,513 on Friday morning, or more than double the provinces daily testing capacity. The daily case count hit 732, the second daily record in a week, though that was boosted by belated cases from the spring. The City of Toronto asked the province to place the city back in a modified Stage 2 for 28 days; Ottawa Public Healths Dr. Vera Etches said, Our health system is in crisis (the system) is on the edge of collapse. It didnt have to be this way, Bruce Arthur writes. Multiple sources familiar with the decision-making process tell the Star that expanding testing capacity was strongly recommended to the government by various parties in the past five months, to no effect. Had the province decided to fund expanded testing beyond the still-unachieved goal of 50,000 per day earlier as early as April, as late as June or even early July the system would already be capable of handling the surge. Read the Stars full story on how many experts advised Ontario for months to boost COVID testing capacity, but sources say they just didnt want to spend the money. 7:36 a.m.: Madrid awoke Saturday to its first day under a partial lockdown, with police controlling travel in and out of the Spanish capital that has become Europes biggest hot spot for the second wave of the coronavirus. The two-week ban imposed by Spains national government on reluctant regional officials started Friday night at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT). The measures prohibit all nonessential trips in and out of the capital and nine of its suburbs affecting around 4.8 million people. Restaurants must close at 11 p.m. and shops at 10 p.m., and reduce occupancy to 50% of their capacity. Spains Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said the steps were critical to stop a surging caseload and prevent a repeat of the horrific scenes of March and April that saw hospitals overrun with dying patients. Even though the measures are light compared with the home confinement mandated across Spain during the first wave of the virus, they have sparked a ferocious political battle between Sanchezs left-wing coalition government and the Madrid administration, run by a right-wing rival. 7:11 a.m.: South Koreas new coronavirus daily tally has remained in two digits for a third straight day as authorities called for public vigilance during one of the countrys biggest holidays. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Saturday that the 75 virus cases added in the past 24 hours took the countrys total to 24,027 with 420 deaths. South Koreas caseload has recently displayed a downward trajectory following a spike in new infections between early August and mid-September. Stringent social distancing rules were credited with slowing the outbreak. But worries about a rebound in new cases have grown again as South Korea is on the traditional autumn Chuseok holidays this week that would certainly increase public mobility. 7:08 a.m.: The COVID-19 figures in Australias Victoria state continue to show improvement but officials are concerned about an outbreak at the countrys largest shopping centre. Victoria reported three more COVID-19 deaths and eight more cases on Saturday. The figures take the state toll to 805 and the national death count to 893. Melbournes latest 14-day average stood at 12 cases, and there have been 11 cases with an unknown source in the past two weeks up to Wednesday. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said a recent outbreak linked to southeast Melbournes Chadstone Shopping Centre showed why it was unsafe to ease restrictions. A cluster of cases at the 550-store shopping centre grew to 11 and includes a family. 7:01 a.m.: India passed a grim milestone in its fight against the coronavirus on Saturday, with health authorities saying the country has recorded more than 100,000 virus-related deaths since the pandemic began. The announcement from the Health Ministry means that nearly 10% of the more than 1 million people to die globally in the pandemic have done so in India, behind only the United States and Brazil. India has seen more than 6.4 million total confirmed infections, recording more than 79,000 new cases in the past 24 hours. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are facing criticism for failing to stop the march of the virus, which in September hit India harder than any other nation in the world. Almost 41% of Indias total infections and 34% of COVID-19 deaths were reported in September alone, with an average of nearly 1,100 Indians dying every day from the virus. 6:57 a.m.: Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message of sympathy Saturday to U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump following their coronavirus diagnosis, state TV reported. My wife, Peng Liyuan, and I express our sympathies to you and your wife and wish you a fast recovery, state TV on its website cited the message as saying. Chinese-U.S. relations have tumbled to their lowest point in decades amid disputes over trade, technology, security, Beijings tightening of control over Hong Kong and complaints about abuses in Chinas Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang. 6:41 a.m.: Seven months into the pandemic, medical experts have a better idea of how to treat COVID-19 and how to keep it out of high-risk settings which means there are far fewer people dying of the virus now than there were in the spring. But doctors and politicians are frantically warning that if the case numbers in Canada keep soaring as they have been in recent weeks, that may not be the case for much longer. Dr. Matthew Oughton, an infectious disease specialist at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, says the second wave of the pandemic in Canada is largely being spread among younger, healthier populations than it was in the spring, when long-term care homes were hit hardest. In Ontario, at the end of April, 45 per cent of all cases were being diagnosed in people over the age of 60, while people under 40 accounted for less than 25 per cent. On Sept. 29, people 60 and older made up 11 per cent of new cases, while those under 40 accounted for 62 per cent. When you couple that with the expanded knowledge about how to treat this virus, it means more people are able to ride out the disease out of hospital, and fewer people are dying. National data show April, May and June recorded 60 per cent of the total cases in Canada thus far, but 91 per cent of the deaths. The next three months accounted for 34 per cent of total cases, and just eight per cent of all deaths. But Oughton says that low-risk is not no risk and that, as numbers soar even in younger populations, the number of people who will get very sick and die will also start to go up. He also says the other risk is that the more the virus spreads in the community, the harder it will be to keep it out of seniors residences, and long-term care homes where the impact can be devastating. 4 a.m.: New public health restrictions kick in today in three of Ontarios COVID-19 hot spots. The provincial government announced yesterday that Ottawa, Toronto and neighbouring Peel Region would face tighter regulations as they grapple with a surge of new cases. In those areas restaurants, bars, banquet halls and gyms will all face restrictions on their operations. No more than 100 customers will be allowed in restaurants and no more than six people will be permitted at a table. Restaurants will also be required to collect contact information from all patrons to bolster contact tracing. Group exercise classes at gyms will be capped at 10 people and the total number of people in fitness settings will be limited to 50. At meeting and event facilities such as banquet halls there will be a cap of 50 people, with only six people allowed at each table. And as of yesterday, face coverings became mandatory in all indoor public spaces across Ontario. Saturday 12:41 a.m.: Two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have tested positive for the coronavirus, raising questions about upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett and whether additional senators may have been exposed. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Utah Sen. Mike Lee both said Friday that they had tested positive for the virus. Both attended a ceremony for Barrett at the White House on Sept. 25 with President Donald Trump, who announced Friday that he had tested positive and was later hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Lee, who did not wear a mask at the White House event, said he had symptoms consistent with longtime allergies. Tillis, who did wear a mask, said he has no symptoms. Both said they will quarantine for 10 days ending just before Barretts confirmation hearings begin on Oct. 12. The positive tests come as Senate Republicans are pushing to quickly confirm Barrett in the few weeks they have before the Nov. 3 election. There is little cushion in the schedule set out by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who want to put Trumps third hand-picked justice on the court immediately in case they lose any of their power in the election. Friday 11:35 a.m.: The White House physician says his medical team has elected to initiate Remdesivir therapy for President Donald Trump. Dr. Sean Conley says Trump is doing very well and is not requiring any supplemental oxygen. Conley says he recommended Trump be moved to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for further monitoring. In Trumps first tweet from Walter Reed since being transported there Friday night, the presidnet says, Going welI, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!! Click here to read more of Fridays COVID-19 coverage. - Cape Town High Court staff members have just shared their #Jerusalema Challenge clip which was dedicated to SA's Heritage Day - In the clip, the court staff can be seen all dressed up in their black robes and wigs - Twitter users shared their thoughts on the court staffs' version of the viral dance challenge Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Ghana Cape Town High Court staff have made South Africa and President Cyril Ramaphosa truly proud. This after a clip of the group dancing along to Master KG and Nomcebo's hit song Jerusalema was shared online. The South African Presidency took to their Twitter page to show off the talented crew's brilliant dance skills. This after President Cyril called on SA to take part in the challenge that has gone viral across the globe. The video also comes just in time for Heritage month, which South Africans have been celebrating by sharing videos of themselves doing the dance and also pictures of themselves dressed up beautifully in their traditional clothes. Twitter users who got to see the dance first hand, shared their thoughts below the post which was captioned, "WATCH: The Cape Town High Court takes up the #JerusalemaChallenge #HeritageDay2020 #JerusalemaDanceChallenge #MyHeritageYourHeritage" Here are some of their comments. @Malwande_udumo wrote: "All I see is black women excellence." @ndebelequarius said: "Its beautiful." @MaphiweTom said: "After the sleepless nights of hard work and sacrifices. You guys did it the hard way. Respect!!! You guys deserve this moment and more." While @Gio_Capitano had this to say: "Awesome, so nice to smile for a change while being on social media instead of cringing by the news we read!" High Court staff doing the viral challenge. Source: Twitter/PresidencyZA Source: UGC And in other news, two men recently represented old-style khaki wearers after they could be seen serving all sorts of moves in a short TikTok clip. The video was shared by artist and musician Daniel Marven on his Twitter page. The clip, which received nearly 60 000 views, features the two men dancing along more than well to MFR Souls' viral song, Amanikiniki. What makes the clip even more hilarious is how well they are able to dance while wearing super tight safari suits. The clip not only racked up thousands of views but thousands of comments too. Many Twitter users could not believe what they are looking at sharing all sorts of funny memes and comments beneath the post. "Life has been better for me since I exited the Shatta Movement Camp" Addi Self | #Yencomgh Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: YEN.com.gh While I didn't ask a lot of specific questions on the forum, I read a lot of forum posts and trip reports before our trip. This was a quickly planned trip of just about 4 weeks from first idea to actual arrival, which is a very short time for someone who likes to research and plan ahead. So thank you to everyone whose input helped make our trip a great one! We arrived early afternoon to West Yellowstone, having spent the night in Twin Falls, ID to break up the driving a little bit. We visited the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, I appreciate the work they do in saving animals. We then headed to the West gate to the park, just to check out the line as I wanted to buy my National Park Pass. I'm not sure how I feel about finally qualifying for a senior discount, but $80 for entry to any National Park for the rest of my life kinda lessened the sting a little bit lol. Anyway, there were only 2 cars ahead of us in line (about 4pm) so we decided to drive into the park a little ways just to look around. We were there for about 3 hours and saw two herds of elk, a lone bison, Firehole Falls, Gibbon Falls, and walked around the Artist Paint Pots as well. The paint pots area was especially moody from all the wildfire smoke and the setting sun was pinkish red. My husband said it looked like a scene out of Star Wars! The next day we were up before the sun came up because we wanted to get to Old Faithful pretty early to avoid crowds. We saw the sun rise over a small river (I don't know the name) and then we saw our first herd of bison! It was so exciting and, because the morning was still chilly, you could see tons of steam vents on the horizon behind the bison - very cool. We stopped a good 150 yards from the herd but they started walking our direction and stopped just next to our car before moving on. We eventually made it to Old Faithful and saw it erupt and walked around some of the Upper Geyser basin as well. It was kind of surprising to see a few bison very close to the geysers and thermal pools but we found out that it's actually very common to see bison there. Next stop was Grand Prismatic Basin where we hiked up to the overlook for the great view from up there. Next stop was Sheepeater Cliff then on to see the Mammoth Hot Springs and the travertine terraces. I know people love the geysers (and they are cool), but I found the terraces really interesting and pretty. There was a group of elk in Mammoth with a big bull elk that would bugle every few minutes so he created a bit of a traffic jam! When we got back to out hotel in Gardiner, there was a group of elk right across the street from our hotel as well. Just a note about crowds - We haven't been to Yellowstone before, so we may not be the best ones to judge, but I have to say that we were always able to find a parking space or a picnic table when we needed one and people were very nice about taking turns to take photos, etc. Everyone wore masks indoors and when we were outdoors, people were good about social distancing as well. It was interesting to see school buses at one of the Geyser areas since kids in California couldn't even go back to school let alone go on field trips. They were definitely school buses though, because they had the school district name on the bus. That's not a criticism by the way, just an observation. I wish our grandkids were allowed to go back to school, they really miss it. At least 11 positive coronavirus tests can be traced to organizers of this week's presidential debate in Cleveland, city officials said Friday. The city's announcement came after President Donald Trump, who debated Democratic rival Joe Biden on Tuesday in Cleveland, revealed that he and his wife have both tested positive for COVID-19 and are in isolation. Trump was transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. "The City of Cleveland is aware of positive cases of COVID-19 following the Sept. 29 presidential debate," according to a City Hall statement. "We advise anyone who has come in contact with someone who has tested positive to self-quarantine. If anyone who was in attendance has concerns or is symptomatic, they should contact their healthcare provider." The city's announcement also came shortly after the Cleveland Clinic, which oversaw COVID-19 protocols at the debate, said it's confident that guests at Tuesday night's event will be safe from coronavirus. "Based on what we know about the virus and the safety measures we had in place, we believe there is low risk of exposure to our guests," the Cleveland Clinic said in a statement. The city specifically said that positive tests were traced to people involved in organizing the debate. "In total, at this time, we are aware of 11 cases stemming from pre-debate planning and set-up, with the majority of cases occurring among out of state residents," the city said. "At this time, though that could change, no City residents appear to have contracted the virus as a result of this event." Despite reassurances from the Cleveland Clinic, a prominent Ohio lawmaker, who attended the debate, went into self-isolation on Friday after learning about Trump's positive test. Ohio House Minority Leader Emilia Strong Sykes said she personally witnessed members of the president's entourage declining masks from healthcare providers from the Cleveland Clinic inside the hall at Case Western Reserve University. Story continues "I am frustrated today as I worry now about my own health and the health of so many others who were present that evening like journalists, support staff, Cleveland Clinic professionals, and many others who could have potentially been exposed," Sykes said in a statement on Friday. Image: FILES-US-VOTE-DEBATE (Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images) "This didnt have to happen. If more would follow the guidelines, this wouldnt continue to happen. Sykes' communications director Amber Epling said her boss texted senior staff that night with her concerns. "She was just horrified, she was in the same room as them and they just waved off the physicians offering masks," Epling told NBC News. The Democrat from Akron, who holds advanced degrees in public health, said she doesn't know how long she'll be in quarantine. She wished Trump and the first lady a speedy recovery. Americans woke this morning to this news of which the ripple effects are yet to be seen. This is a very somber moment for our country in a year of somber moments," Sykes said. "The presidents diagnosis poses a risk for not only our national security, our economic stability but also our upcoming election. I wish the president, first lady and his team a speedy recovery." It wasn't immediately clear how many Case Western or Cleveland Clinic employees were at the site on Tuesday night, or if any of them were in close contact with Trump or White House aide Hope Hicks, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. A spokesman for Case Western also declined comment when asked Friday if the university made any ventilation or filtration system upgrades at the Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion ahead of Tuesday night's event. "The university appreciates the additional efforts Cleveland Clinic is taking today for attendees who might have concerns and/or questions," Case Western said in a statement on Friday. Some attendees, who wore masks on Tuesday night, said they were livid when mask-less spectators strolled into the hall. Kristin Urquiza, who lost her dad to COVID-19 and was a guest of the Biden campaign on Tuesday, said she was wearing a mask but was stunned to see no one in Trump's entourage in a facial covering. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows ahead of the first presidential debate in Cleveland on Sept.29, 2020. (Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images) "But when I looked over to the right-hand side, not a single person on the Trump side, including the Trump family, Melania Trump, the Trump children, were wearing a mask," Urquiza told MSNBC's "Live with Ayman Mohyeldin." "And I remember thinking to myself, and this was just when the debate stated, 'Oh. My. Goodness. Isn't anybody going to regulate on these people wearing a mask?' And nobody did." U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, said Trump's wife entered the hall just ahead of him but he kept a safe social distance away. But he too was amazed to see so many people without masks at the debate. "And they walk in without masks, it was really a level of arrogance you rarely see," Ryan told MSNBC. Istanbul: Turkish police on Sunday detained hundreds of suspected members of the Islamic State extremist group in nationwide raids, just over a month after an attack on an Istanbul nightclub claimed by the jihadists. Among around 400 detained in the biggest operation so far against IS after the New Year attack were foreigners and those suspected of planning attacks in Turkey, the Dogan and Anadolu news agencies reported. The operation around the country saw 150 suspects detained in Sanliurfa in the southeast and 47 in the nearby city of Gaziantep close to the Syrian border which has a known jihadist presence, Dogan said. Sixty suspects, mostly foreigners, were detained in four districts in the capital Ankara. Dozens more arrests were made in provinces ranging from Bursa in the west to Bingol in the east. In the usually peaceful Aegean city of Izmir, nine people suspected of travelling to and from Syria and planning attacks in the city were detained, Anadolu said. Eighteen people were detained in Istanbul and the neighbouring province of Kocaeli on suspicion of planning attacks. Another 14 foreigners were due to be deported, including 10 children. Thirty-nine people were killed, mainly foreigners, on New Years night when a gunman went on the rampage inside a plush Istanbul night club. IS claimed the massacre, its first clear claim for a major attack in Turkey although it had been blamed for several bombings in 2016. Police detained the suspected attacker, Abdulgadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national, on January 16 after over two weeks on the run and authorities say he has confessed to the massacre. The Hurriyet daily reported after the attack that IS also planned a simultaneous New Years strike in Ankara but dropped the plot after arrests by the Turkish authorities. Turkey was in 2016 shaken by a string of attacks blamed on IS and Kurdish militants that left hundreds dead. It is also engaged in a battle with IS to take the Syrian town of Al-Bab, in the fiercest fighting yet of the Turkish militarys campaign inside Syria that started in August. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. The shift is being driven by a move away from China's constitution which, modelled on the Soviet Union's, gave ethnic groups "the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written language" in a bid to convince disparate cultural groups to embrace communism. Now, after more than 70 years, Article 4 of the constitution is regarded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a mistake. "The second generation ethnic policy", advocated by prominent CCP academics, is herding China's myriad indigenous ethnicities under one cultural banner. A man rides a bicycle over a bridge as power plants stand in the distance in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Credit:Bloomberg "China today is in the midst of closing out a of a century experiment," Atwood argued in the Made in China Journal in August. The party academics, including Hu Angang at Tsinghua University and Ma Rong at Peking University, maintain the new system will mirror that of the United States, where there is minimal state-backed educational support in order to encourage all citizens to identify as Americans. But a formal state education system built largely after a country was colonised by migrants is a different challenge to a country where sharply different cultural groups and education systems have co-existed for centuries. "They will replace the content of Genghis Khan in Mongolian language with Chairman Mao in Chinese in the new textbook," says the father of a grade three student in Inner Mongolia, who asked not to be identified because of fears of political retribution. "It is a radical move," says another local. "Assimilation is an inevitable natural process, which may take hundreds of years. But someone is trying to accelerate it into decades." A Mongolian horseman at the Wulan Butong Grasslands. Credit:Sanghee Liu The Chinese government believes the changes, which will see Mandarin-language teaching from the first year of school, a separate Mongolian language course, and the replacement of Mongolian history and politics textbooks with Chinese textbooks by 2023, are necessary to ensure students in the region can compete with the best in Beijing. "Objectively speaking, in the central and western regions including our Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, there are still many young, middle-aged [people] and herders who cannot use Mandarin for basic communication," the Chinese government's Inner Mongolian Education Department said in a note to parents explaining the changes in September. "Xinjiang and Tibet have used nationally compiled textbooks [since] 2017 and 2018 respectively. Therefore, the use of compiled teaching materials for the three subjects is a unified national deployment of the state, not just a special requirement for Inner Mongolia." But the swift implementation of the changes in an area once praised for its cooperation with communist leaders in Beijing and Moscow has been met with an uncommon surge of resistance in mainland China. The Wulan Butong Grasslands in Inner Mongolia. Credit:Sanghee Liu In June a high-ranking party official visited the region and surprised local authorities by verbally advising that the new central government policy was underway. By August the first official document outlining the changes was released and a high-profile historian, Chimeddorji, was fired after he posted a video critical of the proposal. Petitions were signed by teachers and protests started as parents removed their kids from the classroom. According to Atwood, the teachers' unique petitions are a nod to Inner Mongolias famous pre-revolutionary circles or duguilang resistance groups, who also signed their names in a circle so that leaders could not be singled out. Bainu, the local social media network, was shut down at the end of August. Discussion about bilingual education was purged online, as Chinese state media labelled the detractors "separatists", a term now used to stigmatise anti-government figures from Hong Kong to Xinjiang. Wanted posters were put up on social media and protesters were arrested for causing "social panic". "By refusing to send their children to the school, some people went out to the street, some got arrested, some got warning of unemployment and cancellation of subsidies and welfare," says a Mongolian father. Enghebatu says Inner Mongolia is the next Xinjiang or Tibet, where families have been separated, dissidents have been detained and labour camps established. "They just want to wipe out Mongolian cultural identity once and for all." A petition printed in the Mongolian script and signed and thumbprinted round the outside by primary school parents in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Credit: Atwood said it was hard to imagine a a public retreat by the Chinese government. "If the strikes do gain traction and authorities follow through on the threat to fire striking Mongolian teachers and staff, the authorities would have the need and opportunity to transform Inner Mongolian schools in one blow," he said. The result could see the language reduced to a "kitchen table" dialect, barely spoken outside the home, as Mongols shift away from their traditional nomadic lifestyles to urban centres in record numbers. "This will push the already fragile Mongolian language in China to the brink of extinction, leading to a wholesale cultural loss, and very likely sow the seeds for ethnic and social divisions for decades to come," say Yun Jiang and Adam Ni from the China Policy Centre. Dr Gegentuul Baioud, a Mongolian linguistics researcher, says the symbolism can already be found in the course names. Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-30 12:51:31|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close LA PAZ, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Bolivia will enter a new phase of "post-confinement" from Oct. 1, with more people and vehicles allowed to circulate in public and more commercial activities permitted, Yerko Nunez, Minister of the Presidency, said on Tuesday. The new phase, which seeks to continue to reactivate the economy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, will extend permissions for the circulation of people and vehicles, and will include the resumption of commercial, sports, cultural, and religious activities while following the biosecurity measures established by the Ministry of Health. According to Virgilio Prieto, head of epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, the new extension of permissions will be defined by local governments depending on the local level of contagion risk. From March to May 31, Bolivia enacted a rigid quarantine with almost total paralysis of activities. In June, the country entered a more flexible quarantine which ended on Aug. 31, then the country entered the first phase of "post-confinement." According to the Ministry of Health, as of Monday night, Bolivia had reported a total of 134,223 cases of COVID-19 with 7,900 deaths, and the fatality rate stood at 5.9 percent. Despite a decline in cases, the ministry is predicting a new outbreak of the virus in November or December, and officials are urging citizens to continue following biosecurity measures. Enditem Dr Gupta's Refused To Reveal More Details Meanwhile, Dr Gupta due to conflicting media reports about the contents of the medico-legal report, has refused to divulge any details about the case. He said, "We don't confirm any speculation running in the media and request all media to refrain from referring to AIIMS' name in any news content." Some media reports claimed that there is no proof of poisoning, while others said the board of doctors have not ruled out murder or homicide. CBI Says: No Aspect Has Been Ruled Out On the other hand, earlier this week, CBI spokesperson said in a statement that it has not reached any conclusion in SSR's death case. The statement said, "The Central Bureau of Investigation is conducting a professional investigation related to the death of Sushant Singh Rajput in which all aspects are being looked into and no aspect has been ruled out as of date." Sushant Passed Away On June 14, 2020 Last week, KK Singh's lawyer Vikas Singh expressed "helplessness" over the "slow pace" of the CBI probe into Rajput's death, who died in his apartment in suburban Bandra in Mumbai on June 14. Vikas Singh said, "The pace of the CBI probe into Sushant Singh Rajput's death has suddenly slowed down and all attention is being diverted to drugs-related issues with the NCB conducting fashion parade of Bollywood stars." Notably, the NCB (Narcotics Control Bureau) has been probing the drug angle in the death case and has made several arrests, while ED officials will reportedly file a new case against Rhea Chakraborty with the help of NCB's new findings. London : Low level of atmospheric oxygen in Earths middle ages held back evolution for two billion years, a new research has claimed, raising fresh questions about the origins of life on our planet. Professor Tim Lenton and Stuart Daines of the University of Exeter in the UK, created a computer model to explain how oxygen stabilised at low levels and failed to rise, despite oxygen already being produced by early photosynthesis. The research also helps explain why the Great Oxidation Event, which introduced oxygen into the atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago, did not generate modern levels of oxygen. Researchers explain how organic material - the dead bodies of simple lifeforms - accumulated in the earths sedimentary rocks. After the Great Oxidation, and once plate tectonics pushed these sediments to the surface, they reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere for the first time. Also read: Scientists discover 50th described species of ghost shark The more oxygen in the atmosphere, the faster it reacted with this organic material, creating a regulatory mechanism whereby the oxygen was consumed by the sediments at the same rate at which it was produced. This mechanism broke down with the rise of land plants and a resultant doubling of global photosynthesis. The increasing concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere eventually overwhelmed the control on oxygen and meant it could finally rise to the levels we are used to today. This helped animals colonise the land, leading eventually to the evolution of humankind. The model suggests atmospheric oxygen was likely at around 10 per cent of present day levels during the two billion years following the Great Oxidation Event, and no lower than one per cent of the oxygen levels we know today. This time in Earths history was a bit of a catch-22 situation, said Lenton. It was not possible to evolve complex life forms because there was not enough oxygen in the atmosphere, and there was not enough oxygen because complex plants had not evolved. It was only when land plants came about did we see a more significant rise in atmospheric oxygen, Lenton said. The history of life on Earth is closely intertwined with the physical and chemical mechanisms of our planet. It is clear that life has had a profound role in creating the world we are used to, and the planet has similarly affected the trajectory of life, Lenton added. Life on earth is believed to have begun with the first bacteria evolving 3.8 billion years ago. Around 2.7 billion years ago the first oxygen-producing photosynthesis evolved in the oceans. However it was not until 600 million years ago that the first multi-celled animals such as sponges and jellyfish emerged in the ocean. By 470 million years ago the first plants grew on land with the first land animals such as millipedes appearing around 428 million years ago. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications. For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Gowri Shankar and his wife with akkas who harvest the Calotropis fibre. The fashion industry has been looking for animal-free alternatives to wool for some time now. Bamboo, hemp, banana, coconut waste theyve tried it all. And now they have their eyes trained on an innovation by Indias Gowri Shankar. The Tamil Nadu man is in the news for producing possibly the worlds first vegan wool thats zero-waste and also luxurious and warm like Cashmere. Called Weganool, it received a special mention at the famous Future Fabrics Expo in London this January. After which, Infantium Victoria, an award-winning German clothing brand for children, rolled out hoodies, gowns and jackets using this fabric and got other fashion brands and wool manufacturers in Europe curious to sample it. Weganool is made from 70 percent organic cotton and 30 percent Calotropis plant, a weed that grows abundantly in the dry wastelands of Asia and Africa. In this case, the weed, commonly known as milkweed and eruku in Tamil, is being harvested from a village near Auroville, named Kuilapalayam, in his home state. Weganool is made from 70 percent organic cotton and 30 percent Calotropis plant Calotropis is a wild flowering shrub. It grows back in six months and taller and bushier every time. I have been harvesting it for over two years and I havent even gone beyond the five-kilometre radius of my base at Kuilapalayam, chuckles Shankar, who comes from a family of traditional silk weavers from Tamil Nadus Tiruvannamalai district. Calotropis is a weed that grows in the dry wastelands of Asia and Africa. Being a desert plant, it requires little to no water and pesticides to thrive. The production of 1 kg of Weganool with rain-fed cotton yarn saves 27,000 litres of clean drinking water when compared to 100% cotton yarn, adds Shankar, who started his label Faborg in 2015 after learning of the evils of the textile business while working as a merchandising manager for a fashion house in Chennai. The inspiration for Weganool came in 2017, when he spotted sunbirds weaving their nest using the Calotropis bush. But hes not the only one after it. While Shankar mostly works with the pods and stems of the locally-dominant Calotropis Gigantea, Kenyan scientists had successfully extracted a silk-like fabric from the fruits of Calotropis procera in 2018. They had hinted at a collaboration with Chinese textile makers but theres been no update since. The reports also suggest that they plan to genetically modify the Calotropis to give higher yield but I wont do anything thats not natural, Shankar declares. This is where Weganool trumps other vegan alternatives. Its zero-waste and chemical-free from start to disposal. It is dyed with locally-available marigold, indigo, pomegranate and berries. Chemical dyeing releases toxic sludge at the end of the process, which is killing our rivers, Shankar says, an obvious comment on fashion being the second-most polluting industry. Women extracting wool fibre out of the Calotropis plant. And after the wool fibres are extracted from the Calotropis, the residual plants are used to make an arka, a liquid solution that acts as both a biofertiliser and a mosquito repellant. We started by testing arka on cashew, tomato, brinjal, cotton, banana and coconut farms around Auroville, and finalised the product in 2019 by mixing it with herbs. Farmers have found their yield to go up by 10 percent and pest infestation and wilting go down, Shankar says, informing that nearly 30 hotels are buying Arka as a mosquito-repellent, some as far as in Uttarakhand. However, when it comes to Weganool, Indian designers havent contacted Shankar in big numbers as Europeans and Americans have. Its not strange because we dont have big Indian labels specialising in wool, he says coolly. In March, German brand Infantium Victoria launched a line of children's clothing using Weganool. As to how Weganool reached Europe, the team of Infantium Victoria, which is into sustainable fashion, spotted the wool on Instagram, came to India to collect samples and premiered the finished garment at the Fabrics Fashion Expo. It blew up from there. The natural hollow cellulose structure and temperature-regulating property of the Calotropis is similar to that of the finest cashmere. That makes Weganool unique and a natural fit for colder countries, shares Shankar. Where a metre-long Cashmere shawl will cost Rs 20,000, the Weganool equivalent can come for Rs 1,500, Shankar claims, and thats why hes already trademarked his wool and applied for a patent with the Tamil Nadu government. But to see the Calotropis only as a wool replacement would be wrong. Its a revolution, Shankar insists. Unlike hemp or banana, the Calotropis fibre can lend itself to various blends, he talks about its versatility. The Calotropis doesnt take much (water) from the land but gives it back, by improving the soil and yield of the plants. So my vision is to set up multi-cropping farms at every 100 kilometres in India. From February to September, farmers can make Calotropis fibre and fertiliser while grow other crops for the rest of the year. This will ensure them income year-round, says Shankar, who employs akkas from the village. They were so shy the first time I told them, Lets go and pluck the weed from the roads. But now with all this recognition coming their way, they feel proud. Barkha Kumari is a journalist based in Bangalore. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global partnership to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, has partnered with the Faridabad-based Translational Health Sciences and Research Institute (THSTI) as one of the five laboratories that will create a global network for reliably assessing all vaccines against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). THSTI Faridabad recognised under the global network of laboratories established by CEPIvaccines to centralise assessment. The laboratory supported under DBTIndia and IndCEPI. Very important to assess multiple vaccines, said department of biotechnology secretary Dr Renu Swarup in a tweet. The department has encouraged Indian Covid-19 vaccine developers to partner with THSTI. The other four laboratories include Nexelis (Canada) and Public Health England (UK), VisMederi Srl (Italy), Viroclinics-DDL (Netherlands), and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease research (Bangladesh). The network will use the same reagents from the labs of Nexelis and PHE and follow common protocols to measure the immune response generated by multiple vaccine candidates, including the ones that are not being funded by CEPI. According to the organisation, the network will ensure uniformity in assessment across candidate helping in identifying the most promising one. Currently, there are over 320 vaccine candidates in development across the world, with about 30 just from India. Two vaccines developed by India biotech companies and government institutes have already entered phase II human trials. For vaccine development, pre-clinical trials are done in animals to see whether a candidate is safe and able to protect against the disease. In humans, a small phase I trial is done to assess the safety of the vaccine candidate, a phase II trial is done to see whether it produces an immune response, and a large phase III study assess whether it protects against the infection in field trial. Usually, the tests to see whether an immune response is produced measured through antibody levels or T-cell response after a person is vaccinated is done by individual laboratories selected by the vaccine makers. However, this is likely to produce varied data collection and evaluation methods for all the vaccine candidates, making it difficult to compare them. Through centralising the analysis of samples obtained from trials of Covid-19 vaccine candidates, the new clinical-sample-testing network will minimise variation in results obtained, which could otherwise arise due to such technical differences when carrying out independent analysis. The samples from participating vaccine developers will instead be tested in the same group of laboratories using the same methods, therefore, removing much of the inter-laboratory variability and allowing for head-to-head comparisons of immune responses induced by multiple vaccine candidates, according to the CEPI website. The vaccine manufacturers can use the network without per sample charges up to the limit of funding available to the programme. For eligibility, certain commitments would be needed from vaccine manufacturers such as timely publication of sample testing results and sharing the immunogenicity data for future regulatory decisions. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON (Natural News) In early March of this year, alt-right indy media outlets and conservative pundits started claiming the coronavirus was a hoax. They insisted it was, No worse than the flu and claimed no one was really dying from covid. Some publishers and platforms still claim theres no such thing as a coronavirus and that all the supposed sickness is caused solely by cell towers. During this time, Natural News has worked tirelessly to try to educate people on the basics of mathematics, statistics, science and virology, encouraging conservatives to take this pandemic seriously. We were highly critical of President Trumps dismissal of the virus in February, March and April, and we warned that if he didnt take the pandemic seriously, he would lose the November election. But instead of taking it seriously, nearly the entire industry of conservative and independent media decided to start attacking masks as dangerous, while claiming the virus was harmless. While we oppose mandatory masks, weve always supported voluntary mask wearing in shared air environments such as elevators, grocery stores and public transportation. Yet the indy media turned against masks and began to invoke the most ridiculous arguments against them, claiming masks cant help anyone, under any circumstances, and should be rejected by all. Indy media outlets have long claimed all the deaths were faked and no one really died from covid At the same time, the same usual suspects across independent, conservative media began claiming almost no one really died from covid-19. They achieved this by twisting and lying about CDC numbers to falsely distort the conclusions. Fox News even ran a graphic rooted in mathematical ignorance (see below) that misrepresented the real risk of covid-19 deaths by two orders of magnitude (a factor of 100). But Fox is too stupid to do math, so nobody was surprised. Despite the bad math, indy media outlets ran with the Fox graphic, because they were too stupid to fact check anything (and too enthusiastic to claim the virus was a hoax), all while falsely claiming the CDC admitted only 6% of covid deaths were actually covid deaths. Again, they know nothing about epidemiology, mathematics or statistics, so they leap to whatever conclusion they want to push, facts be damned. Again, I tried to educate them about real science, but they werent interested. See my story, Independent media gets it wrong: 94% of COVID deaths having comorbidity factors does not prove the coronavirus is a hoax. Month after month, we watched as many of the top indy media publishers continued to claim the coronavirus was a hoax while they attacked and shamed people who wore masks. Voluntary face masks were called, face diapers, and symbols of slavery. People were vilified for recommending commonsense precautions, and accurate analysts like myself were disinvited from various platforms and publishers because we refused to claim the virus was a hoax. To this day, I refuse to disclaim masks, even as the indy media mob demands absolute conformity to anti-mask rhetoric under all circumstances. Now President Trump has covid-19. Do these same indy, alt-right news outlets and publishers now think Trump is faking it, too? Do they think presidents are taken to Walter Reed for a flu? Do they still think covid-19 is a hoax? Even when their own candidate is starting to show more severe symptoms? CDC data give Trump a 5.4% chance of dying from covid Even more worryingly, conservative, alt-right media publishers are so mathematically illiterate suffering from stupid-19 that they still dont have any clue about Trumps real chances of dying from this infection. According to the CDCs newly released data (which were widely misinterpreted by indy media), Trump has a 5.4% chance of dying from this infection, as hes in the 70+ age group. You might argue that Trump is obviously receiving better medical care than the average nursing home resident, but on the negative side, Trump is already symptomatic, and the 5.4% fatality rate concerns people who were also asymptomatic, meaning that symptomatic people have already progressed further along the risk spectrum. Thus, there is a very real change (about 1 in 20) that Trump dies from covid-19. But because they cant do math, most conservative pundits think Trumps chances of dying are 0.054%. Thats equivalent to about 1 in 1,850. But the real risk is 1 in 18. So conservatives have no idea how grave this risk really is. Because they cant do math, they think Trumps chances of dying are essentially zero. They arent. Trumps chances of dying are shockingly high, given how much is riding on his survival (i.e. the very future of our nation and perhaps the free world). Still, to this day, conservative pundits and alt-right media publishers refuse to take this seriously, even for people in the high-risk 70+ age group. Their capacity for self-deception is nothing short of stunning. Modern doctors are so brainwashed by Big Pharma they might accidentally KILL Trump with drug interventions Of course, Trump could easily be saved by consuming chlorine dioxide (ClO2) which unleashes a flood of usable oxygen in the blood, but the medical doctors of our era are ignorant and brainwashed by Big Pharma, so theyre treating Trump mostly with drugs that will likely harm him. Never forget that George Washington was killed by the doctors of his era, too, who kept bleeding him out to eliminate evil spirits. (Yes, George Washington was killed by medical doctors.) Eventually he didnt have enough blood remaining to fight the infection, and he died. That took place in an era before the discovery of germs and microbiology. Yet whats especially ironic is that today, in 2020, we still have conservative media pundits and publishers who also dont believe in the Germ Theory. They claim there is no virus and that covid-19 is a hoax. It makes me wonder: If they were in charge if treating Trump, would they bleed him to death, too? Heres the graphic that Fox News recently published which under-states the covid death risk by two orders of magnitude, even while claiming CDC.gov is their source: As I explained in this recent Natural News article, Fox News is run by mathematically illiterate morons who took the CDCs risk factor numbers and just slapped a % sign on the end, oblivious to how numbers work. The real risk of death from covid-19 in people aged 70+ years, according to the CDC, is 5.4%, not 0.054%. But as I have also repeated pointed out, trying to teach conservative pundits mathematics is like trying to teach pigeons to play chess. They dont even have the neurology to handle it. When it comes to math, they are dumber than birds. Heres what the CDC actually reports as Infection Fatality Ratios based on their Current Best Estimate, scenario 5, Table 1, at this url: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html 0-19 years: 0.00003 20-49 years: 0.0002 50-69 years: 0.005 70+ years: 0.054 Notice, importantly, that the ratio numbers do not contain % signs. Thats because they are ratios, not percents. As anyone who isnt an idiot already knows, a ratio of 1.0 means 100%. Similarly, a ratio of 0.5 means 50%. Therefore, a ratio of 0.054 means 5.4%. I have yet to find any prominent conservative or independent media publishers who has bothered to point this out. They dont care what the numbers actually mean. They just take whatever numbers they dream up, and manipulate them in whatever way best serves their hoax narrative. In contrast, heres my article that accurately explained the CDCs numbers and why they reveal the death risk to be extremely low for younger people, but extremely high for the elderly. Trump falls into the elderly. The fate of America now rests on a bunch of Big Pharma brainwashed doctors and a bioweapon launched by China to target human beings and indy media remains in total denial The upshot of all this is that the future of our nation and our world now depends on two totally sketchy things: 1) Mainstream doctors who are treating the president with experimental pharmaceuticals that might end up making him worse, and 2) The deadly properties of a biological weapon engineered by China and deliberately launched against the world to destroy Western nations and crush the global economy. While independent media remains in total denial about the existence of the virus, the mainstream media remains in total denial about its origins. So getting the truth about covid-19 in todays highly politicized news environment thats heavily populated by low-IQ idiots is almost impossible. Truthfully stated, modern human society is too stupid to save itself from its own mad science creations. We have the technical know-how to build deadly weapons of mass destruction, but not nearly enough education to rationally and intelligently deal with those weapons being unleashed upon the world. The end result of this is, of course, total collapse. That is the only outcome that now seems possible. Human civilization as we know it today will implode in short order, combining a global food collapse with an economic collapse, geopolitical collapse and the collapse of the rule of law. America as you know it is over, and all the loud rantings of alt-right indy media wont change a thing because they are part of the problem, not the solution. People who have knowledge are avoided like the plague, because information consumers arent interested in knowledge; only in tribal rage In todays twisted world, knowledge is hated. Truth is treason. Rationality is mocked. Reason is abandoned. Nobody has any interest in reality; only in living out their own twisted fantasies in their twisted bubble worlds constructed our of sheer delusion. And this is true on the Right as much as the Left. Shockingly few people can navigate anything in our world today with a sense of critical thinking and legitimate knowledge, and those of us who actually have knowledge are censored or avoided because we dont espouse the correct narrative on the Left or the Right. America has collapsed into tribal, collectivist idiocy. And there is no coming back from it because the schools dont even pretend to teach critical thinking skills anymore; they merely push more idiocy and ignorance in the name of social justice. America is fu##ed, in other words. Now its only a question of what the collapse looks like and how many millions end up dead before its all over. The America you once knew is gone forever, and humanity is too stupid to survive its own irrationality. Now its easy to understand why Deagel.com reports the United States of America will lose 227 million people by the year 2025. The American people have become too dumbed down to navigate any of the attacks that are being unleashed against them, whether biological, electromagnetic, geopolitical via disinfo media attacks. The end result is no longer in doubt, and I called in two years ago in my podcasts, stating that America as you know it will cease to exist by 2025. And many of those who claim to be fighting to defend America are actually accelerating its demise through their stupidity and ignorance. Coincidentally, most of those people will be dead by 2025 as well, because they refuse to prepare for reality. Dont be among the soon-to-be-dead. Dont fall into the trap of popular idiocy. Your very survival now depends on your ability to think for yourself while approaching the threats against humanity with a sense of rare rationality. Any failure to recognize reality, at this point, may lead to your demise. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: The Gorkhas of Assam have sought a gazette notification for their inclusion for constitutional safeguards as per clause 6 of the Assam Accord. The Accord was signed in 1985 between the Centre and the All Assam Students Union at the end of the six-year-long bloody Assam Agitation or anti-immigrants agitation. The Accords clause 6 says: Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people. According to a centrally-formed high-level committee on clause 6, Assamese people are those who or whose forefathers have been citizens of India, residing in Assam, from on or before January 1, 1951. The Assam Accord clause 6 committee report did not mention anything about the constitutional, legislative, and administrative safeguards of the Gorkhas of Assam under clause 6 of the Assam Accord, said the Bharatiya Gorkha Yuva Parisangh (BGYP), which is the youth wing of Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh. ALSO READ | Gorkhas fighting for separate state find new friend in Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma The report suggests that 1951 is the cut-off year for defining Assamese people whereas the Gorkhas had fought for saving their motherland Assam from the Burmese invasion in 1826 that culminated in the signing of the Yandabo Treaty, the BGYP said. It said the Gorkhas were permanently settled in Assams scheduled areas since the last part of the 18th century as graziers and cultivators obtaining grazing/khuti permits. The Gorkhas of Assam strongly objected to the conspiracy of inclusion of Assam in East Pakistan by the Muslim League during the pre-independent era of India. The Gorkhas were declared as a protected class by the British in 1947... the BGYP said. Stating that the Gorkhas played significant roles in the freedom movement and attained martyrdom, the organisation said the community also contributed immensely to the preservation of the Assamese language during the time of language movement. Recently, Assams Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had purportedly agreed that the Gorkhas in Assam were one of the ancient communities and that they would be treated at par with other indigenous communities. Welcoming Sarmas statement, the BGYP requested the government to issue a gazette notification for the inclusion of the community within the purview of clause 6 of the Assam Accord. The Gorkhas have a population of around 25 lakh in Assam. Financial concerns and stress for some families continues growing during the ongoing pandemic. Nonprofit and community organizations in Cy-Fair, such as Northwest Assistance Ministries and Cypress Assistance Ministries, have worked to fill in gaps for local families with food, school supplies, financial assistance and mental health services for all ages. Food Assistance Cypress Assistance Ministries, a nonprofit for low-income families in need of assistance is seeking donations and volunteers in order to continue providing to the local community. In order to serve the people who find themselves in crisis we need the money to help them with their rent, mortgage or utilities, plus money to continue to pay the rent and utilities on our buildings and personnel costs, said Janet Ryan, director of development for Cypress Assistance Ministries. The community continues to be generous in their donations of food. CAMs greatest need at this time is money and volunteers. On HoustonChronicle.com: Gov. Abbott loosens COVID restrictions on restaurants, businesses for most of Texas CAM is also serving an extra ZIP code that lost their local assistance ministry, Bear Creek Ministries. With BCM closed, people who are struggling in that area have no local ministry providing assistance, so CAM makes food available to that zip code, 77084, as well and that is the area demonstrating the most need, Ryan said. CAM is also in need of financial donations to help clients with bills and food. Families in the 77065, 77095, 77429, 77433 and 77084 ZIP codes can receive free food with an ID and proof of residence at the food pantry from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday-Friday. The CAM food pantry is located at 11265 Huffmeister Rd. in Cypress. CAM is continuing to offer school supplies for CFISD students including backpacks. CAM will be giving the backpacks out Mon.-Fri. from 10 a.m. to noon. Families must bring a photo ID, proof of residence and school registration. CAM is in need of volunteers on Oct. 5 at 4 p.m. and Oct. 17. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/cypressassistance. Q&A: Pandemic deals Cy-Fair Helping Hands tough blow Cy-Hope , a nonprofit benefiting low-income students in Cy-Fair ISD, is hosting nonperishable food pick up on Wednesdays from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. The pickup will be located at the backpack barn in the back of the Cy-Hope property at 1275 Telge Road, Cypress. Cy-Hope is also in need of volunteers for bagging food each month. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/CyHopeTx. Cy-Fair Helping Hands, a nonprofit dedicated to homeless and low-income communities, is also providing food for Cy-Fair area families. On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and the first and third Saturdays of the month Cy-Fair Helping Hands provides perishable and nonperishable foods from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with a drive-thru model. On Oct. 8 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Mettas Local Eats, previously known as Cypress Area Eats is sponsoring a day of fundraising for Cy-Fair Helping Hands with Willies Grill and Icehouse. Both locations in Copperfield and Jersey Village will donate 15 percent of their proceeds to Cy-Fair Helping Hands from every customer that mentions the nonprofit. For more information, including how to donate, visit www.facebook.com/CYFAIRHELPINGHANDS. Northwest Assistance Ministries, or NAM, serves hundreds of in-need families a week through their onsite food pantry with both nonperishable and perishable foods and is using a drive-thru model. NAM is providing food assistance Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at their main building. NAM is also hosting another food distribution at IAH, 16152 John F Kennedy Blvd., Houston on Oct. 13 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. until supplies last. Attendees are required to wear a mask and stay in their car. NAM is in need of food and financial donations. Frozen meat, fruit and vegetables, and canned and dry goods are needed for the food pantry. Northwest Assistance Ministries has seen a consistent increase in requests for rent and food assistance, Chief Advancement Officer Brian Carr said. NAMs pantry is getting dangerously low on food. We are seeing a great need from the Greenspoint area and the zip codes nearest 77090. NAM is located at 15555 Kuykendahl Rd. in northwest Houston. For more information, visit www.namonline.org. Financial services NAM also provides financial assistance for clients needing help with bills or other expenses after losing their job due to COVID-19. Because of the way our funding is structured, our advice to our clients is to use to use the unemployment (payments) for your utilities, for your prescriptions, for some groceries and allow us to subsidize the rent because we can make that one payment to the landlord and get that caught up, Carr said. NAM has launched an online application process for rent and mortgage assistance, where applicants can submit all appropriate documents without visiting the nonprofit. We are very proud of this client centered innovation to our client intake process, Carr said. We will be able to handle a hundred or more completed applications every Monday without the clients leaving the safety of their homes. For more information, visit www.namonline.org. The Cy-Fair Houston Chamber of Commerce has a community resources page, www.cyfairchamber.com/wearecyfair, where small businesses can apply for SBA loans, catch up on the most recent mandates on COVID-19 from the state government and individual instruction for navigating loan and benefits application. The chamber of commerce also hosts community luncheons, committee meetings and seminars over Zoom, open to the public per an RSVP. For more information, visit www.cyfairchamber.com. Mental health assistance Shield Bearer counseling sessions are being held through remote teletherapy sessions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The nonprofit works with different financial situations to provide counseling for a variety of mental health challenges including grief, abuse, addictions and relationship issues. According to the organizations Facebook page, Shield Bearer has experienced an increase in the demand for mental health services and is seeking financial donations to help the organization continue meeting clients needs. For more information, visit www.shieldbearer.org. NAM is also hosted a virtual tour of their Family Violence Center on Oct. 1 in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, domestic violence has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thursday, Oct. 15, is National Wear Purple Day to spread domestic violence awareness. For more information, visit www.namonline.org/dvam. Senior Pastor Floyd Smith with Igniting Gods Vision Ministry , a 19-year-old ministry in the Cy-Fair area, said the ministry has continued to operate the recently launched Turning Peer Pressure to Peer Power program and counseling for the local community. Weve launched this ministry enough to where were already dealing with the issues they are struggling with, he said. Our goal is to save money to get our own building or land so well be able to bring them and go through the counseling process. My concern is on the counseling side and what people are going through at this time not only with the teens but also with the pandemic. Cy-Hope also offers counseling and speech therapy both in-person and through telehealth. In-person appointments require clients to wear a mask, practice social distancing and wait in their car until the beginning of the appointment. To schedule an appointment, call 713-466-1360. For more information, visit www.cy-hopecounseling.org. chevall.pryce@chron.com I absolutely wouldve kept going at least in some fashion or other if not for this, says Stephen Rockower, 70, a Rockville, Md., orthopedic surgeon who recently retired, albeit reluctantly. We went from seeing 15 to 20 patients in a half-day to maybe one or two. There were weeks when wed see maybe three patients. People were afraid to come in. I started doing some telemedicine, which was okay you can do some things but its really tough to examine somebody. You can say: Bend over and touch your toes, or Put your hand over your head, but there are things that have to be done in person, for example, feeling if the skin is warm to see if there is an infection. It was not very satisfying. Officers involved in Breonna Taylor's killing announced themselves as police many times before forcing entry into her apartment. That was according to the audio recordings of Kentucky grand jury proceedings released on Friday. The court-ordered disclosure of the recordings provides what Attorney General Daniel Cameron called "a complete picture of the events" surrounding Taylor's death. "Banged on the door -- no response. Banged on it again -- no response," one of the officers, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, said in a March interview that was played before the grand jury. At that point, Mattingly noted that they started announcing themselves. Mattingly said officers banged "six or seven" times before forcing their way into the apartment. Taylor was with her boyfriend during the incident. Mattingly said that they did announce the first couple of times because their intent was not to hit the door. "Our intent was to give her plenty of time to come to get to the door," Mattingly noted in an interview with another officer. Cameron said the officers were justified in opening fire after Taylor's boyfriend opened the first shot, which wounded Mattingly. Taylor's boyfriend and his lawyers have said he did not know the intruders were police. Mattingly noted that the officers believed Taylor was "probably there alone." After knocking multiple times and getting no response, police broke down the door and announced a "search warrant." Mattingly said he then saw a man and a woman inside about 20 feet away. The male was in a stretched-out position with his hand on a gun. "As soon as the shot hit, I could feel the heat in my leg, so I returned fire," Mattingly said. Lt. Shawn Hoover told investigators in March that the raid included a "no-knock warrant," but said that they did not want to execute it that way. It was revealed in one grand jury recording. Hoover said officers knocked multiple times before breaking down the door. He noted that they knocked on the door and said "police." He said they then waited for 10 or 15 seconds. "Knocked again, said police, waited even longer," Hoover said in an interview. Hoover noted that it was the third time that they were approaching and it had been like 45 seconds when he said, "Let's go. Let's breach it." An autopsy report released by the Jefferson County Medical Examiner's Office said that Taylor died of multiple gunshot wounds. Greg Wolf testified about autopsy findings. Wolf is an investigator for the Kentucky Attorney General. In the recordings, he said that Taylor had five gunshot wounds, but she was killed by a wound to the left upper breast. Cameron had been given two days to redact personal information from the data before the disclosure of proceedings. He also has come under fire for his role as special prosecutor on the case. "I'm confident that once the public listens to the recordings, they will see that our team presented a thorough case to the Jefferson County Grand Jury," Cameron noted in a statement released on Friday. Cameron said their presentation followed the facts and the evidence, adding that the grand jury was given complete picture surrounding Taylor's death on March 13. Check these out! I was born here in the San Joaquin Valley, not far from Fresno State. Im the grandson of immigrants from Mexico. They came here about 100 years ago. My great-grandfather helped to build the railroad through the Valley. He brought my great-grandmother and my grandfather, who was about 2 years old at the time, and who helped to raise me. [See enduring images of Californias immigrant workers.] My grandfather told me all the stories of growing up and how for several of his early years, they lived in tents along the railroad. And that was how my family started in Hanford. Im the son of a single mother, a beautician, and they all cared about education my mother and my grandparents even though they hadnt gone to college. I had the opportunity to go to U.C. Berkeley, and that changed my entire life. And for me, that is why Im in higher education and why Im serving today. I feel like I need to pay that gift forward. What are some of your top priorities? Ive worked closely with Chancellor White on Graduation Initiative 2025. It outlines ambitious goals to increase graduation rates and eliminate achievement gaps between groups. So that will continue as forcefully as possible. Then theres the health and safety of our communities, especially during the pandemic. [Track Covid-19 cases at colleges.] And then Ive already begun conversations with legislative leaders and the governor about funding for the C.S.U. I want to inspire them to invest as much as possible and to begin to increase the budget over time, then to look for ways to identify new resources from private individuals and businesses through partnerships and foundations, and so forth. After months of shutdown, international flight gradually resumed services across the world with several conditions. This period of staggered reopening saw countries exercising their rights to bar flights coming from high-risk countries. Foreign flights have also been banned in the interest of the local airlines. After India started international flights as part of Vande Bharat Mission and air bubbles, several countries have so far objected to Indias flights. Later, some of the issues have been resolved. Here is a list of the countries and why they objected United States: In May, the US administration imposed restrictions on Vande Bharat Mission flights, saying the Indian government has been engaging in discriminatory treatment of American airlines by barring them from operating similar flights. The issue got resolved as India and the US set up air bubble under which airlines of both the countries will be able to carry passengers. UAE: Soon after the United States, the United Arab Emirates raised a similar concern as India was not allowing any UAE flights. The UAE authorities in June said if Air India flights are carrying UAE nationals, then also special permission would be required. Following this, air bubble was set up with the UAE as well. Also Read: International flights: New destinations, rules, relaxations in October Hong Kong: Hong Kong banned Vande Bharat flights for a period of fortnight twice in August and September as passengers were found Covid-19 positive. Dubai: Dubai banned Air India flights for Covid-19 concerns. Now it has asked the authorities to blacklist four Covid-19 testing centres when they check test report before allowing passengers to board. Germany: There is currently no flight operational between India and Germany though the two countries have a bubble pact. Negotiations are on as Germany is not allowing Indian carriers to run as many flights as Lufthansa is flying.As against Indian carriers operating 3-4 flights a week, Lufthansa operated 20 flights a week. In spite of this disparity we offered to clear 7 flights a week for Lufthansa which was not accepted by them. Negotiations continue, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) earlier said. RTHK: UN, NGOs shaken by DR Congo sex abuse claims The humanitarian world has pledged to combat the scourge of sexual abuse within its ranks following shock revelations of alleged exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a report published this week, more than 50 women levelled accusations against aid workers from the World Health Organization (WHO), other UN agencies and major non-governmental organisations during the 2018-2020 Ebola crisis in the volatile eastern DR Congo. A year-long investigation by the Thomson Reuters Foundation and The New Humanitarian contained allegations of sexual exploitation, including propositioning women, forcing them to have sex in exchange for a job, or terminating contracts when they refused. "The largest number of accusations made by 30 women involved men who identified themselves as being with the WHO," the report said. The WHO insisted on Friday it was taking the "horrific" allegations "deadly seriously" and had launched an investigation. The other UN agencies accused the International Organization for Migration and the UN Children's Fund Unicef plus NGOs cited have done likewise. The Congolese authorities and civil society have joined the chorus of outrage. "On behalf of the government, I condemn this kind of attitude," said government spokesman David Jolino Makelele. "We are going to strengthen our control over these kinds of missions," he told Top Congo radio. "We want them to send to us people of a certain morality." Congolese 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Denis Mukwege urged victims to file complaints. "We have very courageous jurists and lawyers. I do not think they will back down in the face of international organisations," said the gynaecologist, who defends female victims of sexual violence. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press briefing in Geneva on Friday that he was "outraged" by the revelations. "We come to save lives and spread hope. The betrayal of people in the communities we serve is reprehensible. We will not tolerate behaviour like this," he said, adding that perpetrators would face "serious consequences". (AFP) This story has been published on: 2020-10-03. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. VERO BEACH, Fla. - Don Ryce, a labour lawyer who with his wife became a leading advocate for missing children after their 9-year-old son was abducted, raped and murdered in South Florida, died Saturday. He was 76. The cause of death was natural and not related to the new coronavirus, the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction said in a statement. The centre that Ryce, and his wife, Claudine, opened in honour of their son provides bloodhounds to police agencies to help in searches, pushes for changes in legislation and raises awareness about missing children. Their son, Jimmy, was abducted after getting off a school bus in South Florida in 1995 when Juan Carlos Chavez forced him into a car at gunpoint, took him to a trailer and raped him. Jimmy was fatally shot and dismembered. A three-month search by police and volunteers ended with the discovery of his remains in 55-gallon drums in a farm field in Miami-Dade County. Chavez was arrested several months later, and he was executed by the state of Florida in 2014. A petition drive by the Ryces led President Bill Clinton in 1996 to sign an executive memorandum requiring federal buildings to post pictures of missing children. Two years later, the Jimmy Ryce Act was signed into law in Florida, allowing imprisoned sex offenders to be kept in a civil commitment centre until they arent considered threats to society, even if their prison sentences have been completed. Ryces wife, Claudine, died more than a decade ago, and a daughter died seven years ago. He is survived by his son, Ted. SAQQARA, Egypt More than 2,600 years since they were buried, archaeologists in Egypt said Saturday they had found at least 59 ancient coffins in a vast necropolis south of the country's capital Cairo, one containing the pristine mummy of an ancient priest. The ornate sarcophagi have remained unopened since they were entombed near the famed Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, according to Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Footage shared by the ministry showed colorful sarcophagi decorated with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Other artifacts and at least 28 statues were found in the two deep wells, the ministry said. A sealed door was also unearthed where it is expected more mummies may lie behind, said Khaled el-Anany the first Minister of Antiquities and Tourism, adding that the artifacts were in an excellent state of preservation and would be displayed in the Grand Egyptian museum next year. Newly discovered burial site near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis in Giza (MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY / Reuters) Mostafa Waziri, the general director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told NBC News that the find reminded him of the tomb of King Tutankhamun, because both had been discovered almost intact. The Saqqara plateau is part of the necropolis of Egypt's ancient city of Memphis. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1970s, it includes the famed Giza Pyramids. It is also home to tombs created across thousands of years between the 1st Dynasty (2920 B.C.-2770 B.C.) and the Coptic period (395-642). Hundreds of mummified animals, birds and crocodiles, as well as two mummified lion cubs were found in the region last year. Egypt has heavily promoted new archaeological finds to international media and diplomats in recent years, in an effort to revive its tourism sector, which has suffered since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The sector was dealt a further blow this year by the coronavirus pandemic. Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics Last week, the ministry displayed a bronze statue of the god "Nefertam," one of the artifacts discovered with the ancient wooden coffins. Story continues Inlaid with precious stones red agate, turquoise and lapis lazuli, it reached a height of 35 cm (14 in) and on its base is inscribed with the name of the owner of the statue, a priest called "Badi Amun." "Saqqara antiquities area is still revealing its secrets," the ministry said. Charlene Gubash reported from Saqqara and Adela Suliman from London. The Associated Press contributed to this report. By Associated Press PARIS: Flooding from record rains in the mountainous region that spans France and Italy killed two people in Italy and left at least 24 people in the two countries missing Saturday. A storm that moved overnight across southeastern France and then northern Italy caused major flooding on both sides of the border, destroying bridges, blocking roads and isolating communities. In Italy, a firefighter was killed during a rescue operation in the mountainous northern region of Val dAosta. Another body was found in Vercelli province, near where a man had been swept away by flood waters late Friday. A total of 16 people were reported missing in Italy, all but one travelers in cars on the Col de Tende high mountain pass between France and Italy, according to civil protection authorities. They include two people from Germany driving with their 11-year-old and 6-year-old grandchildren, and a pair of brothers returning from France. The spokesman for Italys firefighters said a search was ongoing for a missing shepherd who was pulled into flood waters on Col de Tende. His brother managed to grab onto a tree and was saved, while authorities were searching on the French side for the shepherd. Firefighter spokesman Luca Cari said he suspects the other people reported missing in Italy have lost phone contact, but at the moment they are not thought to be in imminent danger. The situation at the tunnel on the high mountain pass is complicated by the fact that French emergency responders cannot access their side due to flood damage, Cari said. Italian firefighters were searching the French side for people who may have been blocked. Unrelenting rainfall overnight hit levels not seen since 1958 in northern Italy's Piedmont region, where as much as 630 millimeters (24.8 inches) of rain fell in a 24 hour period, according to the Italian civil protection agency. Hundreds of rescue operations were underway. Eleven campers were saved in Vercelli province, where floodwaters hit 20-year highs. And Alpine rescue squads have evacuated by foot seven people who were in houses cut off by flooding at Terme di Valdieri; some had to be carried on stretchers due to the muddy conditions and accumulation of detritus. On the other side of the border, in southeastern France, almost a year's average rainfall fell in less than 12 hours in the mountainous area surrounding the city of Nice. Local firefighters said at least eight people were missing, including two firefighters whose vehicle was carried away by water when the road collapsed during a rescue operation. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi expressed his emotion and sympathy for the families. He said over 100 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged. Firefighters said several dozen people were evacuated from their homes overnight. French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday expressed gratitude toward rescuers on Twitter. Together we will get through this, he said. Frances national weather agency, Meteo France, said that up to 500 millimeters of rain (19.7 inches) were recorded in some areas, the equivalent of almost one year of average rainfall. Meteo France had issued a danger alert on Friday and all schools in the region had been closed. Local authorities urged people to stay at home. French Prime Minister Jean Castex and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin arrived in the area later on Saturday. In a shocking incident, an elephant was shot dead in Odisha's Malyagiri Protected Forest for its ivory tusks. As per the reports, the elephant was aged between 20-25 years and its ivory were cut off after the poachers shot him with a rifle. Image For Representation The incident took place at the Malayagiri Forest Range in Pal Lahara, a small town in Angul district of the state of Odisha. The forest department near Taptajharan did not have any information regarding the presence of the elephant in the area. Whether the deceased elephant came to this area alone or with a team force, it is being investigated. It is estimated that elephant had been killed 2-3 days ago. Image For Representation/OdishaBytes On learning about the news, Deogarh Divisional Forest Officer along with a standby team reached the spot to investigate further. Significantly, such incidents are being seen in Odisha and its adjoining areas for the last few days. A similar incident took place in West Singhbhum a few days ago. It is believed that the ivory smuggling gang has become active in these areas. Ivory traffickers killed an elephant by extracting its teeth in a forest near Dubila village in Manjhari police station area, about 30 km from Chaibasa. In a little over 200 days from the day the first fatality related to the coronavirus disease was reported in India, the national death toll crossed the 100,000 mark on Friday. In this time period, 717 of the countrys 734 districts have reported at least one fatality, while the 20 worst-hit districts account for more than 40% of all deaths reported in the country. As India became the third country in the world to cross this grim milestone only the United States and Brazil have reported more fatalities a look at three factors that show how the virus has ravaged the countrys districts. Also Read: Covid-19: What you need to know today Bulk of Indias fatalities in southern, western parts The southern part of the country is the region that has been the most heavily ravaged by the virus. A large proportion of the countrys deaths (37%) have come from just one state Maharashtra. Also Read: US Prez Trump to stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for Covid-19 treatment The northern plains, particularly Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, have seen relatively lower deaths, despite the recent spike in cases in the two states pushing total deaths in these states to 910 and 5,917 respectively. A recent spike in Punjab has placed it among the states with the worst case fatality rate (CFR) of 3% against the national average of 1.56%. 13 out of 20 worst-hit districts from Maharashtra Just 20 of Indias 734 districts are responsible for nearly 45% of all fatalities reported in the country till Friday night. Of these 20 districts, 13 are from Maharashtra, the state which has been worst-hit by the disease in the country. Nearly one of every 10 deaths taken place due to Covid-19 in the country has been in just one city Mumbai. Other major cities in the worst-hit district list are Chennai (3,238 deaths), Bengaluru (3,024 dead) and Kolkata (1,737). Delhi has reported 5,438 deaths till Friday, however, the city is divided into 11 revenue districts, so it does not feature on this list. Other notable cities that are not on this list are Hyderabad and Guwahati as their respective state governments do not release district-wise split of cases and deaths. Rural districts have lower share of deaths The Covid-19 pandemic started as an urban phenomenon but is now spreading at a faster rate in rural areas. However, while 584 of Indias districts that are classified as mostly rural or entirely rural have reported 49% of all cases, they are only responsible for 38% of all deaths, which means they have performed better than their urban counterparts in saving lives. Entirely urban and mostly urban districts, meanwhile, have reported 36% of cases, but have 47% of all deaths in the country so far. Districts are classified into five categories based on the proportion of the rural population entirely urban (under 20% of the rural population), mostly urban (20%-40% rural), mixed (40%-60% rural), mostly rural (60% to 80% rural) and entirely rural (over 80% rural population). SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 22:33:49|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. - - - - MINSK -- Belarus reported 431 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking its total to 79,852, according to the country's health ministry. There have been 166 new recoveries in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 75,148, the ministry added. - - - - DHAKA -- Bangladesh recorded 1,182 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 20 more deaths on Saturday, bringing the total tally to 367,565 with 5,325 deaths, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said. The official data showed that 9,554 samples were tested in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh. - - - - TEHRAN -- Iran's Health Ministry reported 3,523 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, raising the total confirmed number in the country to 468,119. The pandemic has so far taken 26,746 lives in Iran, up by 179 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing. - - - - OUAGADOUGOU -- China on Friday donated medical devices to the Burkina Faso government to reinforce its fight against COVID-19. Valued at about 600 million CFA francs (1 million U.S. dollars), the donation was handed over by Chinese Ambassador Li Jian to Burkina Faso's Health Minister Claudine Lougue-Sorgho on Friday in the capital Ouagadougou. - - - - KUWAIT CITY -- Kuwait on Saturday reported 371 new COVID-19 cases and five more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 106,458 and the death toll to 620, the Health Ministry said in a statement. Currently, 7,403 patients are receiving treatment, including 129 in ICU, according to the statement. - - - - BAGHDAD -- The World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Iraq Adham Ismail said that the continuous increase in numbers of COVID-19 infections in Iraq is raising concerns due to the social gatherings and the approaching of winter. "The spread of the virus in the country at present is still under control and the government is making efforts to contain and control the pandemic," Ismail was quoted as saying by official al-Sabah newspaper on Saturday. - - - - NEW DELHI -- India's death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic has surpassed the 100,000-mark on Saturday, reaching 100,842, according to the latest data released by the federal health ministry. India became the third country to report over 100,0000 COVID-19 deaths globally, after the United States and Brazil. Enditem Jolt Credit Union announces that Allie Robb has joined the credit union as community affairs specialist. Robb brings three years of event promotion and youth education experience to the credit union. She has a bachelors in applied science from Central Michigan University. Her responsibilities as community affairs specialist include implementing, coordinating, and actively participating in local community relations projects to help promote the credit union in a positive manner. Bridget Staffilleno, vice-president of community affairs at Jolt Credit Union stated, We are thrilled to have such a fresh and talented new member as part of our team. Allies dynamic personality and can-do attitude is a perfect fit for Jolt!" A 39-year-old man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder and one count of arson after a fire destroyed a home in Brisbane's south and left a family in hospital. The family escaped the blaze that destroyed their home but the 30-year-old mother suffered "significant burns" to her legs and the 32-year-old father was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation. Their five-year-old daughter received burns to her face and three-year-old daughter suffered smoke inhalation. Emergency crews were called to the fire on Kitchener Street, Coorparoo about 3am on Thursday and the property was well alight. Fire service inspector Rowan Wilschefski told reporters the house had been "completely destroyed" with "significant" damage to a neighbouring home and unit block. MOH did not discuss S'gor lockdown COVID-19 | The authorities have yet to discuss imposing lockdown measures for Selangor, although case numbers in the state are rising. Currently, there are 105 people being treated for Covid-19 in Selangor, the highest after Kedah and Sabah which has some districts placed under strict lockdown rules known as the targeted enhanced movement control order (MCO). However, unlike Kedah and Sabah, none of the districts in Selangor has more than 40 cases, which would result in the district being termed a "red zone". "We haven't discussed whether we need to lockdown or not. That is for Selangor," said Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah. The Klang district accounts for the source of the highest active case numbers (28) with some students having contracted the virus. According to Klang MP Charles Santiago, 64 parent-teacher associations have petitioned to the district education office to close schools in the area immediately. Two new clusters have also emerged in Selangor today, bringing the total active clusters in the state to three. Malaysia recorded 287 new cases today - the highest on record - of this 31 were recorded in Selangor. The figures revealed 76 of the 5,330 migrants who made crossing were deported Home Secretary will announce new legislation at Conservative Party conference She plans to set out 'fair border bill', to introduce after Brexit transition period It comes after dozens of migrants made it across English Channel on Thursday Home Secretary Priti Patel, pictured, plans to set out the new legislation at the Conservative Party conference this weekend Only one in 70 migrants who crossed the Channel since April have been deported, Home Office figures have revealed as Priti Patel vows to fix the 'broken' asylum system. ADVERTISEMENT The Home Secretary plans to make the announcement at the Conservative Party conference, starting today as a virtual event. She is understood to be setting out a 'fair border bill', which will make people put forward all their reasons for refugee status at the start of their asylum application in the hope of deterring them from extending the process, and will come into place after the Brexit transition period. It follows the Home Office revealing that only 76 of the 5,330 migrants who made the crossing in the last five months have been deported from Britain. Speaking on the plans, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told The Times: 'Of course we scope a whole range of things, including how we use our international partners or otherwise to deal with that. 'That happens all the time. We wont be doing our job if we didnt know all options whether its to rule them in or out.' He suggested Ms Patel would present changes to the law, adding that the cabinet will stay united in stopping abuse while sticking to the UK's 'best traditions of being a haven for those who flee persecution'. Click here to resize this module The past week has seen several reports emerge describing extraordinary measures being mooted by the Home Office to get to grips with migration. One claimed that Ms Patel had instructed her department to weigh up the logistics of shipping migrants to islands and far-flung overseas territories for processing, including Ascension Island, 4,000 miles away in the south Atlantic. ADVERTISEMENT Others revealed proposals for a wave machine in the Channel to push back boats trying to make the crossing, and a plan to house those who do reach British waters on disused ferries. A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover, Kent, by Border Force on Tuesday following a small boat incident in the English Channel A further 13 migrants arrived in Dover by dinghy on Tuesday after crossing the Channel in the dark on Monday night. Around 40 people are understood to have been detained The briefings have infuriated the upper echelons of the Home Office, with Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft confirming an inquiry into the leaks. Nicola Sturgeon waded into the row yesterday, saying: 'They can rest assured that any proposal to treat human beings like cattle in a holding pen will be met with the strongest possible opposition from me.' Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds added: 'The Tories are lurching from one inhumane and impractical idea to another. 'The idea of sending people to Ascension Island, creating waves in the English Channel to wash boats back and buying ferries and oil rigs to process asylum claims shows the Government has lost control and all sense of compassion.' Discarded clothes and and shoes were spotted strewn across the beach on Tuesday morning Up to forty migrants arriving by dinghy are brought into the harbour on Tuesday morning The latest migrant crossing came as it was revealed that asylum seekers who are being housed in an army barracks in Kent are being crammed into rooms of 20 people It came as a plane chartered by the Home Office flew a single Channel migrant out of the country earlier this week after last-minute legal challenges blocked 29 other removals. Dozens of migrants made it across the Channel in small boats on Tuesday for the first time in a week, with around 40 people understood to have been detained. One boat with 13 people - 11 men and two teenage boys - landed on Shakespeare's Beach at Dover in Kent with a second thought to have landed further down the coast at Kingsdown near Deal. The latest migrant crossing came as it was revealed that asylum seekers who are being housed in an army barracks in Kent are being crammed into rooms of 20 people. ADVERTISEMENT Refugees who are staying at the Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, said that 20 people are being forced to share two toilets and two showers between them, amid the coronavirus pandemic. TROY, N.Y. NYSTEC recently announced the grand opening of the IgniteU NY PTAC, which will provide procurement and technical consulting services to businesses in the Capital and Mohawk Valley Regions seeking to participate in government contracts. Effective Oct. 1, 2020, the IgniteU NY PTAC will help businesses pursue and perform under contracts with the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, state and local governments, and government prime contractors. IgniteU NY PTAC will help businesses understand the public-sector procurement processes so they can successfully win government contracts, NYSTEC President & CEO Mike Walsh said. We will offer technical assistance and training workshops to meet the needs of businesses of any type and size, including minority-owned, woman-owned, and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses. And, if you are not yet certified, we can help you get certified and navigate the challenges of selling to federal, state, or local government, Walsh added. The IgniteU NY PTAC will offer a wide variety of no-cost services to existing businesses interested in selling their goods and services to local, state, and/or federal government agencies. Services will include one-on-one guidance and training in areas such as identifying contract opportunities, helping prepare bids/proposals, performing market research, targeting and marketing to potential buyers, advising on contract management, and managing payment. The PTAC will be headquartered at the IgniteU NY Office located at 333 Broadway in Troy, with a subcenter at NYSTEC corporate headquarters located at 99 Otis Street, Rome, NY. The PTAC will serve businesses in the following 17 counties in New York State: Albany, Columbia, Delaware, Fulton, Greene, Herkimer, Montgomery, Oneida, Otsego, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Sullivan, Ulster, Warren, and Washington. The alignment of the new PTAC under our IgniteU NY program will play a crucial role in aiding businesses as they look to enter the government marketplace, NYSTEC Innovation & Entrepreneurship Manager Evan DeGennaro stated. Were excited to be expanding the IgniteU NY suite of services offered in support of business growth in our local communities, DeGennaro added. NYSTEC has been active in economic development since its inception. In 2015, the company made an additional commitment to support the growth of small businesses and startups by creating IgniteU NY, an independent program focused on developing entrepreneurs throughout New York State. With the mission of empowering entrepreneurs to create new opportunities, solve new problems, and create value, the IgniteU NY program closely aligns with the mission of the PTAC and demonstrates NYSTECs longstanding commitment and successes in this area. For businesses interested in learning more about the IgniteU NY PTAC, are encouraged to visit https://igniteuny.com/ptac. The first presidential debate failed to make much of a dent in former Vice President Joe Bidens lead in Pennsylvania, a state key to President Donald Trumps hopes of winning a second term, according to a poll released Saturday. Biden led Trump, 49%-42%, among likely voters in the New York Times/Siena College poll. Thats basically unchanged from his 49%-40% advantage in a Times/Siena poll released before the debate. Voters didnt move very much in the last week, so it will be interesting to see if the race here continues to be stable or if events will shake up the race and tighten it or lead to an even larger Biden lead," said Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute. "Stay tuned. Biden built his polling lead on the strength of female voters, 54% to 39%, while barely trailing Trump among men, 44% to 46%. Likewise, Biden received the support of 73% of non-white voters to Trumps 22%, whites were almost evenly divided, 47% for the president and 44% for the challenger. Trumps biggest strength was among whites without college degrees, which he led over Biden, 58% to 34%. Biden held a lead of 5.7 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics polling average. As Trump looks to hold onto Pennsylvanias 20 electoral college votes, and Biden looks to move them back into the Democratic column, Pennsylvanians are likely to see a lot of effort from both campaigns and frequent visits by the candidates, Levy said. Voters polled said Biden won the debate, 35%-18%, with 47% declining to name a winner. More than two-thirds of them, 68%, disapproved of the way Trump conducted himself during the debate, compared with 22% who approved of his actions. A majority of voters, 52%, approved of the way Biden conducted himself, with 35% disapproving. That translated into almost half of voters, 48%, saying they were less likely to back Trump, including 40% of men and 55% of women. Less than 1 in 5 voters, 19%, said they were more likely to support the president. As for Biden, 35% of voters said they were more likely to support him and 29% less likely to do so. Trump carried Pennsylvania by less than 1% four years ago, the first time a Republican presidential candidate had won the commonwealth since George H.W. Bush in 1988. It is one of the battleground states Biden, a native of Scranton, is trying to move back into the Democratic column. More than half of likely Pennsylvania voters, 55%, disapproved of Trumps performance in office, with 42% approving. The poll of 706 likely voters was conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 2 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Yo, Adrian! Need a house? Because the childhood home of the A-list actor Sylvester Stallone is on the market for $719,000. Settled on a sleepy street in the Washington, DC, suburb of Silver Spring, MD, the brick Cape Cod was built in 1952. It landed on the market back in 2017 for $750,000, but no buyer took a swing at the placeeven after a series of price cuts. Three years later, aside from its connection to a youthful Stallone, the well-pedigreed place has plenty of other positives. It's immaculately maintained, but a new owner may want to freshen up the look just a bit. The four-bedroom home measures in at 2,525 square feet and boasts hardwood floors, plenty of storage, and a backyard play area for the kids. The fully finished, walk-out basement would be ideal for in-laws or even a live-in nanny. The listing details tout its proximity to shopping, dining, and even a Whole Foods. Exterior of home in Silver Spring, MD realtor.com Entry realtor.com Living room realtor.com Dining room realtor.com Kitchen realtor.com Office realtor.com Master bedroom realtor.com Bathroom realtor.com Basement realtor.com Back patio realtor.com Although the specific details are fuzzy, the home's listing agent, Alfredo Duque, told us Stallone and his family lived in the area for about a decade during the late 1950s and early '60s. He added that Stallone was bullied terribly for his stutter by the other kids and was expelled from two elementary schools during his time there. His parents were both local business people. His dad operated a beauty school, and his mom owned a gym for women. Today, Stallone lives in much grander style, as the iconic star of "Rocky," "Rambo," and "The Expendables," with his wife of more than two decades, Jennifer Flavin. The post Owner of Sylvester Stallone's Childhood Home Takes a Swing at Finding a Buyer appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com. Prince Philip has been standing by the queens side since she took the throne back in 1952. Since then, many others have joined the royal family through marriage, including Philip and the queens granddaughter-in-law, Meghan Markle. But Philip, who once felt close to Meghan, cannot understand why the duchess wanted to leave the family, according to one expert. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle walk behind Prince Philip on Christmas Day in 2017. | Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images Prince Philip gave up his dream of a military career to stand by the queen When Philip and the queen met, she was instantly smitten. They had a significant age gap, and Philip wasnt nearly as highly regarded as the queen. Many felt he was unfit to marry her, since he had grown up poor and without much family. Still, the queen was in love, and Philip eventually grew on the royal family. After Philip proposed, the queens father requested that they keep the engagement a secret for a year. Once they finally tied the knot, life drastically changed for Philip. He was given new royal titles (he had to disassociate with his Greek titles), and he was unable to give his children his own last name. Plus, Philip was deeply upset that he couldnt continue a career in the Navy, which is what he had wanted to do with his life. Philip and the queen chat after Harry and Meghans wedding in 2018. | Alastair Grant/AFP/Getty Images RELATED: Prince Philip Had a Blunt Response To Accusations That He Cheated on Queen Elizabeth II, Source Says Prince Philip and Meghan Markle bonded over her interest in his past Philip eventually settled into his role, which included royal rules such as walking several steps behind the queen in public. And now, nearly 70 years after becoming the Duke of Edinburgh, hes watching the younger generations prepare to take the throne. Prince Harry, whose older brother mostly prevents him from ever having to rule, married Meghan Markle back in 2018, and Meghan individually bonded with Harrys relatives to win them over. She showed particular interest in Philips life and heritage. Meghan asked a lot of questions, about Philips side of the family and his connection to Greece, a royal insider told Express. For a while, Meghan was on good terms with Harrys family, but after the two married, there appeared to be a noticeable shift in dynamic between the Sussexes and the rest of the Harrys family. Meghan Markle and Prince Philip, back left, walk side by side after Princess Eugenies wedding in 2018. | Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage Philip cannot understand how Meghan gave up on the royals so easily when he took on the challenge Harry and Meghan eventually decided to step down from their royal roles and move to Meghans home state of California. The two bought a house in Santa Barbara, and it is largely believed that Meghan played a major role in the couple relinquishing their royal titles. Now, though, one expert says that Philip is very disappointed in Meghan for pulling Harry away from the family especially when he gave up everything to stand by the queen. I think hes very, very disappointed because I think he feels he gave up his naval career in order to stand by the Queen and help the monarchy, royal expert Ingrid Seward said in an interview, according to Daily Mail. He just cannot understand why she couldnt support Harry and help him rather than wanting to have her voice. When Harry and Meghan announced their departure, Philip decided he did not want to be involved in the drama that would follow. [The royal exit] irritates him hugely, Seward said. And when they had the Sandringham summit, Prince Philip was seen leaving the house very swiftly before they all arrived. He simply doesnt want to get involved anymore. Hope Hicks. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Hope Hicks, a White House counselor to President Donald Trump, has tested positive for COVID-19, Bloomberg, The New York Times, and CNN reported Thursday. The reports said Hicks traveled with Trump aboard Air Force One to and from the first presidential debate Tuesday between him and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Trump told Fox News that he has also gotten tested for coronavirus since learning Hicks tested positive and is awaiting the results. "Whether we quarantine or whether we have it, I don't know," he said. "We'll see what happens. Who knows." Hicks is one of the closest advisers to Trump's to have tested positive for COVID-19. She has reportedly told some people close to her that she is experiencing symptoms of the disease, according to Bloomberg. Learn more about the race for a coronavirus vaccine in our live event on October 5. Sign up here. Hope Hicks, counselor to President Donald Trump, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, sources told Bloomberg News, The New York Times, and CNN on Thursday. The outlets reported that Hicks traveled with Trump aboard Air Force One to and from the first debate Tuesday between him and the Democratic nominee Joe Biden. White House officials have been aware since Wednesday evening that Hicks had the virus, according to The New York Times. "The president takes the health and safety of himself and everyone who works in support of him and the American people very seriously," White House spokesman Judd Deere told Business Insider. "White House Operations collaborates with the Physician to the President and the White House Military Office to ensure all plans and procedures incorporate current CDC guidance and best practices for limiting Covid-19 exposure to the greatest extent possible both on complex and when the president is traveling," he added. The president told Fox News that he has also gotten tested for coronavirus since learning Hicks tested positive and is awaiting the results. "Whether we quarantine or whether we have it, I don't know," he said. "We'll see what happens. Who knows." Story continues According to Bloomberg, Hicks has told people close to her that she is experiencing some symptoms of the disease, which has infected more than 7 million Americans and killed nearly 208,000. Hicks was not wearing a mask Tuesday when she rode in a staff van with White House adviser Stephen Miller, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller, and some others, Bloomberg reported. Miller and Hicks also reportedly shared an umbrella when they exited Air Force One that day. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, and US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien were all seen deplaning from Air Force One in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday, according to Daily Mail reporter Nikki Schwab. Hicks traveled with Trump to Cleveland, according to CNN, and also attended a Trump rally in Minnesota on Wednesday. Hicks is one of several people in the president's orbit who tested positive for COVID-19 the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March. The US is currently the biggest hotspot for the virus and makes up 20% of global deaths while making up just 4% of the world's population. This story is breaking. Check back for updates. Read the original article on Business Insider Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough says the government isn't trying to escape public scrutiny of its pandemic response, despite having shut down debate this week on her bill extending income supports to Canadians hit hardest by the spring lockdown. Qualtrough told CBC's The House that the goal in pushing through Bill C-4 was to ensure people didn't lose out on the benefits transition from the original Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), which expired last weekend. "We're really trying to provide some confidence and certainty moving forward in these incredibly uncertain times," she told host Chris Hall when asked if allowing MPs to review the bill, and to propose suggestions, could have led to improvements. "I would say probably. I don't know. I think we ended up in a really good place." Qualtrough's bill replaces the $500-a-week CERB which provided income to nearly nine million Canadians over the past six months with a package of new programs. EI benefits will be increased from $400 to $500 a week to match the CERB benefit. A new Canada Recovery Benefit will be available to people who still don't qualify for EI. The legislation also creates two new benefits, one for sick leave and the other for people who stay at home to care for a dependant. Marc Robichaud/ CBC But the sick leave benefit and increased EI benefit came only after intense pressure from the NDP, whose support the Liberals needed to stave off defeat in a confidence vote. New Democrat MP Heather McPherson said those last-minute negotiations could have been avoided had the government bothered to consult properly with the opposition after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued the Commons back in August. "We were so happy to fight and push the Liberals and get them to keep the CERB at $2,000 a month and to get them to put sick leave in,'" she said in a separate panel discussion on The House with Conservative MP Karen Vecchio. Story continues "Did we want them to do it in this time frame? Absolutely not." Vecchio said that Conservatives understand the urgent need to support Canadians as a second wave of COVID-19 emerges in some parts of the country. But she also argues the Liberals are showing they're more interested in finding a partner to stay in power than in coming up with good public policy. "I understand that people need these programs. My concern is that [the Liberals] do not want to be scrutinized," she said. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press Qualtrough insisted she consulted regularly with opposition critics on the creation of the new benefits, despite the changes introduced this week in order to win NDP support. She said she's also open to further changes including an extension of the 26-week benefit period as new cases of COVID-19 begin to mount in parts of Ontario and Quebec. Both provinces introduced new restrictions this week to slow the spread. "We have modelled the different scenarios and part of the 26 weeks is giving people a good six months of benefits, understanding that regions may open or close, and sectors may open more slowly than others," she said. "But you know, for me, the bigger message is we will be there when it comes to COVID. We're going to be there for Canadians and do whatever it takes to make sure that we get through this." Press Release October 2, 2020 Villanueva: DOLE should expand targeted assistance for battered MSMEs sector, a key employment generator Aside from providing access to capital, the country's micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector should also receive further technical assistance to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Senator Joel Villanueva. At the budget deliberations of the labor department on Thursday afternoon, Villanueva asked the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to extend more technical assistance to the MSME sector, which generates a lot of employment for Filipino workers. The lawmaker pointed out that the target trainees of the National Wage and Productivity Commission (NWPC) for 2021 was just 9,000 MSMEs, considering that there are 935,000 registered MSMEs with the Department of Trade and Industry. "Napakalaki po ng sektor ng MSME at nakakapaglikha ito ng trabaho at oportunidad para sa ating mga kababayan. Ayon sa Philippine Statistics Authority, 99% o 935,000 mula sa 945,000 na kabuuang rehistradong negosyo dito po sa atin ay kabilang sa MSME sector," Villanueva said in a statement. "Maliban po sa pautang sa mga MSMEs, dapat po palawakin pa ng DOLE ang technical training assistance para sa kanila upang makapag-adjust sila sa new normal at mapabilis ang kanilang pag-ahon mula sa pandemya," said the lawmaker, who chairs the Senate labor committee. Villanueva inquired on the target beneficiaries of NWPC's technical assistance and training for 2021, which the agency set at 9,000 MSMEs, 25 percent lower than its 2020 target of 12,000 trainees, "to find out the limitations being faced by the agency." Responding to the lawmaker's question, NWPC executive director Maria Criselda Sy explained that their limited manpower was a major factor in training more MSMEs to improve their technical know-how, aside from the hindrances posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Villanueva responded that the NWPC's targets remained to be low, considering the scale of the sector and the jobs it is able to generate, citing trade department data that about every 7 of 10 workers in the country work at MSMEs. "It remains na 'yong 9,000 na target ay napakababa po, kung titingnan natin ang kabuuan ng sektor ng ating MSMEs. Lalo na po ngayong panahon ng pandemya, kinakailangan ng mga negosyong ito ng suporta ng pamahalaan upang maipagpatuloy ang kanilang operasyon hanggang sa humupa ang pandemya," Villanueva urged. Aside from supporting MSMEs, Villanueva sought DOLE to expand its employment facilitation efforts and sustainable livelihood programs to ensure its 2021 budget is more responsive to the employment crisis experienced in the country. "With unemployment figures still in double digits, our usual reliefs are insufficient already. Our path towards employment recovery relies on strategic employment facilitation, sustainable livelihood, and reliable government support to MSME, who we all know is one of the hardest hit sectors in this pandemic," he said. "We need to provide all the assistance we can give to MSME, which employs over 90 percent of our workers." Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 01:26:08|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close by Xinhua writers Liu Xi, Gao Yang, Li Liangyong BEIRUT, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Jia Fei, soldier from 19th batch of Chinese peacekeeping forces to Lebanon, has not spent China's traditional Mid-Autumn Festival with his parents for nine years during his military service. This year, Jia is farther away from his parents as it is the first time for him to go abroad for the peacekeeping mission as a guard squad leader. "My son has been 14 months and 23 days. I only spent some time with him when he was born," said the man from east China's Shandong Province, as he fought back tears, adding that he really missed his son and wife. The Mid-Autumn Festival overlaps with the National Day this year, which both fall on Oct. 1. However, Chinese peacekeepers are far away from their motherland and family members, performing the peacekeeping mission in a foreign country with danger risk. "Dear, we are about to see our new baby. I am so excited but also sorry for my absence. Thanks for your contributions to our family," said Mao Pan in a phone conversation with his wife as he prepared to go to the minefield near the Blue Line, a border demarcation drawn in 2000 by the United Nations after Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon. Mao arrived in Lebanon in August as a mine-sweeping soldier for Chinese peacekeeping forces while his wife's expected delivery date is in October. Cao Yijie, a mechanical operator who has been a new father, chatted with his wife in an online video call, staring at his 3-day-old daughter with a big smile. "Although it is a pity that I cannot wait for the birth of my daughter, I should earnestly complete the peacekeeping mission and make my daughter proud of having a father who is a peacekeeping warrior," said Cao. Chinese peacekeepers have improved the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon recently notified that officers and soldiers from several troop-contributing countries have contracted the virus. Zhang He, the head nurse of the hospital of Chinese peacekeeping forces, has been busy at the pre-inspection and triage post all day long in sweat-soaked isolation gown. "For everyone's safety, no matter how hard and tired I am, I have to make sure that there is no problem at the 'first checkpoint' of the prevention and control of the pandemic in the hospital," she told Xinhua. Wang Jianbin, a doctor with experience in fighting against the coronavirus, disinfects the camp of the Chinese peacekeepers to Lebanon three times a day in a protective gear and with a load burden of 16 kg under the scorching sun. It took half a day to finish the disinfection work but Wang refused other colleagues' help, saying that "the pandemic is severe and I have more experience. I should do this job alone." The Chinese peacekeeping forces to Lebanon also organized evening parties and cultural activities in the camp to celebrate the National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Chef Li Jiesheng spent a week preparing hand-made mooncakes for peacekeepers with the taste of the hometown. "I am here for the peacekeeping mission," the loud voices of the Chinese peacekeepers resounded through the camp, expressing their commitment to the mission to defend peace and stability. Enditem The soul of the nation is on the ballot Nov. 3. At stake is more than the usual choice between two candidates, two parties, two visions of a brighter future for America. This election is a test of whether we still embrace the concept of American exceptionalism, that the virtue of our values, our political system and our history remain so distinct, so worthy, so enduring that we are a role model for the world. No president in modern times has done as much as Donald Trump to degrade the qualities and institutions that have girded the 244-year-old great American experiment through a Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, 9/11 and the never-ending quest to cure the inequities of gender and race that our Founding Fathers failed to see. No president has so knowingly dismissed warnings of a serious health threat to deceive the American people whether out of ignorance or political calculation with the result being tens of thousands of preventable deaths and an economy in ruins. Then came the stunning revelation early Friday from Trump that he and the first lady have tested positive for COVID-19, assuring that his response to the pandemic would be a top issue in the last month of the campaign. President Trump has been a disaster as a leader and a disgrace to the office. He has made more than 20,000 false or misleading statements. He has praised authoritarian rulers while disparaging allies whose soldiers have fought alongside U.S. troops in battle. He publicly sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin against our own intelligence agencies in their firm conclusion that Russia meddled on his behalf in the 2016 election. He has shattered modern presidential norms by refusing to put his assets in a blind trust and has profited from hotels, resorts and other holdings controlled by his children. He has called journalists enemies of the American people, questioned the integrity of judges who ruled against him, scoffed at the skill and honor of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community and perhaps most chillingly insisted that any election result that went against him would be rigged. He reached out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, dangling U.S. military assistance as a carrot, to help fabricate dirt on his then-potential 2020 rival Joe Biden. For that violation of public trust, he was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. Only the obsequiousness of a Republican-controlled Senate kept him from being the first president to be forcibly removed from office. The case against Donald Trumps re-election is overwhelming. As a referendum on the 45th president, this would be no contest even against a subpar alternative. Thankfully, America is not stuck with four more years of dysfunction and despair, grift at home and drift abroad. We have an opportunity to elect a president who grasps the magnitude of the office, who believes in science, is secure in his sense of being, values alliances and is in public service for something other than personal aggrandizement and enrichment. Former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, offers a chance for a return to the steady leadership this nation needs as it takes on multiple crises. He speaks often of being a president of all Americans whether they voted for him or not a concept foreign to the current occupant of the White House, who is counting on his base to bail him out in a polarized electorate. As a senator, the Delaware Democrat worked with and had friendships with his colleagues across the aisle, most notably the late John McCain of Arizona (whose widow, Cindy, just endorsed him). It speaks to Bidens comfort in his own skin that he selected Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as his running mate even after she had so mercilessly knocked him off guard in a primary debate by highlighting his opposition to mandatory school busing in the 1970s. Californians who have followed the career of the former prosecutor know she can be a formidable ally or adversary. Like Biden, she can also be resolutely pragmatic, willing to withstand pressures from absolutists on the left that could cost elections or undermine the potential for gains on a progressive agenda. Her selection as the vice presidential nominee was both bold and inspired. It strengthened the ticket. After nearly a half-century in the nations capital and two previous runs for president, Biden is a known quantity for better and worse. Trump and his surrogates will pick apart his Senate votes on issues such as federal sentencing laws and the Iraq War, and try to associate him with everything about President Barack Obamas tenure that they perceive or portray as bad. Yet we know this: Biden is not an ideologue. He proved it time and again in the primary, when his less sweeping alternatives to Medicare for All and the Green New Deal cost him dearly in the early primary states where Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were firing up the progressive base. Biden held his ground. Addressing climate change and expanding health care coverage were high on his priority list, but he was determined to approach each in a way that neither broke the bank nor precluded the possibility of getting something done. His goals include making the country carbon-neutral by mid-century and adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act. He has called for a repeal of the top-weighted tax cuts under Trump and a modest increase of the corporate tax rate to 28%. The Trump campaigns attempt to paint Biden as a socialist is just plain ludicrous. It is telling, and promising, that Biden has been gaining the support of longtime Republicans. Its also disturbing that a legion of Trump appointees including such former high-level officials as John Bolton, James Mattis, John Kelly, Anthony Scaramucci and Rex Tillerson have issued such damning critiques of his fitness for office. Biden could do much for national healing by appointing a Team of Rivals Cabinet, a la Abraham Lincoln, to identify and reinforce common ground. Despite Trumps red-hat slogan, Make America Great Again, this nations standing in the world has deteriorated on his watch. Our allies and adversaries alike have been dealing with a temperamental president who is too vulnerable to flattery, too spooked by the tiniest slight and too eager to declare victory on a deal that evaporates not long after the ink is dry. There is no greater example of that than his much-ballyhooed but ultimately vacuous courtship of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Meanwhile, Trump routinely belittled our partners in the NATO alliance, a bedrock of global stability since World War II; dropped out of the Iran nuclear deal that has constrained that nations weapons program, and withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. In each case, the U.S. had been a leader among nations. Now it is seen, regrettably, as an unreliable ally. Biden would re-solidify those important international ties. Sometimes, amid the bombast out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., its easy to overlook the Trump administrations disastrous policy decisions: the waste of money on the border wall, the travel ban against Muslim-majority nations, the cruel separation of families at the border, the rollback of scores of environmental protections, the drive to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, the green light for Turkey to invade Syria and attack our Kurdish allies, the undermining of worker protections. Yet the case against Trump goes well beyond policy differences. America deserves a president who respects America, who would not think of turning the attorney general into his personal henchman to reward friends and punish enemies or employing brutal military tactics to clear out Americans peacefully protesting racial injustice so he can cross the street for a photo opportunity. America deserves a president who can say with sincerity that Black Lives Matter and understand why it needs to be said in 2020, who can deplore white nationalism without hesitation and in no uncertain terms. America deserves a president who views the military men and women who risk their lives in the service of their country not as suckers or losers but as the selfless patriots and heroes they are. America deserves a president who will confront autocrats who trample human rights, not coddle or court them. America deserves a president who neither fears nor suppresses full voter participation but encourages it as a measure of a healthy democracy. America deserves a president who holds the peaceful transfer of power as a sacred covenant with our framers. America deserves Joe Biden as its 46th president. 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. (File image: News18) Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on October 3 met the family of the Hathras victim and said that they will fight for justice for the Dalit woman who died this week after she was allegedly gang-raped, triggering nationwide outrage. "We will fight against injustice, and fight till justice is done," Priyanka Gandhi Vadra told reporters after the meeting that lasted about 45 minutes. Rahul Gandhi said no power can stifle the voice of the family. Uttar Pradesh authorities had scuttled an earlier attempt by the two leaders to travel to Hathras, detaining them and several party workers in Greater Noida outside Delhi. On Saturday, the party staged another show of strength at the Delhi-Noida border. The UP Police said they will allow five party party representatives to meet the family in the village in Hathras district. The 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped on September 14 in an assault by four men that left her critically injured. She died at a Delhi hospital last Tuesday. During a visit to Varanasi on Saturday, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Zubin Irani described the incident in Hathras as painful. "Chief Minister Yogi will do justice in this matter. But Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka going to Hathras is just playing politics." Irani says she is confident that the Uttar Pradesh CM will carry out justice in this case. "I have also spoken on the phone with the Chief Minister on this matter." Taking a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, he said, "His attempted journey to Hathras is just playing politics. People of the country and the state understand this. They should go to Rajasthan and take the initiative to bring justice to the victim's family there, but they are trying to come to Hathras again and again for the sake of votes." Elaborating on the incident in Hathras she said, "I do not interfere in the affairs of any state because of constitutional decorum. But I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath on the Hathras case. The Chief Minister has formed the SIT. Action has already been taken against the SP and others on the preliminary report yesterday. Let the SIT report come. After that Yogi Adityanath will take stern action against those who have interfered with the investigation or those who have conspired to deny justice to the victim." The Union Minister further said, "Rahul Gandhi has always strived to do politics, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been successful in the realm of national policies. I think the people have understood the tactics of the Congress very well. If any leader wants to do politics on any subject, I cannot stop him, but the public understands that the journey to Hathras is for the sake of Rahul's own politics and not to deliver justice to the victim." Samajwadi Party and Congress women activists protested outside the Circuit House in Varanasi about the Hathras case. BJP MLA Saurabh Srivastava came out and tried to assuage the activists. But the protests continued. Meanwhile, Irani also spoke to the activists at the Circuit House. T he Greek Islands have a certain charm that keeps drawing us back - it certainly helps when we have 227 inhabited islands to choose from. Yet, while most tourists descend on Mykonos to party or to Santorini to watch its famous sunset, those in the know are heading to its lesser known Cycladic neighbour, Sifnos, instead. With a burgeoning foodie scene, golden sand beaches, and endless hikes to explore (the French have been following the islands trails for years) theres something for every traveller in Sifnos. Blue domes are aplenty here too - theres an impressive 235 churches dotted across the island. Read on for our guide to the Cyclades most under-the-radar island. Where to eat & drink The Tsikali, Vathi A truly authentic farm-to-table Taverna. Set on the shores of the far end of Vathi Beach, its a family-run restaurant that serves cheese and meat made and reared from its own farm on the island. The stone-baked goat is a signature, as well as its salty chickpea soup - the latter is also a Sifnian staple. The Greek salad is fresh, moussaka divine and be sure to save room for something sweet - the homemade lemon pie manages to be both light and rich at the same time. Omega3, Platis Gialos One of the Cyclades most famed restaurants (Tom Hanks is a known fan), Omega3 offers the best fish dishes youll find on Sifnos. While its raw fish plates are its signature, we loved the sashimi, rocket salad with Greek black truffle, figs and Sifnian cheese and the melt-in-your mouth scallops. The beach bar has a prime position on Platis Gialos beach, so book a sunset seating to watch the stars slowly appear above you while you sip on sharp Greek wine. Cayenne Restaurant Art Gallery, Apollonia A modern take on a Greek salad at Cayenne Restaurant Art Gallery / Laura Hampson Tucked away on the main, narrow alleyway of the islands largest town, Apollonia, Cayenne Restaurant Art Gallery is Greek food with a posh twist. The Sifnian cheese donuts with blackberry sauce is a sumptuous combination of salty and sweet, while the Greek salad with barley rusks is a perfect accompaniment to the succulent pork gyros. Tables are outdoors, so diners can soak up the balmy summer evenings, and chef Nikos moonlights as an artist - the art gallery above the restaurant is filled with his work. Sunset in Troulaki, Troulaki We pulled in here by chance one evening and it turned out to be one of our favourite spots on the island. All of the outdoor tables have spectacular views of the pink-hued sunset and the food is classic Greek. We dined on tender pork souvlaki and opted for both the chocolate pie - more rocky road-esque - and Greek yoghurt with honey for dessert. Apokofto Tavern, Apokofto Beach Apokofto Tavern is right next to the beach / Laura Hampson One of the best tips for any tourist is to go where the locals go, which is how we found ourselves at Apokofto Tavern. After spending an afternoon at Apokofto Beach, walk the five or so steps it takes to get the Tavern for your evening meal. Listen to the waves lap and the sounds of locals nattering while dining on souvlaki, fried courgettes and lashings of Greek yoghurt with honey. Isalos, Kamares A view down to Kamares, where Isalos is set / Laura Hampson Plonked at the end of Kamares Beach, Isalos is in a prime position for a post-swim feast. Another sunset spot, watch the boats glide leisurely on the horizon while you take a break from Greek fare and instead dine on delicious lemon and garlic linguine or a hearty steak. For your Greek fix, theres a divine filo wrapped feta with honey on the menu as well as aubergine chips. What to see Agios Symeon The Agios Symeon Monastery has some of the best views on the island / Laura Hampson The best spot in the island to watch the sunset, the Agios Symeon monastery is also one of the highest points on Sifnos. Towering above Kamares, the blue domed church has stunning interiors (most churches leave their doors unlocked so visitors can have a look), but sunset is the prime time to visit. Church of the Seven Martyrs Sunrise at the Church of the Seven Martyrs / Laura Hampson On the opposite side of the island to Agios Symeon (but only a 15-minute drive away from Kamares), the Church of the Seven Martyrs is the most grammable of the island. Perched on rocks above the Aegean Sea, watch the sunrise over the water as it frames the church in pretty pink hues. Cheronissos Village A fisherman's boat in Cheronissos Village / Laura Hampson In the near-barren north of the island, Cheronissos is one of the only remaining fishing villages protected in a small gulf. The water here is unbelievably clear and boats bob up and down while locals swim from the beach or dive off the small jetty. There are two tavernas on the beach that serve fresh fish for when youve worked up an appetite. Faros Village The pretty Faros Beach / Laura Hampson Parallell to Cheronissos, in the southern corner of the island, Faros is home to two pretty beaches and a fabulous selection of restaurants and shops. We spent the day beach hopping between here and neighbouring Fassolou Beach and dined on gyros at a beachside taverna. What to do Spend a day exploring hidden coves by sea with Aegeas Cruises Explore beaches you can only get to by boat / Laura Hampson This was, unequivocally, our favourite experience on the island, which was in large part due to the warm hospitality of Aegeas Cruise owners Georgia and Michalis. The pair started their own day trip cruises in 2019 after buying and renovating a traditional trechantiri fishing boat, Aegeas. Now it can take up to sixteen guests (there was just four when we went, a French couple and us, so plenty of room to sunbathe) and we visited three coves that you could only reach by boat (or a lengthy hike). Depending on the weather, it will hug the Sifnian coast or head to the nearby uninhabited island of Polyaigos for the day. Snorkels, goggles and flippers are provided so you can take a look at the beautiful fish and bask in the incredible clarity of the water. Lunch (and snacks) are provided too, as well as water, soft drinks and wine and beer, and it was one of the best meals we had on the island. Food was homemade by the couple, with fresh bread topped with aubergine spread, traditional Sifnian biscuits, the freshest Greek and potato salads and lamb and pork skewers barbecued off the side of the boat. Later, Georgia bought out fresh fruit and her homemade brownies, safe to say we were perfectly satiated. Become familiar with the islands ceramics Unglazed cermaics at Giannis Apostolidis' pottery studio / Laura Hampson Pottery is deeply cemented in Sifnian history, its been practised here since the proto-Cycladic era. This is largely due to the abundance of fire resistant clay found on the island and the mild climate conditions. The modern day result is that handmade ceramics here are aplenty, and they are incredibly beautiful. There are currently 18 pottery workshops on the island, many with a long-held family tradition of pottery. We met with Giannis Apostolidis who has a workshop on the hills above Kamares. A third-generation ceramist (he makes all of his own clay on site), he happens to be one of the islands friendliest locals too and creates wonderful handcrafted pottery. Also make a visit to Sifnian Stoneware, which has a beautiful array of dinnerware, and Art Ceramic Narlis which has everything from vases to clocks. Learn about the islands ancient history The blue-domed Panagia Poulati. Keep walking down to swim at the rocky cove / Laura Hampson While you can explore the many monasteries yourself, sometimes its best to do it with a guide. On a balmy Friday morning we were greeted by Christina Kagianni who escorted us to some of the islands most historical spots. We dove into Ancient Greek history at the Citadel and museum of Agios Andreas at the base of the ancient 13th century BC city of the same name, before exploring the Monastery of Panagia Vounou, the Monastery of Panagia Chrissopigi, Panagia Poulati and Kastro Village, the old capital of Sifnos which offers stunning cobblestone streets and alleys leading to pretty homes. Each summer, from July to September, the exhibition of Sifnian Folkloric Objects opens in the pretty hilltop town of Artemonas. Set in a traditional Sifnian home, you can see how people used to live on the island (and how they used to dress). If youre lucky, youll be guided by 14-year-old Alex who knows a thing or two about the islands folklore. Beach hop around Sifnos Fassolou Beach, our favourite on the island / Laura Hampson If theres one thing Sifnos isnt lacking, its excellent beaches. Unlike its Cycladic neighbour Santorini, where picturesque beaches are few and far between, youll be spoilt for choice with golden sand beaches leading to azure waters here. Most of the beaches can be found in the south, the quieter Fassolou was our favourite beach and boasted plenty of pretty trees to hide from the hot sun. Over the hill, you'll find two lovely beaches in Faros and Apokofto Beach around the bay is always protected from the wind, making it a great option for kids. Just off Apokofto the flat rocks off Chrisopigi Monastery are ideal for a dive-in dip. When theres no wind from the north, theres a rocky beach below Panagia Poulati monastery which is great for snorkelling and the beach up in Cheronissos Village is a quiet oasis. Explore the islands hiking trails The flat rocks off Chrisopigi Monastery / Laura Hampson There are some 200 kilometres of hiking trails around Sifnos, which offer beautiful vantage spots that those travelling by car miss. Choose from hills big and small and enjoy discovering hidden churches along the way. Autumn and Spring are particularly popular times for hiking on the island, thanks to the fragrant herbs and wildflowers that grow. One of our favourite hikes was between Panagia Poulati and Kastro Village and you can walk into secluded beaches where, more often than not, youll have the crystalline waters to yourself. Where to stay Nymfes Hotel / Nymfes Hotel A short five-minute drive or 15-minute walk from the port, the family-run Nymfes Hotel exudes Greek charm. Rooms are reasonably priced (50 for a double) and bright and airy thanks to the French doors that open onto private balconies, each with views across to the surrounding hills and sparkling seas. Kamares Beach is just down the road as is a bunch of eateries, and its a great base for exploring the island. Breakfasts here will keep you full all day long. Its largely continental but with a couple of hot, usually egg-based offerings. Expect spinach and feta pastries (mini croissants and pan au chocolats too), Greek yoghurt with honey, fresh fruit, sweet treats, freshly baked bread, spreads like fig jam, olives, feta, tomatoes and some days theres a bowl of the islands signature chickpea soup, too. From 50 per night on a bed and breakfast basis, nymfes.gr Verina Astra Verina Suites Perched high above the Aegean Sea on the eastern side of the island, the sexy Verina Astra is the perfect lovers bolthole. Watch the sunrise from your bed before meandering down the hill past Panagia Poulati to take a dip in the sea at the rocky cove below. Rooms are smart, each comes with a large terrace to soak up the ever-changing views. Artemonas is just a short walk away, while there spot the grand venetian villas along the cobblestone alleyways. From 122 per night, verinahotelsifnos.com We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit Girls Basketball: Rapid City Stevens opens weekend with win over Watertown Fourth-rated Class AA Rapid City Stevens turned fast starts in each of the first three quarters into a 50-29 non-conference girls basketball win over Watertown. Coronavirus LIVE Updates: The Maharashtra Police said that 144 police personnel tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking total cases to 24,023 in the force including 21,030 recoveries, 2,743 active cases and 250 deaths Auto refresh feeds Meanwhile, Patnaik also congratulated Shehnaz Begum, a nonagenarian from Sambalpur, on recovering from COVID-19. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has spoken to his family members and prayed for the lawmaker's speedy recovery, a BJD statement said. Maharathy is among the 51 lawmakers of the state to have contracted the virus. Senior BJD leader and Pipili MLA Pradeep Maharathy, who had tested positive for COVID-19, was put on ventilator support after his health condition deteriorated, the ruling party in Odisha said on Saturday. Maharathy, also a former minister, tested positive on 14 September. The deaths per million population in India is one of the lowest in the world. While the global average is 130 deaths per million population, India is reporting 73 deaths per million population, the ministry said. While the global CFR stands at 2.97 percent as on today, the comparative figure for India is 1.56 percent, it said. India has also maintained its global position with one of the lowest COVID-19 case fatality rates (CFR) when compared to several other countries. India continues to occupy the top global position with the maximum number of COVID-19 recoveries and accounts for 21 percent of the recovered cases worldwide, while its share in the total cases stands at 18.6 percent, the Union Health Ministry said today. "We're working hard to get me all the way back... I think I'll be back soon and I look forward to finishing up the campaign the way it was started." "I came here, wasn't feeling so well. I feel much better now," Trump said from his business suite at Walter Reed military medical center near Washington. US President Donald Trump posted a video Saturday from the hospital where he is battling COVID-19, saying he was improving and would be "back soon" but acknowledging the crucial coming days would be "the real test." As the world is racing to develop a potential vaccine against Covid-19, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan will today give the details about India's coronavirus vaccine plan. When will India get Covid-19 vaccination? Who will be vaccinated first in the country and many other such questions will be answered by the Union Health Minister in today's Samvaad programme. Trump, whose approval has taken a hit over his handling of the Covid-19 crisis, has frequently hinted a vaccine could be ready before the 3 November vote. Stephane Bancel told the newspaper: "November 25 is the time we will have enough safety data to be able to put into an EUA file that we would send to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) - assuming that the safety data is good, i.e. a vaccine is deemed to be safe." The news deals a blow to President Donald Trump's hopes of having an injection ready before the election to give his campaign a much-needed boost. US biotech firm Moderna won't seek an emergency use authorization for its coronavirus vaccine before November 25, its CEO told the Financial Times on Wednesday. So far, more than 55 lakh people have recovered from the virus in India. The recovery rate is around 83% now. Indias coronavirus count rose to 65,49,393 on Sunday, as the country reported 75,829 new cases in the last 24 hours. Indias toll rose by 940 to 1,01,782. With 41 more patients cured of the disease, the total number of active cases in the region stands at 1,101 which included 769 in Leh and 332 in Kargil district, the officials said. Forty-eight people tested positive for COVID-19 in Ladakh, taking the virus caseload in the Union Territory to 4,477, officials said on Sunday. The Union territory now has 173 active coronavirus cases, while 3,642 people have been cured of the disease and 53 patients have succumbed to the infection so far, he said. The administration had till Saturday sent 61,231 samples for COVID-19 tests, of which 22 reports were awaited, the official added. The COVID-19 tally of Andaman and Nicobar Islands rose to 3,868 on Sunday as 10 more people tested positive for the infection, a health official said. Eight new patients were detected during contact tracing, while two have travel history, he said. Eleven more people were cured of the disease, the official said. He was on ventilator support since Friday.The veteran politician started his career as a student leader at the SCS College in Puri. He joined the Janata Dal in 1985 and was elected to the Assembly from the Pipili constituency. The seven-time MLA from Pipili in Puri district is survived by wife Prativa, son Rudra Pratap and daughter Pallavi. Maharathy, who had tested positive for COVID-19 on September 14, was discharged from the hospital after recovery but was admitted again as his condition became critical. Biju Janata Dal MLA Pradeep Maharathy died at a private hospital in the early hours of Sunday, family sources said. He was 65. "As you are aware, movement was suspended in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak. We remain in touch with all concerned authorities including ministries of home affairs and health and family welfare," Srivastava said, responding to a media query on the issue. In November last year, the two countries threw open the corridor linking Dera Baba Sahib in Gurdaspur in India and Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, in a historic people-to-people initiative. The comments by spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivastava came in the wake of Pakistan's proposal to reopen the corridor which was shut in March in view of the coronavirus pandemic. India on Saturday said a decision to re-open the Kartarpur corridor would be taken in accordance with the protocols relating COVID-19 and easing of restrictions. Arunachal Pradesh now has 3,015 active coronavirus cases, while 7,388 people have been cured of the disease so far and 18 people have succumbed to the disease, the official said. As many as 205 more people were cured of the disease and discharged from hospitals, taking the recovery rate among COVID-19 patients in the state to 70.89 percent, he said. Of the 201 fresh cases, 80 were reported from the Capital Complex region, Changlang (16), 14 cases each from West Siang and Tirap, Kamle (11), East Siang (10), Lohit (9) and 8 each from Lower Subansiri and Namsai districts respectively, the official said. At least 201 more people, including eight security personnel and 17 health care workers, have tested positive for COVID-19 in Arunachal Pradesh, pushing the northeastern state's caseload to 10,421, a senior health official said on Sunday. "This lockdown has made people learn many household chores be it washing the utensils, mopping the floor and most importantly it has taught us to appreciate the past," he further said during the launch of the show. In a reference to COVID-19, Khan said, "This is that year where the most negative word is positive." Armed with a hammer, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who hosts the show, opened the 14th season, signifying that "Bigg Boss" is set to give a befitting response to 2020, which has been a difficult year so far. "Bigg Boss", one of Indian television's most popular reality shows, had a grand premiere on Saturday night with its new season, minus the live audience, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. All schools in Delhi will remain shut till 31 October because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Center had, in its announcement for "Unlock 5", or the fifth phase of easing of COVID restrictions, allowed state and union territory governments to decide on reopening schools, colleges, and other educational institutions in a graded manner after 15 October. One each patient died in Boudh, Dhenkanal, Jagatsinghpur, Keonjhar, Koraput, Malkangiri and Sambalpur districts. Fifty-three other COVID-19 patients have also died in the state, but the government attributed the cause of their deaths to comorbidities. Of the new cases, 1,945 were reported from different quarantine centres while 1,381 people were found COVID- positive during contact tracing. Odisha on Sunday reported 3,326 new cases of COVID-19, taking the state's tally to 2,32,713, a Health Department official said. The state's toll rose to 907 with 15 more patients losing their lives, he said. Three patients each died in Khurda and Cuttack districts and two patients lost their lives in the Kendrapara district. There were 4,787 active cases in the union territory, Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao said. A total of 3,725 samples were tested during the period and so far 2,02,784 specimens had been examined by the health department, he told a virtual press meet. The COVID-19 tally in the union territory of Puducherry rose to 29,089 with the addition of 343 fresh cases while the death toll mounted to 539 with five more fatalities, the government said on Sunday. As many as 419 patients were discharged from hospitals during the last 24 hours ending 10 AM on Sunday, taking the cumulative recoveries to 23,763. "There is a high-level expert body going into all aspects of vaccines. Our rough estimate and the target would be to receive and utilise 400 to 500 million doses covering approximately 25 cr people by July 2021," said Dr HarshVardhan on Sunday. The Maharashtra Police said that 144 police personnel tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking total cases to 24,023 in the force including 21,030 recoveries, 2,743 active cases and 250 deaths. Addressing a public meeting in Badhni Kalan in Punjab's Moga district, Gandhi asserted that the contentious Acts would be revoked if the Congress was voted to power. He wondered what was the "hurry" and need to implement these legislations amid the coronavirus pandemic. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Centre on Sunday over the three new agriculture laws, asking why were the farmers agitating if these were meant for them. All schools in Delhi will remain shut till 31 October because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Center had, in its announcement for "Unlock 5", or the fifth phase of easing of COVID restrictions, allowed state and union territory governments to decide on reopening schools, colleges, and other educational institutions in a graded manner after 15 October. One each patient died in Boudh, Dhenkanal, Jagatsinghpur, Keonjhar, Koraput, Malkangiri and Sambalpur districts. Fifty-three other COVID-19 patients have also died in the state, but the government attributed the cause of their deaths to comorbidities. Of the new cases, 1,945 were reported from different quarantine centres while 1,381 people were found COVID- positive during contact tracing. Odisha on Sunday reported 3,326 new cases of COVID-19, taking the state's tally to 2,32,713, a Health Department official said. The state's toll rose to 907 with 15 more patients losing their lives, he said. Three patients each died in Khurda and Cuttack districts and two patients lost their lives in the Kendrapara district. There were 4,787 active cases in the union territory, Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao said. A total of 3,725 samples were tested during the period and so far 2,02,784 specimens had been examined by the health department, he told a virtual press meet. The COVID-19 tally in the union territory of Puducherry rose to 29,089 with the addition of 343 fresh cases while the death toll mounted to 539 with five more fatalities, the government said on Sunday. As many as 419 patients were discharged from hospitals during the last 24 hours ending 10 AM on Sunday, taking the cumulative recoveries to 23,763. "There is a high-level expert body going into all aspects of vaccines. Our rough estimate and the target would be to receive and utilise 400 to 500 million doses covering approximately 25 cr people by July 2021," said Dr HarshVardhan on Sunday. The Himachal Pradesh government said that 15 new COVID-19 cases were reported on Sunday, taking the tally of in the state to 15,710. While 154 are cured cases, two persons have succumbed to the virus. "I'm sure that President Trump is going to be fine. He's got the best possible care... He just needs, I mean, the most important thing to do is to follow his doctors' advice, he's got superb medical advice," Johnson was quoted as saying by BBC. UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who is among the world leaders who tested positive for COVID-19 and has recovered, expressed confidence that US president Donald Trump will also recover. The state police chiefs will share their experiences in handling the pandemic and how the police have helped the distressed people and the migrant workers during the nationwide lockdown. As the role of police during the ongoing pandemic came under wholesome praise from all quarters, the meeting is expected to discuss how to enhance their knowledge and capabilities to handle natural disasters and such health crisis, the official said. About 250 officers in the rank of DGP and IGP from all states, Union Territories and central government will take part in the two-day virtual meeting to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, NSA Ajit Doval among others. For the first time in its history, the annual conference of the country's top police brass will be held virtually next month amid the coronavirus pandemic, officials said on Sunday. The Maharashtra Police said that 144 police personnel tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking total cases to 24,023 in the force including 21,030 recoveries, 2,743 active cases and 250 deaths. Addressing a public meeting in Badhni Kalan in Punjab's Moga district, Gandhi asserted that the contentious Acts would be revoked if the Congress was voted to power. He wondered what was the "hurry" and need to implement these legislations amid the coronavirus pandemic. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Centre on Sunday over the three new agriculture laws, asking why were the farmers agitating if these were meant for them. According to the hospital's Medical Director Suresh Kumar, LNJP was declared a dedicated COVID-19 facility on March 17 and since then 11,415 patients were admitted there. These included people who suspected they had the disease but their test reports came out negative, he said. As many as 331 women, who tested COVID-19 positive, have given birth in the hospital, also the highest in the country. Of these 149 were cesarean deliveries, they said. Around 8,000 coronavirus patients have so far been discharged from the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital here after recovering from the infection, the highest in any government hospital across the country, according to officials. Coronavirus LATEST Updates: The Maharashtra Police said that 144 police personnel tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking total cases to 24,023 in the force including 21,030 recoveries, 2,743 active cases and 250 deaths. 'Our rough estimate and the target would be to receive and utilise 400 to 500 million doses covering approximately 25 cr people by July 2021,' said Union minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday. Indias coronavirus count rose to 65,49,393 on Sunday, as the country reported 75,829 new cases in the last 24 hours. Indias toll rose by 940 to 1,01,782. So far, more than 55 lakh people have recovered from the virus in India. US biotech firm Moderna won't seek an emergency use authorization for its coronavirus vaccine before November 25, its CEO told the Financial Times. The news deals a blow to President Donald Trump's hopes of having an injection ready before the election to give his campaign a much-needed boost. India's COVID-19 toll crossed one lakh and the infection tally climbed to 64,73,544, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease crossed 54 lakh, pushing the recovery rate to 83.84 percent, the Union Health Ministry said on Saturday. India reported 79,476 new infections on Saturday, while 1,069 died in a span of 24 hours taking the nationwide toll from the virus to 1,00,842, data updated at 8 am showed. The total recoveries have surged to 54,27,706, while there are 9,44,996 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 14.60 percent of the total caseload, the data showed. The COVID-19 case fatality rate was recorded at 1.56 percent. Meanwhile, the global tally of coronavirus cases stands at 34,817,275. While 25,879,985 have recovered, 1,032,708 have died so far. The US, the worst-hit country, has 75,49,076 cases. It is followed by India, which has 64,71,734 cases, Brazil (48,82,231) and Russia (11,94,643). India tops global ranking with maximum Covid-19 recoveries, lowest mortality rate India continues to occupy the top global position with the maximum number of COVID-19 recoveries and accounts for 21 percent of the recovered cases worldwide, while its share in the total cases stands at 18.6 percent, the Union Health Ministry said today. India has also maintained its global position with one of the lowest COVID-19 case fatality rates (CFR) when compared to several other countries. While the global CFR stands at 2.97 percent as on today, the comparative figure for India is 1.56 percent, it said. The deaths per million population in India is one of the lowest in the world. While the global average is 130 deaths per million population, India is reporting 73 deaths per million population, the ministry said. Trump undergoing Remdesivir therapy at military hospital; says 'doing well' US President Donald Trump's condition has been "very concerning" over the last 24 hours, a source familiar with his health told AFP on Saturday, adding that the coming 48 hours would be critical. "The president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We're still not on a clear path to a full recovery," the news agency quoted the source as saying. The assessment is at odds with the more optimistic picture presented by Trump's medical team, who said he was breathing well without oxygen and improving. According to reports, the US president was given Remdesivir therapy at the hospital. Trump, 74, and his wife US First Lady Melania Trump, 50, tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. "Going well, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!" Trump tweeted on Saturday. While Trump, who showed "mild symptoms" of COVID-19, was flown to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington DC, on Friday, the first lady stayed back at the White House. Oxford vaccine could be rolled out within six months, says report There is growing hope that a vaccine against the novel coronavirus may be given the green light by health regulators by the end of this year to be rolled out for a vaccination programme in six months' time or even less, according to a UK media report. The vaccine candidate under trial by University of Oxford scientists in collaboration with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is the furthest in the process of trials and, according to a report in The Times, it could be given the required clearances by Christmas in December. The newspaper quoted UK government sources involved in the making and distribution of vaccines as saying that a full vaccine roll-out programme for adults could take six months or less after approval. We are looking at closer to six months and it is likely to be far shorter than that, a government source said. According to the newspaper report, scientists on the trial are hopeful that they will get results before the end of this year, and that they will, at the very least show that it prevents 50 percent of infections, the threshold for success. Jharkhand Minister dies after defeating coronavirus A day after testing negative for coronavirus, Jharkhand Minority Welfare Minister Haji Hussain Ansari passed away on Saturday at the Medanta Hospital in Ranchi, a JMM leader said. According to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya, Ansari's coronavirus report had come negative on Friday. The 73-year-old leader was made minister for the second time in January this year in the Hemant Soren's government. He was admitted in the hospital for treatment of coronavirus earlier on. He complained of breathing problem on Saturday. 25 states/UTs report fall in active COVID-19 cases in last week As many as 25 states and union territories (UTs) have reported a fall in the number of active cases during the last week, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Saturday. "25 States/UTs have reported a fall in the number of Active Cases during the last week. Higher number of daily recoveries and persistently regressing fatality rate are leading to the lower number of active cases on a daily basis," the Ministry tweeted. At least 76.62 percent of the active coronavirus cases have been reported from 10 states and UTs, it said on Friday. Maharashtra is leading the states' tally with more than 2.5 lakh cases, the government informed, adding that active cases contribute only 14.74 per cent to the positive caseload of the country. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on 7 August, 30 lakh on 23 August and 40 lakh on 5 September. It went past 50 lakh on 16 September and crossed 60 lakh on 28 September. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative total of 7,78,50,403 samples have been tested up to 2 October, of which 11,32,675 were tested on Friday. The 1,069 new fatalities include 424 from Maharashtra, 125 from Karnataka, 67 from Tamil Nadu, 53 each from Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, 50from Punjab, 37 from Delhi, 36 from Madhya Pradesh, and 31 from Andhra Pradesh. The 1,00,842 deaths reported so far in India includes 37,480 from Maharashtra, followed by 9,653 from Tamil Nadu, 9,119 from Karnataka, 5,917 from Uttar Pradesh, 5,900 from Andhra Pradesh, 5,438 from Delhi, 5,070 from West Bengal, 3,501 from Punjab, and 3,475 from Gujarat. The health ministry stressed that more than 70 percent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities. With inputs from PTI New York, Oct 4 : The timeline simply doesn't add up. Exclamation marks are flying thick and fast around two competing versions of Donald Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis timeline after White House doctor Sean Conley let slip a crucial detail on Saturday afternoon: "Just 72 hours into the diagnosis now..." If that version is correct, it means Trump was Covid positive on Wednesday morning (September 30). Here's the thing: Americans were informed of Trump's illness only after midnight on Thursday (October 1). At 12:54 a.m. on October 2, Trump tweeted that he and the First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive. This is swiftly becoming the 'who knew what and when did they know it?' story in parallel with being the political bombshell that it already is. All of Trump's engagements between the hours of Wednesday morning and Friday night are now under intense scrutiny because of the timeline mismatch between Trump and Conley's versions. Shortly before noon on Saturday, Conley delivered a sunny, upbeat report on Trump's health, saying he's "doing very well", "not on supplemental oxygen right now" and has been "fever free" for the last 24 hours. Minutes after that briefing, a person familiar with Trump's medical condition informed a White House pool reporter that Trump needed supplemental oxygen at the White House on Friday before he was hospitalised. A White House chopper transported Trump to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday evening. Trump's doctors did not confirm if the President had been on oxygen following his Covid-19 diagnosis. They only said that Trump was not on oxygen "at this moment" in the hospital. Conley reported that the hospital plans to complete a five-day treatment course for remdesivir. Trump has already got the first dose. The "big plan for today" is for Trump to "eat, drink and stay hydrated". Conley said that Trump was brought into the Walter Reed hospital "as a precautionary measure" so that he could get "state-of-the-art monitoring". "At this time, the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the President has made since Thursday. He had mild cough and some nasal congestion and fatigue, all of which are now resolving and improving," Conley said. Trump's cardiac function, kidney function and liver function are all "normal", his medical team at the Walter Reed said. "And the President this morning is not on oxygen, not having difficulty breathing or walking around the White House medical unit upstairs," it said. Conley said Trump's blood oxygen level is 96 per cent, which is in the normal range. Trump has been treated with two experimental drugs, given intravenously. On Friday, Trump received a single dose of a drug made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, which helps turbocharge the system with antibodies to help the immune system fight back. On Friday night, Trump was put on a five-day course of remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug that has been found to help shorten the course of Covid treatment. "We're maximising all the aspects of his care, attacking the virus in multiple ways. I didn't want to hold anything back, if there was any possibility it would add value to his care," Conley said. Meanwhile, Trump's Twitter thumb is back in the zone. Shortly after Conley's briefing, Trump tweeted: "Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!! Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well!" As on date, three Republican Senators -- Ron Johnson, Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina -- have tested positive for coronavirus. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text The Bombay high court on Thursday set free three persons convicted for killing a 90-year-old priest from Chembur, attempting to kill his 79-year-old wife and robbing the aged couple of valuables. As per the prosecutions case, the trio-- Mohmmed Intekhab Mohammed Imtiyaz Shaikh (28), Ganesh or Gopal Kanojiya (28) and Mohammed Istiyak Abdul Salam Shah (31) -- had on April 12, 2012, visited the house of the victims90-years-old priest KS Parshuraman and his wife Rajamma (79)-- at Chembur for the purpose of repairing their refrigerator. The next day they visited the flat in the afternoon under the guise of handing over a bill for the payment made by them. After Rajamma opened the door, one of them demanded water, and as she turned to fetch water for him, she was followed by one of them. He gagged her mouth in the kitchen with a piece of cloth and the 79-year-old woman fell unconscious. About two hours later when she regained consciousness, she found her husband motionless on the sofa. She then called her brother, who rushed to the flat and took her to a private hospital where she had to be admitted for two days. Her husband was strangulated and had died on the spot. The couple had lost some gold ornaments in the robbery - four golden bangles of 10 grams each and Rajammas mangalsutra, a pendant of about 28 grams. Ganesh was the first to be arrested by the Mumbai police crime branch in connection with the murder of the aged priest and the robbery at his residence. He was apprehended at Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh on September 22, 2012. The other two were from Darbhanga in Bihar. The prosecution produced 19 witnesses and on August 22, 2014, an additional sessions judge at Mumbai convicted them for robbery, murder and attempt to murder, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. All of them appealed before the HC questioning the trial court verdict. At HC, the division bench of justice Sadhana Jadhav and justice NJ Jamadar found that the conviction was unsustainable in the eyes of law due to lack of clinching evidence against the trio. Also Read: Covid-19: In Maharashtra, MMR worst hit with over 434,000 cases recorded since June 3 The bench noted that Rajamma had weak eyesight and she could not identify the accused in the test identification parade and in the court as well. The complicity of the accused in the present case firstly fails for want of identification by P.W. 1 (Rajamma), the bench said while reversing the trial court verdict. All the booty allegedly looted by the gang was lying in Mumbai -- in travel bags kept in the shanties that the trio shared with others in Baiganwadi area, but the three were arrested from UP and Bihar. It is surprising that all the three accused had left the stolen articles in Mumbai and fled to their native villages, said the bench, indirectly raising suspicion about the prosecutions claims. Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajputs death was a suicide, not murder: AIIMS panel chief The judges were also surprised by the claim made by two roommates of two of the accused that they had revealed that they were going to their native places, as they had committed the robbery and the murder. HC said, it was surprising that none of the roommates came forward to report the matter to police till the time the accused were arrested in connection with the case. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Millions of people across China are travelling across the country during the 'Golden Week' national holiday With international travel restricted, people in China are choosing to go on domestic holidays instead The week follows China's National Day on October 1 which marks the founding of People's Republic of China Some 600 million tourists - about 40% of the population - are expected to travel in China during the holiday Tourist sites across China are heaving this week as millions of revellers mark Golden Week, a national holiday held after the country's National Day celebrated every year on October 1. Some 600million domestic tourists - about 40 per cent of the population - are expected to travel during the holiday amid restricted international travel due to the coronavirus, which infected 10 people in China yesterday. ADVERTISEMENT National day commemorates the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party claimed victory in the Chinese Civil War. China observes consecutive days of national holiday, known as Golden Week, around National Day which is celebrated on the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau. Visitors climb staircases at Dr.Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, a tourist attraction in Nanjing city, east China's Jiangsu province, during China's golden week following National Day which marks when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949 Besides Chinese New Year, Golden Week is the longest national holiday observed in the country. The name is given to the week because it falls towards the beginning of Autumn, which in China is generally characterised by clear weather and good temperatures. This encourages many people to travel across the country, drawing huge crowds to popular tourist destinations. Click here to resize this module While many countries around the world are still in some forms of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, pictures from China show that thousands of tourists have still been able to travel domestically during the week. Millions of Chinese tourists usually spend their weeklong National Day holidays traveling abroad. This year, travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic mean that some 600 million tourists - about 40% of the population - will travel within China during the holiday that began Thursday, according to Ctrip, China's largest online travel agency. Visitors line up to get into Kaifengfu, or Yamen of Ancient Kaifeng, a historic site in Kaifeng city, central China's Henan province. With international travel restrictions in place, some 600 million tourists are expected to travel within China The name 'Golden Week' is given week because it falls towards the beginning of Autumn, which in China is generally characterised by clear weather and good temperatures, which encourages many to travel That's still down 25% from last year, when tourists took 782 million domestic trips and generated tourism revenue of 650 billion yuan (73.8 billion), according to government data. The dip comes as some in China remain wary of the coronavirus and opt not to join the holiday rush. The country's borders remain closed to international visitors. The eight-day holiday this year, which coincides with the Mid-Autumn Festival, will be a litmus test of whether China's tourism industry can bounce back following the battering it took earlier in the year. ADVERTISEMENT Travel within the country, and sometimes even within cities, was restricted beginning with the Lunar New Year as China fought the spread of the coronavirus that emerged in the central city of Wuhan and has sickened more than 34 million people, killing over a million. Last year, tourists took 782 million domestic trips and generated tourism revenue of 650 billion yuan (73.8 billion) according to government data Pictured: Visitors climb walk down a path to Dr.Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum in n Nanjing city, east China's Jiangsu province, October 2. Local governments are offering discounts to tourists during the week The weeklong holiday in October is typically the busiest time for domestic travel. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that tourism revenue totaled 76.7 billion yuan (8.7 billion) on Thursday, close to 70 percent of last year's. In Beijing, 223 major tourist attractions registered close to 1.1 million visits, the city's Bureau of Culture and Tourism said. With the world's biggest-spending tourists spending their money travelling domestically, local governments are offering discounts and subsidies to tourists, including free or heavily discounted tickets to attractions. Zhao Kerui, a designer with a flexible working schedule, often takes several trips abroad each year. Last year, he visited Malaysia and Japan. He had planned to visit Istanbul in Turkey or to Jeju island in South Korea this year, but eventually decided to instead visit cities like Chengdu, known for being the home of pandas, as well as scenic Guilin, famed for its karst limestone hills. Tourists visit Datang Everbright City on the second day of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday on October 2 Fireworks light up the skyline during 2020 Liuyang Fireworks Conference on October 2. Tourists who would normally travel abroad have said they are not willing to undertake the lengthy quarantine times required on both ends of their travel Besides Chinese New Year, Golden Week is the longest national holiday observed in the country, but the dip in tourism this year comes as some in China remain wary of the coronavirus and opt not to join the holiday rush 'To take a trip abroad, you will be quarantined for half a month when you arrive, and when you return, it's another half a month of quarantine,' Zhao said. 'One month is gone with you doing nothing at all. ' Cao Ke, a science researcher based in Shanghai, usually would spend his National Day holiday relaxing at the beaches in Thailand's Phuket island. This year he's heading to the southern coastal province of Fujian in China, hoping to take some nice photos. ADVERTISEMENT 'I usually prefer traveling abroad, because there are too many people traveling domestically, and accommodation and meals become very expensive,' said Cao. Pictured: An aerial view of tourists visiting the illuminated Youzhou Ancient City on the second day of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday on October 2. The country's borders remain closed to international visitors Staff members dressed as giant pandas parade at Wuhan Happy Valley on the second day of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday on October 2 That's a sentiment shared by many Chinese who can afford to fly overseas for holidays but now are barred by flight cancelations and quarantine restrictions. Thailand, one of the most popular destinations among Chinese travellers, closed its airports to international commercial flights in April and has yet to fully reopen to tourism. So instead, Chinese visitors will be crowding into popular attractions, such as the Disneyland resort in Shanghai and the research base for panda breeding in the southwestern city of Chengdu, Ctrip's report said. China is one of the few countries in the world where millions are freely touring around the country, while most countries are discouraging unnecessary travel as they battle coronavirus outbreaks. People visit the Temple of Heaven on October 2 during the national holiday in Beijing, China. China is celebrating its national day marking the 71st anniversary of the People's Republic of China China has reported no new locally transmitted coronavirus infections since Aug. 16, and the country's culture and tourism ministry last month eased restrictions on tourist sites The ease in restrictions means tourist sites can operate at 75% capacity. Visitors also are encouraged to obey social-distancing rules during their travels. Pictured: Tibetan Buddhist Monks take photos as they visit the Temple of Heaven China has reported no new locally transmitted coronavirus infections since Aug. 16, and the country's culture and tourism ministry last month eased restrictions on tourist sites, allowing them to operate at 75% capacity. Visitors also are encouraged to obey social-distancing rules during their travels. The number of tourists at top attractions across the country jumped nearly 159% in the second quarter of the year compared to the previous quarter, at the height of pandemic shutdowns. The number of tourists visiting resorts and engaging in rural tourism in July and August was about 90% of last year's level, Shan Gangxin, an official with China's ministry of culture and tourism, told reporters in Beijing this week. The number of tourists at top attractions across the country jumped nearly 159% in the second quarter of the year compared to the previous quarter, at the height of pandemic shutdowns Pictured: Chinese tourists crowd to to take photos as they visit the Temple of Heaven on October 2, as a young boy sits on someone's shoulders to take a photo on a phone The number of tourists visiting resorts and engaging in rural tourism in July and August was about 90% of last year's level Hotel bookings are 50% higher compared to last year, and airline reservations are on a par with 2019, helped by discounts for hotels and flights, according to data from Fliggy, Alibaba's online travel arm. Zeng Xiaoqi, a 24-year-old nurse from central China's Hunan province, planned a trip to Beijing for the holidays to celebrate her mother's 50th birthday. 'Before I left, I took the nucleic acid test in my hometown and called the tourist sites I wanted to go to ask if the site is open during the holiday week, and how tickets could be booked,' said Zeng. 'I didn't depart until all the preparation was done.' Passengers wait for trains at Shenyang North Railway Station on the second day of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday on October 2 People tour in a shopping street in Wuhan on October 2, 2020 during the national holiday in Wuhan, Hubei province, where the coronavirus is believes to have originated People wear face masks while standing on the deck of a ferry on the Yangtze River on October 2 during the national holiday in Wuhan, Hubei provinc Railway authorities said they expect 108 million train journeys to be made between Monday, September 28 and October 8, or an average of almost 10 million per day She said that she was not worried about traveling within China, as most areas are currently fairly low-risk when it comes to the coronavirus. Nonetheless, as a precaution, Zeng said she was well-equipped with masks, hand sanitizer, and wet tissue for the flight and high speed train to Beijing. Railway authorities said they expect 108 million train journeys to be made between Monday, Sept. 28 and Oct. 8, or an average of almost 10 million per day. Overall, train and airline passenger numbers are still forecast to be lower than in previous years amid concerns that restrictions could be re-imposed if new cases are detected. Like many other Chinese, Zhao plans to stick to domestic trips for the next few months. ADVERTISEMENT 'To be honest, it's the same whether I travel abroad or around China,' he said. 'I do it to relax.' Bihar elections: Grand Alliance clinches seat-sharing deal; RJD gets 144, Congress 70 India oi-Deepika S Patna, Oct 03: The Mahagathbandhan in Bihar has finalised its seat sharing for the assembly polls. Under the arrangement, the Congress will contest in 70 seats, and the Left parties on 29. The RJD would contest the remaining 144 seats. Apart from the RJD, which is spearheading the opposition coalition, the Congress, Left parties CPI-ML, CPI and the CPI(M), the Vikasheel Insan Party (VIP) and Jharkhand's ruling party JMM will unitedly fight the Bihar elections scheduled in October-November. Bihar Elections: NDA in current form, a formidable alliance says Amit Malviya The BJP and JD(U) on the other hand have more or less formalised the seat sharing arrangement. The two parties have broadly agreed to fight on those seats which are their strongholds. However there are some discussions on as the JD(U) has insisted that it would contest on most of the seats. Voting for Bihar assembly elections will be held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7 in one of the biggest elections globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by counting of votes on November 10, the Election Commission announced last month. During this time of uncertainty, we need a representative in Congress who understands that for Montana businesses to succeed, we must lift regulatory burdens, create a permanent pro-growth tax code, and incentivize innovation and investment in Montana business. Matt Rosendale has a strong business background and a proven record of supporting pro-business policies. He has reduced taxes, slashed burdensome regulations, and reined in government spending a record so strong he was twice named a Champion of Business by the Montana Chamber of Commerce. On the other hand, Matts opponent extreme Kathleen Williams is an enemy to Montana businesses. In the state legislature, Williams voted against over $1 billion in much needed tax relief for Montanans and voted to impose millions in additional taxes and fees on Montana families and businesses. Extreme Kathleen even supported bills to slap burdensome government regulations on Montana farmers and business owners. Matt Rosendale is the conservative leader Montana needs to reignite our economy and he has an economic recovery plan that will do just that. As an accomplished businessman, we can trust Matt to create jobs and ensure Montana businesses can thrive. I am proud to support Matt Rosendale for the United States Congress and urge all Montanans to join me. Senator Jason Ellsworth, Senate District 43, Hamilton Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Cancer June 22-July 22 Just when you though a goal was gaining traction, things grind to a halt. Its a blessing in disguise. Youve missed something but thankfully Venus is encouraging you to focus on details, so youll find the forgotten piece. Leo July 23-August 22 The stars are stacked in your favour! The combination of Venus in your money sector and Mercury boosting your gift of the gab will help you get the price you want. Youll also feel more in charge of your finances. Virgo August 23-September 22 Sexy, stylish Venus is visiting your sign, showcasing you at your best inside and out. A few new outfits will make you feel like a star and thankfully youll have the funds for them. Youll also feel confident, vivacious and loving. Libra September 23-October 22 Beauty, brains and intuition what more could you ask for, or need? This is the perfect time to conduct business, negotiate with partners and basically state your terms. Take advantage by refusing to compromise or yield. Put your foot down. Scorpio October 23 November 22 With vivacious Venus in your sector of friendships and socialising, youll be yearning for stimulating social interaction. Deep and meaningful, not light and fluffy, is your current style. Sagittarius November 23-December 20 Stylish Venus is visiting your image sector, prompting you to get a new do and dress for success. Its also a good time to adjust your attitude and let your innate optimism shine through. Capricorn December 21-January 19 This is an excellent opportunity to tackle home renovations and other domestic matters youve been putting off for some time, including circling back to a previously shelved idea. Aquarius January 20-February 18 You like flying solo and can be easily irritated by people who arent as quick on the uptake. This week, though, you will need to co-operate for the greater good, so bite your tongue. Pisces Ontarios pandemic response feels frantic. The provinces COVID-19 testing backlog reached 90,513 on Friday morning, or more than double the provinces daily testing capacity. The daily case count hit 732, the second daily record in a week, though that was boosted by belated cases from the spring. The City of Toronto asked the province to place the city back in a modified Stage 2 for 28 days; Ottawa Public Healths Dr. Vera Etches said, Our health system is in crisis (the system) is on the edge of collapse. In response, the province announced mild restrictions in the hot spots of Toronto, Ottawa and Peel, which says it still has community transmission under control. The province limited social circles to immediate households, while capping restaurants, bars and nightclubs at 100 people and banquet halls and gyms at 50; neither Premier Doug Ford nor chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams could clearly say whether people should visit other family members at Thanksgiving or not. The province continues to frantically attempt to limit testing; the premier, meanwhile, had started out the day with a video saying his overriding message was, Were ready. It was an incoherent, sclerotic mess, and the failure of the testing is a trembling pillar. A backlog delays case identification; it can render contact tracing close to useless. After three days, the RNA in samples begins to degrade, and the reliability of the test degrades with it. The backlog essentially removes large parts of the governments ability to assess and control spread. And Ontario, for a month, has not been able to keep up with testing demand. It didnt have to be this way. Multiple sources familiar with the decision-making process tell the Star that expanding testing capacity was strongly recommended to the government by various parties in the past five months, to no effect. Had the province decided to fund expanded testing beyond the still-unachieved goal of 50,000 per day earlier as early as April, as late as June or even early July the system would already be capable of handling the surge. Theres 100 per cent no question thats true, said Dr. Kevin Katz, the medical director of infection prevention and control at North York General, who oversees the Shared Hospital Lab there between Sunnybrook, Michael Garron and other hospitals. Sources familiar with the process indicate that the discussion on increasing capacity was being conducted as early as April and continued all summer, through various parts of the provinces overlapping web of medical data and decision-making, which includes the ministry of health, Ontario Health, Public Health Ontario, the laboratory system, and various provincial command sub-tables. Sources indicate the province was advised by its own experts to expand from a goal of 40,000-50,000 to between 75,000 and 100,000 tests throughout the summer. But it hit political roadblocks. The money was only committed at the end of August, and announced Sept. 24. According to various sources in the laboratory system, it will take at least three months, and likely more, to get Ontario to a maximum capacity of 100,000 tests per day. Those familiar with the process said one phrase was a common thread in discussions: the bureaucrats would say, we have been told we need to be fiscally responsible. It took a while, because the price tag was so big, said one source familiar with the decision-making process, who was granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. The source said they just didnt want to spend the money. (This would have been the lions share of $1.07 billion later spent on testing and tracing.) As a result, Dr. Tony Mazzulli has spent some of his busy pandemic staring at a wall. He oversees the Mount Sinai laboratory, which like all Ontarios COVID-19 labs, has been churning full time for months. With one wall removed, supplementary testing machines the lab has sitting in storage could fit, and the labs daily capacity could go from 10,200 to 17,500. But who would pay for that? During weekly meetings between Ontario Health and the major testing labs through the summer, labs told the province a few things, over and over: one, that asymptomatic testing was producing almost nothing of value, so that the province was burning through sought-after reagent and man-hours to no purpose. And two, that increasing capacity would cost money, and take time. On those calls in the summertime, it was a frequent topic of discussion: that if we, the royal we, need to make a decision about funding this, because its not going to be a snap-your-fingers, instantaneous decision, said Katz. And I think there was a strategic and a political conversation around what are the targets, and there has been a target about 100,000 tests a day, in the summertime There was definitely a lot of conversation about needing approvals to be able to be ready for September, and those approvals didnt happen in a timely way to allow it to happen. (The province) made projections, said Mazzulli, the head microbiologist at Mount Sinai and University Health Network. There were lots of people working on what you need to get to (in terms of increased testing). Yet nobody was actually doing it. So much time making projections for this, that and the other thing, without actually moving forward. One problem was that, buoyed by some of its medical advisers, and especially after the Trinity Bellwoods fiasco, the province and the premier starting saying anyone who wanted a test could get a test. Which, when cases dropped in the summer, was fine. It was a very ad-hoc approach in the summer months, said Dr. Larissa Matukas, the head of microbiology at St. Michaels Hospital, who runs the lab there. The capacity needed to increase, the money would have helped us to get there. Thats the supply side of the equation. But the demand side should have been better managed, in my opinion. That has been advocated for for several months. But indiscriminate testing continued, even as lineups began to choke the centres in September. There were complicated and simple ways of calculating it, but if the province wasnt going to change the criteria, it was clear capacity needed to increase for fall, when schools would return, and reopening would be further underway. If you look at the number of previous fall/winter seasons on any given day in Ontario during that time period, you have between 75,000 and 100,000 people with sniffles, or some respiratory symptom, said Matukas, whose lab has gone from 66 tests per day in March to 1,100. So you would need capacity of 100,000 to do that every day. Minimum. Both Mount Sinai and the Shared Labs, among others, are only now expanding their capacities Mount Sinai from 10,200 to 17,500 per day, and the Shared Lab from 4,000 per day to 10,000. But between renovations, instrument acquisition or calibration, and laborious training and recruiting from small pools, neither will reach those upper numbers for between one and two months. So the provincial government is frantically trying to reduce the amount of testing from narrowing the testing parameters at assessment centres, to trying to push no COVID tests for sick kids and a return to school, to memos on testing caps to multiple laboratories, to, on Friday, making all assessment centres appointment only. People were aware that a second wave, whatever you want to call it, when the winter season came or the fall, that it was going to go back up, said Matukas. People knew. Everybody knew. And sure enough, its happening. So why didnt Ontario want to spend the money? Its not clear. But Ontario received Safe Restart Agreement money from the federal government in August, which provided $1.28 billion towards testing and tracing, and the decision came after that. Maybe it was a natural frugality from a government that has relied heavily on federal dollars throughout, and whose premier has said he hates the idea of raising taxes. Nothing is more important than protecting the health and well-being of Ontarians, said a government spokesperson, to questions of why the province delayed in committing to funding. Thats why our government released our comprehensive $2.8 billion Keeping Ontarians Safe: Preparing for Future Waves of COVID-19 plan. To be clear, we have been preparing for a second wave since the beginning of summer. The testing expansion, of course, was announced in the third week of September. If you go up to 30,000 feet, what are you going to spend your money in a pandemic on if not testing and infection control and long-term care and if you want to open schools, to do that safely? said one source familiar with the testing expansion. You would think they would spend money proportionately. Either way, now the province is scrambling to fix the problem, as the backlog gums up epidemic response, and case counts soar. The province has set a public capacity target of 78,000 tests per day. But the labs get a schedule from Ontario Health on what the province is aiming for, too. It used to say 100,000 by September-October. It now reads 100,000 in January 2021. Read more about: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday evening met the family of the Dalit woman who died earlier this week after being alleged gang-raped in September, triggering a nationwide outrage. Even as the Gandhis met the family, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced that the probe in the entire incident" has been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Villagers gathered outside as the Congress leaders entered the familys home. Some were seen on the rooftops nearby, waiting to catch a glimpse of the Congress leaders. Videos showed Priyanka Gandhi hugging the victims mother, saying The Congress is with you in this hour of crisis." As with the DGP and Additional Chief Secretarys meeting with the family, the district administration had arranged seating on a mat on the floor. However, Rahul Gandhi took the deceaseds father and brothers to a separate room and locked it, with media personnel remaining outside. After speaking to the family for about 15 minutes, Priyanka Gandhi said, The family wants a judicial inquiry into the incident and removal of the District Magistrate. They also want security." The family has also demanded an inquiry by the Supreme Court into the matter, she added. The family couldnt see their daughter for one last time," said Priyanka Gandhi, referring to the victims hurried cremation in the dead of the night, in the absence of her family members. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath should understand his responsibility. Till the time justice is delivered, we will continue this fight. It is the UP governments duty to protect the family of the Hathras gang-rape victim." No power in the world can suppress the familys voice," said Rahul Gandhi. The UP government must protect the family." The victims brother said the Gandhis have given them a cheque and promised financial aid. Taking to Twitter later, Priyanka Gandhi listed out several questions and demands of the victims family. A judicial investigation of the whole case should be done through Supreme Court 2. Suspend Hathras DM and not place him in any major post," she said in a tweet in Hindi. 3. Why was the body of our daughter burnt with petrol without asking us? 4. Why are we being bullied repeatedly?" :1. 2. DM 3. ?4. - , ? 1/2 Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) October 3, 2020 It is the right of this family to get answers to these questions and the UP government will have to give answers," the Congress general secretary in-charge of UP said in another tweet. After meeting the family, Rahul Gandhi tweeted, I met the Hathras victims family and understood their pain. I assured them that we are standing with them in this difficult time and will provide all help in getting justice for them." The UP government will not be able to act in an arbitrary way as the whole country is standing for ensuring justice to the daughter of the country," he said in the tweet in Hindi. UP authorities had scuttled an earlier attempt by the two leaders to travel to Hathras, detaining them and several party workers in Greater Noida outside Delhi on Thursday. On Saturday, the Congress staged another demonstration at the Delhi-Noida border where party workers scuffled with the police and were allegedly lathi-charged. When a delegation of Congress MPs and other leaders reached the barricades, the Noida police said they will allow only five party representatives to meet the family at their village in Hathras, about 150 km away. The 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped on September 14 in an assault by four upper caste men that left her critically injured. She died at a Delhi hospital last Tuesday. (With inputs from agencies) The Congress party will hold nationwide agitation against the Hathras gang-rape incident on October 5. This comes as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced to visit Bul Gargi village where a 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped by four dominant-caste men on September 14, with his partys general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other supporters. She succumbed to her injuries in Delhis Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi on Tuesday. Also Read: Hathras village borders reopened, reporters allowed in, says official He will be visiting to meet the Dalit victims family members who have claimed that after her death police did not allow the family to bring the body home and cremated it forcefully. On Thursday as well, Gandhis siblings tried to march towards the village but were stopped by the police citing Section 144 imposed in the area. During the scuffle with police, Rahul Gandhi was manhandled and could be seen falling on the ground in videos. The case has caused massive outrage across the country and prompted calls for the resignation of state chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The opposition leaders and activists have criticised the way state police are handling the matter. Defendants in Vietnam's Dong Tam trial stand to hear their sentences in a court in Hanoi, Sept. 14, 2020. A court in Vietnams capital Hanoi on Friday told state media that it had received appeal petitions for five defendants who received harsh sentences last month for their involvement in a deadly land-rights clash in January at the Dong Tam commune. The court told the media that the five defendants in their appeal petitions said that their sentences were too harsh for first time offenders. Brothers Le Dinh Chuc and Le Dinh Cong, both sentenced to death Sept. 14, had been charged with murder in the deaths of three police officers who were killed in the Jan. 9 clash when they were attacked by petrol bombs and fell into a concrete shaft while running between two houses. Their father, Dong Tam village elder Le Dinh Kinh, 84, was also killed during the early-morning raid on the village by 3,000 security officers intervening in a long-running dispute over a military airport construction site about 25 miles south of the capital. Le Dinh Congs son Le Dinh Doanh was sentenced on Monday to life in prison, while another defendant, Bui Viet Hieu, was given a 16-year prison term and Nguyen Quoc Tien was handed a 12-year term. The five were among 29 defendants who were simultaneously sentenced last month, with the other 24 receiving sentences that ranged from 15 months probation to 13 years. A lawyer representing some of the clients told RFAs Vietnamese Service Friday that seven of the defendants had intended to appeal, two more than the court reported. It may take a few days for mail from the prison to reach the court therefore the court may not yet have updated the information or there might be other obstacles, said defense lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan. My information comes from the other lawyers who were meeting directly with the convicted prisoners, so it cant be wrong, Ngo said, adding that at least one other petition had been sent Sept. 29. Under the law, a petition for review must be filed and stamped by the prison no later than 15 days after the first instance court issues a verdict. When it arrives at the court is not relevant to the appeal process. RFAs Vietnamese Service called the Hanoi Peoples Court Friday for further clarification on the discrepancy but no one answered. On Sept. 25, more than 60 members of the European Parliament sent a letter on the human rights situation in Vietnam to the EUs trade commissioner other top officials, pointing to Dong Tam as one example of alarming news coming out of Vietnam after the parliament approved the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement in February. The letter raised detentions of political prisoners, bloggers and journalists, and land grabs, including the Dong Tam incident. Routine land grabbing is often the root cause of violence. It triggered tragic events in Dong Tam last January Once in custody, defenders charged with political offense or highly sensitive issues such as the Dong Tam clash incident have no or no meaningful contact with their lawyers and families, the MPs said. They are often subject to thug violence, torture or other ill-treatment, and their speed-light trials do not meet basic standards of impartiality, fairness and independence of courts. Forced confessions in front of TV cameras also regularly happen, the letter said. While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development. Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti speaks at a Los Angeles County Health Department press conference on the CCP virus in Los Angeles on March 4, 2020. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images) Los Angeles Ordered to Pay Nearly $150,000 to NRA A federal judge has ordered the city of Los Angeles to pay nearly $150,000 to the National Rifle Association (NRA). U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson, a Reagan appointee, issued the 36-page order on Sept. 29 following a legal challenge by the NRA against Los Angeles for an ordinance that required companies and individuals to disclose whether they had contracts with or sponsored the gun-rights group. The ordinance, which took effect on April 1, 2019, after unanimous approval by the City Council, enabled the city to revoke contracts if contractors didnt disclose all links to the NRA. NRA lawyers filed a lawsuit later that month, alleging the ordinance violated the U.S. Constitutions First and Fourteenth Amendments. In a statement at the time, Democrat Mayor Eric Garcetti said he supported the policy. Im confident in it, and were not going to be bullied by the NRA, he said. Wilson granted a preliminary injunction against the ordinance late last year. Even though the ordinance only forces disclosure of activity that may not be expressive, the clear purpose of the disclosure is to undermine the NRAs explicitly political speech, he wrote, citing public statements made by Councilman Mitch OFarrell, a Democrat who had said he supported boycotts of businesses that dealt with the NRA. The judge ruled the NRA was likely going to prove the law violated the Constitution. A picture of Wayne LaPierre at the National Rifle Association (NRA) booth during CPAC 2019 in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 28, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) The city council voted in January to repeal the ordinance. The same city officials who vowed to defend this ordinance are on the run, Jason Ouimet, executive director of NRAs Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement after the vote. In addition to the NRA members they wronged, city officials must now answer to voters and taxpayers for their failed experiment, and explain why they recklessly subjected the city to legal and financial exposure. Wilsons new order noted that plaintiffs sought to recover over $472,000 in attorneys fees. He granted the motion in part, ordering the city of Los Angeles to pay $143,160.74. He said some of the billing hours appeared unreasonable, and reduced the amount. The city was also told to pay over $1,000 more in costs. In a response filing, city attorneys asked for the total of $1,073.55 to be reduced to $244.65. Garcettis office and the office of Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer didnt immediately respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment. NRA spokeswoman Amy Hunter told The Epoch Times via email, Violations of any constitutional rights by government officials should carry consequences. The courts have rightfully imposed those consequences upon Los Angeles. The NRA will continue our fight and, as always, work to hold politicians accountable, she said. It started as just another day in the vice presidency of George H.W. Bush. He unveiled a plaque at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth where President Kennedy had spent his last night alive and delivered a speech to a convention of cattle raisers. Next on the agenda was a speech in Austin to the Texas Legislature. The vice president boarded Air Force Two and settled into his seat for the short flight to the state capital. Outside, it was bright and clear, fields of green stretching in all directions, not a hint something had gone terribly wrong 1,300 miles away on a gray afternoon in Washington. It was just after 2:45 p.m. EST on March 30, 1981, when a knock on his cabin door ushered in a dramatic and traumatic day that tested Bush, associates say, and revealed his character as a composed leader under fire a trait that he displayed again and again as president. Advertisement A Secret Service agent burst into the room. Sir, weve just received word about a shooting in Washington. There is no indication that the president has been hit. Word is that two agents are down. Thats all we have right now. But Im going to make some calls and see if I can get some more information. As Bush would learn, the initial report was horrifically wrong. Vice President George H.W. Bush is briefed by advisors and Cabinet members on the assassination attempt on President Reagan before delivering a speech to the nation. (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library) President Reagan had indeed been shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, and far more seriously hurt than the public was told at the time. Wounded in the chest, Reagan was in shock and would lose more than half his blood. The would-be assassins bullet was lodged just an inch from his heart. Reports from Washington were sketchy, and Air Force Two did not have secure voice communication. When Secretary of State Alexander Haig called Bush to alert him to the situation, they could barely hear each other over thick static. Haig was forced to send a secure teletype relaying that Reagan had indeed been wounded, was in serious condition and doctors were weighing whether to operate. They ultimately did. The mood in Air Force Two was grim as it streaked back to Washington. The vice president, staffers and three members of Congress stared transfixed at a small black-and-white TV set that had in-and-out reception as it broadcast news reports of the shooting and its aftermath. As the plane made a quick stop in Austin to refuel, Bush prayed for President Reagan and the nation. He scribbled some notes on a flight information card, reflecting that it had taken about 20 minutes for the enormity of the situation to hit him. He also granted an interview to one of his aides, Chase Untermeyer, to capture his thoughts for posterity. Bush said he felt terrible about what had happened. The 56-year-old former oilman, member of Congress and CIA director had once been bitter political adversaries with Reagan. But since joining Reagans ticket in the 1980 campaign, they had formed a close personal bond. Bush now considered the president a true friend. It pained him to watch replays on TV of the shooting. You see a guy get into a car, waving, Bush told Untermeyer, and you think, How could anybody shoot that nice guy? Despite the turmoil, the vice president remained cool as he pondered his awesome responsibility if Reagan were to die. He was particularly concerned that the Soviet Union might use its military to put down labor unrest and dissent in Poland, or move aggressively to take advantage of the confusion in Washington. Ive been doing my reading on national security matters, Bush said, and was convinced he could make tough decisions. Ive got to sort those things out, absorb it, but I dont feel any lack of confidence . My every inclination is to be calm; not churning around. His staffers, who were not nearly so collected as they struggled to comprehend the enormity of what had happened, admired their boss poise. My chief memory of that day was his great sense of calm, of being in control and in command, Untermeyer told The Times in an interview Saturday. If there was any emotion to note in particular, [it was] concern for his new friend Ronald Reagan. Vice President George H.W. Bush leads a meeting in the White House Situation Room after the assassination attempt on President Reagan. (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library) Bush was also worried about Nancy Reagan and how she was faring. Is anybody holding her hand? he wondered. As the plane neared Washington, Bush learned that doctors had removed the bullet from Reagans left lung and stopped the bleeding. The president was stable and going to make it. But he was not yet conscious and had a tough recovery ahead. Bush knew everyone was looking to him for leadership. The Secret Service recommended that Bush, upon landing at Andrews Air Force Base, fly by helicopter directly to the White House. It was the safest and fastest way to get him to the Situation Room, where he could take control of the government. Landing on the South Lawn would also make for dramatic television, but Bush didnt think it was a good idea. The vice president instead insisted the chopper fly to his official residence at the Naval Observatory, where he would hop in a motorcade to the White House. It would take longer, but Bush didnt want to signal the situation was more dire than it was. It would be far better to play it low-key, he said. Only presidents land on the South Lawn, he noted, and he wasnt the president. On a personal level, he felt, landing at the White House would be disrespectful to the first lady the landing pad was not far from her bedroom window. Once in the Situation Room, Bush took a chair at the head of the table, was briefed on Reagans condition and the state of global affairs, and urged everyone to be deliberate and cautious. He next delivered a short, nationally televised statement from the press briefing room assuring the world that Reagan was doing better and the U.S. government was functioning. He took no questions from reporters before heading back to his office in the West Wing not the Oval Office to continue working. His presidency would come in its own time. Wilber, a staff writer in The Times Washington bureau, is the author of Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he and his wife have tested negative for the coronavirus after they were examined on their airplane 20 minutes prior to landing in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on Friday. He said it was the fourth time in two weeks he has been tested. President Donald Trump announced on Twitter early Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the coronavirus. Pompeo says the last time he was with Trump was on September 15, at the White House, for the signing of normalization agreements among Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The top US diplomat says he is reconsidering upcoming travel to Florida on Saturday and Asia starting Sunday as a precaution. He says, We are praying for the president and the First Lady and we hope they have a speedy recovery." Television actor Jasmin Bhasin is all set to participate in Bigg Boss 14. From her age, height, journey to her personal Life, salary & more, here's everything you need to know about her. Bigg Boss 14 contestant Jasmin Bhasin Age, Height, Journey, Husband/boyfriend, Personal Life, Salary: Indias most loved yet controversial reality show Bigg Boss 14 is back with yet another season. If there is one name that has remained consistent among the list of potential Bigg Boss 14 contestants over the past couple of months then it has been television actor Jasmin Bhasin. Ever since the last season, reports have been rife that Jasmin has been approached to participate in the reality show and it seems like all of the reports were indeed true. Fresh out of the success of Khatron Ke Khiladi Made In India edition, in which Jasmin emerged as the first runners up, the actress is now all set to enter the Bigg Boss house. Before she steps inside the house, heres everything you need to know about her. Jasmin Bhasin Age/Height/Weight: Jasmin Bhasin was born on June 28, 1990, which makes her 30 years old. Her height is 163 cm, i.e 54 and she weighs about 55 kg. Jasmin Bhasin Journey: Jasmin Bhasin was born and raised in Rajasthans Kota. Even though she did her graduation from a hospitality college in Jaipur, her calling soon led her to Mumbai, wherein she began her career with modeling. After featuring in a few print and television advertisements, Jasmin landed her first big break with Tamil film Vaanam followed by several South Indian films like Karodpathi, Veta and Ladies & Gentlemen. After which, she shifted gears to Hindi television shows. Jasmin appeared as the female lead in Zees TV Tashan-E-Ishq as Twinkle Taneja. She then appeared in Colors TVs Dil Se Dil Tak, which made her a household name. Jasmin was then seen in super-hit shows like Khatron Ke Khiladi Season 9, Dil To Happy Hai Ji, Naagin and finally Khatron Ke Khiladi Made In India Edition, in which she emerged as the runner up. Jasmin Bhasin Personal life: Jasmin Bhasin is one actress who has always kept her love life under wraps. If reports are to be believed, the actress was a steady 5-year relationship with Suraj Wadhwa. However, they parted ways in 2017 and Suraj went on to date with someone else. Jasmin, on the other hand, maintained that she is happily single. In the recent past, many tabloids have linked Jasmin with co-stars like Aly Goni and Siddharth Shukla. Jasmin Bhasin Salary: Although there are no confirmed figures out there, reports suggest that Jasmin charges Rs 40K per episode and her net worth is about 1-1.5 million dollars. A police officer and mother-of-two has died suddenly following a 'medical emergency' when an ambulance was called to her home. Police Constable Mandy Berrystone, 34, had been off duty since August 27 after sustaining a fracture to her ankle. She died in hospital shortly after emergency services were called to her home in Poole, Dorset, on Wednesday evening following reports of a 'medical emergency'. Dorset Police said there was 'no indication' her death is related to coronavirus 'at this time'. The officer, who was known out of work under her married name of Mandy Fairweather, leaves behind her husband Andrew and two young children - James, six, and nine-year-old Faith. Police Constable Mandy Berrystone, 34, died shortly after emergency services were called to her home in Poole, Dorset, and her death has not been attributed to coronavirus at this time Colleagues paid heartfelt tributes to the police officer who served for almost 14 years in the force and was 'loved by so many'. Dorset Police Chief Constable James Vaughan said: 'It is with the greatest of sadness and the heaviest of hearts that I have to inform you of the death of Mandy. 'We are all devastated to have lost a member of our police family. 'Our thoughts remain with her family, friends and very many colleagues at this extremely difficult time.' PC Berrystone joined the force in 2006 and was based at Poole police station. Sergeant Suzie Corsie-Mackay, who was one of PC Berrystone's close friends, said: 'Mandy was part of the furniture at Poole having served there since joining the police. Colleagues paid heartfelt tributes to the police officer who served for almost 14 years in the force and was 'loved by so many' 'She welcomed everyone with open arms and completed all of her work with diligence, charm and a great sense of humour. 'An all-round top girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and mischievous grin on her face. 'Nothing was too much trouble for her and she looked after us all. 'She was a fiercely loyal woman who loved her husband and children more than anything in the world. 'Loved by so many, her northern tenacity and raucous laugh will never ever be forgotten.' Inspector Jess Pearcey added: 'Mandy was a joy to have in the station, she was full of laughter and had an amazing upbeat attitude. 'She was incredibly welcoming to me when I joined the section and I will always remember her enthusiasm for the job, her team and the section. She will be greatly missed.' Dorset Police said her death was not being treated as suspicious and the Dorset Coroner has been informed. So, this is uncomfortable. I dont often agree with Pauline Hanson. Indeed, I cant recall another instance. But on this, she is right. Freedom to dissent is the core of civilised democracy. We learned this week that the Morrison government proposes a trade with our favourite Senator for White Victimhood. Shell support the new university funding bill if the government enshrines within it academics freedom of speech. Pauline Hanson wants academic freedom enshrined in the government's new education bill. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen This is bizarre. What interest does Hanson have in academic freedom? Its bizarre that she, of all people, should be its champion. Its more bizarre that universities should oppose it, as if this were some corporate industrial relations issue. The whole idea of the university, after all, and of tenure, was to protect dissent. After centuries of church stranglehold now known as the Dark Ages scientists and intellectuals needed to be able to question orthodoxy. They needed immunity from prosecution or persecution for statements or questions that the establishment saw as heresy. It was necessary for them, but also for us. We had to make Galileos possible. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 15:52:04|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close The 265-km-long Hangzhou-Huangshan high-speed railway links Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, with Huangshan City in Anhui Province. Dubbed the "Golden Tourist Railway," the Hangzhou-Huangshan railway makes a 1.5-hour trip between Hangzhou and Mount Huangshan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Travelers can hop on and hop off at the railway's stops to visit the picturesque Fuchun River, Tianmu Mountain, Thousand Islands Lake and the bamboo forest in Chun'an County. The 265-km-long Hangzhou-Huangshan high-speed railway links Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, with Huangshan City in Anhui Province. It's dubbed the "Golden Tourist Railway" for multiple tourist sites sit along the railway. Dhaka, Oct 3 : Senior diplomat Vikram Doraiswami will arrive in Dhaka on October 5 and take charge as the new Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, officials said here. Doraiswami is currently serving as Additional Secretary in-charge of International Organisations and Summits at the Ministry of External Affairs. Meanwhile, former Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das left for Delhi on Friday after serving one-and-a-half years as envoy in Dhaka. She will join as Secretary (East) at the Ministry of External Affairs. During her tenure, Bangladesh's exports to India reached $1 billion a year. The Indo-Bangla relationship received a huge fillip, especially in terms of connectivity and infrastructure, including rail, road, power, and waterways. Some irritants remain including border deaths and not signing of the water-sharing deals of the Teesta and other common rivers. "Bangladesh is a special place for us. The hospitality that we get here ... we don't get it anywhere in the world," she told journalists at a farewell programme recently. Das was scheduled to leave for Delhi in the middle of this year, but had to stay on due to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as for the sixth Joint Consultative Commission meeting held on September 29 where Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen and his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar led the respective delegations. New envoy Doraiswami, a 1992-batch officer of Indian Foreign Service, was earlier India's Ambassador to South Korea and also Joint Secretary of the Americas division in the MEA from 2012 till 2014. The change happens at a time when Bangladesh is preparing for the celebrations of golden jubilee of its independence and also the 50th anniversary of India-Bangladesh diplomatic relationship next year. India and Bangladesh have chalked out scores of joint programmes in both countries as well as in some other countries to mark the occasions. On September 30, the New York Times published an opinion piece titled, The Truth About Todays Anarchists, written by Farah Stockman, a member of its editorial board. Duplicating the slanders of President Trump and Attorney General William Barr, she characterizes violence perpetrated during the last four months of nationwide protests against police murder as the fault of outside agitators and left-wing elements, foremost among them, insurrectionary anarchists. These white interlopers, in Stockmans telling (she is African-American), have been the cause of, and instigators of looting and property destruction, which has necessitated the use of militarized police repression against peaceful protesters, thereby fomenting extremist attitudes towards police. The New York Times building in Manhattan [Credit: Reinhold Moller, WikiMedia Commons] Stockmans reactionary and false commentary has been warmly received by those on the far-right including National Review columnist Charles C.W. Cooke, who in a column published on October 1, lamented that it took so long for the Times to reach that conclusion. Similarly, Ed Morrissey, senior editor of HotAir.com, chastised Stockman and the Times for failing to, easily [diagnose] the issue immediately when the riots started. To support her dubious claims Stockman begins her piece by relying on the reporting of amateur journalist Jeremy Lee Quinn. Quinn is a furloughed photographer and former theater student who claims to have first covered Anarchists beginning in 2007 at University of California Berkeley, and subsequently at Occupy Wall Street in 2011, and for 122 days this summer. Stockman writes: Mr. Quinn discovered a thorny truth about the mayhem that unfolded in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. It wasnt mayhem at all. Black-clad figures break windows, set fires, vandalize police cars, then melt back into the crowd of peaceful protesters. When the police respond by brutalizing innocent demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and rough arrests, the publics disdain for law enforcement grows. Its Asymmetric Warfare 101. If that sounds familiar, it is because Stockmans conclusions supported by Quinns research are ripped straight from the lips of top Trump officials such as William Barr and acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf who have insisted from the outset that protesters against police violence are violent anarchists. Quinn, in his latest report, titled The Anarchists are Here: So I Blended In, claims to have confirmed that the driving ideological force since the AutoZone windows in Minneapolis were busted out by a black blocd, umbrella wielding man in a respirator mask, has been Insurrectionary Anarchism. It has been reported by multiple outlets, including Fox News, the Washington Post, Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, that the umbrella man who vandalized an AutoZone, the first of several similar occurrences to follow, was in fact not an anarchist protester, but a member of the Hell Angels motorcycle gang. This has been confirmed by a Minneapolis police warrant. The still-unidentified man, according to an affidavit, is also a known associate of the white-supremacist Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood and was involved in the harassment of a Muslim woman and her child the month prior in Stillwater, Minnesota. Stockmans piece neglects to mention any violence perpetrated by police, far-right forces or white supremacists. Nor does she comment on the well-known fact that due to anarchist hostility to Marxist theory and a political orientation to the working class, their groups are vulnerable to infiltration by police informers and provocateurs. While there may be some select instances of anarchist violence, the majority of acts of homicidal violence during protests come from the far-right. This was tragically confirmed this past August in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when 17-year-old Trump acolyte and fascist symbol Kyle Rittenhouse murdered two protesters and wounded a third. In June, protesters were shot by militia in New Mexico, while vehicle assaults have continued throughout the summer, in many cases championed by police chiefs on social media, in cities such as Seattle, Washington, Buffalo, New York and Los Angeles, California. It also must be said that roughly 95 percent of the 11,000 protests and demonstrations that took place between May 24 and August 22, attracting as many as 34 million people, were peaceful, according to a US Crisis Monitor report. Top law enforcement officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, continue to identify far-right extremist violence, not antifa or anarchists, as the biggest domestic terrorist threat. Wray testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee two weeks ago, stating, within the domestic terrorism bucket ... racially motivated violent extremism is ... the biggest bucket within that larger group. And within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people subscribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that. This conclusion was seconded by Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Kenneth Cuccinelli (himself an extreme right-winger and anti-immigrant bigot), who testified that white supremacists act as terrorists, more people are killed. That is a higher lethality. These statements, however, cut across Stockmans hit piece which, in order to reach its false conclusion, is forced to rely on Quinns accounts as well as a dubious study from Rutgers university. Stockman writes: If that is not enough to convince you that theres a method to the madness, check out the new report by Rutgers researchers that documents the systematic, online mobilization of violence that was planned, coordinated (in real time) and celebrated by explicitly violent anarcho-socialist networks that rode on the coattails of peaceful protest, according to its co-author Pamela Paresky. The ability to continue to spread and to eventually bring more violence, including a violent insurgency, relies on the ability to hide in plain sightto be confused with legitimate protests, and for media and the public to minimize the threat, Dr. Paresky told me. The Rutgers study, whose contributing authors include a former chief of the New York Police Department, a former Republican attorney general, and military doctors (more on that later) likened Anarcho-Socialist extremists to ISIS terrorists and Boogaloo bois, listing their supposedly many shared characteristics including use of creative memes and online propaganda as well as use of private or fringe internet forums. Presumably, the anarchists and fascists shared other characteristics, like using the English language. What a revelation! The researchers concluded that politically charged memes and codewords that dehumanize targets (police, in particular) proliferated in tandem with the recent protest events. That is, researchers discovered more anti-police codewords appeared on social media forums after instances of police violence and murder were reported. Despite the dubious value of the report, Stockman uses it to solidarize herself and the Times with the Trump administration: Her report will almost certainly catch the attention of conservative media and William Barrs Department of Justice, which recently declared New York, Portland and Seattle anarchist jurisdictions, a widely mocked designation accompanied by the threat of withholding federal funds. This filthy passage is a clear indication from the Times that whatever state repression Barr and the rest of the US government carry out against protesters is justified, up to and including assassination, as evidenced by the silence of Stockman and the Times on the state murder of self-identified antifa sympathizer Michael Reinoehl last month by US marshals and local police. And just who is this Dr. Paresky and why do the well-heeled editorialists at the Times care what she has to say? Paresky is the Director of the Aspen Center for Human Development, which caters to an elite clientele, primarily CEOs and the military. Paresky previously taught leadership at the US Air Force Academy. Joining her at the Aspen Center for Human Development is Christine Balling, who according to her biography on the website is a subject matter expert to the US Special Operations South commander on demobilization and counter recruitment issues. Balling worked with the Colombian militarys demobilization group, and in collaboration with the Colombian Army, Air Force and National Police, she led counter-recruitment projects in areas where the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) insurgency operated. The Colombian Army incorporated her counter-recruitment model into the non-kinetic component of its mission. Balling also boasts that her articles have been published in Foreign Affairs and the National Interest. For her service to US imperialism and the Colombian bourgeoisie, Balling received the Colombian Armed Forces Medal of Distinguished Service. These are the class interests the Times and Stockman are speaking for and why her piece was written: To denigrate the largest and most widespread protest movement in modern US history as the product of outside agitators and violent anarchists, so that it can be snuffed out by the state and diverted back into the dead-end of police reform and the capitalist system. To conclude her article, Stockman, voicing the racialism promoted by the Times and the Democratic Party, castigated the violent anarchists as privileged and white, citing Portland City Commissioner and former Democratic legislator Jo Ann Hardesty. Hardesty told Stockman: As a Black woman who has been working on this for 30 years, to have young white activists who have just discovered that Black lives matter yelling at me that Im not doing enough for Black peopleits kind of ironic, is what it is. Charges of anarchists, outside agitators, and violent rioters have been made by both Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden throughout the summer. Following the Republican National Convention, Biden immediately pivoted to a law and order message and reiterated his pledge to not defund police but increase funding. While Trump and Biden vilify all violence at the protests as the work of anarchists, both turn a blind eye to police violence, excusing it as a few bad apples. Stockman concludes her filthy piece with a line that could have been written by Barr, Trump or any number of police chiefs around the country. In other words, its not really about George Floyd or Black lives, but insurrection for insurrections sake. Stockmans column is, in essence, an olive branch to the Trump administration, an acknowledgement that despite their objectively false narrative, the Times is prepared to present it as correct. This paves the way for further far right and state violence against peaceful protesters. In the end, what unites the Times, and capitalist politicians around the country and the world, is their shared fear of growing resistance in the working class, not only to police violence, but to the homicidal back to work and back to school campaigns initiated at the behest of the financial oligarchy. The growth of rank-and-file safety committees at auto plants and schools, along with the ongoing resistance against police violence are warning signs to the ruling class that the working class is entering into struggle. The New York Times, the unofficial organ of the Democratic party, and columnists like Stockman, do the dirty work of injecting racialist politics from the left, while Trump and far-right publications serve a similar function with their promotion of anti-immigrant and nationalist chauvinism. Both are attempting to stifle the growing solidarity between multiracial and multi-ethnic protesters the world over, who face a common class enemy. These shabby attempts to defuse growing resistance to their outdated social order will fail. Italy's Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Friday that it was "necessary to deal with the deep causes of the tensions" to arrive at a settlement between Turkey and Greece over their contested maritime borders. Speaking in Rome at a joint news conference alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Di Maio said that "we cannot be but behind Greece and Cyprus". On Thursday evening, the leaders of the European Union debated what approach to take in the EU's increasingly tense ties with Turkey over its drilling, its roles in the conflicts in Libya and Syria, and as a sometimes troublesome source of migrants trying to reach Europe. They agreed that if Turkey continues to react positively in talks with Cyprus and Greece, the bloc will "launch a positive political EU-Turkey agenda" with trade and customs incentives, and they held out the prospect of more money and benefits for continued cooperation on migrant flows. However it warned to use "all its instruments and options available" should should Turkey not. The Italian Foreign Minister also said the decision of Libya's Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj to resign took "great courage". The UN-backed Al-Sarraj is due to step down by the end of October. Di Maio said he will be important "until an agreement is reached between the Libyan parties on the new institutional structure that needs to be built". Di Maio and Cavusoglu also discussed the conflict between Armenian and Azerbaijani over Nagorno-Karabakh. This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed. (Representative Image) LifeStyle The best Lifestyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel Lifestyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Shaynna Blaze and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand. Hyderabad: Police on Saturday said they have arrested a four-member gang of cyber criminals from Rajasthan who allegedly created fake social media accounts of police officers and sent messages, seeking money, to those in their friends list. It has been found that fake social media accounts of 350 police officers, belonging to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh have been created. Fake accounts have been created in the name of 81 police officers from Telangana, police in Nalgonda district of Telangana said. The gang created fake social media accounts in the name of police officers and sent messages to some in their friends list through the messenger option, seeking money,according to police. They cited some emergency as the reason for seeking money. The gang sought money to be transferred through payment apps. The Nalgonda police, who began investigation after the matter came to their notice, travelled to Bharatpur district in Rajasthan and arrested the four gang members, including a minor. The police team that travelled to Rajasthan faced resistance when it reached a village to arrest them.It has been found that many people are engaged in cyber crime there, they said. The gang used bank accounts and sim cards (of different states) by purchasing them from unknown persons for about Rs 3,000 to commit the crimes, police added. 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 Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie listens as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Briefing Room of the White House on September 27, 2020 in Washington, DC. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has tested positive for the coronavirus and checked into Morristown Medical Center as a precautionary measure on Saturday afternoon. "I just received word that I am positive for COVID-19. I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues who have reached out to ask how I was feeling in the last day or two," Christie wrote in a tweet on Saturday. "I will be receiving medical attention today and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition." "While I am feeling good and only have mild symptoms, due to my history of asthma we decided this is an important precautionary measure," Christie wrote. Christie's diagnosis comes as several aides and Senators who attended President Trump's Supreme Court nomination announcement at the White House last Saturday have since announced positive Covid-19 test results. President Donald Trump announced early Friday that he and the first lady had a positive diagnosis and the president was taken to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. Christie helped Trump prepare for last week's presidential debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden and was at the White House ceremony last weekend and said that no one was wearing masks during debate prep. "No one was wearing masks in the room when we were prepping the president during that period of time," Christie said in an interview on ABC. "And the group was about five or six people, in total." Dispatch from Crame No. 929: Sen. Leila M. de Lima on NICA Dir. Gen. Monteagudo's admission that he shares fake news on FB Maliwanag pa sa sikat ng araw! We now have a government of trolls and gossipmongers, with an OWWA Deputy Administrator, a PCOO Undersecretary, and a NICA Executive Director at its helm. Saan ka pa di ba? I would perhaps tell Dir. Monteagudo that "as Chief of Intelligence, he should be more responsible, sayang naman ang intel funds," but it seems that peddling lies is now part of their "duty" to protect the president and his power base. That the country's top intelligence officer regularly shares fake news on Facebook is no longer a surprise. Duterte's officials can blatantly spread false information on online platforms and get away with it because they have the blessing of the country's top troll, the president himself. Didn't he throw a fit last Monday because Facebook took down his pro-government 'advocacy' pages? It's more alarming that Duterte is defending "trolling" as a legitimate way to espouse "government advocacies." Kapag kritiko, paninira. Kapag pro-government post, kahit peke, adbokasiya daw. At sa bilyones na intel fund ngayong 2021, alam na natin kung ano ang prayoridad ng administrasyong ito. Propagating troll armies, it seems, is now on top of this government's agenda. May pondo ito, may makinarya. This is obviously a well-coordinated system of deception intended to discredit Duterte's critics, promote his murderous policies, and ensure his hold to power. Karimarimarim! Access the handwritten copy of Dispatch from Crame No. 929, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_no._929 LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government led by Yogi Adityanath has recommended the CBI investigation into Hathras gang-rape and murder case, the Chief Minister's office stated on Saturday (October 3). CM Adityanath also said that his government was determined to ensure the harshest punishment for those guilty in the entire incident. The decision came after a high-level meeting of concerned officials on Saturday. "Chief Minister @myogiadityanath Ji has ordered the CBI to conduct a probe into the entire Hathras case," the UP Chief Minister's office tweeted. Reacting to the announcement, family members of the rape victim stated that they want a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry, said a PTI report. The announcement of the recommendation of the CBI comes into Hathras incident comes within hours of Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi and DGP HC Awasthi meeting the victim's family at her home. ALSO READ: Nation wants justice for Indias daughter, says Rahul Gandhi after visiting Hathras The alleged brutal gang-rape, murder and forcible cremation by the police of a 19-year-old girl sparked furious protests and demonstration against the police and the Uttar Pradesh government across the country. On Friday, several political leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal staged demonstration in the national capital and demanded that the four accused in the case be executed. Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi allowed to visit Hathras, meet victim's family: On Saturday, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi along with three other Congress leaders visited Hathras and met the victim's family members. After meeting the victim's family, Rahul Gandhi tweeted, "I met the Hathras victim's family and understood their pain. I assured them that we are standing with them in this difficult time and will provide all help in getting justice for them." "The UP government will not be able to act in an arbitrary way as the whole country is standing for ensuring justice to the daughter of the country," he said in the tweet in Hindi. Priyanka Gandhi, who met and hugged the inconsolable mother of Hathras gang-rape victim, listed some of the demands and questions of the victim's family in a series of tweets. "Questions of Hathras victim's family -- 1. A judicial probe be conducted through the Supreme Court. 2. Hathras DM be suspended and not given a big post. Why our daughter's body was burnt using petrol without our permission. "4. Why we are being repeatedly misled and threatened. 5. For humanity's sake, we brought 'chita se phool', but how do we believe that this dead body is that of our daughter?" Priyanka Gandhi tweeted in Hindi. In Hindu tradition bringing 'chita se phool' generally means collecting remains after cremation. Police resort to mild lathi-charge to disperse Congress supporters on DND: While heading to Hathras, high drama unfolded in the national capital. There was heavy police deployment on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with barricades on Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway and scores of policemen deployed. As swarms of Congress workers and others jostled with each other amid loud honking, slogans and Congress flags fluttering in the air, the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police finally allowed five people, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, to go to Hathras. Congress workers, some who described what happened as brutal repression, claimed police used batons to disperse the crowd. Protests intensity in Kolkata; Mamata Banerjee attacks BJP government in Uttar Pradesh: Meanwhile, Left, Congress and Trinmool Congress workers protested in Kolkata on Saturday against the Hathras gang-rape incident that has triggered a nationwide outrage. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who also took part in a protest in Kolkata, launched a scathing attack against the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, calling it the 'biggest pandemic' and running a 'dictatorship' in the country. "COVID-19 is not a big pandemic. BJP is the biggest pandemic. It is the biggest pandemic of atrocities against Dalit and backward communities. We should stand up against these atrocities ... The kind of atrocities that are taking place is completely unacceptable. The kisan samaj, youth, students, minorities, Dalits are being pushed towards darkness, but we will lead them towards the light," she stated. Live TV Mayawati Lucknow: BSP president Mayawati on Saturday demanded a CBI probe or Supreme Court-monitored inquiry into the Hathras incident, as she said people were not satisfied with the initial investigations in the matter. A Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. Advertisement MayawatiShe was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. There is tremendous resentment in the entire country over the Hathras heinous gang-rape case. The public does not seem satisfied with the initial probe report. Therefore, this matter should be investigated by the CBI or under the supervision of the honourable Supreme Court. This is the demand of the BSP, Mayawati tweeted in Hindi. Mayawati tweet Advertisement Also, the honourable President of the country, who also comes from UP and is a Dalit, it is a strong appeal to him to intervene in this case, keeping in mind the inhuman attitude of the government, to bring justice to the victim family, she said in another tweet. New Delhi, Oct 3 : In a dramatic twist following massive police arrangements and traffic chaos, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, along with three other party leaders, were on Saturday allowed to meet the family of the 19-year-old Hathras girl who died four days ago after being allegedly gang-raped by 'upper-caste men'. The police has to resort to mild lathi charge to disperse the huge crowd assembled at the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway here. Succeeding in his second attempt to meet the victim's family, Rahul made the announcement from the DND flyway where he, Congress General Secretary Priyanka, Congress MPs and supporters were stopped by the police from entering Uttar Pradesh in the afternoon, leading to massive traffic jams with people stuck on the 9.2-km stretch for more than one hour. The police have closed all the lanes on the DND and only one service lane was functioning which led to a traffic jam. "UP administration has allowed five Congress leaders to visit Hathras," announced Rahul Gandhi after climbing on the top of his vehicle in which he was travelling with his sister. Sources said that Congress leaders K.C. Venugopal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and P.L. Punia will be accompanying Rahul and Priyanka to Hathras. Meanwhile, sources said that even Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mukul Wasnik and Mallikarjun Kharge are also en route Hathras in other vehicles. However, after the announcement by Rahul Gandhi, elated Congress workers were not ready to leave the DND and wanted to accompany their leaders till Hathras. Earlier on Saturday, the police resorted to mild lathi charge to disperse the crowd in which several Congress workers were injured. Witnessing the police action Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi got down from the vehicle and went to an injured party worker and enquired about his injuries. On Saturday afternoon, while leaving from the party headquarters at Akbar Road, Priyanka Gandhi was seen driving the Toyota Innova car with Rahul Gandhi sitting by her side on the front seat. However, she switched the seat and came back to the rear seat as there was a huge traffic jam on the DND. It was Rahul and Priyanka's second attempt to visit Hathras. On Thursday, Gandhi was pushed to the ground by Uttar Pradesh Police personnel when he was marching towards Hathras after their vehicles were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway in Gautam Budh Nagar. On Friday, Priyanka Gandhi visited Delhi's Valmiki temple to attend a prayer meeting for the girl who died on Tuesday at a government hospital in Delhi. Priyanka has said that the family of the victim should not feel alone at this point of time. Congress leaders on Thursday alleged that the police resorted to lathi charge on them when they tried to march towards Hathras. The Uttar Pradesh government has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of the 19-year old girl. The Uttar Pradesh government also suspended several officials on Friday evening. Uttar Pradesh Police personnel had sealed the village barring the entry of any mediapersons for the last two days. However, the media was allowed to enter the village earlier today. The 19-year-old girl, who died on Tuesday at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, suffered fractures, paralysis and a spinal injury after the savage assault. In a related development, Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi has written to President Ram Nath Kovind, demanding a CRPF security cover for the victim's family. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed As a hospital physician, Im disappointed by President Trumps answers on health care at Tuesdays debate. Im disappointed in his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and his continued attack on health insurance coverage, but Im especially frustrated at his vilification of millions of Americans with behavioral health issues. On Tuesday night, President Trump took a shot at Vice President Joe Bidens son, Hunter Biden, for his history of drug use. It was a low blow, indeed. More importantly, it sheds a larger spotlight on the stigma patients with alcohol and drug use disorders face. Over 20 million adults suffer from substance use disorders in the United States. In Ohio, 20% of residents have mental or behavioral health issues. Many of them also struggle with unmet social needs and may lack health insurance coverage. None of these characteristics, however, makes them villains. These patients deserve access to high-quality health care like any other American. We need a president who supports the health of all Americans and does not belittle mental and behavioral health. After Tuesdays debate, its clear to me that only one man is capable and compassionate enough to do so -- Joe Biden. Kim Tartaglia, Hilliard Dr. Sean Conley, physician to President Donald Trump, is followed by a team of doctors for a briefing with reporters at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 3, 2020. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo) Trump Praises Medical Staff at Walter Reed, Says He Is Feeling Well President Donald Trump on Saturday praised workers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and said hes feeling well as he battles COVID-19. Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!! Trump, 74, said from the center in Bethesda, Maryland, about 15 miles from the White House. Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well! Trump added. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, 50, tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, following the positive test of White House aide Hope Hicks, 31. While the first lady remains at the White House with mild symptoms, Trump was flown via helicopter to Walter Reed on Friday afternoon for further monitoring and treatment. Trump was experiencing symptoms including a fever but has been fever-free since Friday morning and the other symptoms are resolving and improving, his doctor, Sean Conley, told reporters outside the medical center during an Oct. 3 press briefing. Treatments Trump has received include Remdesivir, zinc, and famotidine, a heartburn medicine. Remdesivir is an antiviral that has shown some success in speeding hospital discharge for COVID-19 patients. Trump is on a five-day course of the antiviral, Conley said. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (L) listens as medical staff give an update on the condition of President Donald Trump, at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 3, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) President Donald Trump leaves the White House for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Oct. 2, 2020. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have both tested positive for coronavirus. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) He and Walter Reed doctors considering giving Trump hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial that some studies show successfully combats COVID-19, but opted against it for now, he added. Doctors quoted Trump as saying, feel like I could walk out of here today. Theyre not sure when he will leave the military medical center. Trump has been given plenty of work by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and continues performing his job, Conley said. In a second missive posted on Twitter on Saturday, Trump called on Congress to pass another stimulus bill. WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE, he said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have been meeting, trying to hammer out a deal that would pass both congressional chambers before being signed by Trump. Both Pelosi and Mnuchin tested negative for COVID-19 on Friday, joining a slew of others including lawmakers and people who had come into contact with Trump, such as Meadows. Others tested positive, including three U.S. senators, former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, who attended a White House ceremony in late September, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who helped Trump prepare for the recent presidential debate. The Democrat-controlled House this week passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package, but the White House doesnt support that bill. When you lower your offer $2.2 trillion, and you ask for direct payments to illegal immigrants, and you ask for certain deportation forgivenesses in your offer, its not a serious offer, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters. The Daily Beast Reuters/Arnd WiegmannTheatrical rock superstar Meat Loaf, whose Bat Out of Hell is one of the bestselling albums of all time, has died at the age of 74. Reports say the singer and actor had recently fallen sick with COVID-19.In an emotional statement posted to Facebook early Friday, the performers family said he was with his wife when he died and had said his final goodbyes to his two daughters in the past 24 hours. The star sold 100 million albums in his five-decade career and starred in movie Forty percent of women aged between 13 and 35 have been physically or verbally assaulted on Egypts streets and in public transport modes A study on understanding and combating sexual harassment in informal areas in Cairo was published by the Population Council, a New York-based NGO. The study "Creating Safer Spaces for Women in Informal Greater Cairo" presented an intervention design, focusing on the areas of Ard El-Lewa and Arab Ghoneim in Greater Cairo, which is comprised of the Cairo, Giza, and Qalioubiya governorates. The intervention model stresses the importance of legal awareness among youths on report mechanisms as well as complaint-receiving methods. The study involves males, parents, and the community (schools and youth centres) in the anti-assault strategy. Statistics show that 12 million people, or 38 percent of urban residents, live in 1,221 informal or poor districts in Egypt. Forty percent of women aged between 13 and 35 have been physically or verbally assaulted on Egypts streets and in public transport modes. In informal, urban, and rural areas the assault was reported at 61.6 percent, 47.7 percent, and 32.6 percent, respectively. The study found that "interactive activities (theatre play and self-defence training) have a stronger influence on young men and women [and] multilevel interventions have a stronger impact in changing trends and behaviours in society." The intervention design also raises awareness among parents on how to deal with their children who are victims or culprits of sexual assault. The study, targeting the age group 13-29, was funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre and conducted in coordination with the Egypt-based Women and Society Association and the Youth of Today Association. Egypt has been cracking down on sex offenders, arresting several suspects accused on social media of being sexual predators, one of the most recent being the serial rapist Ahmed Bassam Zaki. In July, Egypts cabinet approved a bill proposed by the justice ministry to keep the identity of sex crime victims confidential. According to the law, the identities of the victims of sexual crimes are not to be publicly disclosed, and can only be revealed to the court and to defendants upon request. In 2014, Egypt designated sexual harassment as a crime punishable by law, said Nahla Abdel-Tawab, director of the Egypt office of the Population Council in a press release. The law imposes jail terms of no less than six months, and/or fines of EGP 3,000 to EGP 5,000 ($419 to $700) on those found guilty of sexual harassment. Abdel-Tawab said since the law has come into force, a small number of harassers have been tried because women rarely report cases of sexual assault. She said the fear of stigma and the misconception that reporting harassment is ineffective are the reasons few women report being sexually abused. Abeer Salem, head of research at the Egypt office of the Population Council, said policies and programme should focus on fighting social and sexual violence and creating safer and more inclusive spaces for girls. Social awareness is crucial to effect change and terminate all kinds of violence against women, said Fatma Khafagi, a social expert. The community should participate to find a radical solution to the sexual harassment of women in public places, she added, stressing that such traumatic incidents affect the development of girls, their education, and work. Search Keywords: Short link: The hills were on fire and Sarah Stierch was asleep. It was the man shouting in the street, outside her home in downtown Sonoma, who woke her to the orange glow on the horizon and the smoke in the air from the 2017 Nuns Fire. The text messages started coming; it would be a long time before they stopped. People didnt know what was happening, she says. It was the middle of the night; everybody was confused. Evacuation orders were being issued, but people werent evacuating. Stierch went online in the still-dark early morning and started sharing any useful information she could find there and through friends. In some sense that was the beginning of a new career for her. She still makes a living writing grants, she says, but ever since that night, Stierch has also covered the fires each season as an independent journalist. Any money she makes is by donation. Now, in the midst of another devastating fire season, her Twitter feed is post after post about evacuation orders, upcoming fire retardant air drops and red flag warnings. Her message folder on the social media app is full of questions from community members asking whether she knows about this street or that address. Has my house burned down? The other day, she tweeted that she had about 70 messages to get through. Each year when fires flare up across California and the West, so does a small, loose-knit Twitter community of scientists, amateur radio operators and journalists. Fire scientists post threads about the dynamics of fire tornadoes, foresters answer questions about land management, and radio operators track wildfires through scanner chatter and a network of publicly accessible wildfire cameras. Some are sharing expertise. Others, like Stierch, relay critical information and sometimes scoop official emergency information sources and traditional media outlets. Theyre all using social media to satisfy a growing demand for real-time information, analysis and discussion as wildly destructive fire seasons become the horrifying norm. In a certain sense, then, Twitter has become the most comprehensive collection of real-time information about wildfires as they spread. On Twitter, journalists like TV reporters and those at The San Francisco Chronicle post on-the-ground dispatches; scientists discuss complex fire behavior; scanner enthusiasts send out minute-by-minute updates on changes at the fire line; photographers share images seconds after theyre taken; and evacuees shoot video of flaming roadsides and smoke-filled skies. Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle Together, gathered in a single stream under hashtags like #GlassFire, they offer an unfiltered but essential news source, both for those who are directly in danger and for a nationwide audience still trying to understand what these fires are and what they mean. Twitter launched in 2007, right in the middle of Faith Kearns four-year stint as associate director of the Center for Fire Outreach at UC Berkeley. At the time, she says, it was hard to get any sort of fire news. Mostly, they relied on customized news filters, but almost from the start, Twitter proved useful, especially in the early moments after a fire ignited. Just like with earthquakes, says Kearns, a scientist who focuses on water, wildfire and climate change. If you want to figure out what just happened, you look at Twitter. Over the past three years, the site has come to offer something more than that. The thing thats appeared more recently, says Kearns, is that theres this Fire Twitter. The same series of horrific blazes in 2017 that Stierch began to tweet about dramatically increased public awareness of the growing threat of catastrophic wildfires, and it created a marketplace for discussion around the complicated subject. I would say Im part of an ecosystem, and that ecosystem evolves fire season by fire season, Kearns says. She mentions those listening to scanners, Indigenous scholars discussing prescribed burning, firefighters, journalists and scientists like herself. Whatever the specialty, the people tweeting about fires are generally driven by the same thing our own ability to find information. If we could find it, (we) wanted to offer it to other people. Traditional journalists, like those working at The Chronicle, are also part of that ecosystem. They file reports on the days events, but by the time a story is online or a radio segment airs, the situation on the ground may have changed the wind whipping embers elsewhere. Journalists turn to Twitter to share real-time updates about what theyre seeing at the fire line or hearing during a media briefing, and they use a fires hashtag to track its progress and find sources who can share their experience firsthand. Sometimes the information on Twitter is so specialized, it would be hard to find anywhere else. Neil Lareau, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nevada Reno, will, for instance, use weather radars to share my real-time insights in the dynamics of the fire environment. Im trying to visualize both for myself and the public and for other scientists I interact with whats going on in these environments. Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle He leaves the public warnings and notices to official channels the National Weather Services or state officials. But I will say, something that kind of blows my mind about the way these fires evolve is how little good public information there is about where the fire is, where its going, how strong it is, and whats going on in that fire environment, he says. Theres a real cultural need and thirst for that information. In the years following the 2017 fire season, the state has made significant steps toward improving emergency communication. Officials have installed fire cameras in vulnerable areas, improved app- and text-based alert systems and funded peer-to-peer outreach programs, to name a few changes. The state has been trying to rapidly evolve so that were getting information to people quickly, says Brian Ferguson, deputy director for crisis communications at the California Governors Office of Emergency Services. But some, like Ben Kuo, who lives in Los Angeles, still see critical gaps. Kuo posts as @ai6yrham (a nod to his ham radio call sign), one of a handful of amateur scanner accounts on Twitter, including the very popular @CAFireScanner. For his day job, he runs a website about technology finance and venture capital, but during fire season hell spend hours too many hours a day listening to digitized radio transmissions from local emergency services, watching wildfire camera feeds and tracking publicly available satellite data. Then he tweets it all out to his nearly 20,000 followers. 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. Kuo calls what he does a public service. Most amateur radio operators do, he says. It seems like theres an information gap, especially on disasters. Traditional reporters might be on the ground, but theyre often all in the same spot, he says. On the scanner, you get a lot more information on the ground for whats going on. That information can be really really important on a fast-moving fire. People often tell me that its been very useful, even life or death useful: If I hadnt seen what you were posting, I would have been in trouble. The scanner is often the first place something is reported widely, but its also an unfiltered stream of information. One responder might call out a possible hot spot only for crews to show up on the scene and find nothing, or quickly extinguish the spark. The Office of Emergency Services would, of course, rather people got their information directly from official channels through local sheriff departments or Cal Fire, which posts safety information, evacuation notices and other vital updates from its own Twitter account to nearly 420,000 followers. What we want the public to understand is that as theyre making decisions on fires, they should only be listening to trusted sources, says Ferguson, the deputy director for crisis communications. Theres real risk involved. This year, a couple died in the Bear Fire after waiting to evacuate because theyd heard an erroneous report that the fire was more than 50% contained. Also, conspiracy theories about Antifa setting fires spread through Twitter and Facebook. For their part, Kuo and Stierch are careful to mind their sources. Ive learned lessons from making mistakes, Stierch says. Now she tweets strictly on what I know, straight-up facts. No word-of-mouth stuff. And shes not going to stop tweeting anytime soon. She, like the others, has found her place on Fire Twitter and in the community live-tweeting press conferences, spot checking for damage, boosting the latest evacuation orders. I just want the information out there. Sometimes shell tweet to let folks know shes going to bed, that shell get to their messages in the morning. And then shell start to feel bad. People are so urgently desperate for information. Theyre just waiting to hear if something is OK. Clarification: Sarah Stierch covers the fires each year as an independent journalist. More Information Follow along on 'Fire Twitter' Each major fire has its own hashtag on Twitter, like #GlassFire or #ZoggFire, used by Cal Fire officials, journalists and scanner accounts. Browsing hashtagged tweets offers an unfiltered picture of what people are posting about a given blaze. A selection of "Fire Twitter" accounts: @CAL_FIRE (Official Cal Fire account) @SFChronicle (Official San Francisco Chronicle account) @CAFireScanner (Unofficial scanner account) @sarah_stierch (Citizen journalist) @frkearns (Wildfire and climate change scientist) @nplareau (Professor of atmospheric science) @ai6yrham (Amateur scanner account) @lizziejohnsonnn (Chronicle staff writer) @mgafni (Chronicle staff writer) @demianbulwa (Chronicle managing editor) @weather_west (Climate scientist) See More Collapse Ryan Kost is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rkost@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @RyanKost Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a third phone call in six days amid the worsening situation in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Kremlin said on October 2. The leaders reportedly discussed the ongoing armed conflict and expressed serious concern over the involvement of militants of illegal armed units from the Middle East. Vladimir Putin again emphasized the need to immediately stop the hostilities and resume political and diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict in line with the Statement made by the...co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, the Kremlin said in a statement. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, France, and the US) had earlier released a statement, condemning the continued violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. They expressed alarm at reports of increasing civilian casualties and said that targeting or threatening civilians is never acceptable under any circumstances. The co-chairs stressed that participation in the escalating violence by external parties undermines efforts to achieve lasting peace in the region. They reiterated their call for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the resumption of substantive negotiations, in good faith and without preconditions. The Co-Chairs also call urgently for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to enable the repatriation of remains of fallen servicemen in coordination with the OSCE and ICRC, the statement read. Read: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Armenia Ready For Ceasefire Talks With International Mediators Read: Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Turkish President Opposes Foreign Interference Decades-old stand-off The two former Soviet states are in an armed stand-off for years over the Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, and heavy clashes re-erupted on September 27, prompting fears of an all-out war. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan but it remains disputed because the region is controlled by ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan has declared martial law in border areas and Armenia has declared it across the country and mobilised its male population after the situation escalated in the disputed region. Armenia has even accused Turkey of meddling in the conflict by sending thousands of mercenaries from Syria, a claim swiftly rejected by Ankara. Read: India Calls For Immediate Ceasefire, Peace At Border As Azerbaijan-Armenia Fight Rages Read: Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Putin, Macron Call For Immediate Ceasefire Michael Gove has said he wants to move large Government departments out of London to support Boris Johnson's so-called 'levelling-up' agenda. Speaking at the Tory Party conference, the Cabinet Office minister said it is time for civil servants to be 'closer to where the action is', and he argued home-working during the pandemic proves the upheaval can work. The PM has vowed to do more to create opportunities outside the capital, following his landslide election victory in December which saw traditionally Labour-voting areas across parts of the north of England, the Midlands and northern Wales vote Tory for the first time. The virtual Tory conference opened on Saturday with the announcement that the party plans to open a second headquarters in Leeds in a bid to 'show our commitment to the blue wall seats', according to co-party chairman Amanda Milling. Ms Milling said she is aiming to have the headquarters open next year. Speaking at the Tory Party conference, Michael Gove (pictured) said it is time for civil servants to be 'closer to where the action is', and he argued home-working during the pandemic proves the upheaval can work With the party looking to create jobs outside of London, Mr Gove said the Civil Service should follow suit. Speaking in conversation with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, Mr Gove said: 'Far too many Government jobs tend to be in the Westminster and Whitehall village. 'I think we need some of the big Government departments and the big decision makers not in London but closer to where the action is in the North West, the West Midlands, Teesside and Tyneside.' Last week, the most senior civil servant in Mr Gove's department told MPs that large chunks of the Whitehall estate could be put up for sale as civil service jobs are pushed out across the country. Alex Chisholm, the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, told the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that the Civil Service wants to 'reduce London-centricity'. Mr Gove echoed those words on Saturday, arguing those with public sector career ambitions should not have to move to London. 'I want it to be the case that, whether you are in Middlesbrough, Mansfield or Manchester, that economic and career opportunity is close to home in the community you care about,' he added. He said online working developed during the pandemic could help pave the way for departments to be based away from Westminster. The virtual Tory conference opened on Saturday with the announcement that the party plans to open a second headquarters in Leeds in a bid to 'show our commitment to the blue wall seats', according to co-party chairman Amanda Milling (pictured) 'The key thing about the changes that have been enabled from working from home is we can say, 'You don't need to have a concentration of people in a Whitehall department operating in that way',' Mr Gove added. 'You can have the decision makers dispersed, you can have people who are operating digitally who may come in for particular meetings but who can live and work and contribute to the life of the communities that they love outside of London, or outside some of our major urban centres.' Ahead of this year's conference, the Prime Minister said he wants to create a 'Generation Buy', where young people are helped to purchase homes with mortgages requiring low deposits. The Tory leader told the Telegraph he believes a 'huge' number of people feel excluded from home ownership in the UK, but his Government will 'fix' the issue by helping people get on to the property market by encouraging banks to look again at offering 95 per cent mortgage loans. But housing charity Shelter accused the Prime Minister of 'selling pipedreams', and called for him to 'start facing reality'. Chief executive Polly Neate said: 'Offering up huge loans and even more debt is the wrong answer to the much bigger problem of rising housing insecurity in this country.' Sao Paulo: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday nominated a judge with a record of flexible rulings to the countrys Supreme Court, frustrating evangelical members of his conservative base who had been promised one of their own for the opening. Bolsonaro announced his nomination of Kassio Marques on Thursday during a live broadcast on Facebook and submitted his name to the countrys official gazette on Friday. Enjoying higher popularity and trust: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Credit:UNTV/AP Marques, 48, little known by political heavyweights in the capital Brasilia, requires confirmation by Brazils Senate. During Thursdays live broadcast, Brazils president tried to encourage his disheartened supporters. Getting a Nobel Prize is a dream of every researcher who dedicates his entire life doing ground-breaking research in any subject. But when Indian-American scientist, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, got a call from Sweden aprising him on his win, he thought it was a prank being played on him. The Instagram account of Nobel Prize shared a post recalling this day. Also read | Virus Scales Down December Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony In a post on the official Instagram handle of Nobel Prize, it is mentioned that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan had a bad day when he got the call. His bike had gotten a flat tire as he was on his way to Cambridge University. His telephone rang just as he entered his office. 'This is an important phone call from Stockholm ' please hold', the caller said. He angrily said to the caller in response, 'Whoever put you up to this ' I don't believe you!" Also read | Trump Wisconsin Crowd Chants 'Nobel Peace Prize' The general secretary was now on the phone and when he, too, congratulated Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, he was still dubious. Even as the general secretary tried to convince him that the news was true, the Indian-American scientist still refused to believe it. He then spoke to Mans Ehrenberg who was the committee member Venkatraman Ramakrishnan had met before. After speaking to him, Ramakrishnan actually believed it was true and not a prank. The scientist also heard laughter fin the background and realised he was on loudspeaker. Also read | Trump Says Nobel Peace Prize Possible For 'stopping Mass Killings' Between Serbia, Kosovo It was hard for people to believe that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan would believe this is to be a prank. The post has garnered over 6000 likes on Instagram and people are sharing and commenting on what they would have done had they gotten a call for winning the Nobel Prize. Here is how netizens reacted to this - Also read | China Warns Norway Against Awarding Nobel Peace Prize To Hong Kong Activists The Indian-origin scientist won the prestigious Nobel Prize in 2009 for his notable work in the field of chemistry. According to Nobelprize.org, he had studied the structure and function of the ribosome. His contribution was important in the production of anti-biotics. The prize was shared by three scientists. His autobiography is available on the website of Nobel Prize. Promo image courtesy- @nobelprize_org Instagram New Delhi, Oct 3 : Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday that the recent reforms undertaken by the government amid the pandemic -- in mining, labour and agriculture, among other sectors -- will strengthen India and prepare the country to engage globally from a position of strength. Addressing the 74th annual session of Hindustan Chamber of Commerce, Goyal was quoted in an official statement as saying that the government has taken the opportunity amid the pandemic to bring major reforms across sectors. "We have taken the opportunity of Covid to bring about game-changing reforms in agriculture, labour, mining, capital markets and banking, space technology and defence. This will strengthen India and prepare us to engage with the world from a position of strength," he said. Goyal said that businesses and the government are working together towards a better future for the marginalised sections of the society. The minister said: "Working together, no power on earth can stop India from truly becoming a superpower and economy that cares for its people and improves the quality of life of every single person." Goyal said that the pandemic has been a period when the true resilience of Indian businesses has been put to test. He stressed that India has not only become one of the largest manufacturers of PPEs, masks, ventilators and medicines across the world, but manufacturers here are also exporting them. "The whole world recognises the phenomenal work India has taken in the fight against the pandemic. India's abilities to become self-reliant, expand scale of operation, introduce good manufacturing practices and improve quality are all being recognised by the world," he added. Hathras SP, 4 other cops suspended; media barred from victim's village till SIT completes probe India pti-Madhuri Adnal Lucknow/New Delhi, Oct 02: Uttar Pradesh government on Friday suspended the Hathras SP and four other police officers over their handling of the gangrape-murder case even as local authorities made clear that the Dalit victims village was off-limits for the media. A Trinamool Congress delegation was stopped from meeting the victims family and its members alleged they were pushed around by officials. Hathras protest: Kejriwal joins protest, demands strictest punishment for accused In view of the current situation, no political representatives or media personnel would be allowed entry into the village till the SIT (Special Investigation Team) completes its probe, Hathras Additional Superintendent of Police Prakash Kumar told reporters. The Yogi Adityanath government continued to draw flak over the alleged gang-rape and the subsequent death of the 19-year-old woman. Samajwadi Party workers took out a protest in Lucknow, and were lathi-charged by police. There were protests also in Aligarh, Mathura and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. Students, civil rights activists and political workers gathered at Delhi's Jantar Mantar in the evening. Several political leaders, including from the Aam Aadmi Party and the Left, joined the protest. In Hathras district, a group of Trinamool Congress MPs was stopped one and half kilometers from the victims home, a party statement said. Derek O'Brien, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Pratima Mandal, and former MP Mamata Thakur travelled in separate cars to avoid detection and met up 25 km ahead of Hathras, party sources said. They managed to enter the victims village, but were unable to meet the family. The group alleged that OBrien fell to the ground after being pushed and Mandal was manhandled by an official. The MPs later filed a police complaint and also held a dharna. A day earlier, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were detained by UP Police in Greater Noida while they were on their way to Hathras. The woman was allegedly gang-raped in a brutal assault on September 14 that left her with severe injuries. She died at Delhis Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday. Four men have been arrested. She was cremated in the middle of the night with family members claiming that police ignored their pleas to bring the body home one last time. The hurried cremation triggered further outrage over the episode. On Friday, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath warned that his government will make an example of those who commit crimes on women. In a tweet in Hindi, he said those who even think of hurting a womans self-respect will face total destruction. Hours later, the state government announced the suspension of Hathras SP Vikrant Vir, circle officer Ramshabd and three others on the basis of a preliminary report submitted by the SIT looking into the case. In Delhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took part in a prayer meeting by the Valmiki community at their temple in central Delhi. Each and every woman of this country should raise her voice against what has happened to the woman in Hathras," she said. No hope for justice for Hathras victim till UP CM resigns: Chandra Shekhar Aazad On Twitter, she welcomed the Allahabad High Court order summoning top Uttar Pradesh officials in connection with the Hathras episode. The entire nation is demanding justice for the Hathras rape victim. The HC order shines a ray of hope amidst the dark, inhuman and unjust treatment meted out to her family by the UP Government," she said. Also on Twitter, Rahul Gandhi shared a video clip of a child who alleged that members of the victims family were beaten up and threatened by the authorities. "The UP government has taken to brutality to cover up the truth. Neither us, nor the media is being allowed to meet the victim's family. Neither are they allowed to come out. On top of this, the family members of the victim are being beaten up and brutalized, he said. In Chandigarh, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala referred to victims cremation at night, saying the Yogi Adityanath government should "hang its head in shame". Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also criticised the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, saying Hindu traditions dont allow cremation at night. Her family was not even allowed to have a last glimpse of her," he said. Congress leader Sachin Pilot condemned the detention of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on Thursday. "Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the entire administration have left no stone unturned to suppress the voice of the opposition, the former Rajasthan deputy chief minister said in Jaipur. Former state pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy has revealed that she was suspicious of Joe OReilly, who bludgeoned his wife Rachel (30) to death in October 2004. Mr OReilly gave TV interviews feigning innocence before he was arrested and later went on to be convicted of his wifes murder. Speaking on the Late Late Show last night, Prof Cassidy recalled one of his television appearances. I probably wasn't the only person looking at it and going, must have been him. I was very suspicious, she said. Im just like everybody else at that stage, I'm the armchair detective. A short clip was played of Mr OReillys appeal, where he said that whoever killed Mrs OReilly knew her. I thought he was quite right, said Prof Cassidy. Rachel O'Reilly (30) died after she was badly beaten in her home in The Naul in Co Dublin almost 16 years ago. Her mother, Rose Callaly, found Rachel's body in the bedroom of the house on October 4. Prof Cassidy also recalled the night she was called out to the scene and explained how she had three students with her, but a duty garda would not allow them on the scene so that evidence would not be tampered with. The call came through and I said, Theres been a death, if you all want to pile in. And it was a lousy night, it was a lousy night. I drove up with them in the back, it was like having kids with you. I got to the scene and the guards are normally very good, I say Ive got students with me, and is it OK if they come in, and they said, No. And I went, Oh, right. I went out to the kids in the car and I said, Im sorry, you cant come in. I said, Well clear it and see if you can come to the mortuary to do the post mortem, but you can't come in here. She explained how the gardai were cautious of any evidence that may be lost if the students came in. Not that I was concerned as to what they would see and I don't think the guards were concerned as to what they would see, she added. I think they knew right from the start it was going to be a tricky investigation and they didn't want people trapezing over it. Bihar's Opposition Grand Alliance, led by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), on October 3 announced the seat-sharing deal for the forthcoming Assembly polls in the state. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav will be the Opposition's Chief Ministerial face and his party will contest 144 seats in the 243-member strong Assembly. Congress has been offered 70 seats, besides also contesting by-poll to Valmiki Nagar Lok Sabha seat. The Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which from the other constituents of the Grand Alliance, have been offered six, four and 19 seats each, Yadav said during a press conference. "All components of UPA have decided to come together as coalition for the Bihar Assembly elections. Congress, RJD, CPI, CPM and Vikassheel Insaan Party will be part of this alliance under the leadership of RJD. We want Bihar to prosper under Tejashwi Yadav," Congress' Avinash Pande said. Earlier, there were reports of disagreements between the parties within the Grand Alliance, with Congress even saying that it is ready to fight the elections on all 243 seats in the Bihar state assembly. The Left Front, meanwhile, had been unhappy that the RJD had not responded to its list of probable seats. The seat-sharing exercise, however, gained momentum once RJD supremo Lalu Prasads emissary Bhola Yadav returned to Patna from Ranchi on Thursday with his message on the distribution of seats among different partners. Apart from the RJD, the Congress, Left parties CPI-ML, CPI and the CPI(M), the Vikasheel Insan Party (VIP) and Jharkhands ruling party JMM will unitedly fight the Bihar elections scheduled in October-November. Cheraghi was charged with attempted murder on August 19, 2017 A man has been acquitted of attempted murder after his ex-wife was left with multiple stab woundsin her Sydney home. A slashed black dress proved Mehdi Cheraghi did not attack Pervin Maroufi at an Ermington address, in western Sydney, on August 19, 2017. The dress was tendered in evidence to the jury at Parramatta District Court, displaying 22 cuts. Mehdi Cheraghi (pictured above) was acquitted of the attempted murder of his ex-wife this week Mehdi Cheraghi and Pervin Maroufi (pictured right) as a couple before the alleged attack Lawyers Abdullah Reslan and Tom Hughes, who represented Cheraghi, successfully argued the large number of slashes on the dress and location of the cuts failed to match the wounds on Maroufi's body. Once it also emerged Maroufi had a history of self harm, who actually inflicted the stab wounds became contentious, the court heard. 'Those 22 tears to the fabric of that black dress, in the context of this assault, just don't make sense,' Hughes said. 'I submit that the dress was damaged by her (Maroufi) slowly and deliberately, with the same implement that she used to inflict harm upon herself.' On the night of the incident, Maroufi told police on the scene her husband Cheraghi was the one who plunged the knife into her seven times in a jealous rage after accusing her of having sex with another man. But the jury later acquitted Cheraghi of attempted murder. Cheraghi earlier stated he had gone for a walk to a nearby park to smoke a cigarette and when he arrived home he found his now ex-partner nursing multiple stab wounds. The jury returned with a not-guilty verdict inside three hours. New Delhi, Oct 3 : Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha has moved the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutional validity of the new agriculture-related laws. "The Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, The Farmers' Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 and The Essential commodities (Amendment) Act 2020 were passed by Parliament in breach of parliamentary rules and convention. "These Acts are unconstitutional, as they are discriminatory and manifestly arbitrary and also violate the basic structure of the Constitution. The legislations have come into effect from September 27 after President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent," the Rajya Sabha member pleaded in his PIL. The plea, filed through advocate Fauzia Shakeel, said: "The impugned Acts encourage corporatisation of India agriculture, which is the lifeline of the poor farmers and key to the survival of the nation's agriculture sector. The impugned Acts primarily intend to sacrifice the interest of the farmers and leave them at the mercy of sponsors without any proper dispute resolution mechanism." Besides Jha, Congress Lok Sabha member from Kerala, TN Prathapan, and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's Rajya Sabha member Tiruchi Siva have moved the apex court against these laws. "These Acts are also passed in violation of Article 14 and Article 23 of the Constitution... the only way to resolve the dispute of payments, quality and specifications under the agreements are conciliation and settlement by the local authorities with appeal before the Collector. "The entire scheme of dispute settlement is equally tilted likewise in favour of sponsors. It is stated that under the state market laws there were adequate supportive measures for the protection of the farmers and their produce. However, the impugned Acts do not have proper dispute resolution mechanism leaving the marginal farmers mostly exposed to exploitation by the sponsors," the plea added. HATHRAS: Seeking justice for the 19-year-old girl, the family members of the Hathras gang-rape victim on Saturday (October 3) raised questions on the Uttar Pradesh police for forcible cremation of their daughter's body. The family also claimed that it wasn't their daughter's body that was cremated by the police without their consent and suspected that the body might had been changed by the police officials. "We want to know whose body was burnt on that day. And if it was our sister's body then why did they burn her (the body) in this manner? All of us requested the police and the administration to allow us to see her one last time," said the victim`s brother after the media was allowed in the village and to speak with the victim`s family. ALSO READ: Hathras gang-rape case Live: Rahul, Priyanka's cavalcade reach Hathras, to meet victim's family "Moreover, when we requested for the post mortem report, they said you will not understand it as you cannot read English," the brother told ANI. As per a source from the family, the 3-member SIT team that was formed by the Uttar Pradesh CM to investigate and submit its report on Hathras gang-rape, neither visited their house nor spoke to them on Saturday. They alleged that the SIT team spoke with other people of the village yesterday. The family complained that they have not been allowed to go out of the house for the last two days and there is a constant presence of police personnel in the house all the time. "We requested the policemen to let us have some privacy. They were in the house all the time. The administrative officers used to come in and ask us to show our phone. This was the only communication we had with the outer world in the last two days," victim`s brother added. Meanwhile, five Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday evening arrived in Hathras to meet the gang-rape victim's family amid dramatic twist following massive police arrangements and traffic chaos at the DND in the afternoon. After the UP government allowed at least five person to proceed to Hathras, Rahul and Priyanka's cavalcade could cross the DND. Amidst the chaos, the police had to resort to mild lathicharge to disperse the huge crowd that had assembled at the DND flyway. Live TV Even as the shock and outrage over the death of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh is continuing another shocking crime has surfaced, this time from Bihar, once again highlighting the sorry state of women's safety in the country. A Dalit teenage girl from Bihar's Gaya district has died by suicide on Friday after allegedly being gang raped by four men. AFP According to local media reports, the victim had gone to attend a birthday party in the village. While returning home, she was allegedly stopped by some men who took turns to sexually abuse her. Girl managed to flee and reach home The crime came to light after the girl managed to flee the spot and reach her home. The girl who narrated her ordeal to the family later went to her room and hung herself. Representational image Family members who became suspicious after there was no response from her room, broke open the door and found her hanging. Though they rushed her to a hospital, it was too late and she died there during treatment. According to NDTV, the girl's parents have filed a case of gang rape naming three of the four accused as Rahul Kumar, Chintu Kumar and Chandan Kumar. Friday's incident is a reflection of the state of women's safety in India. Crimes against women on the rise The recently released data by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) had shown that India recorded an average of 87 rape cases daily in 2019 and overall 4,05,861 cases of crime against women during the year, a rise of over 7 per cent from 2018. BCCL The Crime in India Report 2019 which was released on Tuesday showed that a total of 32,033 cases of rape were lodged in 2019, which was 7.3 per cent of all crimes against women during the year. The crime rate registered per lakh women population stood at 62.4 in 2019 in comparison with 58.8 in 2018, it showed. In terms of numbers, Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of cases in both these categories. But Assam reported the highest rate of crimes against women (per lakh population). BCCL UP reported the highest number of crimes against women (59,853), accounting for 14.7 per cent of such cases across the country. It was followed by Rajasthan (41,550 cases) and Maharashtra (37,144 cases). Assam reported the highest rate of crime against women at 177.8 (per lakh population), followed by Rajasthan (110.4) and Haryana (108.5). Rajasthan reported the highest number of rapes with 5,997 cases, followed by UP (3,065) and Madhya Pradesh (2,485). In terms of rate of rape cases, Rajasthan was the highest at 15.9 (per lakh population), followed by Kerala (11.1) and Haryana (10.9). If you know anyone battling with depression or other mental health issues, please reach out to someone who can help. AASRA Foundation: 022 2754 6669 Samaritans Mumbai: +91 84229 84528 / +91 84229 84529 / +91 84229 84530 Sanjivini Society for Mental Health: +911124311918 Hyderabad, Oct 4 : The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Telangana police, probing renegade slain Maoist-turned-gangster Nayeem's nexus with politicians and police, have given clean chit to all 25 police officers whose names had surfaced during investigation. Y. Nagi Reddy, Inspector General of Police, SIT, informed an activist in a reply under Right to Information (RTI) Act that none of the police officers has been cited as accused in any case. Forum for Good Governance Secretary M. Padmanabha Reddy was informed that charge sheets were filed in 173 cases but courts were yet to pass final orders. The RTI reply also says eight cases were withdrawn/deleted from the purview of the SIT. "No police officer is cited as accused in any case. Eight politicians are involved in 139 cases," the reply reads. The petitioner wanted to know the number of cases in which action was initiated against police officers and politicians. The names of two Additional Superintendents of Police, seven Deputy Superintendents of Police, 13 inspectors, two head constables and one constable had surfaced for their alleged links with Nayeem and his associates. Nayeem alias Mohammed Nayeemuddin was killed in an alleged exchange of fire with police in Shadnagar town on August 8, 2016. The most wanted gangster was involved in land grabbing, abduction and extortion and he allegedly had links with politicians and police officers. The SIT was formed to probe the illegal activities of Nayeem, his associates and his alleged links with the officials. After receiving RTI reply, the Forum for Good Governance appealed to Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). It alleged attempts to dilute the SIT investigation. The activist alleged that the SIT has been doing a 'shabby and suspicious' job right from its inception. "About 240 cases were registered after the encounter of Nayeem. It is stated that in 173 cases charge sheets were filed, but even after four years not a single case was brought to its logical conclusion," Padmanabha Reddy said. "It is a case of a deadly combination of police, politicians, and gangster coming together and committing atrocities on innocent people, their lands grabbed and any resistance, people were murdered," he added. China warned US not to interfere with its relations with India With no sign of disengagement along LAC by China, Delhi pins hopes on diplomacy Names of 20 soldiers martyred in Galwan Valley clash inscribed on war memorial India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Oct 03: The names of the 20 soldiers martyred in the Galwan Valley clash on June 15 has been inscribed on a war memorial in Eastern Ladakh. Commanding officer, Colonel B Sathish Babu was among the 20 soldiers martyred following a deadly 7 hour clash near Patrolling Point 14 in Galwan Valley. India's assessment is that nearly 30 Chinese soldiers were killed or went missing. China has however not disclosed the number of casualties, the PLA suffered. China had claimed sovereignty over Galwan Valley. India however rejected this claim. India says that claim over Galwan Valley was not in accordance with its own position in the past, noting that attempts of transgression by Chinese side were invariably met with appropriate response from the Indian troops. Way ahead is to refrain from attempts to unilaterally change status quo: MEA on Ladakh standoff Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News "The position with regard to the Galwan Valley area has been historically clear. Attempts by the Chinese side to now advance exaggerated and untenable claims with regard to Line of Actual Control (LAC) there are not acceptable. They are not in accordance with China''s own position in the past," India says. Warner Bros.s Tenet, the canary in the box-office coalmine, has passed $41 million in domestic U.S. earnings in its fourth week. Theres no comparison for that number theres no precedent for a tentpole release in a pandemic but rival studios reactions speak for themselves. A slew of blockbusters that were due in the fall have been delayed once more, including at least one animated film: Sonys Connected. Its now all but certain that October will pass without a major new animated feature in U.S. theaters (although Netflix subscribers will get to see Glen Keanes Over the Moon from October 23). But even as the pandemic rages on, the resilient animation industry is looking ahead to better days. September was a month of exciting announcements important new films, hirings, partnerships, and studios were all unveiled. Let us refresh your memories Release dates continued to change. Sonys Connected, which had been positioned as the next tentpole animated feature to hit theaters, was delayed from October 23 to an unconfirmed date later in the year. Rumors circulated that Pixars Soul will move to Disney+; for now, though, its still scheduled to get a theatrical release on November 20. Universal, reportedly confident that Soul will move, has brought Dreamworks The Croods: A New Age forward to November 25. All the reshuffling has resulted in a unique scenario: as things stand, Disney will release four animated features in three months next year. Union Minister Smriti Irani on Saturday said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's visit to Hathras on Saturday is a political gimmick with no intention of seeking justice for the victim's family. While speaking to media Irani said, "People are aware of Congress's tactics and that is why they ensured a historic win for BJP in 2019 polls. People understand that their (Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi) visit to Hathras is for their politics and not for justice to the victim." Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra decided to travel to Hathras village on Thursday to meet the 19-year-old Hathras incident victim's kin. They were stopped midway by the Uttar Pradesh Police and hundreds of Congress workers along with the Gandhis were detained for breaching the state law that barred public movement during the pandemic. Smriti Irani's comment has come in response to Rahul Gandhi's mishandling by the UP Police near the Agra-Yamuna Expressway on October 1. The 19-year-old woman died at Delhi's Safdarjung hospital on September 29. All the four accused in the Hathras incident have been arrested. (L-R) Former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton address a virtual convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Aug. 19, 2020. (DNCC via Getty Images); Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks at an event in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 2, 2020. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Obamas, Clintons, Harris Join Others in Wishing Trump and First Lady Well After Diagnosis Prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, added their voices to the stream of those wishing President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump well after the pair tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. Obama took to Twitter Friday to share a message of support on behalf of himself and his wife. Michelle and I hope that the president, first lady, and all those affected by the coronavirus around the country are getting the care they need and are on the path to a speedy recovery, the former president wrote, adding: Obviously, were in the midst of a big political battle right now, and while theres a lot at stake, lets remember that were all Americans. Were all human beings. And we want everyone to be healthy, no matter our party. Hillary Clinton, speaking on her behalf and that of former President Bill Clinton, sent regards to the Trumps and those in their orbit. We wish the president and first lady a speedy recovery, and hope for the safety of the White House staff, the Secret Service, and others putting their lives on the line, Clinton wrote on Twitter. This pandemic has affected so many. We must continue to protect ourselves, our families, and communities, she added. Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris shared wishes for a quick recovery on her behalf and that of her husband. Doug and I join Joe Biden and Dr. Biden in wishing President Trump and the first lady a full and speedy recovery. Were keeping them and the entire Trump family in our thoughts, Harris wrote on Twitter. President Donald Trump leaves the White House for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Oct. 2, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Biden, who earlier shared his well-wishes in a message on social media, traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday, where at a rally he struck a message of national unity. This cannot be a partisan moment. It must be an American moment. We have to come together as a nation, the former vice president said at the podium, speaking while wearing a mask and insisting, we can get this pandemic under control. Bidens call for unity comes as messages wishing Trump a speedy recovery stand in stark contrast with posts on social media wishing the president ill. A notable case is a since-deleted tweet by a former top campaign staffer to both Hillary Clinton and Obama, who wrote: Its been against my moral identity to tweet this for the past four years, but, I hope he dies. The post drew backlash, while Twitter and Facebook said late Friday they would remove posts that wish or hope for Trumps death. A new MorningConsult poll, meanwhile, found that 40 percent of respondents who identified as Democrats said they were happy that the commander-in-chief fell ill. Democrat members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) expressed messages of support. Pelosi told MSNBC in an interview that, we all received that news with great sadness, adding, I always pray for the president and his family that theyre safe. She also used the opportunity to criticize Trump for not taking precautions amid the outbreak, like wearing a mask. This is tragic, its very sad, but it also is something that going into crowds, unmasked and all the rest, was sort of a brazen invitation for this to happen, Pelosi said, adding, Maybe this will be the moment where people will say, OK, masks, distances, sanitation, tracing, treatment.' Schumer wished the Trumps a speedy recovery and echoed Pelosis critical remarks. What happened to President Trump is a reminder of why the whole country, including senators and staff, must follow the science and follow the protocols laid out by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and public health officials, Schumer said Friday. Trump, in a video message on Friday, expressed gratitude for the kind messages. I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support. Im going to Walter Reed Hospital. I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out. The first lady is doing very well. So thank you very much I appreciate it. I will never forget it. Thank you. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said earlier on Friday that Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day. She said the president will remain at the hospital for the next few days out of an abundance of caution. A number of key people in regular contact with the president all tested negative after Trumps diagnosis: Barron Trump, the presidents youngest son, Vice President Mike Pence, second lady Karen Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. In addition to taking Regenerons experimental antibody cocktail, the president has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and a daily aspirin, according to his physician. Allen Zhong contributed to this report. *Note: this article was corrected to reflect that Sen. Chuck Schumer is the Senate Minority Leader The keen plant speaks to the mechanical and assembling advancement and is mix of cutting edge apparatuses and innovative specialists. Savvy plant can be characterized as a blend of generation, data, and correspondence advancements, having the capacity for joining over the whole assembling store network. The developing interest for supportable and benefit situated business rehearses the shrewd processing plant is structured. It relies on adaptability, versatility, adaptation to non-critical failure, and hazard the executives. Savvy Factory comprises of various innovations such Enterprise asset arranging (ERP), Supervisory control and information obtaining (SCADA), Programmable Automation Controller (PAC), Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), Distributed Control System (DCS) and Human Machine Interface (HMI). Request For Report Sample @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/9310 Undertaking asset arranging (ERP) is the ongoing administration of business forms encouraged by programming. Supervisory control and information securing is a controlled framework engineering which utilizes PCs, graphical UIs and system information interchanges for abnormal state forms. Human Machine Interface incorporates the hardware required to flag and control the territory of Smart Factory gear. Global Smart Factory Market report includes different applications such as Sensors, Industrial Robots, Industrial 3d Printing, Machine Vision Systems, Communication Technology, Control Devices and Control Valves. This report aims to estimate the Global Smart Factory Market for 2018 and to project the expected demand of the same by 2023. This market research study provides a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Global Smart Factory Market. It provides a comprehensive review of major drivers and restraints of the market. Major companies such as ABB Ltd., ATOS SE, Emerson Electric Co., Fanuc Corporation, Schneider Electric SE, etc. are profiled in this report. Global Smart Factory Market is also segmented into major application and geographies. Get Complete TOC with Tables and Figures @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/9310 Various secondary sources, such as encyclopedia, directories, and databases to identify and collect information useful for this extensive commercial study of Global Smart Factory Market have been used. The primary sources, experts from related industries and suppliers, have been interviewed to obtain and verify critical information as well as to assess the future prospects of Global Smart Factory Market. Global Smart Factory Market has grown significantly during the last few years, and it is expected to grow at a rapid pace in the next five years, mainly driven by a growing consumption in the North America region. Global Smart Factory Market is valued at $ xx million in 2018, growing at a CAGR of X% and is expected to reach $ xx million by 2023. <<< Get COVID-19 Report Analysis >>> https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/9310 Breast Cancer Awareness Month has begun. And Joe Jonas demonstrated his support for the cause by dyeing his buzz cut hot pink and showing the look off on Instagram Stories. The 31-year-old pop act added a pink breast cancer ribbon filter to his social media selfie to leave no room for doubt as to the reason for his hair color. Ringing in Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Joe Jonas demonstrated his support for the cause by dyeing his buzz cut hot pink and showing the look off on Insta Stories His new look comes months after his wife Sophie Turner of Game Of Thrones fame shaved his head as they self-isolated in Los Angeles. At the time Sophie was pregnant with their firstborn daughter who was eventually born on July 27 and named Willa. He swung by the radio show Karson & Kennedy in May and revealed he 'was ready for a haircut already' prior to the lockdowns. 'My wife did it and it feels a lot better than what it was a few weeks ago,' he shared, explaining that 'I was like: "This is getting too much." I couldn't handle it.' What a look: His pink avatar is only the latest in a line of hair color changes, as the former Disney Channel star also went platinum blonde in early August 'The first time I had her cut just a little hair off the back,' he dished, adding that he then learned he was 'missing some chunks of hair in the wrong places!' Joe, who married Sophie last year, said: 'I decided you know what maybe just shave my head, and it's hot here in LA so it's much better.' His pink avatar is only the latest in a line of hair color changes, as the former Disney Channel star also went platinum blonde in early August. Remember when: The last time he had pink hair was four years ago and there was blue in it - he could be seen in the look at that year's Kids' Choice Awards Quartet: He and his band DNCE, which also consists of Cole Whittle, JinJoo Lee and Jack Lawless, were performing at the Nickeloden awards show The last time he had pink hair was four years ago and there was blue in it - he could be seen in the look at that year's Kids' Choice Awards. He and his band DNCE, which also consists of Cole Whittle, JinJoo Lee and Jack Lawless, were performing at the Nickeloden awards show. Since then he has rejoined his siblings Nick and Kevin to reform the Jonas Brothers, the boy band that rocketed them all to fame over a decade ago. As seen last April: His new look comes months after his wife Sophie Turner of Game Of Thrones fame shaved his head as they self-isolated in Los Angeles Rick Moranis at Daryl Roth Theatre in New York City, N.Y., on April 12, 2017. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images) Actor Rick Moranis Randomly Attacked in NYC The actor is recovering after being hit in the head Actor Rick Moranis was attacked in what appears to be an unprovoked assault by an unknown suspect wearing an I love NY hoodie in New Yorks Upper West Side. Moranis, who starred in Ghostbusters and Honey I Shrunk the Kids, was punched in the head around 7:30 a.m. on Friday, police said. The incident took place at Central Park West near 70th Street. Police released surveillance video of the assault, but did not explicitly say Moranis was the victim because of privacy concerns. Police described the incident as a random unprovoked assault. Security video footage showed that a man approached Moranis and hit or shoved him, knocking him to the ground. The suspect, who was wearing a dark I love NY hoodie, then continues to walk away. The 67-year-old actor did not appear to have any time to respond to the threat of attack. UPDATE IMAGE OF SUSPECT pic.twitter.com/sk2Q2YT2qN NYPD Crime Stoppers (@NYPDTips) October 2, 2020 The NYPD is seeking help from the public to identify the suspect, who is wanted for assault. The NYPD is seeking direct tips and offering a reward of up to $2,500. Moraniss representative, Troy Bailey, said in a written statement Friday: Rick Moranis was assaulted on the Upper West Side yesterday. He is fine but grateful for everyones thoughts and well wishes. Police said that Moranis went to the hospital reporting pain in his head, back, and hip. He later walked to the 20th police precinct to report the incident. Officer Jonadel Dorrejo told CBS New York the actor just wants to stay home. He just wants to recover and he just wants peace of mind. Several celebrities denounced the attack and wished Moranis well on Twitter. Actor Ryan Reynolds wrote, Should have known not to subject Rick to the year 2020. Glad to hear hes okay. Moranis recently appeared in a commercial with Reynolds for Mint Mobile. Marvel star Chris Evans wrote, My blood is boiling. Find this man [suspect]. You dont touch Rick Moranis. Writer-director Judd Apatow also wrote, This the worst news of the last two days This is why Rick Moranis avoided our country for decades. I guess he was right all along. We dont deserve him. Actor Rick Moranis is shown in May 1994. (AP Photo) The Canadian actor has taken a long break from acting since 1997 after his wifes death from cancer in 1991, opting to dedicate time to his two children. He is known for his participation in the sketch comedy series Second City Television in the 1980s, as well as for several Hollywood films, including Ghostbusters, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Little Shop of Horrors, Parenthood, and The Flintstones. While Moranis hasnt appearred in live action films for over two decades, he has, during that time, provided voice-over work, released comedy albums, and appeared at certain fan conventions. He will be making a brief return to live action films, reprising his role as the mad scientist in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, in a new sequel called Shrunk. Anyone with information about the incident is being asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). You can also send @NYPDTips a direct message on Twitter, or submit a tip on their website, crimestoppers.nypdonline.org. All calls are confidential. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A pair of covidiots have been busted travelling from regional Victoria to Melbourne to go to a strip club - despite non-essential services being shut down since July. The men were intercepted by Victoria Police at a vehicle checkpoint in the Macedon Ranges, north of Melbourne, and fined for entering a Stage Four restricted area. They told police they had gone to the city to 'attend a strip club' but had not realised no such venues were open when they arrived in Melbourne. Two mates were fined in the Macedon Ranges (pictured), north of Melbourne, for entering a Stage Four restricted area after visiting Melbourne from regional Victoria The men told police they had travelled to Melbourne to 'attend a strip club' (file image pictured) but realised the venues were closed due to lockdown once they arrived They were among 82 people who were fined in the last 24 hours for breaching the directions of the Chief Health Officer. Of those, 13 people were fined after failing to wear a face mask when leaving their homes and 11 fines were issued at vehicle checkpoints. One woman was fined after she exited an Uber in Port Phillip, south Melbourne, and had no lawful reason to be 5km from her home in Cranbourne. A woman from Melton, west Melbourne, was also checked on board a train travelling into the city and told police she was going to buy organic food. She was fined after having no lawful reason for travelling 5km from home. Coronavirus fines in Victoria include $200 for not wearing a face covering in public and up to $1,652 for stay-at-home order breaches. Premier Daniel Andrews increased fines for those who flout the restrictions on gatherings from $1,652 to $4,957 on Monday. Melbourne remains under a strict lockdown and people are only able to gather in maximum groups of five, from two households. A variety of restrictions have been eased, including the harsh 9pm to 5am curfew. Melburnians still need to keep to the 1.5m social distancing rule and wear the compulsory facemasks. Victoria recorded eight new coronavirus cases and three deaths on Saturday. KABUL - A suicide truck bomb attack on Saturday killed at least 13 people in eastern Afghanistan, government officials said. Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian says that at least 38 people were wounded in the blast in Nangarhar provinces Ghanikhail district, when it hit near a mosque as locals were gathering for the afternoon prayers. Provincial governor spokesman Attaullah Khogyani says that several armed men after the explosion wanted to enter the provincial district buildings but the Afghan forces killed them before reaching the facility. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but both Islamic State affiliates and Taliban are active in the area. Both groups have carried out attacks against the Afghan government, national security and defence personnel, and civilians. The attack happens as representatives of both the Afghan government and Taliban are opening intra-Afghan negotiations in the Middle Eastern State of Qatar to end the countrys decades-long long war, following a U.S.-Taliban peace deal signed February 29 in Doha. Read more about: The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] When Kamala Harris and Mike Pence take the debate stage, safety protocols will be more rigid Vice President Mike Pence and vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris are scheduled to square off in a debate next Wednesday in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the two will be subjected to upgraded COVID-19 protocols in the wake of a coronavirus outbreak that has stunned the Republican Party. After last Tuesdays wild presidential debate and the subsequent rash of positive COVID-19 cases among President Donald Trumps family, staff and associates, including the positive test for the president himself, the Commission on Presidential Debates has agreed on a new safety measure to deter transmission of the disease. The measure says that the candidates should be seated 12 feet apart, according to Politico. The rule is the result of ongoing negotiations between the Trump and Joe Biden camps, negotiations that only became more fraught after the president revealed in the first hours of Friday morning that he tested positive for the deadly disease, hours after senior aide Hope Hicks positive diagnosis was scooped by a reporter. First Lady Melania Trump and advisor Kellyanne Conway are other high-profile administration officials to have contracted the virus. Sen. Kamala Harris (left), Vice President Mike Pence (right) That was in addition to the 11 news cases reported linked directly to the debate, the online news outlet reports. Read More: 11 positive coronavirus cases in Cleveland linked to presidential debate Harris and Pence will be seated during the debate, although the Biden campaign advocated for the two to stand. The agreement to add more space between the two was led by the Biden campaign, which, given the known virus contractions and medical recommendations to physically distance, that the 12-foot distance would be safer. We are open to more space between the candidates, which we will be happy to negotiate, Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman told Politico. Democratic U.S. Vice Presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) speaks during a voter mobilization drive-in event at UNLV on October 2, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Harris is campaigning ahead of the October 7 debate against U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Harris tested negative for the coronavirus on Thursday and Friday. Biden announced on Friday that he and wife, Jill, were also negative. Pence and his wife have also tested negative. Story continues Read More: Obama wishes Trump and first lady best wishes after coronavirus diagnosis Harris and Pence will have the 90-minute debate next Wednesday at the University of Utah. Harris was on the campaign trail in Nevada on Friday and will travel to Utah next, where she will remain until the debate, according to Politico. Trump, who is said to have a low-grade fever is working from Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland in an abundance of caution after contracting the virus. The White House says they expect the 74-year-old to recover, but no announcements have been made yet about the upcoming presidential debates scheduled for Oct. 15 in Miami and Oct. 22 in Nashville. Have you subscribed to theGrios podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now! The post Health and safety rules upgraded for upcoming VP debate appeared first on TheGrio. Passengers wait for check-in at a terminal of Da Nang International Airport (Photo: VNA) The department said a group of 55 tourists from the capital city of Hanoi have booked a three-day and two-night tour exploring destinations in the central city on October 4-6. It said the Hanoian tourists, who will join the tour of Hung Long Thanh travel agency, will take a return flight from Hanoi to Da Nang to land at Da Nang International Airport on October 4. The department said it hopes more domestic tourists would come to Da Nang soon with promotion programmes offered by travel agencies, airlines and hotels. Sun World Ba Na Hills, one of the top tourist attractions in Da Nang, reopened to the public last week. The citys tourism industry has been heavily damaged by COVID-19 and it hosted only 2,800 tourists in August, 95.5 percent decrease from the same period last year./. Voters in District 33 will have two Republican candidates for the state House of Representatives on the Nov. 3 general election ballot even though both contenders will automatically win the two seats. Incumbent Taffy Howard and state Senator Phil Jensen had no Democratic challengers file for the two seats. In the June 2 Republican primary, Howard and Jensen were the top two candidates, defeating a challenge by Melanie Torno. Jensen has served in state government since 2009 by switching between the House and Senate over the past 12 years something that is allowed under South Dakota's term limits law. Jensen and state Rep. David Johnson are looking to switch legislative chambers, with Johnson filing to replace Jensen in the Senate and Jensen replacing Johnson in the House. District 33 encompasses portions of Rapid City north of Interstate 90, far west Rapid City, and the east central Black Hills from Black Hawk to Pactola and Sheridan lakes. Howard was first elected to the state House in 2016, assuming office in 2017. She has lived in Rapid City since 1993. Howard is a U.S. Air Force veteran and business partner in several rental properties and other ventures in the Rapid City area. Howard said she is a "patriotic conservative," focusing on limited government, lowering "skyrocketing" property taxes, personal responsibility and quality education. She said she represents South Dakota's "family values, our Second Amendment rights and our rugged independence." In the 2020 legislative session, Howard served on the joint Appropriations Committee, the House Appropriations Committee, and the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. She authored four bills, withdrawing two of them before the Legislature adjourned. The two bills that received a hearing in the House either failed in the House or died in the Senate. Howard authored HB 1172 which would have required the annual submission of a zero-based budget from certain state departments or budget units. It passed the House 40-28, but died in the Senate without a hearing. She also authored HJR 5003, which proposed creating a property tax relief trust fund with non-obligated cash being transferred to the fund. The House defeated Howard's bill with a vote of 43-22. Jensen served in the state House from 2009 to 2012. He then switched legislative bodies to the state Senate in 2013. Jensen moved to Rapid City in 2003 and is a small business owner. He said he is "South Dakota's most conservative lawmaker," according to a 2014 Journal article, consistently authoring legislation that mirrors his view. Jensen was the primary Senate sponsor of a 2019 bill mandating the words "In God We Trust" to be enshrined on the walls of public schools in South Dakota. He also authored several bills targeted toward the LGBT community. During the 2020 legislative session, Jensen sponsored 10 bills and three passed. One failed in the House and three were tabled, while three more were withdrawn. He successfully passed HB 1056, which authorizes video monitoring of residents in assisted living centers and nursing facilities. Gov. Kristi Noem signed it into law in March. Jensen also authored a bill that would require the South Dakota members of Congress to make an annual visit to the Legislature. It passed the House but died in the Senate. He withdrew a bill that would have required additional information to be given to a woman who chooses to have an abortion. One bill that failed would have allowed for a savings account for parents of children who are bullied to support their transfer to another school. Contact Nathan Thompson at nathan.thompson@rapidcityjournal.com. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 1 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The almost 80 pages of released documents include Mr Andrews' speech notes at an intimate "roundtable" meeting with the heads of Chinese corporations and government ministries at Beijing's Grand Hyatt hotel on October 22 last year. The trip was Mr Andrews' sixth to China as Premier. Among the attendees at the dinner was Dr Lu Jianzhong, the president of the China Communication Construction International Company and the chairman of John Holland (a fully-owned CCCC subsidiary), which is a bidder on North East Link. Earlier this year, CCCC was listed by the US departments of Commerce and Defence as part of China's "Military-Civil Fusion development strategy". It also appeared on a separate black list as having been involved in the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea. China must not be allowed to use CCCC and other state-owned enterprises as weapons to impose an expansionist agenda, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the time. At the October 22 dinner, Mr Andrews told the executives and Chinese government representatives that he wanted Chinese companies to establish offices in Victoria and bid for projects. He wished to "convey Victoria's desire to collaborate with international partners" including "leading Chinese firms in attendance on major transport infrastructure projects". Of the Suburban Rail Loop, he said: "We are currently seeking registrations of interest from organisations with the experience and capability to assist in the delivery of this mega project." The project, Mr Andrews' largest and most popular infrastructure announcement at the 2018 state election, is estimated to cost at least $50 billion and is yet to be funded. Mr Andrews has previously said private investment would play a big role. The Premier said the Belt and Road Initiative "highlights Victoria's desire to work collaboratively with China", that Chinese companies' "talents and capacity are critical to our success", and their "collective expertise and experience, particularly in recent projects of significant scale and complexity, align precisely with our current agenda". Daniel Andrews visiting pandas during his 2015 China trip. "You will find the Victorian market accessible, and my government will welcome your participation and do what it can to facilitate success," he said. During the meetings, Mr Andrews told Chinese officials that his government was spending more on infrastructure than the Commonwealth was for the rest of the country. The meeting with companies, including CCCC bidding on projects, prompted a probity warning to Mr Andrews with a request he not discuss specifics of the North East Link procurement process and that he have two Victorian officials by his side at all times to record discussions. It is recommended that you offer similar meetings with the relevant global heads of other constructors that are also in bid teams, his department advised. The documents also reveal that Victoria last year put a detailed list of proposals to China for co-operation under the program, which were developed by a liaison group led by senior Labor MP Danny Pearson and the deputy consul general from Chinas Melbourne Consulate, Jianhua Zeng. The group, which Mr Andrews described in a letter to a senior Chinese official as ensuring alignment on shared objectives, last met earlier this year. The documents also show other key priorities for Mr Andrews on the trip were establishing relationships with China's ministers for Science and Technology, Commerce and Culture and Tourism. Loading He was hoping to achieve smoother customs processes at the Chinese end to enable easier access for Victorian meat and dairy exporters, with a particular focus on infant formula. His pitch on Victorian red meat was to replace protein lost because of China's African Swine Fever outbreak. COVID-19 and rising tensions at a national level have stalled Victorias Belt and Road progress this year. A road map of projects planned for release this year is yet to eventuate and a planned trip to Beijing in March by Mr Pearson, who was then Mr Andrews parliamentary secretary and is now a minister, was cancelled. While federal governments and state governments across Australia have sought and welcomed Chinese investment in recent years, the Belt and Road program is regarded differently. Victoria is the only Australian signatory to the $US 1 trillion infrastructure program. A NATO economic and security committee briefing on the Belt and Road in May linked the policy to Chinas expansion of naval power. There should be no mistake that elements of the BRI and Chinas related foreign policies pose a challenge to Western values. The counter view is that poor countries involved in the Belt and Road are getting infrastructure built that they could never have afforded on their own. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and senior ministers such as Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have been critical of Victorias dealings with China on the Belt and Road, claiming it undercuts the role of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Daniel Andrews giving a speech at the parallel sessions of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in 2017. Credit:Sanghee Liu A spokesman for DFAT said the federal government was not consulted nor given the opportunity to comment on Victoria's signing of the Framework Agreement with China last October. Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas rebuked Mr Morrison earlier this year for vilifying China after he called for a probe into Chinas handling of the initial coronavirus outbreak. Rory Medcalf, head of the national security college at the Australian National University, said on Friday that the Belt and Road Initiative was so important to Chinas quest for global influence that it was broadly beyond the ability of state and local governments to play in that space without clear consultation at a national level. Professor Medcalf said although the language in Victorias agreements with China was innocuous, the apparent unquestioning involvement of first world governments such as New Zealand or Victoria made it harder for poorer nations to protect their interests. China was likely to continue to invest in projects in Australia without governments signing up to the Belt and Road Initiative, he said. But the former secretary of Australias defence department, Paul Barratt, said Australia should have been a signatory to the Belt and Road when it was first proposed by China in 2013 because it was our largest trading partner. "Its not our enemy. The agreement is non-committal and you just examine issues case by case, said Mr Barratt, now an adjunct professor at the University of New England. Loading The documents also give an insight into the negotiations over the wording of the Framework Agreement signed by Mr Andrews last October, including Chinas insistence it specifically mention co-operation on aged care. It was the same shock as when US president Ronald Reagan was shot in March 1981: "Oh my God, it's the president, is he going to be OK? Who is in charge in the White House? Who is running the country? What happens next?" Reagan was gravely wounded, and operated on swiftly. (He asked his doctors, just before going under, "I hope you're all Republicans?") Even though President Donald Trump, who announced on Friday he had tested positive for COVID-19, is in Walter Reed hospital outside Washington, the virus is still firing shots inside his body. Reagan recovered and served two full terms. Trump is fighting with everything he has for his second. Even under stress, in the immediate aftermath, the chain of command is clear and has not been disrupted. The next principals in line of succession for the presidency, Vice-President Mike Pence and the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, are fine and safe. There is no apparent need yet for Trump to invoke the 25th Amendment's provisions for the Vice-President to serve as acting president if Trump is incapacitated. Today's technology ensures much more robust command-and-control than the telephones that previous presidents, from Lyndon Johnson to the Bushes, wielded like weapons. That Trump's illness occurred just 32 days before the national election is, like so much that has unfolded throughout this presidency, unprecedented. That the virus seems to be claiming more of his circle, including former adviser Kellyanne Conway and campaign manager Bill Stepien, is especially alarming. One of the contestants set to appear on Married At First Sight's eighth season has been identified as a famous rock star. On Saturday, The Wash revealed Booka Nile, who sings in a hugely successful Perth-based band called Make Them Suffer, is going to get married on the show. Booka joined the rock band in 2017 and has toured America, North America, Canada, Europe and Australia as a member. Married At First Sight SPOILER: Booka Nile, who sings in a hugely successful Perth-based band called Make Them Suffer, is going to get married on the show. Pictured in Sydney on Oct 3 The band also recently released an album called How to Survive a Funeral and it has hit the ARIA charts in Australia and Billboard charts in America. This comes after Daily Mail Australia revealed the identity of one of the grooms set to appear on the show. Hit 104.7 radio presenter Bryce Ruthven will be heading down the aisle, after taking three months of leave and temporarily relocating to Sydney. Career: Booka joined the rock band in 2017 and has toured America, North America, Canada, Europe and Australia as a member Perfect match: Booka pictured with her groom (right) arriving at the first dinner party The 30-year-old is hoping to find the love of his life on reality TV, having reportedly ended his engagement to a woman named Lana earlier this year. Bryce has recently been interacting online with former MAFS stars, several of whom he's previously interviewed on his Canberra radio show. In another telling clue that he's joined the cast, his Instagram account with more than 12,500 followers is now private - which is a requirement for upcoming brides and grooms. Successful: The band also recently released an album called How to Survive a Funeral and it has hit the ARIA charts in Australia and Billboard charts in America When contacted by Daily Mail Australia for comment, Bryce refused to confirm or deny his appearance on the show. Nine has promised that the upcoming season's cast will be 'the most genuine yet'. The network has also said the 2021 series will be about 'love not fame' as all the participants are determined to find a lifelong match. Furthermore, the new season will feature Alessandra Rampolla, a certified clinical sexologist with more than 20 years' experience, on the panel of experts. On April 3, anesthesiologist Michael Peck worked a 12-hour hospital shift intubating critically ill covid-19 patients about to go on ventilators. Despite being gowned, gloved and masked, he was terrified. "I've never been that scared," he recalls. "When it was over, I said to myself, 'This is crazy. I'm done.' " Peck, who is 66 - an age that raises his chances of severe covid-19 disease - already was semiretired and working part time in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. But that unsettling April day was his last on the job. "The environment was frightening," he says. "It wasn't so much when I was wearing the stuff, as when I was taking it off," he says, referring to the possibility he could expose himself to viral particles clinging to his protective gear. "I thought: 'Why am I doing this? Why run this risk?' " The coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19, has changed the landscape of medicine in profound ways, prompting some physicians to retire before they had planned and others to close their practices because so many of their patients stopped going to the doctor once the pandemic began. A survey of more than 3,000 U.S. physicians released this summer by Physicians Foundation, a nonprofit group, reported 4% said they wouldn't return to work, fearing for their personal health, while more than a quarter (28%) admitted having "serious concerns" about catching covid-19. Nearly half (47%) described their anxiety as "moderate," while about a fifth (21%) said they weren't too worried about it. Louis Korman, 73, a gastroenterologist based in Washington, D.C., and Chevy Chase, Md., has not performed a colonoscopy or endoscopy since March. Both are invasive procedures that involve threading a flexible scope into the body to examine the colon or digestive tract. Korman thought it was risky for him because anesthetized patients often cough, and the tubes can pick up potentially infectious materials. He requires patients to take a coronavirus test 48 hours before their procedure, but he still was nervous. "You are putting yourself into a prolonged exposure to an aerosolized environment," he says. He still sees patients via telemedicine, but refers them to his younger associates for hands-on diagnostics. "It's scary stuff," he says, referring to the threat posed by his age. "The mortality increases exponentially with each decade." He is considering retiring, as did two of his colleagues in their mid-60s this past summer. Treating patients during a highly infectious pandemic "takes a real emotional toll," Korman says. "Not just to myself, but also to my family. I like what I do. But I'm not going to risk my life to do it." The physician survey also found that 8% had permanently closed their offices - although they weren't specifically asked why - amounting to an estimated 16,000 practices, and 43% reduced their staff. Nearly three-quarters (72%) reported having suffered an income loss as a result of the pandemic. "I absolutely would've kept going at least in some fashion or other if not for this," says Stephen Rockower, 70, a Rockville, Md., orthopedic surgeon who recently retired, albeit reluctantly. "We went from seeing 15 to 20 patients in a half-day to maybe one or two. There were weeks when we'd see maybe three patients. People were afraid to come in. I started doing some telemedicine, which was okay - you can do some things - but it's really tough to examine somebody. You can say: 'Bend over and touch your toes,' or 'Put your hand over your head,' but there are things that have to be done in person, for example, feeling if the skin is warm to see if there is an infection. It was not very satisfying." Gary LeRoy, a Dayton, Ohio, family physician and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, says that when the pandemic began to worsen, his practice went from all in-person visits to nearly all telemedicine, a scenario that he believes can be harmful to patients. "I begin my examination from the moment I lay eyes on you, the way you walk, the way you dress," he says. "If I look at you only from the neck up, it doesn't allow me to really see you. Why are you limping? Why do you look so pale? I had one patient who looked fatigued. It turned out she had a partial heart block, and needed a pacemaker. The fact that I was sitting there looking at her [in person] probably saved her life." LeRoy, who has been practicing family medicine for 30 years, admits he worries about his personal risk, especially the danger of inadvertent exposure. "I hear individual physicians who say, 'I'm older, I have a chronic health condition, I value my life too much to risk dying from this thing.' It does make you think about your own survival, that you aren't invincible," he says. "But we've been well trained in universal precautions. We know how this stuff spreads and how to take care of ourselves. I'm not going to stop doing my job." Still, experts say that other pressures on doctors have been growing in recent years, and the pandemic probably was the final event that sent many to the exits. "Physicians were challenged already, and any sort of major disruption in practice and income could send them right into retirement," says Susan D'Antoni, executive director of the Montgomery County Medical Society. "In Maryland, we have a fair number of independent and much smaller practices than many other states. This kind of disaster is certainly pushing these physicians out of practice." Changes in medical practice in recent years, including the transition to electronic medical records and the need for independent practices to compete with large health systems, "put great stress on them even before the pandemic," says Gary Price, president of the Physicians Foundation. The pandemic also forced physicians to invest in personal protection equipment and disinfection measures, and required them to switch to telemedicine, a new skill for some. A second survey from the Physicians Foundation found that nearly one-third (30%) felt "hopeless" and without purpose as a result of the pandemic, nearly one-fifth (18%) had sought mental health care, and nearly one-fifth (18%) had increased their use of medications, alcohol or illicit drugs. "Practicing medicine has always been a psychologically stressful thing," adds Price, a plastic surgeon and clinical assistant professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. "I think the pandemic made an already bad environment worse." Rockower's decision to quit was driven more by economics and less by personal fear, despite his age and having had quadruple bypass surgery in 2006. He says his daughter, an emergency room nurse, and his physician son, concerned about his safety, convinced him it was time to retire. "I wasn't too worried, but my kids were," he says. "They are on the front lines treating covid patients. I kept going into the office, and they didn't like that. They didn't even want me to leave the house." Such departures are expected to exacerbate an already growing shortage of American physicians. A report released in June by the Association of American Medical Colleges predicted a shortage of between 54,100 and 139,000 physicians by 2033, up from last year's report, which predicted a shortage of up to 121,900 physicians by 2032. The newest study expects shortfalls in primary care of between 21,400 and 55,200 physicians, and in specialty care of between 33,700 and 86,700 physicians. "An exodus of physicians from practice could not come at a worse time," says Kelly Rakowski, group president and chief operating officer of Strategic Talent Solutions for AMN Healthcare, a national health-care staffing organization. "We're already facing a shortage which will now be on steroids thanks to the pandemic. For people to get the care they need and what they've put off, we need more physicians, not fewer. Assume a physician manages about 2,500 to 3,000 patient encounters a year. We could be talking about tens of millions of patient visits that will have to be absorbed by other physicians, or go without access." Some of these patients have been showing up at urgent care centers, having nowhere else to go. "The stories I hear from some of the patients who come in are that they lost their primary physician because their doctor has retired, or left the practice," says Irfana Ali, medical director of Fast Track Urgent Care in Silver Spring, Md., and Kensington, Md. "I think we are getting more of them. They used to have someone they could call, and now they don't. So when they get sick with an urgent problem, they come see us." She tries to help by giving them a list of primary care physicians willing to take on new patients. "I wasn't shocked when they started coming in," she says. "I think the risk of catching something from a patient puts a real demand on older physicians." D'Antoni agrees. "I can understand why older physicians with underlying health conditions are looking at this, and asking themselves, 'Why would I risk the rest of my life?' " she says. "You can't blame them at all." British Prime Minster Boris Johnson said he has no doubt President Trump will make a very strong recovery from COVID-19, calling him a very resilient character.' An 11-year-old girl, Favour Okechukwu, was allegedly gang-raped to death on Wednesday in the Ejigbo area of Lagos State, the police have said. The incident happened when the child was sent on an errand by her mother around 3 p.m. on the day. Her body was found in a pool of her own blood in a room at No.4, Olanrewaju Street, Ejigbo. John Okechukwu, the father of the victim, told PREMIUM TIMES over the phone on Saturday that he is greatly saddened by the incident. She was sent on an errand by her mother around 3pm on Wednesday before the incident happened, he said. He declined to say more. Confirming the arrest of the owner of the room where the body of the victim was found, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, the Lagos police spokesperson said an investigation is ongoing. The room belonged to one Brimcewil Tabi and is currently in detention, the police said. On 30/09/2020, at about 20 30hrs, one Favor Okechukwu was sent on errand by her mother to go and buy a carton of Gala for her at Olanrewaju street, Ejigbo but when Favour did not return on time, a search party was raised to look for her. When her father came back from work, he started looking for the girl. Later, information got to them that a girl had been raped to death at No.4, Olanrewaju street Ejigbo. The police said on getting to the address, the body of the victim was found naked in a room, with blood flowing out of her private part. Meanwhile, a resident of the neighbourhood, Olumide Oke, told PREMIUM TIMES that there have been several reports to the Ejigbo Police division about unlawful gatherings of touts at the address the incident happened. There are usually some boys that hang around that place. In fact, we have told the police to come and arrest them but you know the way the Nigerian police works. They will rather arrest me that does a legit work than arrest the boys that smoke all day. Mr Oke said most of the touts that gather around the house live in the neighbourhood and have fathers and landlords and it is possible the suspects are among them. Calls for justice A Youth group in Ejigbo community, GAJ Youth Coalition Initiative, condemned the act and demanded justice. The news came to us as a shock and as been reported at Ejigbo Police Station where sources said five men have been arrested, including the owner of the shack where the body was discovered. We call on Hon. Ganiyu Abiodun Johnson, Member Federal House of Representative Federal Constituency 2 and Ejigbo LCDA Chairman Hon. Monsuru Obe and every other stakeholder in the constituency in ensuring they fish out the perpetrators of the crime and bring them to book. We also appeal to our leaders to set up consistent programs that will address issues of rape and sexual violence in the constituency. We call for prompt policy implementations against rape by the government and security agencies, the group said. Seo Min, medical doctor and columnist / Korea Times file By Park Ji-won Seo Min, medical doctor and writer, stressed the importance of reading a book to come up with original stories during online lectures for the National Museum of Korea, which came under fire for deleting his videos without a proper explanation. Seo, who released the co-authored bestselling book "The Unprecedented Nation: How Democracy Comes to an End," Aug. 25, which includes criticism of the government, said in a video, "A lot of people watch YouTube videos of actress Shin Se-kyung, even though she doesn't do much there, because she has her life story and talent. Original human stories can be found by reading books." The videos were released by the state-run museum as part of its video series "Conversation with the Author" where it invites authors of popular books to talk about their work. The doctor added: "As you can see with online comics, the quality of the drawing is not that important. It is more about the storytelling For example, Bluetooth, a Naver Webtoon by Kuk Seung-won, has a very good drawing style, but it failed to have a successful story and receive positive reactions from the readers. The author of Misaeng: Incomplete Life who spent a hard time becoming a comic artist, spent a lot of time reading books to come up with original stories." Seo added that books can give us "real" information backed by sources unlike the internet. He also said books help us to find life goals which make us happy. "When I go to schools to give lectures, I meet many students who are not happy because they don't have life goals. And they set their goals as society tells them. The goal should be big but these days, the way to make a living and have a job that pays a lot of money has become the children's lifetime goals But by reading books, people can experience life vicariously and set goals." However, the handling of the videos by the museum sparked criticism against it, and even the doctor, dividing people's opinion. The museum released four episodes from Sept. 2 to Sept. 23, but they were suddenly removed Sept. 24. The videos were made available again Sept. 28, and officials of the state-run organization said it had blocked the videos because of hate comments against Seo. However, some people suspect that the state-run museum blocked the videos for political reasons because Seo contributed to the anti-government book with other experts. Chin Jung-kwon, a former professor of Dongyang University, claimed on Facebook that "(The action) was taken because the National Museum of Korea is owned by Moonppa, or Lunatics of Moon They earned it in the last election." Some criticized the museum for making excuses as hate comments can be easily removed by closing the comments section without blocking the videos. "I am disappointed by the museum's actions. If the hate comments were the problem, why didn't they just close the comments section instead of blocking all the videos," one person said on YouTube. Meanwhile, some also criticized the museum for recruiting Seo as a speaker as he "was not a qualified guest" to appear on the official channel of the national museum. "Aren't there enough quality humanities academics in this country? I question the criteria to pick the guest for the program. I am shocked by the fact that I need to ask why a person, who exhausted us with his politically motivated activities in the media, should appear on the official channel of the national museum. It appears that anyone can be a guest... As one citizen, I express regret over (the actions) of the museum." KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Three advisers to Nepal's Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli said on Saturday they had tested positive for COVID-19, which has claimed the lives of 528 people in the country. Oli's press, political and foreign affairs advisers told Reuters they had been infected and were isolating themselves. An assistant working for Oli also tested positive, they added. Oli has previously tested negative, but had yet to take a test after his associates tested positive, press adviser Surya Thapa said. "The prime minister has been exercising extreme caution while meeting with people," Thapa told Reuters. Oli's personal physician had earlier tested positive and is isolating herself, Thapa said, adding that more than two dozen security personnel at Oli's official residence have also tested positive. Nepal's COVID19 cases rose by 2,120 to 84,570 on Saturday, the country's health ministry said. Neighbouring India's coronavirus death toll passed 100,000 on Saturday, making it the third country to reach that milestone, after the United States and Brazil, and its epidemic shows no sign of abating. (Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Giles Elgood and Alexander Smith) People carrying knives while drinking and taking drugs are an "affliction in Irish society", a Central Criminal Court judge has said as she passed sentence on a man convicted of a cocaine-fuelled murder in a quiet Limerick pub. Ms Justice Tara Burns yesterday sentenced Mark Crawford (43) for the murder of Patrick 'Pa' O'Connor (24), and said she had "no hesitation" in passing the mandatory life sentence for what she described as an act of "madness fuelled by drink and drugs." She said that something has to be done about people carrying knives, adding: "A mixture of alcohol, cocaine and knives results in far too many deaths in this country." Stabbed Crawford, with an address at Quarry Road, Thomondgate, Co Limerick, was convicted last month by a unanimous jury verdict of the murder of Mr O'Connor at Fitzgerald's Bar on Sexton Street in Limerick City on July 7 or 8, 2018. Crawford stabbed Mr O'Connor six times, with two wounds to the heart and neck causing his death. It emerged during the trial that the men had met for the first time the previous day and had been taking cocaine together on July 7. Tensions rose between the two men out of an argument over the drugs and Crawford claimed he was acting in self-defence, a claim that was rejected by the jury. CCTV from minutes before the fatal stabbing showed the deceased dancing and laughing and joking with others in the bar where he was a popular regular. Ms Justice Burns said that this footage, showing Mr O'Connor "acting as always, full of banter and chat," must have been the most difficult thing for the O'Connor family to watch. She described Fitzgerald's as a quiet local pub where everybody seemed to know everybody and said the stabbing was a shocking thing for the regulars to have witnessed. Mr O'Connor's sister Deborah O'Connor yesterday told the court that it is 818 days since her family last saw Patrick's face, "the last time we spoke, the last time we laughed together." She described her brother as the kind of person everyone wanted to be friends with. He got his jokes, kindness and love of banter from his mum and dad, she said, who are heartbroken at having buried their only son. She added: "It was his welcoming, trusting and kindhearted nature that led to his murder, by a man he met less than 48 hours earlier." Outside court Deborah told the media: "Little did we know on the morning of Saturday, July 7, 2018 it would be the last time we saw Patrick alive, the last time he would walk out the front door to never return. "During the trial to learn of the horrific way Patrick died has been an incredibly distressing and difficult time for the family. To watch him on CCTV footage in the moments before he was murdered has left us heartbroken." She said that while they will not get Patrick back the sentence gives some comfort. Crawford's barrister Patrick McGrath SC read a letter to the court in which his client said he is sorry for what he has put the O'Connor family through and that he "never meant to kill him". He added: "I regret it every single day. I know they wake up every day knowing Patrick is not here and I am so sorry for what I have done." Gda Declan O'Donovan told the court that Crawford has previous convictions and is awaiting sentence for possession of 24,500 worth of heroin. Hemant Kumar Rout By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: India successfully test-fired an advanced version of nuclear capable hypersonic missile Shaurya from a defence facility off the Odisha coast on Saturday. The surface-to-surface medium range hybrid missile blasted off from a hermetically canister in ground launch mode from the Abdul Kalam Island test range at about 12.10 pm. Developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) under the project code-named B-05, the newer version of the missile has a strike range of 750 km to 1800 km depending on the payload. Defence sources said the missile equipped with multiple advanced computing technology, very high accuracy navigation, efficient propulsion, sophisticated control and guidance systems followed the trajectory as expected before zeroing in on the target in the Bay of Bengal. The missile equipped with multiple advanced computing technology, very high accuracy navigation, efficient propulsion, sophisticated control and guidance systems followed the trajectory exactly to the predefined target in Bay of Bengal. The mission was a copy book success, informed a defence official from New Delhi. The indigenously developed missile that took off vertically was tracked and monitored through an integrated system of sophisticated radars, electro-optical tracking instruments and a chain of telemetry stations positioned in different points along the east coast. Ships located near the target also tracked and witnessed the final event. "This was maiden test of the land version of the missile, which will supplement the earlier version Shaurya. Having several new features, the easy to operate missile is faster, lighter and stealthier. It will have a new name and will be inducted in the armed forces after a few more tests in coming years," the official informed. The missile capable of deceiving enemy radar is aimed at giving India more options to hit back, in case it is attacked with nuclear weapons. Capable of performing various roles, it can be used by both the Navy and the Army. Both the earlier versions of the missile are now under serial production. The two-staged solid propelled missile is about 10 metre long and its diameter is 0.7 meter. Its launch weight is around six tonne and can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads up to 1000 kg. It was latest in the ongoing series of weapon tests by the DRDO amidst the heightened tension along the border following confrontation with China. The launch came three days after the successful flight testing of the extended range BrahMos missile and last month's test of hypersonic technology demonstrator vehicle. Mas familias contaran con agua saludable en sus hogares. Desde #Arequipa, el presidente @MartinVizcarraC y el ministro de @viviendaperu participan en el inicio de la ampliacion y mejoramiento del sistema de agua potable y alcantarillado de Corire. En vivo: https://t.co/gaoNGlfTd5 The Massachusetts state attorney general announced last month that two former leaders of a Holyoke veterans home are currently under indictment on charges of criminal neglect in relation to a coronavirus outbreak that led to 76 resident fatalities and more than a hundred positive COVID-19 cases. These deaths at the Holyoke Soldiers Home facility and the indictments handed down exemplify the stark failure of the US health care system in containing the spread of the disease in nursing facilities across the nation. Both indictments represent the first criminal case in the country brought against caretakers involved in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, the two individuals, Bennett Walsh and Dr. David Clinton, are facing felony charges and if convicted could face several years or even decades in prison. We allege that the actions of these defendants during the COVID-19 outbreak at the facility put veterans at higher risk of infection and death and warrant criminal charges, Healey said at a press conference. Just a day after the investigative report into the deaths was released, Clinton resigned from his post as chief medical officer of the facility, while Walsh had been placed on administrative leave on March 30 and was later fired after the state sent in an emergency response team to oversee the conditions within the resident home. Soldiers Home experienced a staggering spike in COVID-19 infections and deaths during the month of April when the pandemic was raging out of control throughout the Northeast US. By April 22, Soldiers Home had reported 56 deaths caused by the novel coronavirus and 92 residents testing positive. At least 81 confirmed infections among hospital staff had been reported by mid-April, making it the most extraordinary outbreak of any veterans facility in the country. Even before cases began piling up throughout the course of the month, the state-run facility had been placed under investigation in early April when the attorney generals office said it had received a notice of serious issues with COVID-19 infection control procedures. While mass casualties rose at alarming rates, numerous nurses pointed to the unpreparedness and blatant disregard for safety precautions by hospital administrators as the cause of the spread of disease. Nurses revealed to the media that they were given little to no personal protective equipment and nothing was done to address dangerous staffing shortages. As the WSWS noted on the reckless and criminal neglect that prevailed among the hospital administration in the month of April, we wrote: All evidence points to an attempt by management to hide the outbreak from local authorities, who were only alerted by staff themselves after finding no remediation with their superiors. Walsh had been the superintendent of the facility at the time and Dr. Clinton was its medical advisor. Members of the Holyoke Board of Health became aware of the outbreak and deaths when a worker made contact on March 27 with Brenda Rodrigues, president of the local branch of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Rodrigues described the staff member as basically in tears as she related how there had been 11 deaths and that management was acting with reckless indifference. However, an examination of the timeline of the deadly outbreak in Holyoke shows that it was only when public exposure of the situation by local officials forced their hand that the state offered to investigate the deaths at the Soldiers Home. While Walsh and Clinton are clearly implicated in the horrific situation that transpired, they were in general compliance with state oversight of nursing homes. The indictment levied against the two former officials included charges specifically relating to hospital staff who wantonly or recklessly permitted or caused bodily injury and abuse, neglect or mistreatment of an older or disabled person. State investigators paid particular attention to a series of events in late March. Staff members were instructed to combine two dementia wards containing residents that had been infected with the virus with healthy residents. The attorney generals office said this action increased the exposure of asymptomatic veterans to the virus. Facility administrators decided to consolidate the units because of severe staffing shortages. Healy alleged that Walsh and Clinton were responsible for combining 42 veterans into a single unit that usually accommodates 25 beds. Residents believed to be asymptomatic were placed with nine beds in a single dining room, with only a few feet separating them from each other, according to the office. One employee told investigators that the decision to merge the wards was the most insane thing I ever saw in my entire life. Six or seven veterans were also placed in a room meant to only hold four people. Despite such close proximity of residents, the administrators refused to implement effective quarantine and isolation measures. Residents in the consolidated unit were allegedly allowed to speak to one another, regardless of their COVID-19 status. This reckless decision, concluded the attorney generals office, demonstrated unsafe infection control procedures and placed dozens of asymptomatic veterans at an increased risk of contracting the COVID-19 virus. The true extent of the disastrous state of the facilitys COVID-19 policies was revealed in a scathing 174-page report released at the end of an Independent Investigation conducted at the direction of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican. One quoted employee at the facility described the procedures staff had to perform in the most harrowing terms, comparing the resident home to a concentration camp where staff members were instructed with moving unknowing veterans off to die. The attorney generals report outlining the indictment is the second of four investigations into the failures of the facility. This summer, an investigation by a federal prosecutor found that the facilitys leadership team made substantial errors in responding to the outbreak. Healy has confirmed that her office is actively investigating several other facilities that have experienced extraordinary levels of coronavirus-related deaths. Over 6,000 probable or confirmed deaths have been reported in long-term care facilities in Massachusetts. This is approximately two-thirds of the states total reported death count. Holyoke Soldiers is far from an exceptional case but is one of the more grotesque examples of the malign neglect that has characterized the attitude of the government and ruling class toward the lives of the most vulnerable sections of the population. Throughout the pandemic, nursing homes have suffered immensely, housing populations have been proven to be high-risk for the coronavirus. In the United States, an estimated 40 percent of coronavirus cases have been linked to them. At least 77,000 residents and workers have died from the virus in nursing homes and long-term care facilities for adults, more than 35 percent of total deaths nationwide. Similar patterns of reckless negligence have occurred in several veterans homes across the country. At Menlo Park Veterans Memorial Home, a nursing facility in Edison, New Jersey, officials failed to attribute nearly 40 percent of its likely COVID-19 deaths to the virus, according to the New Jersey Department of Health. The department found that 39 residents likely died from the virus in addition to the 62 deaths officially counted. A New Jersey DHS spokeswoman told media earlier this week that another state-run veteran home in Paramus, New Jersey also had more COVID-19 deaths than the total attributed to the virus. According to New Jerseys veterans agency records, nearly 100 people died at the Menlo facility in April alone, which is about as many as the facility typically loses in a year. - Kipchumba Murkomen claimed President Uhuru Kenyatta was using Tuju to fight his Deputy William Ruto - The senator told off the secretary general over the plans to remove Ruto from the Jubilee Party deputy leadership - Tuju had lambasted the DP for what he termed as power grab which he noted had put his loyalty in question PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed Elgeyo Marakwet senator Kipchumba Murkomen has accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of planting divisive elements with the Jubilee Party. In particular, Murkomen claimed the party Secretary General Raphael Tuju and chairperson David Murathe were Uhuru's men to being used to fight Deputy President William. Kipchumba Murkomen said Uhuru is using Tuju and Murathe to fight Ruto. Photo: Onesmus Kipchumba Murkomen. Source: UGC Unite Jubilee Party "And whose job is Tuju? Who is he speaking for? President talked of unifying the country, if you want to preach the gospel of uniting Kenya, start by uniting Jubilee Party. Fire Tuju and Murathe so that we know you mean it but not if we have divisive elements within Jubilee who talk about Ruto, disrespecting the office of deputy president," he said. The senator who is a fierce defender Ruto and dependable Tanga Tanga team utility player told off Tuju over threats to remove the DP from the deputy party leadership position. "We want to tell Tuju, we were elected to become members of Jubilee. We campaigned so that you become relevant to hold that office. You cannot tell us we cannot meet in that office, we shall be in that office so long as our money is being used to fund it. We will not accept projects to be brought to become candidates for the sake of other people," he added. The party official had on Friday, October 2, disclosed plans were underway to kick out Ruto from the party and completely bar him entering its offices. Ruto and Tuju (holding face mask) when they held a joint press briefing a week ago. Photo: William Sameoi Ruto. Source: Facebook "We never wished to get to this point. We serve one president at a time. The party headquarters is not going to be allowed to be theatre of confrontations. DP (Ruto) as self declared 2022 presidential candidate will not be allowed to use party office as centre of operalisation of 2022 campaign," he declared. Commitment in question He lambasted Ruto for what he termed as power grab, which he noted had put the second in command in awkward position thus his commitment was in question. "It is no longer tenable for the DP to use the party platform to advance his divisive so-called hustler politics that are counter to the party and the President's platform of uniting the country and fighting corruption," he told journalists. This after Ruto made a surprise visit to Pangani offices on Thursday, October 1, where he held a meeting with his allies at the centre where no media house was granted access. It was the second time he made an impromptu visit to the party office months after his close associates claimed he had been denied access owing to strained relationship with Uhuru. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme. This is me coming to you with a heavy heart. My friends left after I got cancer - Esther Nyambura/TUKO TV. Source: TUKO.co.ke PTR Robots, a Danish service-robot company, announced the world premiere of its robot that can mobilize and transfer patients. Jointly developed with healthcare professionals, the PTR Robot is the first mobile, intelligent robot solution that can flexibly move around in the healthcare and nursing sectors. While it helps individuals with impaired functions to be transferred and rehabilitated, it also relieves the strain on staff, redirecting them from labor-intensive tasks. A PTR Robot also reduces the risk of infection, because only one caregiver needs to be present to perform a patient transfer. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005084/en/ PTR Robots was developed and tested in close collaboration with Zealand University Hospital, and Vonsildhave Nursing Home, operated by the nursing group Attendo. The testing of PTR Robots really impressed us. We can see interesting perspectives in the way we can assist residents and patients with care and rehabilitation, but there are also interesting perspectives in terms of improving the work environment, says Sren Andersen, Managing Director, Attendo. (Photo: Business Wire) One out of every four bedridden patients in a typical hospital is not self-reliant and needs assistance, both to be transferred and rehabilitated. This need is even more pronounced at nursing homes. According to the WHO, lifting injuries account for one-third of all occupational injuries among nurses. Many nursing homes, hospitals and institutions are keenly interested in our patient transfer and rehabilitation robot. If an elderly person breaks his or her hip, the robot can help him/her stand up right after the operation. The robot also accompanies the patient when taking the first steps after surgery, says Lone Jager Lindquist CEO, PTR Robots. The robot lifter from PTR Robots is designed to shrink in size to easily fit through an ordinary doorway. This means that the robot outperforms traditional, stationary ceiling hoists in terms of flexibility. PTR Robots is a subsidiary of Blue Ocean Robotics, which revolutionized the service-robot market via subsidiaries such as UVD Robots and GoBe Robots. With PTR Robots we have created a brand-new product category in the area of patient transfers and rehabilitation, similar to what we did with UV disinfection with our subsidiary UVD Robots, says Claus Risager, CEO at Blue Ocean Robotics, and Chairman of the Board at PTR Robots. UVD Robots are deployed globally, disinfecting hospitals, hotels, food processing plants, clean rooms in the pharmaceutical industry, airports, train stations, preschools and more. About PTR Robots and Blue Ocean Robotics PTR Robots is a subsidiary of Blue Ocean Robotics, a world-leading group developing professional service robots. Blue Ocean Robotics is headquartered in Odense, DenmarkEuropes Robot Capitalwhere the group develops, manufactures and sells service robots to the healthcare, hospitality, construction and agricultural sectors. Press photos View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005084/en/ From an investigation into Ontarios top-billing pain doctors to rising numbers of fatal overdoses in Toronto shelters, weve selected some of the best long reads of the week on thestar.com. Want to dive into more long features? Sign up for the Weekend Long Reads newsletter to get them delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. 1. Thats an injection mill. Ontarios top-billing pain doctors capitalize on provinces lax rules, running up the publics tab for chronic pain management A Star investigation has found top-billing pain doctors are giving patients weekly injections despite medical guidelines saying the procedure should be done no more than once every three months. The skyrocketing use of nerve blocks has swollen the publics tab for chronic pain management despite a paucity of evidence to show regular, repeat injections are an effective way to treat chronic pain. The tax-funded health system has paid more than $420 million for these kinds of nerve blocks since 2011. 2. The Oberlander Files: The secret history of the last suspected Nazi war criminal in Canada The RCMP opened a file on Helmut Oberlander in 1963 and never closed it. Declassified documents obtained by the Waterloo Region Record show Canada has been wrestling with what to do with the former Einsatzkommando translator for almost 60 years. 3. Cops did not access Apotex founder Barry Shermans office until four weeks after the murders of Sherman and his wife Honey Toronto Police were not allowed to access murder victim Barry Shermans office at Apotex headquarters until a month after the generic drug titan and his wife were killed, a Star investigation reveals. That means homicide detectives and forensic officers were in the dark regarding the billionaires computer and paper files, the contents of his desk drawers or anything else in his office at 150 Signet Drive during this time. 4. Its a monster of a virus: What these Ontario COVID-19 survivors want you to know about the virus and how to make it through the second wave When Ruth Castellanos, a Hamilton college instructor whos still unable to work, first became ill in May she thought it would be over in a few weeks. She thought it was just a respiratory virus. She was wrong. Still facing a constant bombardment of symptoms, from brain fog to a racing heart rate, she wants others to know they can last for months. 5. Wearing a mask but not covering your nose? Youre doing it all wrong Dr. Richard B. Kennedy cant help but shake his head when he sees people wearing masks with their noses uncovered. Not only does it fly in the face of common sense, but its even more concerning in light of recent research showing COVID-19 has an easier time infecting people through the nasal passage than the mouth. My first thought is, Oh come on, be smarter than that, said Kennedy, a Minnesota-based professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic. 6. Can Canadas border be reopened safely in a COVID-19 world? Here are some of the options experts are looking at Many experts argue Canada cannot continue to keep its doors shut to the world and wait for an effective coronavirus vaccine to be universally available, something some have speculated may not happen until 2024. How might Canada reopen to travellers? How could it be done incrementally and safely? We cannot maintain blanket border restrictions indefinitely, says Dr. Vivek Goel, an expert on the federal COVID-19 Immunity Task Force and adviser for CanCOVID, the national research network for the coronavirus. 7. Chronic pain patients praise nerve blocks for freeing them from the shackles of pain Seven years ago, Mississauga resident Tony Iaboni was diagnosed with a hereditary condition that led to repeated back injuries, causing two herniated discs, spinal stenosis and sciatica. He went from workers compensation to permanent disability. Imagine somebody taking an ice pick and jamming it through your spine. Thats the worst it gets Its constant pain. I cant bend over. If I sit, it hurts. If I lay down, it hurts. There is no position where it doesnt hurt, he said. It drives me nuts. Ive been working full-time since I was 13. It was kind of a big hit to find out everythings genetic and there was nothing I could do about it. 8. What happens if China gets a COVID-19 vaccine first? The competition for a vaccine has drawn comparisons to the space race, with countries around the world fighting to prove their scientific prowess or, failing that, beat each other to sign purchase orders for promising candidates. While being first will allow a country to inoculate their own citizens, some observers say the more significant question is, what will they do with the vaccines next? An early Chinese vaccine, for example, may shift the global balance of power, while potentially leaving Canadians waiting. 9. Phoning it in? Not this Toronto contact tracer, who puts his hopes into each call as a way to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission Mahad Nur considers himself a disease detective. With more than a decade of experience as a contact tracer, Nur knows the importance of tracking down people to limit the spread of infectious diseases, especially one as wily as COVID-19. The virus spreads from person to person, and we know that it is spreading within the community, said Nur, supervisor of Toronto Public Healths Communicable Disease Liaison Unit. By following up with every contact of an individual, you are hoping to break that transmission chain. 10. Under COVID-19, work-at-home has hollowed out Torontos core. Will it ever spring back to life? Prairie Girl Bakerys fantastically flavoured cupcakes and designer confections have been longtime favourites of Toronto office workers. Before COVID-19, they could be picked up for work events or on the way home from five Prairie Girl stores, including two in the underground PATH at First Canadian Place and Brookfield Place. When COVID-19 shut down the city in mid-March, the bakerys founder Jean Blacklock remembers thinking her team would be back to work before the buttermilk in the kitchens expired in April. They were naive, she says now. 11. Seth MacLean was one of nine fatal overdoses in Toronto shelters in July during one of the systems deadliest summers. His family wants changes made so it cant happen again Seth MacLean, who had been living with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and struggling with addiction in a Toronto shelter died on July 12 of a fentanyl overdose. By the time his family found out, he had already been buried on Aug. 26 in Pickering. His family, who searched for him fruitlessly through July and August, finally learned of his fate after turning to Toronto Polices 51 Division for answers on Sept. 10 what would have been his 32nd birthday. 12. Donald Trump and Joe Biden Theres nothing smart about you vs. You know hes a liar square off in rude rumble of a debate Canadians tuning into the U.S. presidential debate fearful of chaos spilling over the border, aware Canadas economy may hinge on the result, and whose environmental future is tied directly to their neighbours saw something that often looked like chaos. At one point, Joe Biden snapped at Donald Trump, will you shut up, man? 13. Im terrified: Bar, restaurant and gym owners say they wont make it if theyre forced to close again As he ponders his half-filled Richmond Hill fitness studio, Alex Kucharski gets shivers down his spine. Another lockdown would be disastrous for our industry, said Kucharski, co-owner of F45 Training Jefferson. As gym and yoga studio owners, restaurateurs and retailers see the rising weekly COVID-19 numbers across Ontario, they worry about the return of more restrictions. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 15:17:44|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close CAIRO, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Egypt registered late on Friday 149 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number in the country to 103,466, said the Health Ministry. In a statement, the ministry's spokesman Khaled Megahed said 10 patients died from the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 5,956. Meanwhile, 288 others were completely cured and dispatched from hospitals, brining the total recoveries to 97,143. Egypt announced its first confirmed COVID-19 case on Feb. 14 and the first death from the viral disease on March 8. Around mid-June, Egypt saw a peak of COVID-19 daily infections and deaths, with a record 97 deaths on June 15 and 1,774 new cases on June 19, before they started to decline in the first week of July. Amid declining COVID-19 infections and fatalities, Egypt has been easing relevant restrictions over the past couple of months as part of a coexistence plan to maintain anti-coronavirus precautionary measures while resuming economic activities. Egypt and China have been cooperating closely in fighting the pandemic through exchanging medical aid and expertise. In early February, Egypt sent a batch of medical supplies to China to help with its fight against COVID-19 and China later sent three batches of medical aid to the North African country. Ednitem President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a plan Friday to defend Frances secular values against Islamist radicalism, describing Islam as a religion in crisis all over the world. In a long-awaited address, Macron insisted no concessions would be made in a new drive to push religion out of education and the public sector in France. Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country, he said. He announced that the government would present a bill in December to strengthen a 1905 law that officially separated church and state in France. The measures, Macron said, were aimed at addressing a problem of growing Islamic radicalisation in France and improving our ability to live together. Secularism is the cement of a united France, he insisted, but added that there was no sense in stigmatising all Muslim believers. The law permits people to belong to any faith of their choosing, Macron said, but outward displays of religious affiliation can under no circumstances be allowed in schools or the public service. He announced that France would seek to liberate Islam in France from foreign influences by improving oversight of the financing of mosques. There would also be closer scrutiny of schools and associations exclusively serving religious communities. France has in recent years been forced to take a hard look at its core republican values, perceived by many to be threatened by Islam in the wake of a string of terror attacks since 2015 targeting secular liberties such as freedom of expression. Macron was speaking one week after a man wounded two people in a meat cleaver attack outside the former Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly which was condemned by the government as an act of Islamist terrorism. Staff at Charlie Hebdo were massacred in January 2015 by Islamist gunmen seeking to avenge its publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. In January, a renewed debate about freedom of expression erupted when a teenager received death threats for attacking Islam in an expletive-laden Instagram rant. And earlier this month, divisions were highlighted when MPs walked out when a university student entered parliament in a headscarf. WILLOWICK, Ohio -- A Willowick police officer is recovering at his home after being shot Friday night during a traffic stop, Police Chief Brian Turner told cleveland.com Saturday morning. The driver of the car was shot three times during the incident that happened Friday night, Turner said. Police struck him in the neck, chest area and leg, he said. He is at MetroHealth in critical condition but stable and under sedation, Turner said. Two officers involved in the shooting are on paid administrative leave, he said, and their names are not being released at this time pending the investigation. Eastlake police initially got a call about a driver who was driving erratic and may be intoxicated, Turner said. The driver went into Willowick where he crashed into a car and flipped it at the intersection of Bayridge Boulevard and Willowick Drive, he said. The driver of the flipped car is OK, Turner said. Officers pulled the driver over on Daniel Drive, about a mile from the intersection where the crash happened, he said. Officers asked the driver to show his hands and the driver pulled out a gun and started shooting towards them, Turner said. An officer was struck in the chest, but luckily his bullet-proof vest stopped the bullet, the chief said. The officer is now home resting. All is good. Hes replaying it (the events) in his head obviously, but he is not injured, Turner said. He is absolutely fine thank God. A few of the police cruisers suffered some damage from the gunfire. No one else was injured in the shooting. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations is investigating the shooting. Read more crime stories on cleveland.com: Cleveland man killed in Euclid shooting, police say 25-year-old man fatally shot during fight at bar on Akrons East Side; 2 in critical condition U.S. Marshals capture man accused of dragging police officer with car in Portage County Warrensville Heights man shot and killed in parking lot of apartment building, police say Ohio police officer accused of recording nude 10-year-old girl Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel faced a lot of backlash after old pictures of him sporting a "blackface" resurfaced. After Kimmel decided to take a summer hiatus, rumors started circulating that the talk show host would be replaced on his own show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live!." There has also been some gossip about Kimmel's marriage to Molly McNearney being in jeopardy and how the two are trying their best to rekindle their romance while they were in quarantine together. Did Jennifer Aniston have an affair with Kimmel? In 2019, tabloid Woman's Day alleged Molly McNearney was not happy about Jennifer Aniston's close relationship with the talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. The tabloid reported that McNearney was tired of Aniston always hanging out with her husband and how they spend their free time together. An alleged insider added that McNearney did not like it when Aniston and Kimmel go off by themselves and felt that the actress could take her husband. Also Read: Mariah Carey Reveals She Was Pimped Out by Older Sister When She Was 12 in New Memoir However, this rumor is not true. According to Gossip Cop, a site that debunked the narrative, Aniston is just friends with Kimmel, and she is even close with McNearney. McNearney was also on the plane with Aniston that made an emergency landing, which proves that the two have a separate relationship. Kimmel's "blackface" incident In September, the National Enquirer asserted Kimmel was being replaced. This was after the fallout of the "blackface" controversy, Kimmel issued an apology. The Enquirer, however, stated that Kimmel's public apology did nothing but seal the host's doom and that ABC allegedly was already looking for a replacement. It was suggested by the tabloid that the executives of the network were looking for a host that does not have any scandals. Once again, the tabloid story was proven to be false. Gossip Cop dismissed the story. It is true that the late-night talk show host received major backlash following the "blackface" controversy, but he can't be replaced by the management. Kimmel has a three-year contract extension with ABC, which he signed in August 2019. Additionally, Kimmel just hosted the Emmys 2020, so it is safe to say that he is not going anywhere anytime soon. Jennifer Lawrence on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"? A separate report from the tabloid OK! stated that actress Jennifer Lawrence wanted to replace Jimmy Kimmel. The magazine claimed that the actress allegedly felt the hosting gig was a dream job for her, and despite her friendship with Kimmel, she would replace the host if given a chance. An alleged insider told the outlet that the actress was making it discreetly known that her hat's in the ring if the gig comes up. However, Gossip Cop already corrected the narrative that Kimmel was being replaced as he still has three years left in his contract. Also, Kimmel returned to his show on September 21 after a summer break. That means he will still host it until his contract ends. Lawrence did receive positive feedback when she took over Kimmel's show one time, but that does not mean she is after it. Related Article: Kris Jenner and Kourtney Kardashian Named in Sexual Harassment Lawsuit by Former Bodyguard @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin -- (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, October 3 2020 The mayor of Bekasi in West Java, Rahmat Effendi, has asked the provinces governor, Ridwan Kamil, to visit other regions in the province as the latter opened an office in Depok on Friday to monitor the handling of COVID-19 and regional elections. It would best for the governor to also visit other regions of the province, like Bekasi and Bogor, to see how they handle COVID-19 specifically. Each region has its own approach, and I think it would be meaningful for the governor to see how seriously were doing this, Rahmat said on Thursday as quoted by kompas.com. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login BETHESDA, Md. President Donald Trump went through a very concerning period Friday and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care as he battles the coronavirus at a military hospital, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Saturday. The comments came after it was revealed that Trump was administered supplemental oxygen Friday morning at the White House before he was transported to the hospital, although staff insisted he had only mild symptoms. Trump's doctors, for their part, painted a rosy picture of the presidents health in a press conference at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. But the briefing by Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley and other doctors raised more questions than it answered. Conley left murky the issue of whether the president needed supplemental oxygen and declined to discuss exactly when he fell ill. Conley also revealed that Trump began exhibiting clinical indications of COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon, earlier than previously known. According to a person familiar with Trumps condition, Trump was administered oxygen at the White House on Friday before he was transported to the military hospital. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, Conley also said the president was 72 hours into his diagnosis, which raised questions about the timeline provided by the White House, given that Trump first tweeted about his positive test early Friday morning. Conley released a statement later Saturday saying that he meant the president was on day three of his illness and Trump's initial positive test came late Thursday night. Conley, updating the nation on the presidents condition from Walter Reed on Saturday afternoon, said Trump had been fever-free for 24 hours. While Conley said the president was not currently on oxygen, he refused to say whether the president had ever been on oxygen, despite repeated questioning. Thursday no oxygen. None at this moment. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen, Conley said. He said that Trumps symptoms, including a cough and nasal congestion are now resolving and improving. Hes in exceptionally good spirits, said another doctor, Sean Dooley. Trump is 74 years old and clinically obese, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has infected more than 7 million people nationwide and killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S. The administration has consistently been less than transparent about the presidents health as the virus spread inside the White House. Aides declined to share basic health information about the president, including a full accounting of his symptoms, what tests hes undertaken and the results. The first word that a close aide to Trump had been infected came from the media, not the White House. In a memo released late Friday, Conley did report that Trump had been treated at the hospital with remdesivir, an antiviral medication, after taking another experimental drug at the White House. He added that Trump is doing very well and is not requiring any supplemental oxygen. Conley declined to say when Trump had last been tested before he was confirmed to have COVID-19 late Thursday. He initially suggested that Trump was 72 hours into the diagnosis, putting the confirmation of the infection to Wednesday. Conley later clarified that Trump was administered an accurate test for the virus on Thursday afternoon, after White House aide Hope Hicks was confirmed to be positive and Trump exhibited unspecified clinical indications of the virus. The White House said Trump was expected to stay at the hospital for a few days and he would continue to work from the hospitals presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties. In addition to accessibility to tests and equipment, the decision was made, at least in part, with the understanding that moving him to the hospital later, if he took a turn for the worse, could send a worrying signal. On Saturday, Conley said Trumps blood oxygen level is 96%, which is in the normal range. The two experimental drugs he has received, given through an IV, have shown some promise against COVID-19. On Friday, he was given a single dose of a drug Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. is testing to supply antibodies to help his immune system fight the virus. Friday night, he began a five-day course of remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug currently used for moderately and severely ill patients. The drugs work in different ways -- the antibodies help the immune system rid the body of virus and remdesivir curbs the virus ability to multiply. Were maximizing all aspects of his care, attacking the virus in multiple ways, Conley said. I didnt want to hold anything back if there was any possibility it would add value to his care. Trump campaign to continue with Pence on trail in Arizona With COVID-19 putting President Donald Trump at least temporarily in a hospital, his re-election campaign has announced that Vice President Mike Pence will make a campaign stop in a Phoenix suburb on Thursday. The announcement of Pence's planned Arizona stop followed Trump's cancellation of multiple planned campaign stops after he contracted COVID-19. Those included Arizona rallies that were scheduled in the coming week in Tucson and Flagstaff. The vice presidential debate between Pence and Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris is still set for Wednesday. The Commission on Presidential Debates and both campaigns agreed Friday to increase the space between Pence and Harris on the debate stage from seven to 12 feet. Pence again tested negative for the virus, an administration official said Saturday. GOP seeks to pause Senate work, but not Barrett hearings Republicans on Saturday sought to call off legislative work in the Senate until Oct. 19 as the coronavirus reached into their ranks. But they vowed that hearings for Trump's Supreme Court nominee would push ahead as planned even as lawmakers increasingly demanded testing for everyone on Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett will still begin Oct. 12, even if Democrats agree to cancel the regular Senate session to avoid further spread of COVID-19. Since Friday morning, three GOP senators have announced they have tested positive. The Senates floor schedule will not interrupt the thorough, fair and historically supported confirmation process, the Kentucky Republican wrote. Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who is running for reelection in South Carolina, added that senators can attend the hearings virtually. But Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer took aim at that plan, saying that if the COVID threat is too great for Senate sessions, it makes Barrett's confirmation perilous, too. The Republicans monomaniacal drive to confirm Judge Barrett at all costs needlessly threatens the health and safety of Senators, staff, and all those who work in the Capitol complex, Schumer said in a statement. Chris Christie tests positive for coronavirus Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who helped President Donald Trump prepare for the first presidential debate earlier this week, has tested positive for COVID-19, he announced on Twitter Saturday. "I just received word that I am positive for COVID-19," Christie wrote. "I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues who have reached out to ask how I was feeling in the last day or two. I will be receiving medical attention today and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition." Christie was among a group of senior Trump campaign staffers who were tested Friday following news of the President's positive diagnosis. No course correction for state Republicans after Trump's illness Republican governors and lawmakers in many states have followed President Donald Trumps lead on their response to the coronavirus, declining to impose mask mandates and pushing to lift restrictions on businesses and social gatherings as swiftly as possible. Revelations that the president and first lady are now among those who have tested positive for the disease appeared to do little to change their thinking. In the hours after the nation learned that Trump had tested positive for the virus, Republican-controlled courts, conservative groups and Republican lawmakers continued to move against mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions. These are the world leaders who have tested positive for COVID-19 Photos: A look at Trump's busy week leading up to positive coronavirus test Photo: (Photo : unsplash/Jay Heike) A California firefighter saves his girlfriend's family home after completing a 60-hour shift. He drove for 90 minutes after he received a panicky call about the blaze that approached the property. Worked nearly three days straight Grant Newnom had just worked for nearly three days straight in the San Jose Fire Department since Sunday. His girlfriend, Elise Jones, was panicking and called him about the scary incident. She told her boyfriend that one of the series of blazes affecting the state, the Glass Fire, was approaching her parents' home quickly. Drove 90 minutes although he was exhausted Newnom told KGO that he immediately drove 90 minutes to Santa Rosa even if he was exhausted from battling fires from his shift. He was hoping he could save what he could. He said that many homes were on fire when he arrived in the area. See also: Pennsylvania Boy Saves Mom's Life, Thanks to Amazon's Alexa He recalled that he would hear propane tanks going off and would see large mushroom of clouds go off at the same time apart from seeing burning homes. Thankfully, Jones' parents' home was safe when Newnom arrived in the area. Removed anything flammable Newnom removed debris and cut down trees using a chainsaw that could get the house on fire. He explained that he was going to hang out and triage the house after driving there. He got rid of anything flammable and cut down trees that he could. He told CNN that he did not plan on sticking around to face the fire on his own. Firefighters from Santa Rosa Fire Department came just in time as Newnom was preparing to escape the flames. The fire captain told Newnom that they were going to stand and fight since it was his girlfriend's family home. See also: Heroic Bronx Dad Shields 3 Kids from Shooting, Ends up Unable to Walk and Jobless There was quite a battle Newnom told KGO that they were all geared up and put down some hose lines and that they had quite a battle. He explained that the flames were crowning in the trees and spot fires 50 yards in front of them. When the fire was out, some family properties got damaged, but the home survived. Newnom told the outlet that they have "landscaping of a moonscape" because there were little minor accessory buildings that got burnt down. According to Cal Fire, the Glass Fire has burned through 48,000 acres of the California counties from Napa and Sonoma. As of Wednesday night, only two percent got contained, and authorities do not know yet what had caused it. See also: Oklahoma Home Explosion Kills 14-Year-Old Teen and Hospitalized 3 Family Members Newnom explained to the outlet that he had no hesitations helping his girlfriend's family even though he had just completed a 60-hour shift. He said he would feel bad if he did not do anything because he could always catch up on his sleep some other time. The domestic aviation sector will reach pre-Covid numbers of daily flights and passengers between Diwali and New Year, Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. On October 2, a total of 1,76,601 domestic passengers were handled by all the airports collectively, and 1536 flights were operated. A record high. Domestic aviation continues on a steady growth trajectory with 1,76,601 domestic passengers on 1536 flights on 2 October 2020. We should touch pre-COVID figures between Diwali & New Year. pic.twitter.com/OPwf6TWmov Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) October 3, 2020 Here is all you need to know about post-Covid domestic operations: 1. Domestic flights were suspended on March 25 when a nationwide lockdown was imposed to fight the spread of Covid-19. 2. Aviation sector is one of the worst-hit sectors by the lockdown. 3. After a gap of two months, domestic flights were resumed on May 25 with several restrictions at place. 4. Airlines were asked to fly only 33 per cent of their pre-Covid capacity. 5. The Centre fixed the air fare so that airlines do not overcharge passengers. Air tickets have been capped between Rs 2,000 and Rs 18,600. The fare cap is still existing. 6. Initially, only one check-in bag was allowed in domestic flights. No meals were to be served on board. 7. Over the time, these restrictions have been relaxed. The airlines are now operating at near 60 per cent capacity. The airlines have been asked to revert to their pre-Covid baggage rules. Packaged meals are also available on domestic flights now. 8. Several state governments have still not allowed the airports to return to their pre-Covid numbers of daily arrivals and departures. 9. In August, the West Bengal government barred flights from six Covid-19 high-risk cities. On days of local lockdowns, all flights were barred. 10. Still, the growth in the domestic figures has been hopeful, as passengers are now convinced that flights are safe, the Union minister has said. Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday discussed with the farmers living in the border areas of Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir the virtues of the new farm laws, saying "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has corrected a huge anomaly in the farming sector". Jitendra Singh said the earlier system of middlemen taking charge of the crop and arranging for its sale might have been relevant till about two decades ago but today's farmer is young, educated, well-informed and well-connected and, therefore, capable of exercising the option of choosing the buyer for himself. Today's farmer, reiterated Singh, is actually an agricultural technocrat who has the capacity to decide sitting on a computer which will be the most profitable crop to sow in the coming season. He said the farmer today also has the facility to discover online to whom best to sell his product across the country. Singh said with the kind of means and opportunities available to the young agricultural technocrats of today, we have no right to deprive them of the avenues available to other technocrats and entrepreneurs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has corrected a huge anomaly in the farming sector of India, he added. Allaying apprehensions that big business houses will take over farming and the farmers' land will be forcibly taken over, Singh said, the new laws have ensured all safeguards. He again alleged that all the hue and cry is being raised by professional protesters who have nothing to do with farming. The interaction was arranged by the Kathua unit of the BJP led by its District President Raghunandan Singh. 3 1 of 3 San Antonio Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Google Show More Show Less 3 of 3 A 17-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with a body found inside a burned car on the West Side, according to San Antonio police. Police are not identifying the suspect because he is a juvenile. He turned himself in Thursday and has been charged with murder. LOS ANGELES - A Black man shot and killed by Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies was wounded 16 times in the front and back, according to an autopsy that doesnt shed any light on whether he was on the ground when he was shot. Dijon Kizzee, 29, had four rapidly life-threatening wounds to the heart, lungs, liver and left kidney, according to the autopsy report that was supplied to The Associated Press on Friday. The autopsy was conducted on Sept. 2. Three of the shots were to his chest and one to the upper centre of his back, according to the report, which listed the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds and the manner of death as homicide by law enforcement. Kizzee also had scrapes to his face, shoulders and other areas, the report said. The report didnt indicate the order in which the wounds occurred and noted that the autopsy doesnt necessarily indicate the position of Kizzees body when he was shot. Attorneys for the family have said witnesses described a volley of shots being fired as he lay on the ground. Kizzee was killed Aug. 31 in South Los Angeles after sheriffs deputies tried to stop him for riding a bicycle in the wrong direction. They said they were unaware he had a weapon wrapped in a piece of clothing he was carrying at the time. Two deputies told investigators they fatally shot Kizzee after he picked up the handgun he had dropped during a struggle with one of them. A video showed him stooping down, but a wall blocked a full view. No weapon could be seen in the video, although authorities found a gun at the scene. However, attorneys for the family say Kizzee wasnt holding the gun when he was shot. Kizzee posed no threat to deputies when they fired a total of 19 shots at him, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump said at a news conference last month. A message to his office Friday wasnt immediately returned. Carl Douglas, another civil rights attorney who is representing Kizzees family, said witnesses said the deputies fired three or four shots at Kizzee, followed by a pause and then a second volley while he was on the ground. Although the official autopsy cited four rapidly life-threatening wounds, Douglas last month said an independent autopsy commissioned by relatives showed that Kizzee did not die instantly and instead writhed on the ground in pain. The official autopsy found that Kizzee was wounded a total of 16 times. In addition to chest and back wounds, he had other wounds to his hands, arm, chin, shoulder, hip and the back of his head. Toxicology tests determined that Kizzee had the marijuana compound THC and phencyclidine, sometimes known as PCP, in his blood while some traces of other drugs were found in his urine. Kizzees shooting sparked peaceful protests and followed nationwide protests over police confrontations that killed or injured Black men. George Floyd was killed in May when a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck, and Jacob Blake was shot in the back and left paralyzed on Aug. 23 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. By Express News Service NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: The Hathras gang-rape and murder case got a new twist on Thursday with the UP police trashing the sexual assault claim and spinning out a conspiracy theory instead. Citing a forensic lab report that said no traces of sperm were found in the samples taken from the victims body, ADG Law and Order Prashant Kumar claimed she wasnt raped. But the reports value was questionable as the samples were lifted eight days after the assault. Soon, ADG Kumar ran into a brick wall of criticism as experts described his inference as extremely irresponsible, unprofessional and erroneous. Legal experts recalled that the 2013 amendment in rape laws waived the clause that had made it necessary to establish penetration in such crimes. They also questioned the inordinate delay in the conducting the medical examination of the victim. ALSO READ | Hathras gang rape case: UP Police arrest Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka, prevent them from meeting victim's family A senior scientific officer at a government forensic department said: As a general norm, after 72 hours of such an offence, it is difficult to get traces of semen. So, it is crucial to send the sample for examination within 72 hours. In the Hathras case, the samples collected on the eight day after the assault reached the lab on the eleventh day. Former DGP of UP police Vikram Singh said the horrific Nirbhaya tragedy had brought reforms in the rape law and it was made clear that penetration is not necessary to establish the offence. So, to presume that rape did not happen just because semen was not found is an erroneous conclusion. It is more so given the fact that the medical examination was conducted eight days after the incident, said Singh. He described the response of the UP police as shoddy and unprofessional. ALSO READ | Hathras gang-rape victim even denied dignity in death. Whats happening in UP? Another former UP police chief, who did not wish to be named, said it was obvious that the UP police have jumped to conclusions. As per law, the so-called absence of semen is not enough to conclude that the woman was not raped, especially when we know there were injuries to her private parts. A T Ansari, who was a special prosecutor in the Nirbhaya case, said: The existing law has changed the definition of rape. It has also done away with the two-finger test used by doctors on victims to establish rape. He said even applying mouth or touching private parts has also been classified as offences involving sexual assault. Meanwhile, the Allahabad High Court took suo motu cognizance of the case. SIT probe A three-member SIT arrived in the village of the victim and recorded the statements of her family members and relatives. The SIT would stay in Hathras for three days HATHRAS HORROR Sept 14: Assailants drag young woman from behind using her duppatta into the nearby field where she was working around 9 am, try to strangulate her FIR lodged at Chandpa police station names one person based on complaint of vicitms brother Initially taken to Bagla Joint District Hospital at Hathras. Shifted to AMUs JN Medical College and Hospital (JNMCH) around 4.10 pm on the same day conscious during admission at JNMCH, had ligature mark in the neck, which indicate strangulation. Her C6 vertebra had fracture and spinal cord was damaged. Later she passes out Sept 22: Victim regains consciousness, records statement before magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC alleging gang-rape by four persons, names all four. Police add Section 376 D (gang-rape) to the original FIR, arrest all accused. Samples taken at JNCMH to confirm sexual assault Sept 25: Samples sent by JNMCH reach Agra forensic lab Sept 28: Victim turns critical, shifted to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi Sept 29: Succumbs to injuries at 6.55 am. Body handed over to UP Police, which takes it to Hathras at night Sept 30: Police cremate in the wee hours allegedly in the absence of family members and without their consent Oct 1: Agra forensic lab report says no evidence of sperm or semen in samples lifted from the victim, police cite it to push their no-rape theory Photo: (Photo : Wesley Hamnett on GoFundMe) A dad endured a grueling 200-mile bike ride to raise funds for charity and to honor his grandfather who died of cancer. He traveled from Glasgow to Manchester riding his eight-year-old daughter's pink bike. Wesley Hamnett, 37, is a cargo handler who hails from Wythenshawe. For more than 32 hours, over six days, he pedaled his way from Glasgow, Scotland to Manchester in England riding his eight-year-old kid's 12-inch pink bike. After losing his grandfather to cancer in 2019, he decided to take a 200-mile bike ride to raise funds for charity and hospitals. Riding on a tiny pink bike Why ride on a tiny pink bike? Speaking to The Sun, Hamnett said that the bike has significance to him. It is the one that his two daughters used while learning to cycle; this moment, for him, is something memorable. "I still remember my first bike," he explained, "it was red with white tires." He said he remembers feeling free and feeling like he could do anything in the world. Glasgow2Manchester on a small pink bike if this post gets 10,000 retweets and raises 1000 within the next 48hrs (by midnight on Tues 15th Sept). More info on pictures...... https://t.co/w3yZFC7rDP#TeamChristie #Macmillan #BHF #MFTCharity pic.twitter.com/uPZ7U38qo4 If not reached, will use road bike. Wesley Hamnett (@WezHamnett) September 13, 2020 In his Twitter post, before embarking on his one-of-a-kind bike ride, he explained that the Glasgow to Manchester ride was to thank those who have already donated and to uplift the amount already raised. To make things more interesting, he said that he will ride on his daughter's pink bike if the post gets retweeted 100,000 times and donations reach 1000 within the next 48hrs. Pandemic made him postpone his Russia to Manchester ride Originally, he wanted to cycle much farther, around 1,250 miles from Russia to his home. The onset of the pandemic, however, forced him to change his plans. And so he decided to cycle from Glasglow instead riding his daughter's 2013 Raleigh Molly bicycle. He has long been wanting to cycle from Russia to Manchester and has always been obsessed with the idea planning for it since October last year. So he thought it will be a great opportunity to encourage people to donate, and if the target is reached, he will do the "seriously stupid challenge." Tackling the 200-mile journey, he said he wasn't sure if he was going to make it, and he did barely make it. He added that It felt like he was in Formula 1 - had to change his tires eight times and felt dying during certain stretches, but everything was all worth it. He was able to reach peaks to as high as 1,350 feet. He thought his bike wasn't built for such terrain but he kept pushing. Going down made him feel like a kid, scary but "amazingly fun." And upon reaching the finish line, he was welcomed by his daughters, Evie Hamnet and Tehya Baron. His GoFundMe page was able to raise $10,767 so far. His effort will benefit Macmillan Cancer Support, Christie Charitable Fund, British Heart Foundation, and Wythenshawe Hospitals MFT Charity. His grandfather died last year after getting it the second time. That really affected him, he said, so he wanted to pay tribute by raising funds for all the institutions that helped his family and friends. MOSCOW A Russian journalist who edited an independent news website died on Friday, setting herself afire in front of police headquarters in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, a day after investigators had searched her home there. Just before her self-immolation, Irina Slavina, 47, the founder and editor of Koza Press, a local news site, posted a message on Facebook saying: I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death. Koza Press confirmed her death. The local branch of the Investigative Committee, Russias equivalent of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the allegation that her death had anything to do with the search of her apartment was groundless. The statement said the search had been conducted as part of a criminal case in which Ms. Slavina was considered a witness. Image Irina Slavina Credit... Associated Press Ms. Slavina said on Facebook Thursday that early in the morning 12 people, including members of a special police unit, had conducted a search of her apartment. The Facebook post said law enforcement agents had been looking for brochures, leaflets, accounts from Open Russia, an opposition organization, financed by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a Kremlin critic, who had to flee Russia after spending more than a decade in prison. Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution extending for another year the authorisation for European states to intercept migrant smuggling vessels and boats off the coast of Libya Bihar Assembly election 2020: LJP to decide if NDA would stay on its side or not today India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P New Delhi, Oct 03: Bihar's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Chirag Paswan is all set to address a meeting of the party's parliamentary board on Saturday to decide whether the party goes solo or remains with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections. According to reports, the LJP is reportedly unhappy with the number of seats offered to it by the alliance. The LJP has sought 36 Assembly and two MLC seats. However, the Janata Dal-United is not keen to give more than 20 seats. This development comes a day after Paswan met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda in New Delhi to discuss the seat-sharing formula. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had commented that the NDA is united and that it will fight the elections in Bihar together with the Lok Janashakti Party. Bihar Elections 2020: Grand Alliance almost finalises seat sharing It is reportedly said that the meeting will begin at 5 pm and the seat-sharing formula will be discussed. Also, whether the party should fight the elections on its own or in alliance will be decided. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News The LJP has been critical of the Nitish Kumar-led government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant worker situation and issues related to the recent floods. Meanwhile, "Mahagathbandhan" alliance has finalised its seat-sharing ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, sources said on Friday adding that Congress will be contesting nearly 70 seats whereas the Left parties will field candidates on around 30 seats. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 11:21 [IST] This book will challenge you to rethink your faith and walk with God. Author Pialo Tabadi shares her story of tragedy and triumph in Designed to Serve His Own Purpose( $14.99, paperback, 9781632214577; $7.99, e-book, 9781632214584). Tabadi received her salvation at the age of eight, and certainly needed to lean on her Savior in the years that followed. Constantly persecuted for her faith, she suffered abuse, rejection, mockery and spiritual attacks. Her Lord saw her through, however, and she is now honored to strengthen others with her testimony. Where is your faith standing as Christs return is being evidenced by these end time events: pandemic, socio-political unrest and economic uncertainty? This book will challenge you to rethink your faith and walk with God, said Tabadi. Pialo Tabadi was born in West Africa and spent her early life there. She studied at the University of Lome, as well as receiving missionary training. She moved to Connecticut in 2014 to join her husband in missionary work. They share two children and currently serve the Lord in South Carolina. ### Xulon Press, a division of Salem Media Group, is the worlds largest Christian self-publisher, with more than 15,000 titles published to date. Designed to Serve His Own Purpose is available online through xulonpress.com/bookstore, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com. Bakersfield, CA (93308) Today Clear this evening, then becoming foggy and damp after midnight. Low around 40F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Clear this evening, then becoming foggy and damp after midnight. Low around 40F. Winds light and variable. The group has compromised government entities, including militaries and foreign ministries, as well as private companies, across Eastern Europe and the Balkans. ESET researchers have uncovered a new advance persistence threat (APT) group that has been stealing sensitive documents from several governments in Eastern Europe and the Balkans since 2011 The XDSpy espionage group has gone largely undetected for nine years, ESET experts report It has attracted very little public attention, with the exception of an advisory from the Belarusian CERT in February 2020. In the interim, the group has compromised government entities, including militaries and foreign ministries, as well as private companies, across Eastern Europe and the Balkans. After careful research, ESET were not able to link XDSpy to any publicly known APT group. Read alsoUK's senior general: Russia seeking destabilization through COVID-19 disinformationXDSpy operators mainly seem to use spearphishing emails in order to compromise their targets. Some contain an attachment while others contain a link to a malicious file. The first layer of the malicious file or attachment is generally a ZIP or RAR archive. The link points to a ZIP archive that contains an LNK file, without any decoy document. When the victim double-clicks on it, the LNK downloads an additional script that installs XDDown, the main malware component. The group jumped on the COVID-19 wagon at least twice in 2020, using the theme in their spearphishing campaigns. Latest cyber attacks in Ukraine: Background It has been stated recently that the current social climate in America mirrors that of the late 1960s. That is, divisiveness, turmoil, and uncertainty about the future. However, in the 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson did not encourage division or disparage the American education system, which was at the time leading the anti-war movement against Vietnam. President Donald Trumps recent attacks at the National Archives on education and the youth movement in the United States reveals how deeply misunderstood his notion of what America represents. While Trump endeavors to dismantle academic curriculums that promote diversity, teachers, such as myself, continue to educate with perspective and inclusion at the forefront of our lessons. Throughout all of my teaching, but especially on the sections involving the United States, I am sure to provide students with a proper understanding of events in the past. For example, during my lessons on the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy is not portrayed as the savior of America just like Nikita Khrushchev is not depicted as the villain. Both leaders had their flaws and contributed to international tension. However, what would that lesson look like under Trumps newly announced commission to propel patriotic education? Already Americans are seeing Cold War rhetoric from Trump with messages to fear progressivism and how parents should fear the indoctrination of their children. Trump is using the protests against systematic racism and frustrated rioting as excuses to push a nationalist agenda. Simultaneously, Trump is ignoring and downplaying the root of the issue on why Americans are upset and opposing diversity in education which would help alleviate part of the aforesaid problem. Much of Trumps disdain throughout his speech focused on the New York Times 1619 Project to which he called toxic propaganda. Trumps avoidance to acknowledge the impact slavery had on America is dangerous and insulting to Americans who are still feeling the effects of the institution. The downplaying of diversity and inclusion in schools' spits in the face of the millions of descendants of slaves who built America. Indeed, while Trump is appealing to his base by attempting to dispel that racism still exists, his damaging rhetoric and policies on young people growing up un-exposed to diversity and inclusion will have poor side-effects for their academic development. Additionally, students miss out on a well-rounded historical understanding of the United States. It is important for young people to understand fully what Americas history is to appreciate the progress that has been made and what still must be done. Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his last inaugural address Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet but that America must press onward towards progress. Trump looks to avoid FDRs words and divide the American people by dismissing the United States' flaws. Trump proudly referenced his 4th of July speech at Mount Rushmore by continuing the argument that the left and educators are indoctrinating young people. His expressions must be addressed if Americans are to avoid becoming another mis-guided generation like many of the baby-boomers who grew up during the Cold War. For the latter half of the twentieth century generations of Americans were taught to despise any country which was not capitalist and emulated un-American qualities. Progressive concepts across a broad spectrum such as diversity learning in school, free health care for all, and fair housing are being targeted as un-American. Those who would encourage are being vilified by Trump. Ultimately, Trumps fear mongering statements like, We must clear away the web of twisted lies in our schools and classrooms; and The left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools pose questions such as what lies are being taught? However, with Trumps own Attorney General William Barr comparing stay-at-home-orders to the horrors of slavery, it is clear where the indoctrination is coming from. That is, the President of the United States. Zachary Tayler teaches 7th grade Social Studies at Stevensville Middle School Hathras case: Kejriwal, Supriya Sule target UP govt, CM Yogi breaks silence Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath continues to face fire from opposition parties over the Hathras case. Delhi Chief Minister lashed out at the UP government and said that while the crime in itself was heinous enough, the treatment meted out by the administration to the family of the victim was shameful. NCP leader Supriya Sule said that the statements being made by some top officials of the state government have made it clear that the Uttar Pradesh government is trying to hide something and demanded that CM Yogi Adityanath should step down if he cannot protect women in the state. Congress leader Randeep Surjewala also kept up the attack on Yogi Adityanath saying his government could not protect her when she was alive and is now trying to prove that the victim is a liar by saying that she was not raped. Meanwhile, CM Yogi Adityanath broke his silence on Twitter with a message expressing the government's commitment to ensure security of women. Watch the full video for all the details. ...read more It is one of the oldest university societies in the world. The College Historical Society - popularly known as the Hist - has been a feature of student life at Trinity College Dublin since 1747. It boasts about 10,000 members and has achieved a mild sort of celebrity outside of Trinity's venerable grounds thanks to the controversial debates it has hosted over the years. This week it found itself in the glare of public opinion once more when it was revealed that an invitation to the veteran atheist, evolutionary biologist and contrarian Richard Dawkins to speak at the society had been rescinded. According to the TCD student newspaper, the University Times, the Hist's auditor (chairperson) Brid O'Donnell said the society would "not be moving ahead with his address as we value our members' comfort above all else". Expand Close Professor Richard Dawkins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Professor Richard Dawkins Announcing the cancellation on her Instagram page, O'Donnell said she had been "unaware of Richard Dawkins' opinions on Islam and sexual assault until this evening. "I had read his Wikipedia page and researched him briefly," she wrote. "Regretfully, I didn't look further into him before moving forward with the invitation... I want to thank everyone who pointed out this valuable information to me. I truthfully hope we didn't cause too much discomfort and if so, I apologise and will rectify it." As soon as the University Times tweeted the story, the floodgates opened. The vast majority of those who responded to the post suggested the society had made a mistake in favouring student "comfort" over robust debate and engagement with different ideas. The Trinity professor Brian Lucey tweeted: "I suspect that almost every headline speaker over decades has had some comments that were regrettable, unfortunate, disreputable or disgusting. That doesn't mean they're not worth debating." Some suggested it was a form of cancel culture and one that was becoming more prevalent in Irish universities. TCD economics lecturer Ronan Lyons, a former member of the Hist, was among several academics to argue that the society had acted unwisely. "College life is supposed to be a time where you are out of your comfort zone and where you are challenged to ideas that might be different to your own," he says. "The idea of 'comfort' just doesn't come into it. Expand Close Labour senator: Ivana Bacik says no-platforming is not a new phenomenon / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Labour senator: Ivana Bacik says no-platforming is not a new phenomenon "I have no problem if there are established rules. For instance, if it's a case of, 'We welcome debates of all kinds, but the following topics are not up for discussion, such as the Holocaust', that's fine. But the idea of a debating society that would prioritise the comfort of its members sort of misses the point of a debating society. Think of the Oscar Wilde quote: an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." Wilde himself attended a number of Hist debates while an undergraduate at Trinity. "I'm not telling any society what it can and cannot do, but I'd be worried if it affected the attitude of learning new ideas in education," Lyons adds. "I mean, I'd be worried if my students didn't want to hear new ideas. "One of the modules I teach is the development of the Irish economy and, in principle, somebody with certain personal, political beliefs, might be uncomfortable with some of the ideas that you come across when you study Irish economic history. Like, 'Was the Famine a genocide?' Almost certainly not by any reasonable definition, but if you're of a certain political persuasion that would be an uncomfortable view. "Another module, the history of the world economy, also covers some very uncomfortable topics, such as slavery. It's not easy to talk about that, but it is something that has to be taught. You don't go to a gym to be comfortable, you go there to push yourself and I think college is like a mental gym where you're getting yourself out of that comfort zone." For University College Cork student Bryan O'Shea, the founder of Free Speech Ireland, third-level education is the very life-stage when challenging ideas are confronted. "University should be anything but a safe space," he says. "Debating societies and universities should provide an open forum for discussion and critical thinking. It is the key tenet of a university - to confront students with challenging ideas and dissenting opinions. Expand Close Not on our campus: Trinity's College Historical Society rescinded an invitation to Richard Dawkins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Not on our campus: Trinity's College Historical Society rescinded an invitation to Richard Dawkins Illiberal trend "No-platforming a speaker suggests the correct position has been decided in advance. This is unacceptable. Any institution genuinely committed to public debate should push back against the illiberal trend prevailing among left-wing, progressive students. "We see this manifesting itself elsewhere in society as well. The ostracisation and dogmatic response to anyone who questions the Covid-related restrictions is an example. There is an absolute refusal by a lot of people on the left to engage in a free and open exchange of ideas with those whose opinions they disagree with." O'Shea believes the no-platforming phenomenon is, chiefly, employed by liberals. "They have totally rejected the idea of free speech and embraced their own beliefs that they deem to be the morally correct and unquestionably virtuous ones," he says. "They seek only to enforce their orthodoxy. Progressives have wormed their way to the top of Irish society and have demonstrated their absolute intolerance for dissent." It is a sentiment that is echoed outside of Ireland, particularly among academics such as Jordan Peterson - equally loved and loathed for his 12 Rules for Life bestseller and refusal to recognise words such as 'cis', a comparatively new derivation to describe someone whose gender identity is the same as their sex at birth. The provocative broadcaster Piers Morgan is set to challenge the no-platforming orthodoxy in his forthcoming book Wake Up: Why the 'Liberal' War on Free Speech is even more Dangerous than Covid-19. Some are especially concerned by what they see as an erosion of free speech on our university campuses - a trend that is said to have been prevalent in some US universities over the past decade. In their polemical 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff argue that today's teenagers and early twentysomethings are being disadvantaged as a result of 'safe spaces', 'trigger words' and the banishment of those deemed to cause offence. They argue the phenomenon of 'safetyism', coupled with over-parenting when children are young, has led to the emergence of modern identity politics and hypersensitivity. And to cancel culture and no-platforming. Labour senator Ivana Bacik, who has long associations with the Hist, believes it is unfair to castigate today's university students as less robust than those in her time at college and argues that modern-day campuses are just as willing to entertain challenging ideas as before. "No-platforming is not a new phenomenon," she says. "It's been happening for years. In 1988, I was one of a group of students at the Students' Union at Trinity who wanted to no-platform the Holocaust-denier David Irving. At the time, we made a strong argument that he should be prevented from organising on campus; but it wasn't a free-speech issue." The issue provoked much controversy at the time - and did so again a decade later when students at UCC planned to have Irving address them. For many years Irving, who is now 82, had been a free-speech test case for universities here and in the UK. "I would never want to de-platform anyone, unless their views have been shown to be completely wrong, as has been the case with Irving," says Bacik. "His assertion that the Holocaust did not happen is outrageous. I think anyone who wilfully distorts history should not be afforded the free speech rights of everyone else." While such contentious issues would be magnified by social media today, Bacik says the students' union stance on Irving caused considerable publicity at the time. "It wasn't just a college issue," she says, "there were all sorts of letters published in the Irish Independent and the Irish Times - as students, we were strongly criticised for denying him a platform." Bacik, who has spoken on panels alongside Richard Dawkins, has been on the receiving end of the no-platforming phenomenon. "Some years ago, I was invited to speak at Notre Dame University [the private Catholic research university in Indiana] and the invitation was rescinded by the university organisation over my pro-choice views on abortion." Where does she stand on no-platforming those who have inflammatory views, but don't distort history or, by any reasonable measure, tell lies? "It's very tricky," she says. "You have to take each speaker in context. Free speech is a hugely important principle in any democracy, absolutely, but it's never been an absolute right. In our constitution, it's subject to restrictions. There are libel laws and incitement to hatred laws in Ireland, too. And one has to bear that in mind. "When it comes to universities, the whole point of debating societies is for students to hear different sides of a debate. At the same time, there's no right to be invited. It's up to the students on these committees to decide who to invite and who not to and I'm not going to wade into that one." UCD graduate Juliette Barnes, keen debater at the university's Literary and Historical Society - commonly known as the L&H - believes college can be a key time for being confronted with ideas diametrically opposed to your own. "I always spoke on the freedom of speech side because I'm a big believer in it and a big believer in pushing against cancel culture and no-platforming in general. Flaw in the debate "I'm a libertarian, so I'm all about individual people feeling enabled to do what they feel is the right thing to do economically, freedom of speech-wise, socially, whatever. And I think people absolutely should have the right to say what they feel even if it's obviously wrong, or inflammatory, or stupid, or hurtful. But I similarly think the flip side of that is that individual organisations also have the right to choose who they want to give a platform to." Barnes has been following the Hist/Richard Dawkins story with interest this week. "A flaw in the no-platforming debate is where we can sometimes assume that a platform is a privilege you have when a platform is actually not synonymous with free speech. Free speech is the right you have and the platform to execute that upon is the privilege." For Barnes, there is a difference between controversial figures being invited to a debate with those of opposing views as distinct from merely getting to address an audience, uncontested. "A situation where there is a debate and the audience is getting to hear both sides is a reasonable contention," she says. "When I was in college, there was a big furore [at TCD] over the Hist inviting [then Ukip leader] Nigel Farage and people saying that the issue with him being invited was that he was just an individual speaker in an environment that wasn't being moderated by a hardened journalist and that would give him [Farage] an opportunity to say what he wanted and ride roughshod over everything." Ultimately, the Farage visit went ahead - with the political journalist Pat Leahy chairing the discussion - but not before the Hist decided to revoke the awarding of the gold medal that it presents to many of its guest speakers. For Bryan O'Shea, it represented much that has gone wrong in college campuses today. "They [the Hist] issued a grovelling apology for the high crime of inviting Nigel Farage. It will be interesting to see who they invite through the rest of the year. Will they all be left-wing? If so, will these speakers make people feel uncomfortable?" While committee members of the Hist may have been feeling the weight of opinion this week, some have called for tolerance. Tomas Ryan - the TCD neuroscientist who has become a well-known figure thanks to his media engagements during the Covid pandemic - urged those critical of the decision to rescind the Dawkins offer to take a philosophical approach. "This was a mistake," he tweeted. "But undergraduate students need to be allowed to make mistakes, ideally without intense international social media pressure. This seems like an error of judgment rather than intolerance. TCD encourages respectful debate from diverse perspectives." FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows the newly arrived foundation platform of Leviathan natural gas field, in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Haifa HOUSTON (Reuters) - Noble Energy shareholders on Friday approved a deal to sell the oil and gas producer to Chevron Corp, making Chevron the No. 2 U.S. shale oil producer and giving it international natural gas reserves close to growing markets. The all-stock deal values Noble Energy at around $4.1 billion, excluding $8 billion in debt, and the vote cements the first big energy deal since the coronavirus crushed global fuel demand. The addition of Noble will boost Chevron's U.S. shale oil holdings, making it the No. 2 producer behind EOG Resources, according to data from Rystad Energy. It also adds nearly 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. Noble's Leviathan in Israeli waters, one of the world's biggest offshore gas discoveries of the last decade, began pumping gas from the field late last year. While 89% of Noble shareholders voted in favor of the deal, just 60% voted for merger-related executive payouts, according to regulatory filings. Proxy adviser Glass Lewis had recommended voting for the deal but against "excessive" executive payments, which would be triggered by the sale of the company. The deal has become even cheaper for Chevron since it was announced in July with a value of $5 billion, as shares of both companies have traded down alongside oil. The deal is worth about $4.1 billion based on Friday's closing price for Chevron of $71.19. Noble investors will receive 0.1191 shares of Chevron for each Noble share. Activist investor Elliott Management Corp, which took an undisclosed stake in Noble but never came out publicly against the deal, declined on Friday to say how it voted its shares or whether it has sold or kept its stake. The deal is expected close early this quarter. It comes during a tumultuous year for the oil and gas industry and "the hurdles remain high for corporate deals," said Jennifer Rowland, analyst with Edward Jones. "Any deal that requires significant cost savings or a higher oil price to justify the price paid will not be well-received." Chevron last year walked away from a deal for Anadarko Petroleum and took a $1 billion break fee, a decision that looked even better as oil prices cratered. (Reporting by Jennifer Hiller in Houston, Editing by Franklin Paul, Matthew Lewis and Richard Chang) LOWER PROVIDENCE Driving by the sprawling campus of unique and venerable buildings on Pawlings Road in Audubon, many folks have had only a vague idea of the purpose served by St. Gabriels Hall. Some were probably aware that it was home to troubled boys, but how many knew that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia program within those vintage walls has helped thousands of kids find their paths in life for more than 120 years? Sadly, how many also know that within a few months the doors to St. Gabriels Hall commonly referred to as St. Gabes would soon be closing for good, and its young residents sent elsewhere? In a Sept. 25 press release, the Archdiocese announced the imminent closure of the St. Gabriels System, a multi-faceted agency of Catholic Social Services. Today, it was announced that the Board of Directors of Catholic Human Services voted to discontinue programming operated by Saint Gabriels System, including Saint Gabriels Hall and the De La Salle Vocational Program given the unsustainable losses that the system has been and would continue to experience, the release noted. The St. Gabriels System program includes St. Gabriels Hall, a residential and educational program for Philadelphia youths ages 13 to 19 whose situations have been determined by the courts; the Mitchell Program, a 120-day residential treatment program; and De La Salle Vocational (DelVoc), a treatment center and educational program based in Bensalem. In the release, the Secretariat for Catholic Human Services said it will work with the City of Philadelphia to ensure a safe and healthy transition for the 30 young men currently enrolled in the Saint Gabriels Hall and De La Salle Vocational residential and day treatment programs for court adjudicated delinquent youth. It was further noted that for the past several months, leadership from the Secretariat for Catholic Human Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has been in dialogue with Philadelphias Department of Human Services regarding the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on Saint Gabriels System. Since 1898, that entity has provided education, social work, youth care, residential, vocational, and clinical services, as well as general support for the City of Philadelphias court-adjudicated delinquent youth, the Archdiocese added. The juvenile justice field has witnessed dramatic changes over the past 10 years. Public policy has been directed at reducing the number of youth committed to congregate care facilities such as St. Gabriels System. A 2019 City Residential Placement Task Force notes a 72 percent reduction of delinquent youth committed to congregate-care in the past five years from 867 in December 2014 to 244 in April 2019. Over the course of several recent meetings, Catholic Human Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia communicated with DHS representatives regarding sharply decreasing census numbers at both Saint Gabriels Hall and De La Salle Vocational. Since March, the number of young people assigned to these programs by the courts has dropped by 70 percent. As a result of the trends noted, Catholic Human Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had contributed more than $3 million to support the mission of St. Gabriels System over the past five years, the release pointed out. Unfortunately, the pandemic-related drop in census has furthered an ongoing budgetary shortfall jeopardizing the financial solvency of the program. That shortfall can no longer be sustained. With current utilization, a $3 million loss is projected for St. Gabriels System in the first six months of this year. DHS has indicated that there is no reason to believe that the number of court- adjudicated delinquent youth assigned to St. Gabriels System will increase in the short or long term. The release continued, Recognizing the importance of the program to the young people it serves as well as the community-at-large, both DHS and Catholic Human Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have worked collaboratively to find a viable financial solution that would allow this ministry to continue. Despite those good faith efforts, no pathway has emerged that is tenable for either party. Over the next 60 days, St. Gabriels System will work closely with the Philadelphia Family Court System to ensure a safe and healthy transition for the young men currently enrolled in the systems residential and day treatment programs. St. Gabriels System will help identify alternative programming and educational resources. Additionally, youth discharged from St. Gabriels System will receive six months of community-based aftercare services through St. Gabriels System Reintegration Services, an intensive case management program. In recognition of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), Saint Gabriels Hall and DelVocs roughly 180 employees had been informed that the system is projected to close upon completion of the mandated 60-day notification period. St. Gabriels System and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will work with each staff member to provide assistance in finding other positions within the Archdiocese. Staff members no longer employed will receive severance packages. Ian Blackford has joined furious calls for SNP's Margaret Ferrier to resign after it was revealed the MP made a 400-mile train trip knowing she had tested positive for Covid-19. Ms Ferrier has admitted travelling to Parliament and speaking in the Commons after developing coronavirus symptoms, and then taking a train back to Scotland after testing positive. She also visited a gym, shops and a beauty salon on the day she became ill, but is resisting calls to quit despite mounting anger over her 'utterly indefensible' actions. The 60-year-old posted images on her social media showing her out and about in her constituency Rutherglen and Hamilton West on Saturday - the day she was tested for Covid-19. SNP Westminster leader Mr Blackford today blasted Ms Ferrier for what he dubbed a 'tremendous error of judgment', and insisted she must now 'do the right thing for her constituents'. Margaret Ferrier posted images on her social media showing her out and about in her Rutherglen and Hamilton West on Saturday - the day she was tested for Covid-19 He added that Ms Ferrier's SNP whip was withdrawn on Thursday morning when the party learned of her breaches of coronavirus rules. Mr Blackford told BBC Radio Scotland: 'She has to reflect on the circumstances that she is now in. 'I would say to her that her position isn't tenable, given the circumstances that we're in, and she has to accept her own responsibilities of what she must do. I can't force that upon her, she is no longer an SNP MP. 'I'm pretty angry at what has happened, it is not acceptable. 'It's important that it is beyond reproach that everybody, absolutely everybody, must obey the rules and we have to think about the signal that gives the public and the sacrifices that people are having to make, and it's in the light of that that Margaret will have to do the right thing.' Scotland Yard confirmed it was looking into Ms Ferrier's admission on Thursday that she travelled 400 miles from Glasgow to London and then back again while suffering with Covid-19 this week. Images on her Twitter page showed her in several public places likely to have been busy on a Saturday, including the Vanilla Salon and South Lanarkshire Eastfield Lifestyle leisure centre in Rutherglen (pictured) She travelled by train to London from Scotland last Monday while awaiting the results of a Covid test taken on Saturday, and then travelled back the following day after being told the test was positive. Images on her Twitter page showed her in several public places likely to have been busy on a Saturday, including the Vanilla Salon and South Lanarkshire Eastfield Lifestyle leisure centre in Rutherglen, and Sweet P gift shop in Burnside. Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle lashed out at her astonishing actions as she faced calls from her own party leader to quit the Commons. Nicola Sturgeon used a series of expletives and said her 'head was in her hands' on being told that her 'friend and colleague' had broken the law, sources told the Times. However, Ms Ferrier is resisting calls to quit and may seek to stay in the Commons as an independent, having referred herself to the parliamentary standards watchdog having been stripped of the party whip. Ian Blackford (pictured) has joined furious calls for SNP's Margaret Ferrier to resign after it was revealed the MP had visited a gym and a beauty salon after contracting Covid-19 Mr Blackford insisted the SNP was unaware Ms Ferrier had taken a Covid-19 test on Saturday before travelling to Westminster to take part in a debate on coronavirus in the House of Commons on Monday. By Ms Ferrier's own account, she tested positive that evening, but she did not make clear whether she received the result before or after she spoke in the House. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP said she took a test after experiencing 'mild symptoms', meaning she should have self-isolated. In a statement, she admitted she travelled home to Glasgow on Tuesday, where she has been self-isolating ever since. She apologised for her actions and said there was 'no excuse'. The Metropolitan Police confirmed last night that it was investigating the journeys along with British Transport Police over potential breaches of the Health Protection Regulations 2020. Ms Ferrier could face a 4,000 fine for a first-time offence of 'recklessly' coming into contact with others when she should have been self-isolating under a law that came into force on the day of her positive test. Astonishingly, the 60-year-old received a positive result on Monday night and still appeared in the Commons chamber (pictured), speaking in a debate on coronavirus and its impact on the economy and jobs Nicola Sturgeon urged Margaret Ferrier to 'do the right thing' as she faced universal condemnation for her 'utterly indefensible' behaviour Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Blackford added Ms Ferrier had broken the law as well as coronavirus rules. He added: 'She has let herself down, and she has let her constituents, and indeed the country, down as well. 'I am asking her to reflect on her position - but I think it's very clear what I'm doing.' Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick added: 'Margaret Ferrier has accepted that she has broken the law. 'That's now a matter for the police, the authorities who are investigating the matter, and it is really for her to consider what her political future is, and for her party, the SNP.' The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged Margaret Ferrier to 'do the right thing' as she faced universal condemnation for her 'utterly indefensible' behaviour . Ms Sturgeon said she had made it 'crystal clear' to Ms Ferrier that she must resign. 'I've spoken to Margaret Ferrier and made clear my view that she should step down as an MP,' she said. 'I did so with a heavy heart - she is a friend & colleague - but her actions were dangerous & indefensible. I have no power to force an MP to resign but I hope she will do the right thing.' Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross branded Ms Ferrier's decision to travel between London and Glasgow on a train with coronavirus symptoms as 'reckless and dangerous'. Mr Ross himself resigned as a Government minister over his party's refusal to condemn Number 10 aide Dominic Cummings's trip to Durham with his family at the height of lockdown while suffering coronavirus symptoms. He said Ms Ferrier's position is now 'completely untenable'. 'No-one can take what she says with any credibility because she has flouted the rules at every opportunity when she first became aware of the symptoms back on Saturday,' Mr Ross said. Speaker Sir Lindsay told Sky News he learned the 60-year-old had coronavirus while in the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons at around 4pm on Wednesday. He said: 'Obviously this is completely reckless behaviour for a Member of Parliament - to put staff and fellow MPs at risk is not acceptable.' Margaret Ferrier's statement in full 'I apologise unreservedly for breaching Covid-19 restrictions by travelling this week when I shouldn't have. There is no excuse for my actions. 'On Saturday afternoon, after experiencing mild symptoms, I requested a Covid-19 test which I took that day. Feeling much better, I then travelled to London by train on Monday to attend Parliament as planned. This was wrong, and I am very sorry for my mistake. 'On Monday evening I received a positive test result for Covid-19. I travelled home by train on Tuesday morning without seeking advice. This was also wrong and I am sorry. I have been self-isolating at home ever since. 'I have used Test and Protect and I have notified the House of Commons authorities who have spoken with Public Health England. I have also notified the police of my actions. 'Despite feeling well, I should have self-isolated while waiting for my test result, and I deeply regret my actions. I take full responsibility and I would urge everyone not to make the same mistakes that I have, and do all they can to help limit the spread of Covid-19.' Advertisement He added: 'What made it worse was only being told on Wednesday on something that people knew about on Monday - well the MP themselves knew about it on Monday.' He said the reaction was immediate and 'within 20 minutes we were in full swing on what we needed to do to ensure the safety and security of staff and members'. He also voiced anger than some in the SNP knew of the situation long before he was informed. DUP MP Jim Shannon revealed on Friday that he dined with Ms Ferrier at Parliament on Monday night and was told to self-isolate, but had since tested negative. The Commons said one person who had come into contact with Ms Ferrier had been told to self-isolate, with investigations into who else might be at risk set to continue. Extra cleaning precautions have also been taken - although the damage might already have been done. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP said she took a test on Saturday afternoon after experiencing 'mild symptoms', meaning she should have self-isolated, before travelling by train to London on Monday having felt better. Labour suggested the party covered up knowledge of Margaret Ferrier's actions after it emerged they knew of her diagnosis a day before she disclosed it on Thursday evening. She spoke in the coronavirus debate in the House of Commons on Monday and, by her account, tested positive for Covid-19 that evening. She did not make clear whether she received the result before or after she spoke. In a statement, she said she travelled home to Glasgow on Tuesday, where she has been self-isolating ever since. 'Despite feeling well, I should have self-isolated while waiting for my test result, and I deeply regret my actions,' she said. Ms Sturgeon was repeatedly grilled on the situation at her daily briefing this afternoon. But she swiped back by comparing her response to that of Boris Johnson when his chief aide Dominic Cummings was accused of breaching rules. 'Trust me, it's one of the easiest things in the world in politics to call for tough consequences when one of your opponents breaks the rules, that's not hard for any of us,' she said. 'The litmus test, though, is whether you're prepared to do the same when it's one of your own breaking the rules. Speaker's fury at delay in alerting him to MP's coronavirus status The Commons Speaker today vented fury at the delay in informing him about Margaret Ferrier's 'reckless' actions. Sir Lindsay told Sky News he only learned Ms Ferrier had coronavirus while in the Chair at around 4pm on Wednesday. He said the reaction was immediate and 'within 20 minutes we were in full swing on what we needed to do to ensure the safety and security of staff and members'. He said: 'Obviously this is completely reckless behaviour for a Member of Parliament to put staff and fellow MPs at risk is not acceptable.' He added: 'What made it worse was only being told on Wednesday on something that people knew about on Monday well the MP themselves knew about it on Monday.' Advertisement 'And in these abnormal times when everybody has been asked to do difficult things, I think that is more important than ever. 'That's why the SNP whip has been withdrawn from Margaret, and that is the most serious sanction a party can impose on an elected representative. 'I've also spoken to her directly and made crystal clear to her that I think she should now resign as an MP.' The DUP issued a statement saying that Strangford MP Jim Shannon was seated at the same dining table as Ms Ferrier on Monday night. 'The room seating arrangements included proper social distancing measures,' the party said. 'On Wednesday evening, the Speaker's Office alerted Mr Shannon that he had been identified as a close contact of an individual who had tested positive for Covid-19. 'Upon receiving this news, Mr Shannon immediately self-isolated and on Thursday afternoon he received a negative Covid-19 test result. 'Mr Shannon sought and at all times has followed the advice of Public Health England and the House of Commons' Covid-19 team in dealing with every element of this incident. 'As a precaution, Mr Shannon is self-isolating at home.' The SNP gained the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat from Labour in the 2019 general election, when Ms Ferrier won with a majority of 5,230. But her colleagues turned on her overnight after it emerged she had flouted the rules. David Linden, the SNP MP for the Glasgow East constituency neighbouring Ms Ferrier's, has called for her to go. He told BBC Question Time her behaviour is 'utterly inexcusable', adding: 'I don't think her position is tenable and she should resign.' The DUP issued a statement saying that Strangford MP Jim Shannon was seated at the same dining table as Ms Ferrier on Monday night, but has since tested negative for Covid The actions of Ms Ferrier are all the more astonishing because earlier this year she was outspoken in criticising the Government for defending No10 advisor Dominic Cummings when he was accused of breaching lockdown Margaret Ferrier said she was 'very sorry' for travelling from her Rutherglen seat to attend the Commons. Margaret Ferrier: Comeback MP who won her old seat off Labour in 2019 - only to be suspended less than a year later for Covid-19 train journey Margaret Ferrier, 60, is MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, in central Scotland. As an SNP candidate, she won the seat in 2015 in the party's landslide on the back of the 2014 Independence referendum. She was almost instantly made a party spokesperson on Scotland and was elected to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee. However she was narrowly beaten by Labour in the 2017 General Election. But in last year's poll she retook the seat. Until tonight, she was the SNP's spokesperson on manufacturing. Ms Ferrier was born in Glasgow but lived in Spain for several years when she was a child. In an interview with the Daily Record, she said she had been a member of Scottish Labour in her youth. Advertisement This has since been echoed by Kirsty Blackman, SNP MP for Aberdeen North, and Stephen Flynn, SNP MP for Aberdeen South. Ms Blackman said that while Ms Ferrier is an 'unparalleled' campaigner for the party, she must resign. 'Margaret's actions cannot be overlooked,' she added in a tweet. Mr Flynn retweeted Ms Blackman's post, writing: 'Impossible to disagree. The public will expect nothing less.' Scottish Conservative leader Mr Ross, who resigned from Boris Johnson's Government over Dominic Cummings' lockdown movements, said 'the public deserve clear answers'. 'We now know that the SNP were informed on Wednesday that Margaret Ferrier had been tested, after she had already travelled back to Scotland from London by public transport while infected with the virus,' he said. 'These actions not only broke the law, they will have put lives at risk. 'We must hear from Nicola Sturgeon and Ian Blackford about exactly when they knew and why they kept this information secret from the public for hours or maybe even days.' Shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray also demanded answers from First Minister Ms Sturgeon and Mr Blackford. The Labour MP tweeted: 'SNP in chaos & appear to be covering up serious breach of public health laws. 'FM & Blackford must hold press conference tomorrow am to answer questions about what they did & didn't know.' An SNP spokeswoman insisted the party did not know until Thursday that Ms Ferrier had taken a test prior to travelling to London. 'Ms Ferrier informed the SNP on Wednesday, when she was in Glasgow, that she had tested positive,' she said. 'The SNP's chief whip immediately informed Parliament authorities. The SNP only became aware on Thursday that Ms Ferrier had been tested prior to travelling to London and had travelled back to Glasgow, knowing that she had a positive result.' On Monday, Ms Ferrier gave a four-minute speech in the Commons from 7.15pm and focused on the 'economic health' of her constituents, calling for greater financial support. A Police Scotland spokesman said officers are liaising with colleagues in the Metropolitan Police. 'Margaret Ferrier MP contacted Police Scotland earlier today about travelling between London and Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus,' he said. Trump To Spend A Few Days In Hospital On Doctor Recommendations Members of the U.S. Secret Service wear protective masks as Marine One, with U.S. President Donald Trump on board, departs the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 2, 2020. Credit - Sarah SilbigerBloomberg/Getty Images Foreign diplomats are scrambling to figure out how the iconoclastic American President will cope with his COVID-19 diagnosis and hospitalization, chasing rumors from the ridiculous that he might somehow put his daughter in charge to darker fears that U.S. adversaries like Iran or China might take advantage of this turbulent moment. Trumps hours-long silence after tweeting his positive diagnosis early Friday morning fed rumor and disinformation, foreign officials and Republican advisors both say. For several hours on Friday, a White House defined by Trump as its master, if not sole communicator, seemed frozen and slow to respond to queries even from Trumps inner circle, the two GOP advisors say. Video of Trump walking to Marine One to fly to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and his tweeted video message to well-wishers may reassure some, but his pale demeanor and infamously rocky relationship with the truth has laid the groundwork for skepticism toward the White House claims late Friday that the President was fatigued and only being moved to the hospital for tests. That language mirrors official statements from the British government when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to the hospital for routine tests as a precautionary measure before later admitting to the British public that he nearly died. The Presidents loose association with the truth isnt just a domestic problem, clearly its a huge foreign national security problem, one of the GOP advisors says. People just dont trust this Administration. The advisor said she was met with ominous silence when asking for talking points, when someone like Vice President Mike Pence should have been giving full-throated updates throughout the day, to expand on the brief comments by White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and a couple terse statements released by Trumps doctor. Story continues The second advisor, who was waiting for his own test results and quarantining because he recently met with the President, was also frustrated that the Administration went so quiet. While he says it was helpful that Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released statements that they are both healthy, signaling continuity of government, for several hours on Friday morning, the White House was not providing Trumps campaign surrogates with talking points to help reassure Americans or foreign allies. In the information void, he says the rumors and disinformation were running rampant: One ambassador from a very sophisticated country actually said, Is there any way Trump could finagle his daughter to be President? As world leaders like Jordans King Abdullah tweeted their good wishes for the President and First Lady Melanias recovery, their representatives in Washington spent Friday glued to news coverage to glean the most up-to-date information. Some resourceful nations sent direct missives to the West Wing, as a roundabout way to make polite contact with a White House gone mostly mum. Three current diplomats in Washington downplayed the lack of communication, saying they hadnt expected to be briefed in the early hours of an unfolding crisis. But they also admitted they were loath to criticize a White House dealing with the worst health crisis to face a sitting President in recent memory. There has been no contact from the White House to reassure us, one of the officials said, but we are not alarmed When you are diagnosed like that, there is a political truce. A senior Mideast diplomat also said there was no outreach from senior Trump officials, but added that seeing the President coming out walking from the White House to the helicopter is a very good signal that things are under control. A former U.S. diplomat was less polite, calling the dearth of information from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. a shitshow that is certain to worry allies and offer a vacuum for U.S. adversaries to fill. In a normal Administration, she says, there is a careful choreography of how bad news is relayed to allies and enemies: the White House sends specific talking points that get pushed to U.S. ambassadors around the globe to reassure world leaders that the crisis is in hand. Read more: What If Trumps Condition Worsens? Mike Pence Steps Into the Spotlight Physician Briefing Raises More Questions Than Answers Trumps Unique COVID-19 Treatment U.S. Adversaries Exploiting Trumps Illness How Trumps Diagnosis Could Change the Campaign Aides Wonder If More Could Have Been Done to Protect Trump What to Know About Regeneron Where Trump Has Been Since Monday At 74, President Trump Is at Higher Risk of COVID-19 Complications Tweeting it out doesnt exactly inspire you with confidence, she says. You want to reassure the American public. You want to reassure the markets. You want to reassure partners, especially allies, especially those who are feeling pressure from our adversaries, she says. His physician should be standing there with the White House Press Secretary specifically to send a message to frenemies and enemies We are just fine here I just left the President. He is resting comfortably. A senior administration official says there is always the concern that a bad actor like Iran could try to take advantage of what they might perceive as a moment of distraction, and do but adds that international initiatives he had underway in the Middle East are unlikely to be upset. Two former senior U.S. diplomats downplayed the possibility of an Iranian provocation, saying Tehran is too wily to give Pompeo an excuse to strike while Trump, who has rejected previous proposed military action against Iran, is otherwise occupied. Another senior administration official says the White House believes China, in particular, wont do anything overt, but may try to use the specter of a White House in disarray to convince countries it has been courting to move closer to Beijing. Russia is another concern, one of the senior administration officials says, because Moscow is the master of hijacking chaos to its own ends. One of the former diplomats agrees, warning the Russians are both reckless and buccaneering, and could take advantage of U.S. disarray to make a big pressure play in Eastern Europe. The GOP advisors and the diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity, as they did not want to be perceived as criticizing the White House in a time of crisis, and current and former U.S. officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Pompeo told reporters traveling with him en route to Croatia Friday that after he returns to the U.S. on Saturday, he is planning to go ahead with another overseas trip this Sunday to multiple stops in Asia, despite being fourth in line in succession to the President. Another former senior U.S. diplomat who advises foreign leaders says hes been pelted mostly with questions about what exactly happens if Trump is actually incapacitated, which has had him recounting who was in charge when anything similar has happened in U.S. history, such as the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. What close allies are most concerned about is how this will affect the Nov. 3 vote. One European official says the development has them calculating how Trumps absence from the campaign trail might diminish his election chances, without his frenzied rallies to make up lost ground in the aftermath of his aggressive performance at the first Presidential debate this past Tuesday. Another European official, who believes Trump has damaged U.S. alliances in Europe, worries his illness might produce some sort of sympathy bounce and give him a chance to reset that could revive his chances at victory and neutralize recent controversies, like telling the anti-semitic White supremacist Proud Boys to stand back and stand by during his debate with Biden, a comment he later tried to moderate. In an already unpredictable race, it just creates more uncertainty, the diplomat says. All of the foreign diplomats were sanguine that they may not be able to trust the information coming out of the White House about Trumps condition in the days to come, if the Presidents condition worsens, now that hes gone to Walter Reed for routine testing. Its a smart thing to do when treating the 74-year-old leader of the free world, says one of the European diplomats. Do you believe it? Ummmm.I think its always good to not take things at face value. New Zealand will not accept Australian travellers without quarantine until there is no community transmission for a month. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Saturday her country was 'not ready' to open up to two-way travel without quarantine until Australia records 28 straight days without community transmission. Australia has been pushing for a two-way travel bubble with New Zealand, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison announcing on Thursday that New Zealand travellers would be able to visit New South Wales and South Australia. On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said NSW and the Northern Territory would allow New Zealanders to enter without 14 days of hotel quarantine from October 16. Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand will only open to Australian travellers without mandatory quarantine once there is 28 days of no community transmission of coronavirus New Zealand passengers arrive at Sydney's international airport on September 18. The Morrison Government's hopes for a two-way travel bubble have been dashed for the moment The Morrison Government has been pushing for open borders to aid the economy as it pursues a suppression strategy for coronavirus. New Zealand, however, is pursuing an elimination strategy and on Saturday Ms Ardern dashed hopes that her country would reciprocate any time soon. 'From our perspective, we're not ready,' Ms Ardern said. 'NSW themselves say they are not confident that community transmission has gone.' New Zealand's beautiful tourist destinations such as Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown (pictured) are off limits for Australian travellers without 14 days of mandatory hotel quarantine CORONAVIRUS CASES IN AUSTRALIA: 27,244 Victoria: 20,269 New South Wales: 4,273 Queensland: 1,161 Western Australia: 692 South Australia: 473 Tasmania: 230 Australian Capital Territory: 113 Northern Territory: 33 TOTAL CASES: 27,244 ESTIMATED ACTIVE CASES: 269 DEATHS: 897 Updated: 5.31 PM, 11 October, 2020 Source: Australian Government Department of Health Advertisement She said New Zealand's most important criteria for allowing travellers in without quarantine would be that their state or country of origin had no local transmission for a month. 'That's key for us. One of our criteria is 28 days clear,' she said. 'So there's a bit of time here for who we would consider it safe to have a two-way quarantine-free travel arrangement.' Ms Ardern said Queensland had also said they would wait a while before opening up to NSW, giving an indication of the state's coronavirus status. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on Friday that Queensland would only reopen its border with NSW on November 1, provided NSW went 28 days with no community transmission. NSW Health reported no new cases of locally transmitted coronavirus for eight consecutive days on Saturday. If the state continues to have no locally acquired infections, October 23 would be the first possible day it could comply with New Zealand's rule. Victoria recorded eight new locally acquired cases of coronavirus on Saturday of which six are linked to known outbreaks and two are under investigation. Seoul: North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has wished US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump a speedy recovery infected with the Coronavirus. Kim Jong Un sent a message to both on Saturday. He has given information about this in the local media. The Korean Central News Agency report says they hope the two will soon recover from the disease. They have expressed hope that they will definitely recover soon from COVID19. Kim Jong-un has sent best wishes to the Trump couple. Trump had said that he and his wife had become infected with the coronavirus. When news of Trump's COVID19 test report surfaced, leaders around the world sent him to good wishes. The relationship between Kim and Trump had become very strained after North Korea tested several high-capacity missiles in 2017 and both threatened each other. Kim approached the US leader for a sudden dialogue in 2018 and thereafter met three times the same year. This was the first meeting of a US president with the North Korean leader after the War of 1950-53. Gehlot government completes 21 months, BJP to organize 'Halla Bol' UP government put UP Congress President Ajay Lallu under house arrest, Congress attacks Yogi Smriti Irani attackes Congress, ' Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit is only political drama' Photo: Facebook Just like Mark Zuckerberg after getting dumped back at Harvard, Facebook got big mad on the internet in response to Netflixs viral documentary The Social Dilemma. We all intuitively felt like Facebook addiction was real weve all had to have one of those convos with a parent but the doc claims to describe how social networks like Facebook use programs and algorithms to keep people online, not to mention the influence tech companies have on elections, discrimination, and depression and suicide rates. According to CNBC, viewers were even deleting their Facebook and Instagram accounts after watching the doc. In a post published on its website today, Facebook addressed the concerns raised in The Social Dilemma, saying the film buries the substance in sensationalism. The post goes on to say: Rather than offer a nuanced look at technology, it gives a distorted view of how social media platforms work to create a convenient scapegoat for what are difficult and complex societal problems. While the film argues the algorithms only show content a user will agree with, thus driving polarization, Facebook claimed the algorithms just keep things relevant and useful. The company also claimed that product teams are not instructed to increase the amount of time people stay online and said changes in 2018 decreased usage by 50 million hours per day. Wow... Facebook has published this official response to Netflixs The Social Dilemma documentary https://t.co/lTjXh9tiNP pic.twitter.com/jeuATkVT7B Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) October 2, 2020 Later in the post, Facebook referenced Russian involvement in the 2016 election through the social-media platform. Weve acknowledged that we made mistakes in 2016, the company admitted, mentioning efforts like banning political ads one week before Election Day. The post went on to note that Facebook has employed over 70 fact-checking partners and removed over 22 million pieces of hate speech. We know our systems arent perfect and there are things that we miss, the company said in the post. But we are not idly standing by and allowing misinformation or hate speech to spread on Facebook. And yet how many of you have ever felt personally victimized on Facebook dot com? Two teachers died and another was seriously injured after a pickup truck fell off a cliff in Ky Son District, located in the north-central province of Nghe An, on Friday. Xong Ba Cha, principal of My Ly 2 Elementary School, Nguyen Dinh Dan, Chas deputy, and Lu Thi Khuyen, a teacher at the same school, were on their way home after work on a pickup truck on Friday afternoon. The car suddenly plunged off a cliff in Yen Hoa Village, My Ly Commune, Ky Son District, at around 5:00 pm. Relevant forces immediately reached the scene, where the pickup truck was seen being deformed in the middle of a rocky beach by a river, to rush the three teachers to the hospital right after the accident. Dan and Khuyen were later pronounced dead while Cha was still in emergency treatment for severe injuries. Health workers give emergency treatment to one of the three teachers at a hospital after their pickup truck plunged off a cliff in Nghe An Province, north-central Vietnam, October 2, 2020. Photo: Quy Ngoc / Tuoi Tre Police officers brought the car out of the scene to investigate it to find out the cause of the accident. Leaders of Ky Son Districts bureau of education and training also came to the scene to facilitate the probe, according to Nguyen Trong Hoan, office chief of the Nghe An Department of Education and Training. They visited the three teachers houses to send condolences to their families. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 01:40:05|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- More than 10,000 Turkish military vehicles and truckloads of military gears as well as logistics have been sent into Syria since February, a war monitor reported on Friday. After midnight, the Turkish forces sent their latest batch of military gears into Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Throughout the last eight months, Turkey sent various types of military equipment to its military posts in Idlib to "monitor a cease-fire agreement " that had been brokered between Russia and Turkey in Idlib and went into force in March. Also, thousands of Turkish soldiers have entered Idlib along with the military equipment. Enditem SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: Denis Zekic was on his daily video call with his parents in Bosnia in early August when his father said he might be coming down with a fever. Less than a month later, both of Zekics parents were dead, joining the people who would be counted as the coronavirus pandemics global toll climbed toward 1 million. Zekic says his mother, Sefketa, and father, Muharem, both were comparatively healthy before they died at age 68. They were rule followers who practiced social distancing in the city of Zenica. Before his father was hospitalized, his mother wore gloves and a face mask while caring for him, but she ended up as a COVID-19 patient in the same intensive care wing, Zekic said. I saw her walk into the hospital on her own feet. From a distance. With protective masks covering our faces, he said. Honestly, I believed that she would pull through. Yet Zekic and his sister soon discovered that some neighbors and acquaintances had little sympathy for their sudden double loss, but plenty of opinions and, at times, cruel disdain. One time, a random man taunted the siblings at the grocery store, alleging that authorities had paid them to say the coronavirus killed their parents. How to respond to that? Zekic said. Bosnias coronavirus rebels have grown increasingly vocal, and hostile, in recent months as the number of confirmed virus cases rose in the small, impoverished Balkan nation of 3.5 million. Social media and the comment sections of news websites have become platforms for vicious arguments that occasionally have spilled over into invasive confrontations. Several recent studies of coronavirus-related media content in Bosnia conducted by the independent organization Mediacentar Sarajevo concluded that pandemic-related comments on news sites are dominated by offensive and disparaging remarks. We are now paying the price for years of neglect of our education system, our political system, for our media illiteracy, said Elvira Jukic Mujkic, editor-in-chief of its online magazine, Media.ba. A conference in Bosnia sponsored by the European Union this week brought together fact-checkers, science journalists and experts from the Balkans and the EU, to discuss disinformation during the pandemic. One of the conclusions from the event stated: The damage inflicted by fringe scientists is pervasive and grave. The scientific community in the (Balkan) region does not currently feel empowered to respond to this. While other countries around the world also have outspoken contingents of coronavirus conspiracy theorists, the voices of the virus deniers have the potential to echo farther in Bosnia, which bears economic, political and social scars from the fratricidal ethnic war fought there during 1992-95. The pandemic has amplified the countrys many problems, including an extreme shortage of doctors and nurses, and rampant public corruption. A number of prominent public and government officials are under investigation on suspicion of malfeasance in the procurement of desperately needed medical equipment. After years of declining trust in government and public institutions, public response to the perceived incompetence of our authorities in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic was to put in doubt everything they say, psychologist Tanja Tankosic-Girt said. The allegations further undermine the public trust on which government efforts to curb the spread of the infection in Bosnia depend. The country has a low number of confirmed virus cases compared with countries with a lot more people, but nearly 60% of its nearly 28,000 confirmed cases were reported since the end of July. More people around the country nevertheless are bending or ignoring social distancing rules, gathering in uncomfortably close quarters and ditching face masks. At the same time, public discourse around the coronavirus, like around many other issues in the country, is growing increasingly divisive, Tankosic-Girt said. Black-and-white thinking is becoming so prevalent that we are reaching the point of a complete loss of empathy, she said. The death in early August of 37-year-old philanthropist Belma Soljanin, the director of a maternal and child health organization in the capital, Sarajevo, triggered days of heated online discussions that unraveled quite a few long friendships. Just hours after news of Soljanins death broke, people were sifting through her mothers personal Facebook account and sharing a post in which she alleged her daughter, who had been hospitalized in a COVID-19 isolation ward while in late pregnancy, died because of doctors negligence. The post became fodder for virus deniers, who quickly took over the conversation. Coronavirus is a hoax. Even her mother says she wasnt infected, but you just go on wearing your face masks and believing the lies they serve you, one person wrote. While you hide from the inexistent virus, they are ripping you off, remove face masks and be free. The head of the Institute of Emergency Medical Care in Sarajevo, Dr. Adem Zalihic, said he is certain that virus deniers are contributing to the spread of the infection and the number of deaths by convincing people they should not wear face masks and maintain social distance. The virus is among us. It infects and kills people, I do not understand how they can deny it despite all the evidence. How can they sleep at night? Zalihic said. Pulmonologist Besim Prnjavorac, the director of the COVID-19 hospital in the central city of Tesanj, said people tend to dismiss COVID-19 as something that happens to others or is nonexistent until it is too late. It is only when their loved ones get sick or even die that they realize the coronavirus is real and very, very dangerous, Prnjavorac said. Emira Telic, 38, who is currently recovering from a severe case of COVID-19 in the Tesanj hospital, has all the proof she needs to refute the deniers: the breaths she struggles to take. I was the first to think COVID (-19) was a lie, but look at me now, Telic said. Now, I am sure that it is not a lie. ___ Video Journalist Almir Alic contributed from Zenica, Bosnia. 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 By PTI BAALLIA: A 15-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped in Sikandarpur Police Station area here, police said on Saturday. The girl was rescued on Friday morning from Rasra bus stand and the accused identified as 23-year-old Asif has been arrested, SHO, Sikandarpur Amarjeet Yadav said. The girl was allegedly kidnapped on Wednesday by Asif and raped, the SHO said. On the complaint of the victim's father a case was registered, he added. The girl was sent to the district hospital for medical examination, he said. New Delhi: Engaged in a stand-off with the Chinese Army for over five months now, tank commanders of the Indian Army strongly feel that the Chinese light tanks won`t be able to survive in case there is an armoured battle between them and the formidable T-90 Bhismas of the Indian Army in the world`s highest tank battlefields in Eastern Ladakh and the Tibetan plateau. India has deployed tanks in large numbers to counter the Chinese People`s Liberation Army`s aggressive manoeuvres along the Line of Actual Control where they have brought in their tanks and armoured personnel carriers and transgressed at multiple points there. "I believe that in case there is a battle involving the tanks during the present situation and they deploy their light tanks, I can assure you that it won`t survive against our T-90s and the T-72s," a tank commander said on the condition of anonymity as he was not officially authorised to talk to the media. The official was talking about the recent reports which suggested that the Chinese have deployed their light tanks opposite the Indian territory in Eastern Ladakh from the Sub-sector North to the southernmost parts of Ladakh including the Chumar-Demchok area. The Chinese have recently deployed and tested a light tank named T-15 and reports have been emanating in the Chinese media that the light tanks would be more suitable for operations in the tank territory in the valleys between high mountains in that region. Also read | India deploys long-range missile Nirbhay to tackle Chinese threat Another tank commander said the Indian T-90 and the T-72 along with the BMP-2 Infantry Combat Vehicles can operate in temperature ranges between 50 degrees to minus 40 degrees and they are deployable in all possible terrains and altitudes in the world. Asked about the performance of the tank in the high mountainous terrain, the commander said the Russian-origin T-90 tank is very well-suited for operations in extreme cold weather conditions which exist in the country of origin of the tank. Along the LAC, there are multiple locations where tanks have been deployed from both sides from Depsang plains in the DBO sector, the southern bank of Pangong lake including the Spanggur gap area and the Chumar-Demchok sector in the southern part. Sources said the Chinese tanks and infantry combat vehicles including the T-99s and the PTZ have been deployed in significant numbers by the Chinese opposite Indian territory and backed by the long-range artillery and surface to air missile defence systems as part of its aggressive posturing against India since April-May timeframe this year. Also read | If you start war, you will face better trained, better prepared troops: Indian Army warns China Former Military President, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, IBB, has admitted he is taking a long time in writing his memoirs because he is scared of being sued. IBB, while speaking on Channels Television on Friday night, also said he wanted to do a thorough job of it. I am scared of somebody suing me to court to say that I libelled somebody or that I misrepresented somebody and I will spend five years going to court, Babangida said. When asked of his friends opinion about being bound by the oath of secrecy to keep some issues to himself, he responded: Dont forget, not only in Nigeria but throughout the world. For a certain number of years beyond which anybody will punish you, for opening the secret because you have passed a certain period. It (memoirs) will come but if it doesnt come my children will go into the classroom and research. Everything that will need research about us we have in abundance. I know that General Obasanjo has a library that is very rich. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 21:23:49|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TEHRAN, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran's health ministry reported 3,523 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, raising the total confirmed number in the country to 468,119. The pandemic has so far taken 26,746 lives in Iran, up by 179 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing. A total of 387,675 people have recovered from the disease and been discharged from hospitals, while 4,127 remain in intensive care units. The spokeswoman added that 4,095,161 laboratory tests for the virus have been carried out in Iran by now. Currently, the risk of infection is high in 26 out of 31 Iranian provinces, according to the spokeswoman. Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19. Iran and China have offered mutual help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-February, at the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Iran lit up the Tehran Azadi (Liberty) Tower to show its solidarity with China, and donated 3 million masks to China. In return, China 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 Vineet Upadhyay By Express News Service DEHRADUN: The woman, who has accused Uttarakhands sitting BJP MLA Mahesh Negi of raping her and fathering her child, has now written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding a CBI probe into the case. In her four-page letter, the woman accused the BJP government in the state and police of trying to shield the accused MLA. SP Singh, the lawyer of the woman told The New Indian Express, "The letter has been sent to the honorable Prime Minister highlighting the police's bias for the MLA. She has requested the PM for a CBI probe so that she can get justice." The police have rubbished the allegations of the woman that MLA is being favored in the ongoing investigation. Arun Mohan Joshi, senior superintendent of police, Dehradun, said: "The police are committed to fair investigation without any bias. On the request of the complainant, the previous investigation officer was replaced." Earlier, the woman had written to Uttarakhand home secretary seeking a CBI probe into the case. Last month, Uttarakhand Police had registered a case against the BJP MLA from Dwarahat (Almora) and his wife after the court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) 5th, Dehradun, directed the police to register a case and start an investigation against Negi and his wife in the alleged sexual harassment case. On September 4, Uttarakhand High Court, while hearing a petition of the woman, had asked the state government and police to file a response in the matter. The court said that there should not be any coercive action against her. The next hearing of the case has been scheduled for October 12, 2020. In August, the woman requested the court to quash a case filed against her on a complaint of Negi's wife that she blackmailed her husband. She came forward alleging the MLA of rape and fathering her child born in May this year. Later, on the complaint of the wife of the MLA, the police had registered the case against the woman for allegedly blackmailing the MLA to extort Rs 5 Crore. After the opposition launched a scathing attack on the government, the Chief Minister said that the BJP MLA was ready for a DNA test. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Lawrence Larry Hanley was known around New York as a champion of workers rights who would do anything to support working families. In May, the former Bulls Head resident passed away in Odenton, Md., where he lived since 2010. Friday afternoon, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Hanleys family, local officials, and Mayor Bill de Blasio came together to rename Yukon Ave in New Springville to Larry Hanley Way. Hosted by Council Member Joseph Borelli, approximately 75 people gathered on the corner of Forest Hill Ave and Yukon Ave, next to the MTA Bus Depot. Borelli, ATU International President John Costa, ATU Local 726 President Daniel Cassella, and other elected officials spoke to Hanleys contributions to the community and passion for what he did. De Blasio, who said he met Hanley in 1989 and become a good friend of his, explained the Hanleys outgoing, get-things-done character. You could not defeat Larry Hanley. He might have a setback, he might not win that round, but you could not defeat Larry Hanley, the mayor explained. He had the purest, strongest belief in the goodness of working people, in the power of the union, in what could be if we all worked together. He loved Staten Island, and he worked for what he believed would be good for Staten Island and its future. What I saw was a guy that just would not stop. Everyone who knew Hanley was blessed, de Blasio explained. If you really knew Larry Hanley, you became a better person because you knew Larry Hanley, he said. You gained a little more hope, you saw a little farther into the future, you saw a power where many people didnt realize it was there before. If you really knew Larry Hanley, you are, in some really meaningful way, made stronger and better because he was in your life. I was so honored to have known him. Hanleys daughter, Monica, spoke to her fathers way of making things happen, even if he had to participate in immature antics to get recognized. Hanley told a story about her fathers first role as secretary-treasurer of ATU 726, where he single-handedly created grievances for every single oil slick and every single broken lightbulb in a small depot in Clifton after being brushed aside by other members of the board. He filed the most grievances for all depots combined in all of the boroughs while working there, she explained. If my father were here to tell that story to me today, I would interpret it as such: Whether people dont recognize or acknowledge your own power, or they are intentional undermining it to protect their own, do not let them chip away at your self-esteem, prevent you from making your contributions, or stop you from your mission, because we have big things to do, Monica explained, tearing up. The Hanley Family, Borelli, Costa, and de Blasio unveiled the new street sign together. ABOUT LARRY HANLEY Larry Hanley started his career as a bus driver at the age of 21 in Brooklyn, N.Y. After transferring to Staten Island a year later, he quickly became involved in ATU Local 726, the local branch of the international union. He became heavily involved in the ATU, working his way up the ranks to become the youngest elected president in his local ATUs history. He was re-elected for five terms before joining the staff of the international board as vice president. In September 2010, he was selected as International President of the ATU. He was re-elected for two more terms in 2013 and 2016. As international president, he restructured the ATU to better protect the livelihoods of transit workers across 44 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and nine Canadian provinces. How to Clip Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. When you're happy with your selection, click the checkmark icon next to the clipping area to continue. Addressing security experts from South Korea, China, Japan, Great Britain, Finland, Russia, India, Mongolia and the United States in a virtual conference, "Free and Unified Korea: Northeast Asia Regional Collaboration on Denuclearization and Economic Integration," Enkhsaikhan said the NEA-NWFZ treaty could also have legally binding provisions on providing economic assistance to the DPRK. "The U.S. president talks about the tremendous potential of the DPRK's economic development and prosperity, while other states of the region believe that the DPRK, if allowed, can also play an important economic role in the region." Nuclear-weapon-free zones are legally binding international agreements that ensure total absence of nuclear weapons in the region that are verified by credible international monitoring. Globally there are five established NWFZsin Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, the entire African continent and Central Asiawhich include some 50 percent of the world's land area, 119 states and almost 2 billion inhabitants. Forum participants discussed prospects of adapting the NWFZ concept for the Korean peninsula and the Northeast Asian region that would include security guarantees from Russia, China and the USA, as well as binding commitments to non-nuclear deterrence and development of a "post-Cold War framework" of regional cooperation. "For the last seventy years, the resumption of hostilities on the Korean peninsula has been of concern to the international community," said Dr. Robert Gallucci, chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994 and former Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs. "Simply put, the expansion of [NWFZs] to additional countries reduces the salience of nuclear weapons as an element in the calculations of national security." Mongolia is recognized internationally as a nuclear-weapon-free state, maintains friendly relations with all the states of the region, including both Koreas and "can be an impartial 'good office' provider or mediator in efforts to resolve the security issues on the Korean peninsula," Enkhsaikhan said. Other forum participants included Dr. John Endicott, President of Woosong University in South Korea (and past Chairman of the Interim Secretariat of the Limited Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone for Northeast Asia); Former UK Ambassador to North Korea John Everard; Mr. Tong Kim, visiting professor with the University of North Korean Studies, and Dr. Vladimir Ivanov, Director of the EastWest Institute's Russia Program. A concurrent roundtable, "Regional Economic Integration Strategies," examined prospects for economic development in Northeast Asia, with the case study of Mongolia's transition from a centralized command economy to a free market, with trade ties throughout the region. "As governments and large multilateral institutions move slowly," said John Dickson, president of the World Trade Partnership, "it is imperative that contingency plans be considered to enable a peaceful, mutually productive framework for the economic integration of the Korean peninsula." Reminding participants of the forum's unique premise that denuclearization and economic development should be pursued along with Korean unification, Dr. Jai Ryu, founder and chairman of the One Korea Foundation, said "Our efforts for denuclearization, peninsula unification, and regional economic integration are not three separate goals, but three interconnected and interdependent facets of the same vision." The forum concluded with an agreement by the organizers to create an ongoing regional secretariat for the NEA-NWFZ discussion with the goal of contributing to a free and unified Korea. The meeting was the second in a series of expert forums in 2020, sponsored by the Global Peace Foundation, Action for Korea United, One Korea Foundation, and Blue Banner. The forums advocate peaceful, principled Korean unification based on the Korean Dream approach, drawing on the ideals, shared values and history of the Korean people to build a free and unified Korea that advances regional peace and security, human rights, family reunification and shared prosperity for all Koreans. CONTACT: [email protected] SOURCE Global Peace Foundation Related Links http://globalpeace.org/ Sahaya Novinston Lobo By Express News Service CHENNAI: For the fourth consecutive year, Tamil Nadu holds the second place in the number of suicides in the country, according to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), with at least 36 people taking the extreme decision every day in the state. A total of 13,493 people killed themselves in 2019 in Tamil Nadu, giving it a 9.7% share. Topping the list is Maharashtra with 18,916 and in third place is West Bengal with 12,665. In October last year, seven from a same family killed themselves in Avadi and a month later, Fathima Latheef, a young college student from IIT-Madras, killed herself allegedly due to discrimination from the faculty. In the month of February, a 26-year-old Armed Reserve constable shot himself dead while on duty. Tamil Nadu ranks first in family suicides in the country, with 43 people having died in 16 different cases. Similarly, over 914 students have taken the extreme decision in the state making it third in student suicides. Tamil Nadu also ranks first in suicides by government staff with 200 people in 2019. According to NCRB data, 50 percent of suicides in the state are related to family problems followed by illness which accounts for 18 percent of suicides. The data also mentions that girls below the age of 18 are vulnerable and kill themselves more than boys, while more men between the age of 30-45 take the extreme decision. In the state, Chennai has more suicides with 2461 cases, followed by Madurai (345), Coimbatore (338) and Tiruchirapalli (188). (Assistance for those having suicidal thoughts is available on Tamil Nadus health helpline 104 and Snehas suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050) Desperate to help his family displaced by Syria's war, pro-Turkey rebel fighter Abu Ahmad is waiting to be deployed to Azerbaijan hoping to earn almost 80 times his current salary. "I signed up to fight more than a week ago to go to Azerbaijan... for three months in exchange for $2,000 a month," the 26-year-old told AFP via a phone messaging service, using a pseudonym for his safety. Clashes have raged between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces since Sunday over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian province that broke away from Azerbaijan in a bitterly fought war in the 1990s. Baku and Yerevan have traded accusations over which side initiated the latest round of fighting. Almost 200 deaths have been reported, making it the deadliest round since the all-out war. Ankara is backing its longtime ally Baku in the clashes and has been accused by Yerevan of sending its Syrian proxies to bolster Azerbaijani troops, allegations backed by France despite Azeri denials. But AFP spoke to Syrian opposition fighters from Aleppo and Idlib preparing to set off for the Caucasus, and one already in the conflict zone. From a camp for the displaced in a part of north Syria controlled by Turkey-backed rebels, Abu Ahmad told AFP he was heading to Karabakh hoping to better provide for his wife and children. "We lost our villages and our homes, and we have nothing left to eat," said Abu Ahmad, who has been a rebel fighter for five years. "I'm waiting for my turn to go to Azerbaijan to save up some money, to come back and start up some sort of business," he said from the camp in the north of Aleppo province. - 'No other option' - Abu Ahmad and his family fled their home earlier this year during a devastating onslaught by Russia-backed government forces, before a ceasefire in March stemmed the fighting. He says his income has been reduced to a pittance now the battles have largely stopped, receiving just 200 Turkish lira (around $25) from his rebel group last month. Story continues He says it is not enough to support his family in a country ravaged by nine years of war, where food prices have soared in recent months. With reports of Syrians killed in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abu Ahmad realises he is taking a risk. But "we have no other option," he said. "We've reached the point where we're ready to sacrifice ourselves to provide for our children." The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 1,200 Syrian fighters have already headed to Azerbaijan via Turkey, and hundreds more are preparing to follow suit. The fighters -- from pro-Ankara armed opposition groups -- were being promised a monthly salary of between $1,500 and $2,000, the Britain-based war monitor said. The first among them arrived in Azerbaijan before the fighting started, thinking they would be guarding oil fields and the frontier, it said. A fighter from the town of Atareb in Aleppo province told AFP that he was on the frontline. "Yes, I am in Azerbaijan," he texted, but declined to give any more details. A source in his hometown said he was in a unit whose commander, Mohammad Shaaban, had died. Shaaban was among four Syrians whose pictures were shared on social media after they were reported to have been killed. - 'Not enough to buy bread' - The Observatory said at least 64 pro-Turkey Syrian fighters have died in the clashes since Sunday. The relatives of three of them confirmed to AFP they had been killed. Turkey has admitted to sending Syrian fighters to conflict-wracked Libya as part of its support since late last year to the UN-backed government in Tripoli. Ankara has not officially commented on Syrian mercenaries being sent to Azerbaijan, while Baku says Armenians from the diaspora have enlisted on the side of the separatists. In Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, opposition fighter Abu Adnan, 38, however, said he had been approached about signing up as a combatant in the Caucasus. "Our turn didn't come to go to Libya, so we were told to prepare to head to Azerbaijan," he said using a fake name for fear of repercussions. Abu Adnan said he arrived in the country's north in 2017, having fled his hometown. He joined a rebel group and had moved from one town to the next with his family until ending up in a camp. "Here we're posted on the front for 200 Turkish lira and it's not enough to buy bread, but over there we do it for $1,500," he told AFP on WhatsApp. But he said money wasn't the only reason. "We stand with our ally Turkey because it stood with us against Russia and is fighting for Syria, and we need to stand with it at all times," he said. "If Turkey loses any battle, it will become under pressure and forced to surrender our areas to the regime. And then we'll never, ever go home." strs/lar/ah/hc/hkb Bahrain's leading telecom services operator Batelco today (October 3) announced the successful activation of 5G coverage across the kingdom. It is presently available in all the four governorates and starting from this month, it covers 95% of the nations population, making Batelco the first operator to have national 5G coverage and positioning it among the leading operators in the GCC. In March 2019, Batelco had signed a partnership agreement with Ericsson to build a national 5G mobile network over a period of 2 years. Ericsson has been the technology partner of choice for a number of leading telecom operators around the world, such as AT&T, O2, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone UK and Vodafone Germany. In June 2019, Batelco announced being the first operator in Bahrain and among the first in the region to deliver commercial 5G network services for its customers. On the successful 5G activation, Batelco CEO Mikkel Vinter said: "Covering Bahrain with 5G is a key strategic goal for Batelco, both at the corporate and national level. Its is a technology that will change the telecom industry as we know it today and will open up endless possibilities in the digital space." At Batelco, we align our strategic decisions with Bahrains vision for the telecom sector and the digital economy, and we are committed to be at the forefront of the digital transformation in Bahrain. We are investing in 5G today to serve our customers and the citizens of Bahrain with the latest technologies, and to lay the foundation for what 5G will bring for the next generation. (Natural News) President Trump recently appointed David Legates, a renowned climatologist and professor at the University of Delaware, to the esteemed position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a decision that sent at least one deranged liberal woman into an absolute tailspin. Upset that Legates does not buy into the far-left climate change narrative hook, line and sinker, the woman decided to call the man, not once, but twice, to leave nasty voicemails, in which she lamented and quite literally screamed in agony that he should not be working at the NOAA, in her opinion. Believing Legates to be a climate denier we checked and it turns out Legates does, in fact, believe that the climate exists the woman became irate when confronted with the reality that, based on his expertise, Legates does not believe that man-made climate change, at least in the way that leftists believe in it, passes scientific muster. You! Dont you dare have anything to do with NOAA! the 78-year-old woman bellowed into her phone. Somebody that doesnt believe in climate change? Sir, Im frankly sick about this, she went on to whine. The woman then proceeded to fat-shame Legates, howling at him to Lose some weight! Youre fat! But worse than that, she added, youre stupid, and you have become part of the stupid, stupid president, evil climate change denier Im just about to call my friend who lives in Oregon who fears that her house will burn down you are an evil, disgusting man and you will hear more from me. Shame on you and lose the weight. Climate science is more of a climate religion In a follow-up voicemail message, this same deranged woman went on another tirade, introducing her second round of dramatics with an exasperated plea and the questions: Do you not believe that the climate is falling apart? Did you look at whats going on in the West Coast on climate change? Are you against the scientific opinion that climate change exists? She proceeded to emphasize a second time that she is 78 years old, which apparently makes her viewpoints more valid than those of people who are younger than her, as well as reiterate that she is a multi-millionaire. I built a big company and I know good and I know bad, and I think your going in to head up NOAA is very, very bad. And when I decide something is very bad, I know as a citizen I have a right to express my opinion, she further ranted, threatening to call Legates repeatedly for as long as it takes to get him to quit. As it turns out, Legates is one of only a few real climate scientists who, like real scientists of old, actually questions basic, and even not-so-basic, as William M. Briggs puts it, tenets of science. This is how legitimate science develops, improves, and becomes better over time. All that has, of course, changed for the better, Briggs writes sarcastically about how the new model, especially for climate science, is to rely on political agendas that can never be questioned. One has to admit that this change makes doing science much easier, he adds, jokingly. Used to take years, even decades, of gruesome and mostly vain toil to ferret out flubs in theories, and even longer to discover fixes. Now all we have to do is check with the press and we know all the right answers. We will keep you posted if we hear of any more angry phone calls being left for Legates by the angry climate fanatic. If you enjoyed this story, you can find more like it at ClimateScienceNews.com. Sources for this article include: WMBriggs.com NaturalNews.com Fresh infections in Maharashtra came further down to 14,348 on Saturday, which took the case count to 1,430,861. Active cases also reduced slightly to 258,108, accounting for 18.03% of the total. The toll climbed up to 37,758 after 278 casualties were reported. Of them, 151 deaths were in the past 48 hours, another 64 were from the past week, while the remaining 63 fatalities were from the period before that, health officials said. Fresh infections have not gone up in almost two weeks. However, officials said that they have to wait for more time to draw any conclusions as there are chances that cases are likely to rise in the backdrop of fresh relaxations in the lockdown. Statistics released by the state health department showed that fresh infections were rising till the second week of September, but later they went on a downward trend. In the first week of September, the Covid-19 cases reported were 130,789, second week 153,972, third week 148,365 , fourth week 126,773 and in the past five days (till October 3), it has reported 79,708 infections. The trend is relieving as it indicates that the situation is coming under control. It also signifies that we are on the right path. However, we will have to wait for some time to reach any conclusion as fresh relaxations will come into effect from October 5, which may result in a surge in cases, said a senior official from the state health department. The state has declared to allow hotels, food courts, restaurants and bars to operate at 50% of the total capacity from October 5. It has also allowed all industrial and manufacturing units of non-essential units to operate in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). Trains originating and ending their journey within the state have been allowed to restart with immediate effect. Dr Subhash Salukhe, chairman, communicable diseases prevention control and technical committee of the state, said that this is a signal of plateauing of cases, however, if people at large did not co-operate, then we will be pushed back to the previous position After a protracted period of nearly a couple of months, the overall situation seems to be improving. We see this as a signal of plateauing of cases, however, we need peoples cooperation. If they follow all the basic precautions and dont step out of their homes in large numbers during Dussehra and Diwali, unlike in Ganesh festival, then a downward trend by November is possible. If people dont co-operate, then we may have to face consequences, Dr Salunkhe said. Despite comparative decline in cases, casualties from the pandemic are yet to reduce. Other states dont have even half the casualties compared to Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu has reported second-highest number of deaths 9,586 in the country. The case fatality rate (CFR) is reducing, but that is due to the high daily infection rate. On Saturday, states CFR was recorded at 2.64%, making it second after Punjab. The CFR of Punjab was 3.01% (with 3,501 deaths) till Friday, according to the information shared by the state medical education department. Mumbai continued to report the highest number of cases across the state as it recorded 2,402 infections on Saturday, pushing its tally to 212,462. Of them, active cases were 29,314. It has also recorded 46 deaths. Pune city contributed second-highest infections in the daily caseload as it recorded 1,077 cases, taking its tally to 158,903, while Pune district became the third-highest contributor with 721 cases, pushing its count to 64,487. The combined tally of Pune goes to 1,798 cases. The state also completed 7 lakh tests with 75,093 tests conducted on Saturday. The tally stood at 7,035,296. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Facebook, Twitter, and Google CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai have agreed to testify before the US Congress on October 28. This comes a day after the US Senates Commerce Committee decided to subpoena the three top executives ahead of the US Presidential Elections. Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter agreed to appear before the US Congress on October 28. The development was first reported by The Washington Post, which said that the hearing is said to be related to the proposed amendments to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The hearing will be related to changes being considered in the Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act of the United States. Section 230 protects social media platforms from lawsuits over posts made by users on their platforms. The US Justice Department unveiled its proposal to amend the Section 230 last week. The amendment seeks to remove protections for online platforms. It comes as a result of an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump in May after Twitter started fact-checking his tweets. Twitter, in its response said, Jack has voluntarily agreed to testify virtually before the Senate Commerce Committee on October 28 - less than a week before the US Presidential Elections." Twitter also cleared its stand on Section 230 in its response. The platform said that it has made its views clear on reactionary and politicised attempts to erode Section 230." It said that the amendments to the Section 230 threaten the future of online speech and Internet freedoms. Alleged political bias remains an unsubstantiated allegation that we have refuted on many occasions to Congress. It has also been widely disproven by independent research," the micro-blogging site said in a series of tweets. Facebook also agreed to attend the hearing, while Google did not comment, according to the Washington Post report. Weve made our views clear on reactionary and politicized attempts to erode #Section230. They threaten the future of online speech and Internet freedoms. Reasoned and productive debate is essential. https://t.co/LlxCiFVBLX Twitter Public Policy (@Policy) October 2, 2020 Both Zuckerberg and Pichai had earlier testified before the US Congress in July, along with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Zainab Abiola, a counsel representing the suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, has sworn an Affidavit of Truth to insist that Ayo Salami told her and others that he regrets chairing the presidential panel probing Mr Magu. PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Ms Abiola and her counterpart, Tosin Ojaoma, quoted Mr Salami as saying he regrets heading the panel. Both counsel are members of Mr Magus defence team and have been attending sittings of the panel, which has been sitting in camera at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. However, following the report, Mr Salami issued a rare statement on Tuesday in which he described the claims by the two lawyers as false. I have no cause to express any regret over my chairmanship of the commission, he wrote in the statement he personally signed and sent to journalists. READ ALSO: Mr Salami added that I have never appointed any of the two lawyers or any other person(s) to speak on my behalf as I can express myself without recourse to the lawyers of the persons we are probing. As an eminent jurist, who retired as the President of the Court of Appeal. But when PREMIUM TIMES confronted the two counsel on Wednesday, in separate interviews, about Mr Salamis rebuttal of their claims, Mr Ojaoma maintained that Mr Salami made the comment while Ms Abiola refused to stand by her earlier statement. I am ready to swear an affidavit on the matter, Mr Ojaoma told our reporter on the phone on Wednesday. How can I tell a lie on him (Mr Salami)? This is something I said two weeks ago. Mr Salami is someone that is old enough to be my father, so I would not say something he did not say, Mr Ojaoma said. Ms Abiola has now approached a high court to swear to an affidavit that what she said about Mr Salami was true. In a copy of the affidavit by Ms Abiola, seen by PREMIUM TIMES on Friday, the lawyer said Mr Salami, a former president of the appeal court, said he regretted accepting to head the presidential panel probing Mr Magu. According to the court testimony filed at the FCT High Court and dated October 2, she narrated that after the chairman of the panel expressed his regrets and said amongst other things the following specific words: I regret chairing this panel, honestly. Since 2013 I retired and went back to my place. What is all this? It is embarrassing, very embarrassing. Barrister Tosin Ojaoma went up to him and specifically said the following words: Your Lordship please dont be embarrassed and dont abdicate. This is a national assignment and we are all here for justice and everyone nodded in agreement. She noted that her claims can be verified using the CCTV cameras placed in the Presidential Villa. When PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr Ojaoma, he said he would swear to his affidavit at the court on Monday. Implications If the retired judge did express the regret, as insisted by the lawyers, it could imply he was not satisfied with the proceedings of the panel or that there was pressure being exerted on him to achieve a predetermined goal on Mr Magus case. However, if Mr Salami did not make the statement, then it could mean that the lawyers are lying against him to taint the integrity of the final report of the panel which has now concluded its sitting. But lawyers says the claim and counterclaim are distractions l. A lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, said the panel should be holding public sittings which would have avoided such altercations. I do not understand the rationale for holding the panel in secret. It is meant to be held in public, he said. If the whole essence of the proceedings is to unravel corruption, you cannot be fighting corruption in secret. So all these back and forth exchange of words is just a distraction. I do not think the government is serious in investigating Magu, and I also do not think Magu too has an unblemished record. As far as Im concerned it is just a cat and dog fight just to distract Nigerians. For me, to avoid all these, the proceedings of the panel should be held in public, he said. Another lawyer, Liborous Oshoma, said the lawyers should concentrate on their clients case and not what Mr Salami said. The lawyers should rather focus on how to prove the innocence of their client, because the affidavits either you swear to it or not, gives to no issue, and do not address the innocence of your client. Because the allegations in the public domain are damning, so by also playing to the gallery saying Justice Ayo Salami said he regrets taking up the appointment, for me, it does not prove anything, he said. Mr Salamis panel was set up following allegations of corruption and insubordination against Mr Magu by Attorney-General Abubakar Malami. Advertisements Mr Magu denied the allegations and Mr Malami refused to testify at the panel to defend his allegations saying his office does not allow such. For the vast majority of the German population there is nothing to celebrate on this day of German unity. The official German national holiday has never found a noteworthy resonance in the population, because the reunification was a reactionary event based on fraud. The Wall separated two great lies. In the East, the Stalinist bureaucrats claimed to have built socialism, and in the West, the capitalist rulers who were in personnel continuity with the Nazis, celebrated themselves as liberal and democratic. East German border guards seen through a gap in the Berlin wall after demonstrators pulled down a segment of the wall at Brandenburg gate, Berlin [Source: AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File] The result of the unification could only be a huge social regression. Any confidence, however vague, disappeared soon as capitalist reality took hold in East Germany. Workers' social rights were smashed, mass layoffs were enforced, and a huge cultural decline took place throughout the country. In the reactionary climate of the reunification, the most right-wing forces were boosted. When German political leaders are commemorating the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) 30 years ago today, the earlier promises of freedom, democracy, and prosperity, are now just pallid phrases. They are refuted daily by reality. Instead, social inequality, fascism and war are on the rise in Germany and around the world and threaten the survival of mankind. Thirty years ago, the spokespeople of the bourgeoisie had triumphantly celebrated the end of the GDR, the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the end of history. Socialism had failed, they rejoiced. Capitalism was tantamount to democracy and the highest cultural level human society could ever attain. Only the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) fought for the opposite perspective at the time. It was not socialism that had failed, we explained, but Stalinism, the rule of a counter-revolutionary bureaucratic caste that persecuted and murdered Marxists, oppressed the working class and sabotaged its international struggles. Not one of the contradictions that had made the twentieth century the most violent in history had been resolved. On the contrary, the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China was only the prelude to a new offensive against the working class and new imperialist wars for the redivision of the world. Revolutionary class struggles were inevitable. The building of a socialist party that united the international working class in the struggle against capitalism was therefore all the more urgent. Thirty years on, there is no doubt that the ICFI and its German section, the Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter (BSA, now Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei, SGP), were right. 30 years of war Just three months after German reunification in 1990, a US-led coalition, including the major European powers, invaded Iraq. Since then, Washington, supported by NATO, has been waging war without interruption. Millions have been killed, tens of millions have been forced to flee and entire societies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen have been destroyed. In the meantime, the US is preparing a war against the nuclear powers China and Russia, which threatens to destroy all humanity. In Germany, 30 years after reunification, fascists are back in parliament and hardly a week goes by without new right-wing extremist networks becoming known inside the security agencies. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is systematically courted by the state and the establishment parties because they need it to implement their right-wing policies. Many leading members of the AfD come from the police, the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) and the Secret Service. After the AfD entered parliament three years ago, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on German Unity Day, called for German patriotism, demanded that the walls of irreconcilability be dismantled and invited AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland for talks at Bellevue Castle, his official residence. Finally, the continuation of the Grand Coalition between the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats turned the AfDwhich had received only 12.6 percent of the votesinto the leader of the opposition in parliament. Members of all parties elected AfD representatives to head important parliamentary committees. The grand coalition is putting into practice the radical right-wing programme of the AfD. This applies to military rearmament as well as to inhumane refugee policies, which follow the motto deter and deport, forcing refugees into concentration camp-like facilities and allowing thousands to drown in the Mediterranean. As the BSA had warned, the German ruling class has returned to great power politics and militarism following reunification. It makes the claim (in the words of government adviser Herfried Munkler) to be the hegemon and disciplinarian of Europe, has doubled its defence budget and declared the whole world its sphere of interest. Wolfgang Schauble, who negotiated the unification agreement, has dictated brutal austerity programmes to Greece and other European countries. This goes hand in hand with the trivialisation of the crimes of German imperialism and the Nazis. When historian Jorg Baberowski defended Nazi apologist Ernst Nolte in 2014 in Der Spiegel and declared, Hitler was not a psychopath, he was not vicious, and the SGP criticised him for this, he was vehemently defended by politicians, the media and the management at Humboldt University. The Bundeswehr is now deployed in twelve countriesfrom Afghanistan in Asia to Mali in Africa. The federal government wants to massively expand these international war missions and thus continue its old claims to world power. In the new Guidelines for the Indo-Pacific, the Foreign Office recently declared the Pacific to be a German zone of influence. Germany, as a globally active trading nation, it wrote, should not be satisfied with a spectator role in military terms either. Social counterrevolution The social balance sheet of reunification is devastating. Instead of the promised blossoming landscapes, workers in East Germany have experienced a historically unprecedented social decline. State enterprises were sold for a song, dismantled and East Germany transformed into a low-wage paradise for West German companies. The Treuhandanstalt wound up a total of 14,000 state-owned enterprises, selling some and closing down most. Within three years, 71 percent of all workers had changed or lost their jobs. Together with state-owned property, the social achievements based upon it were smashed apart: the right to work, to medical care, education and child care. And as the BSA had predicted, the devastating conditions in the East were used as a crowbar to grind down social rights in the West. The Schroder-Fischer government's Agenda 2010 ensured that around 40 per cent of all workers face precarious working conditions and often do not even earn enough to meet their basic needs. While managers are paid millions and a small minority benefits from rising share and property markets, poverty has increased dramatically throughout Germany. In one of the richest countries in the world, over 2.5 million children live in poverty. In some cities in the Ruhr area, one in four children is affected. With the coronavirus pandemic, social counterrevolution is now taking on a new dimension. The ruling class is treating the lives of workers with the same contempt and ruthlessness as those of refugees. For profits to flow again, workers are being forced back into completely unsafe factories, offices and businesses. Schools and day care centres are being reopened without any restrictions. To justify this deadly policy, politicians and journalists employ the same biological and inhuman ideology as the Nazis. After hundreds of billions of euros have been thrown down the throats of the corporations and financial markets, hundreds of thousands of workers are now to be thrown onto the streets. The large corporations are using the crisis to push through long-cherished plans for restructuring and mass redundancies. The already horrendous low-wage sector is being further expanded and working conditions are becoming worse and worse. Thirty years after German reunification, however, it is not only the veil of bourgeois propaganda that has been torn apart and capitalism is showing itself in all its inhuman brutality. The conditions for toppling it are also growing. Mass protests and strikes took place last year in many countries, paving the way for future social upheavals: From Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, France, Spain, Algeria and the UK to Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa, India and Hong Kong, people took to the streets. In the USA, the first nationwide strike by autoworkers in more than forty years took place. The most outstanding feature of these struggles is their international character. They are mostly carried out by the younger generation and develop outside the pro-capitalist parties and trade unions. The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating and intensifying these social conflicts. In Germany, too, it is boiling under the surface. Workers in the public service, education, health and transport sectors, in the car, metal and steel industries are looking for ways to escape the stranglehold of the trade unions, which suppress any struggle. The younger generation is taking to the streets to protect the environment, against neo-fascism and in opposition to war. To unite these struggles into a mass movement against capitalism, the crucial question is an international socialist perspective, based on the lessons of the 20th century. Workers must understand why capitalism could be introduced 30 years ago without encountering major resistance and what political forces were at work. The division of Germany The division of Germany was based on the reactionary agreements of Yalta and Potsdam, in which the Stalinist bureaucracy of the Soviet Union agreed with the Western powers to suppress the revolutionary uprisings that were developing throughout Europe and to divide the continent into zones of influence. The Kremlin bureaucracy and the leaders of the imperialist powers feared equally that after the Second World War, as had happened at the end of the First, revolutionary uprisings against capitalism would break out. Many workers were armed in Italy, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. They had fought in the resistance against fascism. In Germany too, factory occupations and spontaneous expropriations took place everywhere. The Kremlin bureaucracy pledged to use its influence over the Communist parties in Western Europe and Greece to demobilise the armed masses and ensure a capitalist development. In return, it was assured of buffer states in Eastern Europe to give protection against another imperialist invasion. To this end, every revolutionary movement was brutally suppressed in East Germany, as in all the East European countries. The Ulbricht group, which had been flown into eastern Germany from Moscow, saw its main task in stifling every independent initiative of the working class and dissolving all independent socialist and anti-fascist committees and replacing them with its own. On this basis, it had initially been planned to leave the capitalist ownership structures untouched. It was only under pressure from the working class and Washington's increasingly aggressive policy against the Soviet Union that the bureaucrats began, in 1948, to extend the socialist property relations of the 1917 October Revolution to the buffer states. The bourgeois state remained in place, however, and even old Nazi functionaries remained in office in the lower and middle ranks. The anti-working class character of the GDR state became clear when, on June 17, 1953, hundreds of thousands of workers took to the streets against further increases in workloads and were then crushed by Soviet tanks. At least 200 workers were shot dead. The construction of the Berlin Wall eight years later was driven by the fear that such uprisings could be repeated and spread to the whole of Berlin. The Wall was an instrument to divide the working class and keep it under control. Despite this bureaucratic deformation, the transfer of socialist property relations, which had emerged from the October Revolution in Russia, represented social progress. The planned economy created the basis for substantial industrial development and increased prosperity. The Fourth International, therefore, defined the countries of Eastern Europe as deformed workers states. With the emphasis on deformed, the ICFI affirmed that the counterrevolutionary role of Stalinism historically weighed much more heavily than the limited social progress in the buffer states. It was only because the Kremlin bureaucracy made every effort to suppress the revolution in both the West and the East that the German bourgeoisie was able to stabilise its power in the western part of the country. The old fascist elites in business, politics and the state apparatus remained in power. There was to be no revolution to drive out Hans Globke (Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery in West Germany from October 28, 1953 to October 15, 1963); the industrialist Krupp dynasty, whose workshops had benefited from slave labour at Auschwitz; and former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen, who went on to found the West German secret service. The same corporations that had tortured millions of forced labourers to death, made lampshades out of human skin and pillows out of human hair, were now exploiting the West German working class again. In the slipstream of the USA, they quickly rebuilt their economic power. None of the contradictions that had led to the two world wars and ultimately to the greatest crimes in human history had been resolved by the post-war order. The German elites again pressed for greater independence and dominance in Europe. German reunification and the appropriation of the Eastern territories was, from the beginning, the revanchist goal of the German bourgeoisie. From 1970 onwards, Social Democrat leader Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik opened up markets and workers for exploitation in the East for West German industry. In the 1980s, the elites were already once again discussing how Germany, as a middle-sized power, should align itself internationally, which in the late 1980s historians dispute was already accompanied by the justification of Nazi crimes. Reunification With reunification, the imperial wishes of the German ruling class were fulfilled. It annexed to itself the territories of the GDR, which had been denied it since the defeat of the war. The German bourgeoisie did not require a single one of the 4,600 tanks the Bundeswehr possessed in the mid-1980s; it was presented to them on a silver platter by the Stalinist bureaucracy. Despite the economic successes based on the planned economy in the 1950s and 60s, the Stalinist doctrine of socialism in one country had cut off the GDR from the world market and rapid technological developments, just like the other states of the Eastern Bloc. With the globalisation of production, the export-oriented economy of the GDR, in particular, finally fell deeper and deeper into crisis. Under these circumstances, the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union decided to restore capitalism and plunder the state-owned property. In 1989, Socialist Unity Party (SED) General Secretary Erich Honecker in East Berlin hesitated to follow in the footsteps of Soviet leader Gorbachev. But the majority of the SED leadership had long since decided on taking the path toward capitalism. Even before the Berlin Wall came down, the SED Central Committee toppled Honecker and replaced him first by Egon Krenz and then by Hans Modrow, who later confessed in his memoirs, In my opinion, the path to unity was inevitable and had to be taken with determination. The vast majority of those who had taken to the streets in November 1989 against the SED dictatorship did not want the restoration of capitalism. But it became clear that decades of repression of Marxism and every independent movement of the working class had left deep marks. The demonstrations were able to be dominated by the right-wing faction of the bureaucracy and the petty-bourgeois forces of the Round Table and steered towards reunification. The events of November were not a revolution, but the beginning of a social counterrevolution that destroyed all social achievements and ushered in an unprecedented cultural decline in both East and West. It paved the way for the resurgence of German militarism and the rise of the extreme right. The Stalinist bureaucracy played a central role in pushing through this programme. As the ruling party, and later as the renamed Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), it made every effort to suppress strikes and protests against factory closures and wage cuts. It was supported in this by the Pabloites of the United Secretariat, who had broken with Trotskyism in the 1950s and transformed themselves into fervent defenders of Stalinism. In November 1989, the leader of the United Secretariat, Ernest Mandel, travelled personally to East Berlin to denounce the Trotskyists of BSA in the pages of the central organ of the Stalinist youth organisation FDJ. On the mass demonstration of November 4, the BSA had called for the overthrow of the SED-bureaucracy and the establishment of workers councils. Mandel condemned this as an impermissible intervention from outside and backed the SED. In January 1990 Mandels supporters in the United Left even joined the last SED-led government of Hans Modrow. The Pabloites, like the Stalinists, used the bureaucracy's old lie that the Stalinist dictatorship was really existing socialism. But they no longer derived from this the idolisation of the Kremlin bureaucracy, but the alleged failure of socialism. After German unification, the Pabloites entered the PDS, which today, as Die Linke, is supporting the social attacks, police state measures and imperialist interventions of the German bourgeoisie. The perspective of the ICFI The BSA, as the German section of the ICFI, was the only political tendency, which, in 1990, advocated a progressive perspective against capitalist reunification. It was able to do so because it based itself on the international perspective of the Fourth International, which had been brutally suppressed both by the Stalinists and by the Nazis. After countless Trotskyists had been murdered in the Nazi labour camps and gas chambers for fighting for the revolutionary overthrow of the Hitler regime, those who survived in the East were imprisoned by the SED regime. The Trotskyist Oskar Hippe was sentenced to 50 years in a labour camp by a Soviet military tribunal in 1949 and spent eight years imprisoned in the GDR under the worst conditions. The Stalinist bureaucracy, which had formed as a cancer on the first workers state, could only maintain its power by physically annihilating the leaders of the October Revolution and an entire generation of revolutionary Marxists and by suppressing and falsifying Marxism. Far more than imperialism, it feared Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition, who declared that the gains of the October Revolution could only be defended against the bureaucracy in a political revolution. Trotsky had already foreseen in 1938 that the Stalinists would otherwise restore capitalism. Either the bureaucracy, becoming ever more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers state, will overthrow the new forms of property and plunge the country back to capitalism; or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism, he wrote in the founding program of the Fourth International This position was defended by the International Committee since the 1950s, against the revisionist positions of Pabloism, which claimed the emergence of the deformed workers' states represented proof of the progressive role of Stalinism. Based on this historical understanding of Stalinism, the BSA equally opposed the West German bourgeoisie, the Stalinist bureaucracy, and the petty-bourgeois forces of the Round Table and their pseudo-leftist appendages, who worked together for capitalist restoration. When hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 4, 1989, party members smuggled masses of leaflets across the heavily guarded frontier. In these it stated, The political revolution, the overthrow of the counter-revolutionary bureaucracy by the working class in the Soviet Union and other countries dominated by it was an integral part of the programme of world socialist revolution. Only through the political revolution can the achievements of October, especially the state-planned economy, be defended and purged of all bureaucratic degenerations, can the Soviet and Eastern European working class be united with its class brothers in the capitalist West for the completion of the world socialist revolution and the construction of socialism. The BSA based its intervention on the assessment of the Trotskyist world movement. The ICFI had already warned in the 1980s, when enthusiasm for Gorbachev was at its height, that he was preparing for capitalist restoration. The globalization of production had increased the pressure on the isolated economies of the Eastern bloc and stripped the basis of the Stalinist program of building socialism in one country. Gorbachev responded by seeking to integrate the Soviet Union into the world economy on a capitalist basis and defending the privileges of the bureaucracy, as Trotsky had predicted, by transforming it into capitalist private property. The ICFI had understood that the crisis of the Stalinist regimes was an expression of a crisis of the entire imperialist world system. The globalization of production had increased the contradiction between the world economy and the nation-state on which capitalism is based and exacerbated the conflicts between the imperialist powers. Far from entering into a new and triumphant period of capitalist ascendancy, imperialism stands on the brink of a new bloody epoch of wars and revolutions, declared David North, chairman of the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site, on 6 January 1990, The new equilibrium that will be necessary for capitalism will only be worked out after a period of profound struggles and eruptions of all sorts, of wars and revolutions. In other words, contradictions have been set into motion that cannot be peacefully resolved. So this is the question confronting the working class, that it must resolve this crisis on a progressive basis or it will be resolved by capitalism on an extremely reactionary one. North also explained that the collapse of the Stalinist regimes was an expression of the bankruptcy of all nationally oriented bureaucracies. Just as the breakdown of the Eastern European regimes signifies the collapse of the national program of the Stalinist bureaucracies, the defeats experienced by the working class in the capitalist countries during the past decade demonstrate the bankruptcy of the national program of the social democratic and reformist bureaucracies. Just as there is no place for a nationally-isolated socialist state, there is no place for trade unions based on national-reformist policies. Both analyses have been fully confirmed over the past 30 years. After 30 years of incessant wars, the imperialist powers continue to arm and prepare more and more openly for a Third World War. This strengthening of militarism and the historically unprecedented social polarization are the reason for the return of fascism in all imperialist countries. The former nationally oriented workers' organizations have transformed into purely bourgeois organizations that play a key role in smashing the last social rights of workers and preparing imperialist wars. At the same time, resistance to these policies is growing. The perspective of international socialism, which has been defended only by the International Committee, is the key issue under these conditions. As in the first half of the last century, humanity faces the alternative: socialism or barbarism. The construction of the SGP and sections of the ICFI in other countries is the most important condition for overthrowing capitalism and preventing a relapse into war and fascism. Lucknow, Oct 3 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has recommended a CBI probe into the Hathras incident. The decision came after a high-level meeting of the concerned officials. Earlier on Saturday, DGP H.C. Awasthi and additional Chief Secretary (Home) Avanish Awasthi had visited the family of the 19-year-old girl who had succumbed to assault injuries at a Delhi hospital earlier this week. New Delhi: A massive protest has been planned by several groups in front of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo on Saturday (October 3, 2020). This comes in the backdrop of protests which have already taken place in front of the Chinese mission earlier this week. Around 50 activists protested in front of the Chinese embassy in Japan in groups of five, which was as per COVID-19 protocols. This week also saw representatives from Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, Mongolia and Japan addressing the media at the Japanese parliaments building on Thursday, October 1. The representatives criticised growing human rights violations within China especially in Tibet and restive province of Xinjiang and in Hong Kong. The focus was on the imposition of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, the expansion of labour camps in Tibet and crackdown in Xinjiang. Interestingly, the imposition of the Chinese language in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was also brought up. Anti-China protest has happened in Mongolian capital Ulaan Baatar over the imposition of Chinese language in China' inner Mongolia region. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo will be visiting the country as part of his Asia visit next week. A 22-year-old Revere man has died and another man has suffered life-threatening injuries following a crash in Norwood early Saturday, according to Massachusetts State Police. Just after 2:30 a.m., a state police trooper tried to stop a speeding car on Interstate 95 North in Sharon. The car did not stop and continued traveling at a high speed, state police said in a statement. The trooper got authorization to pursue the speeding car. Then, moments later, the car crashed near Exit 11 in Norwood, state police said. EMS and firefighters were requested at the scene by the trooper. The 23-year-old, who state police believe was driving the car, was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A 20-year-old Revere man, who state police believe was the passenger in the car, was taken to Boston Medical Center with life-threatening injuries. No other cars were involved in the crash, state police said. The investigation is ongoing and state police said no further information is being released at this time. Editors note: state police have verified the man who suffered fatal injuries was 22 years old. Initially, state police issued the incorrect age. For Latino voters across the country, the issue of lax border policy versus Trumps hawkish stance on illegal immigration isnt settled. Rather, it is possible that the rise of the Latino Republican will defy the conventional wisdom of many GOP strategists and pundits: that restrictionist border policy, or anything deviating from the status quo before Trump what amounts to de facto open borders could alienate Latino voters. It is possible that Latinos in border states such as California and Texas are getting behind Trump because of his hardline stance on this issue, which is directly related to GOPs messaging on law and order. Historically, there has never been any consensus among Latinos on the issue of illegal immigration. In fact, for many Latinos, especially workers in the agricultural industry, hardline stances were quite common. Caesar Chavez is one of the most admired populist figures in American history, and he had no tolerance for illegal immigration. The leader of the United Farm Workers union, Chavez described illegal immigrants as wetbacks who threatened unionized workers. As long as we have a poor country bordering California, he said in 1972, its going to be very difficult to win strikes. Chavez believed that illegal immigrants would drive down wages and weaken union negotiating power. How did Chavez respond when U.S. government failed to secure the border in the late 70s? Armed with bats, chains, and barbed wire, Chavez and his fellow union members (all of whom were Latino) set up tents along the border of California and Mexico and proceeded to attack Mexican nationals who tried to make a run for it. The line was a hundred miles long. The effort was a success, according to Chavez. He didnt hesitate in declaring it so. In 1994, 30 percent of California Latinos voted in favor of Proposition 187, also known as the Save Our State Initiative. Prop 187 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional. Its provisions would have banned illegal immigrants from Californias public-school system and required providers of non-emergency health care to verify the legal status of a person seeking assistance. There was backlash against the proposition, especially among Latinos. Over 70,000 Latino immigrants protested in Los Angeles. But that 30 percent was not at all insignificant. Several academic studies, which investigated why Latinos would vote for the proposition, were published years later. Story continues Even today, there is still no consensus among Latinos. In 2018, for example, 58.5 percent of Latino voters said they supported Trumps immigration policies even though they disliked the president. Over 50 percent of respondents want stronger immigration laws, while only 18.3 percent said that current immigration law was too strict. Furthermore, in a recent Washington Post survey, 69 percent of Latinos favored shutting down almost all immigration amid the coronavirus pandemic. There is also the issue of law and order, which is high among Latinos concerns in the aftermath of this summers riots. In an early-June poll conducted by ABC News/Ipsos, 54 percent of Latino Democrats supported sending in the military to restore order in cities, and 60 percent of all Latino voters were amenable to military presence. What do these figures have to do with Trumps immigration policies? Upholding law and order in cities is not entirely different from upholding law and order on the border, and Latinos who support law-enforcement agencies and the military intervening in cities might prefer that the border be secured and that immigrants enter the country legally. As stated earlier, historically, this was the case in California. The idea that all immigrants, Latinos, and blacks are guaranteed to vote for Democrats in the long term is a delusion, as is the idea that all Latino voters are driven away from the GOP because of Trumps immigration policy and his xenophobic rhetoric. Now more than ever, citizens are privy to the medias hysteria about white supremacy, and Trumps past comments about illegal immigrants seem completely irrelevant during a pandemic, recession, and season of rioting. If Republicans want to be the party of law and order that broadly appeals to all demographics, then perhaps they shouldnt be equivocal on the issue of illegal immigration. More from National Review The International Display Workshop 2020 (IDW 2020), the annual event of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), will take place from October 20-22, for the first time organized by Vietnam. The event includes the Ministerial Roundtable and Forum Sessions associated with development of the digital world, and a Virtual Exhibition with national pavilions of member countries and those of leading corporations in the world. The event is expected to have the participation of many ministers of ITU member countries, leaders of international organizations, leading organizations and experts on ICT and digital economy. The Ministerial Roundtable is an important activity of the ITU Digital World 2020, co-chaired and operated by the ITU Secretary General and the Minister of Information and Communications of Vietnam. The conference consists of 3 discussion sessions with the participation of ICT ministers of member countries. Ministers of many countries have registered to participate in the Ministerial Roundtables, including the Minister of Economy and Digital Transformation of Spain, the Minister of Transport and Communications of Finland, the Minister of Economic Development of Italy and the Ministers of ICT and digital economy of African and Latin American countries. Turning the pandemic into opportunity for better social change The roundtable session at ITU Telecom World Exhibition 2019, Hungary Ministers will focus discussion on the topic of the role of ICT in the prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic and the cooperation between ITU and member countries in implementing digital transformation programs. This is also an opportunity for Ministers and business leaders to have a dialogue on policies and strategies to further promote the essential role of ICT in the prevention of Covid-19 and economic recovery. Introducing ITU Digital World 2020, the ITU website emphasizes: We are living in an era that never existed - globalization, exponential technological changes, the climate crisis - and now COVID-19. However, Albert Einstein said: 'In the middle of difficulties is opportunity.' Our challenge is to use the pandemic as an opportunity to change our society, our environment, and our lives for the better." Ministerial Roundtables will have the participation of ministers, management agencies and business leaders to discuss broadband development and the role of connectivity in the context of a global pandemic, and the role of technology in the national digital transformation strategy. This is also an opportunity for the public and private sectors to exchange views, adjust supply and demand in connection, and identify ways of faster economic recovery through cooperation. H.P The Ghana Police Service has commenced investigations into videos which show persons dressed in political paraphernalia campaigning in Police vehicles. The Police in a disclaimer issued today said the Inspector General of Police, Mr James Oppong-Boanuh had directed the Director-General Police Professional Standards Bureau (PPSB) to investigate and bring up a report on the matter. The press release added that officers found culpable of the unsanctioned act will be sanctioned accordingly. "The attention of the Police Administration has been drawn to videos and pictures showing people with political party identity apparently rallying in Police vehicles," the press release said. "The Administration does not sanction acts of these nature. The Inspector-General of Police, Mr James Oppong-Boanuh has therefore directed the Director-General Police Professional Standards Bureau (PPSB) to investigate and bring up a report on the matter, for officers who are found culpable to be sanctioned accordingly. "The Police Service is committed to its avowed principle of impartiality. The general public should be assured of the performance of police duties without fear or favour". The police statement comes hours after the flag bearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Mahama in a Facebook post (below) described the incident as unacceptable and unprofessional. Mr Mahama in his post shared a video which showed persons dressed in New Patriotic Party (NPP) paraphernalia rallying in the bucket of a Police pick-up. He posted: "Unacceptable conduct and unprofessional. The bastardization of our institutions is one of the outcomes of this failed leadership". Read the entire statement below; PRESS RELEASE DISCLAIMER PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIRECTORATE POLICE HEADQUARTERS POST OFFICE BOX 116 ACCRA 02 OCTOBER, 2020 1. The attention of the Police Administration has been drawn to videos and pictures showing people with political party identity apparently rallying in Police vehicles. 2. The Administration does not sanction acts of these nature. The Inspector General of Police, Mr. James Oppong-Boanuh has therefore directed the Director-General Police Professional Standards Bureau (PPSB) to investigate and bring up a report on the matter, for officers who are found culpable to be sanctioned accordingly. 3. The Police Service is committed to its avowed principle of impartiality. The general public should be assured of the performance of police duties without fear or favour. 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 Fighting around the Nagorno-Karabakh region was reported overnight and throughout Friday (October 2). The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry released drone footage of what they say were targeted blasts on Armenian military hardware on Friday night. The Armenian defence ministry also released footage of several explosions which took place the same day. Nagorno-Karabakh reported 51 more military casualaties on Saturday. The ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan said Azeri forces had again launched rockets towards its main city, Stepanakert. Just a week after the opposing sides began pounding each other with tanks and missiles. The clashes are the worst since the 1990s, and raise the risk of a wider regional war that could draw in Russia and Turkey It comes amid deepening concern about stability in the South Caucasus, where pipelines carry Azeri oil and gas to world markets. Armenia said on Friday it would work with Russia, the United States, and France on renewing a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev told Al Jazeera on Friday that the Minsk group had failed for the past three decades to make progress on the dispute Adding that a ceasefire could only be achieved if Aremian forces withdrew. The Prairie Doc: Do your part for the person across the table columns COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Investigative Unit agents cited a Port Clinton bar in violating state health orders put in place to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Agents visited Burns Brew House Friday night and gave the establishment administrative citations in connection with limitations on consuming alcohol on the property, according to a news release from the Ohio Investigative Unit. Agents went to the establishment after getting complaints of the place selling alcohol after the 10 p.m. last call. Agents went in about 11:15 p.m. and saw patrons inside of the bar still drinking alcohol, the release says. Other establishments that got cited for similar violations are Centra Grill in Shadyside and The Little Bar in Columbus. These cases will go before the Ohio Liquor Control Commission for potential penalties, including fines and/or the suspension or revocation of the establishments liquor permits. Read more coronavirus coverage on cleveland.com: Greater Cleveland Columbus Day Parade canceled due to coronavirus Gov. Mike DeWine, Fran DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted are each negative for coronavirus State Rep. Joe Miller of Amherst tests positive for coronavirus 24 new COVID-19 coronavirus cases confirmed in Cleveland, no new deaths: Friday update Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Rob Portman test negative for coronavirus after recent exposure to President Trump Michigan Supreme Court Strikes Down Governors Emergency Powers Law The Michigan Supreme Court has struck down an emergency powers law used by the states governor to keep the lockdown and other restrictions in place amid the CCP virus pandemic. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has repeatedly used the 1945 law to extend her state of emergency over the past several months to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The split 4-3 ruling on Friday declared unconstitutional the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act, the law that allows the Michigan governor to continue to declare a state of emergency, maintaining them without legislative approval. Most recently, on Sept. 29, Whitmer extended the state of emergency until Oct. 27. Her order is the basis for restrictions in the state regarding business operations, gathering sizes, mask mandates, and more. In an opinion, the majority of the court wrote, We conclude that the Governor lacked the authority to declare a state of emergency or a state of disaster under the EMA [1976 Emergency Management Act (pdf)] after April 30, 2020, on the basis of the COVID-19 pandemic. April 30 marked the last day that the Republican-controlled state legislature authorized Whitmer to declare a state of emergency. They added, Furthermore, we conclude that the EPGA [1945 Emergency Powers of Governor Act (pdf)] is in violation of the Constitution of our state because it purports to delegate to the executive branch the legislative powers of the state governmentincluding its plenary police powersand to allow the exercise of such powers indefinitely. As a consequence, the EPGA cannot continue to provide a basis for the Governor to exercise emergency powers. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the state during a speech in Lansing, Mich., on April 13, 2020. (Michigan Office of the Governor via AP) Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, a Republican, praised the Michigan Supreme Courts decision. The Supreme Court ruled today in agreement with the legislature that the 1945 law is unconstitutional. The governor had no right to extend the state of emergency over the Legislatures objection. Our Constitution matters, and this was a big win for our democratic process, he announced on Twitter. We will now continue our partnership with our governor. We will work through this challenge as our Constitution requires and as we always have in times pasttogether. The courts decision comes on the same day that a group called Unlock Michigan submitted more than 539,000 signatures in a petition that sought to repeal the 1945 law. Yvette Clark, a county coordinator for the effort, told mlive.com that people who signed are sick and tired of [Whitmers] draconian, communistic agenda. Whitmer said in a statement following the ruling that her orders remain in effect for at least 21 days, which appears to be referring to a 21-day period in which the governor can seek a rehearing from the states high court. Todays Supreme Court ruling, handed down by a narrow majority of Republican justices, is deeply disappointing, and I vehemently disagree with the courts interpretation of the Michigan Constitution, Whitmer said in her statement on Friday. Right now, every state and the federal government have some form of declared emergency. With this decision, Michigan will become the sole outlier at a time when the Upper Peninsula is experiencing rates of COVID infection not seen in our state since April, she contended. She added, It is important to note that this ruling does not take effect for at least 21 days, and until then, my emergency declaration and orders retain the force of law. Furthermore, after 21 days, many of the responsive measures I have put in place to control the spread of the virus will continue under alternative sources of authority that were not at issue in todays ruling, Michigan as of late Friday has reported 139,996 cases of the CCP virus, and 7,110 deaths linked to the virus, which emerged from Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Pupils are now encouraged to tap words out on tablets and computers. But writing by hand may help them learn better, a study suggests. The coordination involved in precisely moving a pen to form individual letters is believed to be good for the brain and boosts memory. When writing by hand, they showed greater activity in the areas of their brain linked to learning [File photo] Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology studied 12 children aged 12 as they typed or wrote. When writing by hand, they showed greater activity in the areas of their brain linked to learning. And similar results were found in tests carried out on 12 adults. Professor Audrey van der Meer, senior author of the study, said: Learning to write by hand is a bit slower but its important for children to go through the tiring phase of learning to do it. The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. ACMI has put together a series of Isolation Guides for viewers either overwhelmed by content or with nothing on their watchlist. Travel the world from your armchair, learn a new skill online, dance your lockdown blues away, and browse their selection of feel-good videos and music. Sydney Contemporary presents 2020 is a digital iteration of the Australasian international art fair. The month-long experiential project takes visitors through more than 450 works created during a turbulent year and explores the range of experiences that these artists have encountered. Until Oct 31, free, sydneycontemporarypresents.com.au FAMILY See the penguins of Phillip Island waddle across the beach every night with Live Penguin TV, a livestream that starts just after sunset. Phillip Island Nature Parks haven't been able to welcome visitors on-site, so they have decided to broadcast this natural phenomenon into lounge rooms instead. Every night at sunset, free, penguins.org.au YEREVAN/BAKU: Armenia said on Friday it would work with Russia, the United States and France on renewing a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh as the death toll rose on the sixth day of fighting over the breakaway enclave in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan, which is fighting ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, has not responded to a call for a ceasefire on Thursday by the three countries - co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, which mediates in the crisis. Azerbaijan`s president, Ilham Aliyev, ruled out talks with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday, and Azerbaijan`s ally Turkey said on Thursday the three big powers should have no role in peacemaking. Also Read: Azerbaijani Army lost over 3,000 servicemen in war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh region "It is obvious that Armenia is not interested in resolving the conflict through negotiations and is trying to annex the occupied territories," Azerbaijan`s Foreign Ministry said. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement he had spoken on the phone successively with the prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, and Azerbaijan`s Aliyev, and had proposed a new method to restart talks within the Minsk group. Macron said work would start from Friday evening, as he upped his efforts to broker mediation in his role as co-chair of the OSCE Minsk group. The Armenian government said Pashinyan and Macron agreed that any use of foreign fighters and terrorists in the conflict was unacceptable, and Macron called for an immediate ceasefire. Armenia and Azerbaijan accuse each other of using foreign mercenaries in military operations. Pashinyan also talked to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a third phone call in the six days since fighting broke out, Putin and Pashinyan expressed serious concern about the involvement of what the Kremlin termed illegal armed groups from the Middle East in the fighting. Putin reiterated the need for an immediate ceasefire. The senior U.S. diplomat for the region, Philip Reeker, will travel to Turkey, a NATO ally, on Saturday for talks on the situation in the Caucasus and other issues, the State Department said on Friday. More fighting was reported overnight and throughout Friday. Nagorno-Karabakh`s defence ministry reported 55 new military casualties, taking the death toll among its forces to 147. SHELLING Eleven civilians have been reported killed and at least 67 wounded in the mountainous enclave, which is part of Azerbaijan but is run by its mostly ethnic Armenian inhabitants. The Azeri prosecutor`s office said 20 civilians had so far been killed and 55 wounded in Armenian shelling. Azerbaijan has not reported on casualties among its military forces. The OSCE called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to enable the repatriation of the remains of fallen servicemen. Clashes broke out on Sunday between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. The enclave is not recognised internationally as independent, and has been the subject of conflict since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The fighting is more serious than at any time since a war in the 1990s in which 30,000 people were killed, and has deepened concern about stability in the South Caucasus, a region where pipelines carry Azeri oil and gas to world markets. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said European Union leaders discussed the crisis at a summit in Brussels and said a ceasefire was needed as soon as possible. Armenia`s Foreign Ministry said the country was "committed to a resolution of the conflict through peaceful means." "We will continue to adamantly repel Azerbaijan?`s aggression but, at the same time, are also ready to engage with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs on a ceasefire based on the agreements of 1994-1995," it said, referring to an earlier ceasefire. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that a lasting ceasefire could be achieved only if "Armenian occupiers" withdrew from Nagorno-Karabakh. Aliyev has said Armenia`s demands over Nagorno-Karabakh are unacceptable. "EVERYONE ... IS AFFECTED" Pashinyan told U.S. national security adviser Robert O`Brien by telephone that a ceasefire would be impossible unless "mercenaries and terrorists" are removed from Nagorno-Karabakh. France has accused Turkey of sending Syrian mercenaries to the tiny enclave and Russia has expressed concern about the alleged deployment of fighters from Syria and Libya. Turkey and Azerbaijan have dismissed those accusations. Each side accused the other of mounting new attacks on civilian targets on Friday, including by firing across their shared border which is well to the west of Nagorno-Karabakh. All-out war over Nagorno-Karabakh would risk drawing in regional powers Russia, which has a military base in majority Christian Armenia, and Turkey, which has said it will stand by mainly Muslim Azerbaijan. Civilians across the region are increasingly worried. Cahanquba Quliyeva, a 28-year-old architect in Baku, the Azeri capital, said she was worried her husband and brother would be called up to fight. "We only saw this in the movies. And now we are going through that ourselves in real life," she said. In Yerevan, food technologist Eduard Vlasyan, 30, said: "At the moment this is a full-scale war. If we give Karabakh to them, they will demand Armenia next time." India says no to free flow of digital data at G20 meeting Indian officials made it clear that it is not in a position to accept the concept of Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT), which was originally proposed by former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe at the G20 summit last year. Piyush Goyal said India is of the view that the concept of DFFT is neither well-understood nor is it comprehensive enough in the legislation of many countries. 'Moreover, in view of the huge digital divide among countries, there is a need for policy space for developing countries who still have to finalize laws around digital trade and data.' Cartoonist: Satish Acharya Source: Sify 'Want to know whose body was burnt that day': Kin seek answers Mamata Banerjee to protest Hathras gang-rape, to take out a rally SIT will look into all issues raised by victim's family: Officials Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has recommended CBI probe in the Hathras gang-rape case on Saturday. (File photo) Marking key developments in the case on Saturday, top officials of the Yogi Adityanath-led government have been rushed to meet the family members of 19-year-old Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped and assaulted by four men in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras village on September 14. The district administration had clamped prohibitory orders in the village, restricting access of people to the victim's family members on Saturday. In a second attempt, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have decided to go to Hathras on Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the 19-year-old victim who died earlier this week in Delhi. Catch all the major highlights from Saturday here: Chau Van Liem Street in District 5 in Ho Chi Minh City has become a place where aphrodisiacs are sold illegally. The stall of a 50-year-old woman named L (Photo: Nguyen Son). These products are provided at small cigarette stalls along the road, which also offer sexual aid products. The sellers sit on the sidewalk in a long line, each equipped with a small glass box. Such glass boxes are less than a hundred meters from each other. The sellers of sexual enhancement drugs who disguise themselves as cigarette traders are ready to provide buyers dozens of varieties of medicines at different prices. A VietNamNet reporter visited the stall of a 50-year-old woman named L to ask for female aphrodisiacs. The woman was not surprised at the request at all. She said she could provide anything that the customer needed. As the reporter asked to see goods before paying, the woman took a plastic bag from the glass box, which had several small packs inside. She showed the reporter several packs, saying that these are female sex drugs imported from Thailand. The price was VND300,000/pack ($14). While the reporter was examining the product, the woman opened the glass box again to take out another plastic bag that contained what she called a female arousal drug originating from Japan. This product cost VND500,000 a bottle. She also said that she had female sex pills from the US, China ... with prices ranging from VND100,000 to VND500,000 a bottle. She claimed to be able to provide buyers with large volumes of these items and was willing to deliver them to door for free. Leaving the stall, the reporter stopped at the stall of a woman of around 40 years old. Unlike the previous woman, she seemed to be reserved and wary of strangers. She was in no hurry to admit selling female sex pills until the reporter asked for the third time. This woman also said that she sold many kinds of sex drugs of different origin and prices. Pointing towards her glass box, she said: Depending on the quantity, the prices of medicines are different. For example, this box of 12 bottles is sold for VND120,000 a box. I do not sell a single bottle." After introducing this "popular, cheap" drug, the woman took out a black plastic bag containing many square boxes of about 10cm high. This is an American product. It is quality but cheap, only VND40,000/box, she advertised. The seller says that this is the most powerful female aphrodisiac, which is colorless, odorless and tasteless. (Photo: Nguyen Son). Observing this product, the reporter noted that it is of unknown origin and had no expiry date. On the two sides of the pillbox are only a few rows of information in English stating that this drug works to help women get excited and should be used 10 minutes before having sex. The seller explained that if the bottle is not opened, the drug can be stored for a very long time. There is no instruction on the box because for these things, the seller will guide the customer. She said that she was selling many types of aphrodisiacs for women that are produced in various textures such as liquid, powder, tablets, gum, perfume ... but the liquid medicine is most popular. Be asked how to use it, she did not hesitate to give the reporter instructions: "If you use powder, lets put it in the drink of the person you want to have sex with, stir it until it completely melt. The water texture is easier to use, just pouring it in the drink." At another aphrodisiac stall, the reporter was advised not to mix the medicine into lemon juice, orange juice because the acid will dissolve the drug, making it ineffective ... Lawyer Bui Quoc Tuan, from the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, told VietNamNet that for products that are physiological enhancers, depending on the chemical composition to manufacture products, they can be classified into pharmaceuticals or functional foods. However, according to the current law, in order to trade in the market, pharmaceutical products/functional food must be registered for a marketing license. In addition, if the product is classified as a pharmaceutical product, the dealer must obtain a certificate of eligibility for drug business in accordance with the law. For the products of sexual ability enhancers sold on the pavement like the cases that VietNamNet reported, if the seller does not have license for circulation nor certificate of eligibility for drug trading, it will be illegal," Mr. Tuan said. Nguyen Son The Vatican Secretary of State is in Milan for the 150th anniversary of PIMEs presence in China. It is necessary to continue the dialogue so it can bear greater fruit, the Cardinal says. In these two years, I have noticed signs of growing closeness among Chinese Catholics who have long been divided on many issues. By Vatican News The Provisional Agreement the Holy See signed with the People's Republic of China, concerning the appointment of bishops, is only a starting point, which already has brought some results. It is necessary to continue the dialogue so it can bear more substantial fruit, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vaticans Secretary of State, in the opening speech at a conference on "Another China: Time of Crisis, Time of Change. The conference, organized by the PIME Missionary Centre in Milan, celebrates 150 years of presence of the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in China. Overcoming misunderstandings In his address, Cardinal Parolin describes the history of the Church in China, and shows that since the time of Pius XII, the Holy See has felt the need for dialogue, even if the circumstances of the time made it very difficult. The Cardinal explained that all the Popes from St Paul VI to Pope Francis have sought what Benedict XVI described as the overcoming of a difficult situation, of misunderstandings and incomprehension that did not benefit either the Chinese Authorities nor the Catholic Church in China. Pope Benedict XVI himself, Parolin said, approved the draft agreement on the appointment of bishops in China, which was only signed in 2018. A genuinely pastoral agreement Cardinal Parolin clarified the Holy Sees position by once again rejecting political readings of a genuinely pastoral agreement. Some misunderstandings have arisen, he said. Some of these, he explained, come from attributing objectives to the Provisional Agreement that simply do not apply to it; others, from linking the Agreement to events in the life of the Church in China that are foreign to it, or to political issues that have nothing to do with the Agreement. I remind you once again that the Agreement of 22 September 2018 concerns exclusively the appointment of bishops, Cardinal Parolin said. Chinese Bishops in commmunion with Bishop of Rome The Secretary of State acknowledged the existence of many other problems concerning the life of the Catholic Church in China. But it has not been possible to deal with them all together, he said. We know that the road to full normalization will still be a long one, as Benedict XVI foresaw in 2007. The question of the appointment of bishops, however, is of particular importance. It is, in fact, the problem that has caused the Catholic Church in China the most suffering in the last sixty years. For the first time in many decades, said Parolin, today all the Bishops in China are in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Those who know the history of the Church in China, he continued, know how important it is that all Chinese bishops are in full communion with the universal Church. Until two years ago, the possibility of new illegitimate ordinations had always remained open. For this reason, the Secretary of State emphasized, it was necessary to face and resolve this delicate problem definitively with an agreement whose aim is to help the local Churches enjoy greater freedom, autonomy and organization, so that they can dedicate themselves to the mission of proclaiming the Gospel and contributing to the integral development of the person and society. Only a starting point Emphasizing that the Provisional Agreement is only a starting point, Cardinal Parolin noted that nonetheless, in these two years, he has seen signs of growing closeness among Chinese Catholics, who have long been divided on many issues. This is important, he said, precisely because the Pope has, in a special way, entrusted to the Catholic community in China the commitment to living an authentic spirit of reconciliation among brothers and sisters, making concrete gestures that help to overcome the misunderstandings of the past, even of the recent past. In this way the faithful, the Catholics in China, will be able to bear witness to their faith, a genuine love, and also open themselves to dialogue between all peoples and to the promotion of peace. After a lackluster inauguration, Maryland's community college scholarship rebounded with an influx of applicants this year. But funding for the tuition-free program fell victim to the coronavirus pandemic as the state scrambled to cover the cost of combating the coronavirus. Now, a program that barely registered with residents in its first year has nearly 3,000 people on a waitlist in its second - and $3.5 million less to spend. The demand outstrips what the state says it can supply as the public health and fiscal crisis is far from over. But the economic devastation unleashed by the pandemic makes the scholarship even more critical for Maryland residents enveloped by the recession. The loss of funding for the Maryland Community College Promise scholarship arrives at a difficult time for the state's community colleges. The schools are contending with their own budget cuts and a decline in fall enrollment as the recession takes a heavy toll on the population they traditionally serve: students from low-income households. "Our students are the people working at your restaurants, they're the ones working at your stores. Those students are exponentially impacted by this crisis," said DeRionne Pollard, president of Montgomery College, one of Maryland's largest community colleges. "We know that enrollment is probably going to continue to contract because students won't have the money to go to school." Maryland is one of 30 states that cover tuition at community colleges, part of a national movement to use higher education to strengthen the local economy. College Promise programs, as tuition-free initiatives are commonly known, have resonated with elected leaders across the political spectrum, and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has pledged to make them universal. In Maryland, the community college scholarship provides up to $5,000 to students whose families earn less than $150,000 a year and adults earning less than $100,000. The state covers tuition left over after factoring in other scholarships and grants. Similar to the other state programs that have emerged in recent years, Maryland College Promise has had its share of growing pains. The eligibility criteria were complex and restrictive, some deadlines changed midstream, and students complained of not getting timely responses to their questions. But this year was different. Advertising kicked off early, with community colleges, high schools and the Maryland Higher Education Commission reminding students throughout the year to apply. And legislative fixes to some requirements of the scholarship expanded the pool of applicants. The program, which was exclusively focused on recent high school graduates, opened to adult learners. In a state where the average community college student is 25 years old, eliminating the age restriction is significant, advocates say. State legislators also ended a requirement that recipients live in the state after graduation for as many years as they receive tuition assistance under threat of the scholarship being turned into a loan that must be repaid. Those changes yielded significant results. The higher education commission, which administers the scholarship, identified 16,100 eligible people based on their families' reported income from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, or Maryland's version of the financial aid form. Of those who were eligible, 5,798 people qualified for the award because they had unmet need, meaning their tuition was not covered by other state or federal financial aid, according to the higher education commission. They were given until the end of July to submit a transcript showing they earned a grade-point average of at least 2.3 the first semester of their senior year in high school and completed high school or earned a GED. But weeks before that July deadline, the fate of the scholarship took a turn. With Maryland facing a multimillion-dollar shortfall from the coronavirus pandemic, the Board of Public Works cut $413 million out of the state's budget at the beginning of the month, including $3.5 million from the scholarship. That left $8 million in funding for the grant program and created a waitlist of 2,966 people - more than double the number of students awarded scholarships this time last year. "The unintended consequence of trying to balance the budget is now we're not meeting the need and the intent of the promise program," said Bernard J. Sadusky, executive director of the Maryland Association of Community Colleges. State Sen. Paul Pinsky, D-Prince George's, who championed an early version of the scholarship bill and the legislative fixes, said the program was a "victim of circumstances." State lawmakers had approved $15 million for the first year of the grant, but the low uptake resulted in less funding for the scholarship this year. And then the pandemic siphoned off more dollars. "Everyone is going to be in the cue for money given covid and the shortfall in revenue, but I don't have to make a case for the need" to fund the scholarship, Pinsky said. "We have close to 3,000 people waiting in line." Maryland is in a better financial position than expected this spring, with revenue forecasts this week suggesting the state has enough money to avert deep budget cuts. There is no assurance the state's improved financial outlook will translate into more dollars for the scholarship program, but the governor's office is looking into the funding shortfall. "State budget officials are working closely with the Maryland Higher Education Commission, and exploring options to help more applicants," said Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. "We're very encouraged by the increased interest in the program." Sadusky fears the shortfall in funding for the promise scholarship contributed to the lower head counts at some area schools this fall. Enrollment is down at nearly all of Maryland's 16 community colleges, reflecting a nationwide trend that has many in higher education worried. Community colleges educate some of the neediest students within higher education and their absence this fall could threaten the gains of the last several years in closing equity gaps. Preliminary data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found an 8 percent decline in enrollment at the nation's community colleges. The ever-present health risks of the pandemic and the disproportionate economic impact on lower-income families are rattling the sector. The loss of tuition revenue at Maryland community colleges is being compounded by reductions in state appropriations, which plummeted by more than $36 million dollars, or 13 percent, in the summer. "I applaud the state for the commitment to small businesses and being the safety net for so many Marylanders," said Pollard, of Montgomery College. "I also want them to keep in mind that post-secondary education is a part of that safety net." As it stands, the fall headcount at Montgomery College is down about 5 percent compared to the same time a year ago. One bright spot is increased enrollment in shorter, seven-week courses, specifically those focused on network technology and other disciplines that could lead to immediate work, Pollard said. At Prince George's Community College in Largo, President Falecia D. Williams also noted greater interest in accelerated programs, although the overall headcount is down about 4 percent. Students at the community college used every dollar of grant aid available to them this semester, an indication they are experiencing greater financial need, Williams said. "There is a resource gap . . . that has put our students in a bit of instability," Williams said. Microsoft Gold Partner "MERP, as a certified GOLD Partner with Microsoft is now able to better address digital modernization strategy of our customers", said Sudhee Maddur, MERP Systems (MERP), a leader in implementing Microsoft Power Apps platform, Dynamics 365, SharePoint, and other Microsoft technologies including Microsoft Azure, is delighted to announce its Gold Certified Partner status accreditation in the Microsoft Partner Program. MERPs competency in the areas of development, deployment and maintenance of Microsoft Technology based applications is duly recognized through this partnership. As a Gold Certified Partner, MERP has demonstrated their expertise with Microsoft technologies and proven ability to meet customers' needs. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners receive a rich set of benefits, including access, training, and support, giving them a competitive advantage in the Microsoft channel. We are pleased to have attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program. As a Gold Certified partner, MERP commits to continuing its delivery excellence to our wide spectrum of customers including Federal, State & local, and not-for-profit organizations, that we service, said Nivita Ganesan, MERPs President. Microsoft Gold partnership is a testament to an organizations ability to support digital transformation, business process modernization, and cloud transition using Microsofts leading low-code Power Platform to deliver the best value to customers. "Having attained this competency, MERP is now able to better address our customers unique set of requirements and offer specific skills and services in support of their digital modernization strategy", said Sudhee Maddur, Vice President at MERP. This achievement will continue to help reinforce our customer's trust in MERP as an expert adviser for their long-term strategic technology plans. About MERP Systems MERP Systems, Inc. (MERP) is a CMMI Level 3 SVC appraised IT services organization that specializes in enabling and enhancing communications and collaboration business systems for customers. MERP's digital transformation consulting practice is centered around Platform as a Service leveraging technologies such as Microsoft Power Apps platform, Dynamics 365/CRM, Microsoft Azure, CRM portals, and SharePoint. MERP is a certified Microsoft, Salesforce, Appian, Adobe, and Acquia partner. MERP is currently a participant in Small Business Administration (SBA)s 8(a) program. MERP is headquartered in Herndon, VA. For more information, visit https://www.merpsystems.com Congress wrkers gathered in large numbers as party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra crossed the DND flyway to meet the family of the alleged gang rape victim of Hathras, on Oct 3, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News Congress wrkers gathered in large numbers as party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra crossed the DND flyway to meet the family of the alleged gang rape victim of Hathras, on Oct 3, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on their way to Hathras via the DND flyway to meet the family of the alleged gang rape victim, on Oct 3, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on her way to meet the Hathras gang rape victim's family via the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway, on Oct 3, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on her way to meet the Hathras gang rape victim's family via the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway, on Oct 3, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Oct 3 : Dramatic scenes erupted at the Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND) flyway after the police resorted to mild lathi charge over hundreds of Congress workers, compelling party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to come out and shield a party worker who was being baton charged by police personnel. The UP Police resorted to lathi charge after the Congress workers refused to leave the DND flyway even after five Congress leaders were allowed to visit Hathras to meet the family members of the victim. Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, after holding talks with police officials, climbed on the rooftop of his car to announce that five Congress leaders had been allowed to visit Hathras to meet the victim's family. But his request did not change the sentiments of party workers, who wanted to accompany him to Hathras. After the vehicle in which Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka were travelling reached the toll area of the DND, the police resorted to lathi charge to disperse the massive crowd. Several Congress workers were injured in the sudden lathi charge. Sensing that party workers were being baton charged by police personnel, Priyanka Gandhi came out of her vehicle and rushed into the crowd to shield a party worker. Priyanka held the arm of the worker and pulled him near the divider of the toll gate. Rahul Gndhi rushed out of his car and brought a water bottle for him. The two leaders then provided water to the party worker. Rahul then asked the worker, "kya hua" (what happened). To which the party worker responded that 'bahot maara hai bhaiya' (They've beaten me a lot). The Congress leaders then made the injured party worker sit in their vehicle and proceeded on their journey. Several Congress workers and mediapersons were also injured in the sudden lathi charge by the police. Delhi Congress chief Chaudhary Anil Kumar and Women's Congress chief Sushmita Deb led the procession on the DND. They climbed on the rooftop of a vehicle and raised slogans against the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government led by Yogi Adityanath. Following the travel plan of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi along with several party MPs to Hathras, hundreds of Congress workers arrived at the DND, that connects Delhi with Noida. The Congress workers kept on raising slogans like 'Jab jab Yogi darta hai, police ko aage karta hai', 'UP government murdabad' etc. The police closed all the lanes at the DND to prevent Congress leaders from entering Uttar Pradesh. Following the massive deployment at the DND flayway, there was heavy traffic jam on the DND. However, after orders from the administration five Congress leaders were allowed to travel to Hathras to meet the family of the 19-year-old girl, who died on Tuesday at a government hospital. On Saturday afternoon, while leaving from the party headquarters at Akbar Road, Priyanka Gandhi was seen driving the Toyota Innova car with Rahul Gandhi sitting by her side on the front seat. However, she switched the seat and came back to the rear seat as there was a huge traffic jam on the DND. It was Rahul and Priyanka's second attempt to visit Hathras. On Thursday, Gandhi was pushed to the ground by Uttar Pradesh Police personnel when he was marching towards Hathras after their vehicles were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway in Gautam Budh Nagar. The 19-year-old girl, who died on Tuesday at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, suffered fractures, paralysis and a spinal injury after the savage assault. (Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in) Cookies op Tweakers Tweakers maakt gebruik van cookies Tweakers is onderdeel van DPG Media en maakt gebruik van cookies, JavaScript en vergelijkbare technologie om je onder andere een optimale gebruikerservaring te bieden. Functionele en analytische cookies die door Tweakers zelf geplaatst worden, worden gebruikt om de website goed te laten functioneren, bezoekersstatistieken bij te houden en a/b-testen uit te voeren. Ook kan Tweakers hiermee het gedrag van bezoekers vastleggen en analyseren. Cookies kunnen daarnaast worden gebruikt om op Tweakers advertenties te tonen die aansluiten bij je interesses. Daarbij kan gebruikgemaakt worden van bezoekersprofielen die door derden zijn opgesteld. Ook kunnen derden je internetgedrag volgen, zoals bijvoorbeeld het geval is bij embedded videos van YouTube. Tot slot kunnen cookies worden gebruikt om op sites van derden relevante advertenties te tonen. Content van derde partijen, zoals embedded videos van YouTube, wordt met een trackingvrij abonnement standaard uitgeschakeld. Indien je deze content wilt zien, kun je hier expliciet toestemming voor geven. Wil je meer informatie over cookies en hoe ze worden gebruikt? Bekijk dan ons cookiebeleid. Accepteer cookies ... Om deze pagina op Tweakers te kunnen bekijken, moet je cookies accepteren. Cookies accepteren Heb je al een account? Dan kun je hier inloggen! Danjuma Elisha, the Commandant, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), in Imo State on Saturday in Owerri paraded 29 persons arrested for allegedly engaging in illegal mining activities in various locations. The commandant said the suspects were arrested following a directive by Governor Hope Uzodimma to crack down on illegal mining operators in the state. He said the arrests were effected by a combined team involving the military, police and the Federal Road Safety Commission among others. Mr Elisha said he would conduct the profiling of the suspects before charging them to court. We are here to work and we must carry out the governors directive to its fullest by ensuring that the environment is safe for all. Illegal mining is impacting negatively on the lives of people in Imo. It is one of the causes of landslide and heavy flooding, so we will not allow it to happen again, he said. The Commandant said the feat was achieved following the synergy of operations existing among security outfits in Imo. Kelechi Nwokocha, one of the suspects, who pleaded for forgiveness, also told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that he was in the business for seven years. I was arrested at Worie River at Nekede Old Road. I am aware that we are doing illegal business and our mining activities are impacting negatively on the environment. If I am given a second chance, I will not go back to illegal mining again, he said. NAN reports that Mr Uzodimma had recently announced a ban on illegal mining and directed security agencies to crack down on suspects. (NAN) Democrat Joe Biden offered sympathy to President Donald Trump over his coronavirus diagnosis on Friday while casting the moment as a reminder of the worldwide health crisis that has hit the United States particularly hard. Shortly after the White House announced Trump would spend a few days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Biden campaign said it would take down its negative advertising. Biden said from the battleground state of Michigan that it cannot be a partisan moment and that Americans must come together as a nation. Speaking from the parking lot of a union hall while wearing a mask, Biden said that Trump's diagnosis is a bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously." Its not going away automatically," Biden added. One month before Election Day, Biden faces a unique moment in what has already been a chaotic presidential campaign. He must balance his opponent's illness and its destabilizing effect on Washington while making a closing argument that the coronavirus is serious and requires stronger leadership in the White House. Biden has long offered a contrast to Trump in substance and style when it comes to the coronavirus, which has killed more than 205,000 Americans and more than 1 million people worldwide. Hes issued multiple plans for dealing with the public health and economic implications of the pandemic, while Trump has largely left state and local officials to create their own guidelines and frequently contradicts his own public health experts. Biden has taken a low-key approach to in-person campaigning, largely keeping a thinner schedule of small, socially distanced events and adhering closely to state and local public health recommendations regarding masks. Meanwhile, Trump has proceeded with large in-person rallies where attendees often go maskless, and he regularly mocks Bidens decision to wear a mask in public. The contrast between the two candidates was made even starker Friday as the president laid low in the White House before leaving for the military hospital. Trump confirmed the results of his test in an early Friday morning tweet, leaving much of Washington scrambling to assess the potential fallout, with little clarity on who in the administration may have been exposed and who had been tested. Meanwhile Biden, who spent 90 minutes on stage with Trump in their Tuesday debate, went forward with a planned event in Michigan on Friday afternoon after testing negative. Some Democrats were careful to avoid gloating over Trump's diagnosis after his consistent flouting of health guidelines, aware of political implications of being seen as celebrating the presidents illness. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading progressive figure, called news of the presidents infection tragic. I personally dont think its appropriate for us to be talking about how a diagnosis of a disease is a political play, she said. I hope that this rallies the country to socially distance, to get more serious, if they havent, about mask-wearing and making sure that we are taking spread of this disease seriously. Democratic strategist Maria Cardona said Biden doesnt need to tell voters explicitly that he was right. He doesnt need to say I told you so. History is saying I told you so, she said. The VP just needs to continue to abide by what he has before: His true North has always been science, evidence, truth, the experts, and keeping the well being of voters front and center, and that will continue to be the case. Jesse Ferguson, a former Hillary Clinton spokesman, said Trump's diagnosis crystalizes the stakes of the presidential campaign on the pandemic. Americans dont need to just be reminded that theres a problem. They need to be reminded that there is an antidote," he said. "Theres a better way to combat this fire. The development comes at a pivotal time in the campaign. The Biden campaign just began launching in-person canvassing, after largely focusing on virtual events because of the pandemic. Biden himself ramped up the pace of his campaigning earlier this week with a seven-stop train tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and he was planning to venture out West next week for his first campaign event in Arizona. The Biden campaign declined to comment on whether those plans would change in the days ahead. Meanwhile, Trump has canceled all his in-person events, with plans to hold them online. Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh slammed Biden for his campaigns decision to begin in-person campaigning after expressing concern for volunteers safety for months. Joe Biden is a complete hypocrite because after months of saying door-to-door campaigning was dangerous and would kill people, his campaign is now engaged in doing just that because he knows hes getting outworked on the ground, he said. But some Republicans acknowledged this marked a role-reversal of sorts, as West Virginia GOP Rep. Alex Mooney said, noting that the president will be unable to engage in the massive rallies that have long fueled the energy behind his campaign. Bidens been hiding in his basement for months but now hes coming out to do in-person rallies, he said. And now Trump will have to do them by Zoom. ___ Jaffe and Kellman reported from Washington. Life After Prison The state - and determined volunteers - are helping "returned citizens" navigate a changed world. by Larry Eiler From the September, 2020 issue We thought we'd need only a third of the conference room at the county sheriff's community center. But by 6 p.m., so many people were coming in that one of the partitions was pulled back. As a line formed at the sign-in table, and the other partition also was removed. We ended up filling the room. The mood was electric as old friends recognized one another, hugged greetings, and introduced their families. By 6:55, all the seats were taken, people were standing along the side and back walls, and others were watching on a large TV in the outer waiting room. What warmed this avid crowd that cold day in February was a shared past address: the forty or so guests of honor were all former inmates of the Michigan Department of Corrections. People who have committed felonies, been found guilty, and incarcerated used to be called "ex-cons." I think of them as "returned citizens." I organized the meeting with a nonprofit called A Brighter Way to bring together groups that help former prisoners renew their lives. Most are emerging into a world vastly different than the one they knew before they were imprisoned. "It is always harder to adjust to leaving prison than to enter," Leroy Pickett tells me. "When you leave, you're on your own and have to establish the things you do daily. Prison days have a routine, and when you enter, that occupies you pretty much all day except when you sleep. Relying on yourself alone is tough when you have been told totally what to do and when." Pickett spent twenty-six of his fifty-four years in fourteen different MDOC facilities. Now out for seven years, he acts as an informal mentor to people released more recently. I saw this in action at our first meeting. Neatly dressed and cordial, he alternated between being in person with me and talking on the phone. He later explained that it was a "disconsolate 'troubled' phone friend ...continued below... who I needed to befriend."I didn't ask him about the crime that put him away, but he talks freely about how his life took a wrong turn."My mother passed away when I was six," he says, so he was raised by his grandmother. "She was straightforward and tough but always enthusiastic and never wallowed in self-pity. 'Don't you ever go out and embarrass me,' she often said."She worked at cleaning nice homes many hours a day. I always abided by her admonitions because she really cared for me and I would never fail in that belief ... When she died, I went bad, because I got mixed up with the wrong crowd."That led him to prison. "In prison there is a rustle and bustle," he says. "You are in a caged animalistic environment. No one looks at you like a human being, and there is an unspoken but real missing existence of truth."People lie because they know nothing else. Lying is the norm. There's just a taboo [against] trust and honesty. Integrity must all come from within."He found that in his memories of his grandmother. "When my prison terms ended, I knew some of her core values were embedded in me," he says. "I realized she was the heart and soul of my life. She taught me right is right, wrong is wrong, and everything in between was up to me."---"Who has made a mistake in their lives?" asks Ari Weinzweig, cofounder of Zingerman's and an employer of released prisoners who need jobs. This is a question he often asks groups where he speaks.All raise their hands. "Who has made a mistake today?" All hands go up. "I raise mine too," he recounts. "We have all made mistakes. I've made lots of them."Many of us get through a mistake or get away with it. Or we forgive folks who looked the other way or forgave or let us apologize and rebuild trust."But some of us don't get that second chance. For reasons of systemic bias, or bad luck, or no backup resources, we were not around folks who could pull strings to help us. Sometimes folks end up in prison."But just because that happened to them--justified or not--there is no reason not to give them a second chance."We have hired some returning citizens who have been awesome," Weinzweig says. "Has every one of them worked out? No."But neither has every college graduate. The more we can help those trying to get their lives back in the right direction, the better they become."Just down Detroit St. from Zingerman's Deli, Phillis Engelbert also hires returned citizens at the Detroit Street Filling Station. "Every one of us needs a new chance at some time in life," she says. "I made it my way to help others and have employed more than 100 folks whose past records I know in general but whose futures I want to help them build." And three years ago, Engelbert helped launch the nonprofit Youth Justice Fund to aid returning citizens sentenced to prison at a young age.---There are roughly 38,000 people in Michigan's prisons, according to Kyle Kaminski, MDOC's legislative liaison. The good news is that the number has been declining--it was about 44,000 five years ago, and 51,000 ten years before that.Last year, 8,600 people were released on parole, and about 500 were discharged without a term of supervision. The other good news is that fewer are going back.Fifteen years ago, Kaminski says, 47 percent of parolees had a serious parole violation or were convicted of a new crime within three years of discharge. For the most recent group tracked, it was 29 percent.Kaminski attributes the drop to a shift to evidence-based programming and supervision techniques, including increased availability of substance abuse programming and a greater focus on post-release employment and self-sufficiency."Michigan's reentry system is one of the strongest and most mature in the country," Kaminski says. It tries to address both the risks and needs of offenders, like education and employment training.The state will help prisoners secure driver's licenses or state IDs prior to their release as well as vital documents like birth certificates. Afterwards, it will pay transitional housing costs for up to ninety days for eligible individuals. Locally, that program is managed under contract by Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County (CSSW).When Pickett was due to be released, he moved into a CSSW house. "Housing, employment, and transportation are the three parts of my new life that I knew I had to handle first after serving my time," he says. He's now working at Ruth's Chris steakhouse and rents an apartment on the southeast side.Peg Bravo, CSSW's president and CEO, says they've been working with the MDOC since 2006. "We have broad collective experience in forensic psychology, social work, and criminal justice to help the parolee population," Bravo says. "We see the value of giving people a new start after incarceration.""Successful reintegration back into society ... is much more than meeting basic needs," says CSSW program manager Virginia Willey. "We are keenly aware of societal prejudices, community barriers, and life stressors our clients encounter when released."Kaminski calls this work "navigation support," because CSSW staff help guide the transition from prisoner to returned citizen."I've seen people in prison persevere through barriers and obstacles that I could not overcome if faced with the same circumstances," offers CSSW resource specialist Kristin Anderson. "I had a female client who gave birth to a son in prison. When paroled, she came to live at our housing. She soon found two jobs. Our offender success program allows our clients to work miracles" as they return to society.---Executive director Cozine Welch describes A Brighter Way as a small group of motivated people who want to "go figure" what society can do for returned citizens. Welch recently succeeded founding executive director Aaron Suganuma. Al Newman, longtime area entrepreneur, chairs the board and guided ABW in obtaining its nonprofit status.ABW provides education on the challenges returned citizens face and supports them through individual and group mentoring."Coming back after a long prison term requires relearning all the basics of life you first encountered as a youth and teenager," says Pickett. "It is not written down in a book or a syllabus for a class on how to reenter or how to talk about the cause of your prison term. Mentors are a huge need for returnees to learn the structure of life in the world.""Mentoring can be a key aspect in individuals navigating this system successfully," agrees MDOC's Kaminski. There are mentoring programs in many Michigan prisons. Some are prisoner-to-prisoner, while others use volunteers from outside. Some are secular, but many are organized by religious groups."Early on, success was often simply the absence of failure in terms of returning to prison," Kaminski says. "That has now shifted, and while recidivism is an aspect of success, so are employment, job retention, and self-sufficiency."As we look forward, the question ultimately is how can the state and communities more effectively engage to support additional measures of success, such as family reunification, the reduction of poverty, the increase in educational attainment including post-secondary credentials, and an increased sense of agency for the individual and involvement in the community."That will take renewed discussion among the various stakeholders about how to achieve these goals," he continues, "This will also include discussion of what resources exist in the community, where redundancies exist, where gaps remain, and ultimately how these resources can be leveraged by those who would benefit from them ..."One of the major challenges for MDOC is there are countless well-intentioned people and groups, but coordination is a real issue in some areas. The MDOC has worked on structure through regional administrative agencies and the steering teams that are supposed to help guide them."One thing I continually stress is to determine which aspect of reentry is best for these groups. Focus on that." To work together effectively, volunteer groups "need to focus on organizing and seeking to provide a specialized service consistently and effectively." Kaminski recommends that those interested in helping speak to Catholic Social Services and be prepared to take a realistic look at how they collectively meet an unmet need in the community.Though coordination remains a challenge, "Ann Arbor has lots of good people who want to help us succeed," says Joe Johnson, who was incarcerated for thirty-eight years before his release in January 2019. "ABW helps me with a mentor and road map to navigate the new streets rather than me just returning to my old haunts where trouble used to be around every corner."Malachi Muhammad, forty-six, ended his twenty-nine-year sentence last November. He talked by phone with ABW's Suganuma before his release, and after getting out was hired as a dishwasher by Engelbert. That lowly job, Engelbert points out, "has grown in importance in virus times just since he joined our team." But the virus also shrank dine-in business, so she had to let him go.He's found another food-service job in Detroit and plans to move there. Meanwhile, he's mentoring others through A Brighter Way."Just becoming a part of the ABW team gave me purpose and activities to look forward to every day," Muhammad says. "I matter, and my life means something good to help others."I also benefited from the understanding and risks on people like me with prison records taken by business owners like Phillis Engelbert and Ari Weinzweig," Muhammad adds. "They have provided jobs for lots of qualified and able returning citizens desirous to renew their lives.""The better they do, we do," says Weinzweig. "And the better our community does. Often, returning citizens are doubly motivated to do a good job. They want to show the world they can do it."Why not take a chance at helping someone who could use a second shot?" he asks. "I think we have great things to gain."---[Originally published in September, 2020.] Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesBY: WILLIAM MANSELL, LIBBY CATHEY AND EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC NEWS (WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump has received supplemental oxygen since testing positive for COVID-19, sources tell ABC News, contradicting his doctors' first briefing on the president's health Saturday in which they said Trump is fever-free and in "exceptionally good spirits." The president was having trouble breathing and received supplemental oxygen on Friday at the White House after his oxygen levels dropped, sources told ABC. This, in part, prompted the president to be transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, late Friday afternoon. He was also experiencing a low-grade fever, chills, nasal congestion and cough on Friday, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell ABC. Dr. Sean Conley told reporters on Saturday that Trump was not on oxygen "right now" but wouldn't offer a clear, declarative statement about whether the president had received oxygen treatment since testing positive. Following that statement, the press pool was told by a "source familiar with the president's health" that Trump's "vitals over last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care." Conley also said the president is "just 72 hours into the diagnosis now," creating confusion about when the president found out he had COVID-19. The White House later issued an unsigned statement from Conley saying that he "incorrectly used the term 'seventy two hours' instead of 'day three,'" and that the president was first diagnosed with COVID-19 on Thursday. Trump tweeted Saturday, "Doctors, Nurses and ALL at the GREAT Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are AMAZING!!!Tremendous progress has been made over the last 6 months in fighting this PLAGUE. With their help, I am feeling well!" Trump and first lady Melania Trump announced shortly after midnight Friday that they tested positive for COVID-19. While it is not clear how Trump, 74, contracted COVID-19, the news that he tested positive came hours after it was revealed that one of his closest advisers, Hope Hicks, had also tested positive. Since Trump announced he had coronavirus, Sen. Mike Lee, Sen. Thom Tillis, Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway have announced they tested positive for COVID-19. Vice President Mike Pence tested negative on Saturday. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris tested negative on Friday. Latest headlines: Trump was on oxygen on Friday, sources say President's doctor says he's doing 'very well' Trump rested through evening after experiencing shortness of breath Trump campaign manager tests positive Here is how the news is developing today. All times Eastern. Oct 03, 6:47 pm Biden reluctantly takes aim at Trump administration over PPE, stresses mask use Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized the White House's COVID-19 response in not providing adequate personal protective equipment for essential workers on Saturday. During a virtual town hall hosted by the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Democratic presidential candidate said he was in a "little bit of a spot" because he didn't want to attack President Trump while he was battling COVID-19. But when asked about the administration's policies toward transportation workers and a lack of PPE provided to the essential workers, Biden said it was "unconscionable" that "so many transit employees still aren't provided enough PPE to keep you safe on the job" and that "states, cities and transit agencies had to bid against one another." "If that's not the presidents responsibility, what the hell -- what the heck is his responsibility?" he later said. At another point, Biden said he told some governors not to endorse him because he worried they would pay a penalty in terms of getting what they need from the federal government to be able to effectively combat the spread of COVID-19. "I probably shouldn't say this but you know me," Biden said to the moderator, adding that he wasn't joking. During the town hall, Biden also emphasized the need to use masks while riding public transit, saying it was "appalling" that anyone would "reject the chance to do the easiest thing possible to save lives." "You wear a mask to protect the person next to you. You wear a mask to protect the bus driver," he said. Biden joined the event from a studio his campaign constructed at the Queen Theater in downtown Wilmington, Delaware. The union was one of the first to endorse his presidential campaign. ABC News' John Verhovek and Molly Nagle contributed to this report. Oct 03, 6:13 pm Chris Christie checks into hospital following COVID-19 diagnosis Hours after announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19, former New Jersey governor and ABC News contributor Chris Christie said he had checked himself into a hospital. "While I am feeling good and only have mild symptoms, due to my history of asthma we decided this is an important precautionary measure," Christie tweeted. Christie said he checked himself into Morristown Medical Center Saturday afternoon after consulting with his doctors. "I am thankful for our hardworking medical professionals and look forward to coming home soon," he added. Oct 03, 5:16 pm Trump campaign staff wore masks at event In a notable shift, just hours after Trump campaign staffers and surrogates campaigned in Iowa on Saturday with no masks, indoors and with no social distancing, the team is now wearing masks at the second stop Saturday on the "Team Trump" bus tour through the state. Trump campaign spokesperson Marc Lotter posted photos on Twitter of the second stop of the day on the bus tour, with staff outdoors and wearing masks, including Lotter, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Trump Victory senior adviser Eric Branstad. However, supporters in attendance at the event did not appear to be social distancing, were mostly not wearing masks and many appeared to be in the age range that would put them at a higher risk for coronavirus complications. ABC News' Will Steakin contributed to this report. Oct 03, 4:11 pm Pence and Harris will be 12-feet apart at debate, as Pence continues to campaign as usual Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., will be 12-feet apart on the debate stage in Salt Lake City Wednesday night, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, following a request from the Biden campaign to have more space between the candidates. The Trump-Pence campaign had previously said it was open to putting more space between the vice presidential candidates for the seated debate, with Trump 2020 Communications Director Tim Murtaugh calling it "just a matter of moving farther apart at the table." Following a negative COVID-19 test Saturday morning, the campaign announced Pence will return to the campaign trail the day after the debate in Salt Lake City, heading over to the battleground state of Arizona for a Make America Great Again event in Peoria. Asked by ABC News Saturday if there would be any changes to health precautions at Pences future campaign events, the Trump campaign said it will go on as usual -- which means supporters will only be encouraged to follow health guidelines. The campaign also continued its previously scheduled bus tour through Iowa Saturday, despite the president's hospitalization. According to a Republican source, there were no discussions on the ground about postponing the events. Pence's physician in a memorandum Friday cleared him to go about his normal activities, citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that he was not considered a close contact with any individuals who have tested positive for COVID, including President Donald J. Trump. However, Pence was among those in the Rose Garden for the Amy Coney Barrett announcement on Saturday (eight others who were there have tested positive for COVID-19) and he said he was with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday. ABC News' Molly Nagle, Avery Harper, Justin Gomez and Will Steakin contributed to this report. Oct 03, 2:46 pm McConnell awaiting Democrats' approval to postpone Senate schedule for two weeks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Saturday afternoon that he intends to try to postpone the Senate's schedule for two weeks, as three of his colleagues have tested positive for COVID-19 -- but McConnell must get Democrats on board. On Monday, I intend to obtain a consent agreement for the Senate to meet in pro forma sessions for the next two weeks. Previously-scheduled floor activity will be rescheduled until after October 19th," McConnell said in a statement. He also made clear that judiciary hearings will move forward as planned. The Senate Judiciary Committee will convene on October 12th as Chairman Graham has scheduled to begin confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barretts nomination," the statement read. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement in response calling McConnell's move to recess the Senate while proceeding with Barrett's confirmation hearings, calling it reckless and dangerous. If it is too dangerous to have the Senate in session, it is also too dangerous for committee hearings to continue, Schumer writes. The change still will not push the full Senate floor vote to confirm Barrett past the election. ABC News' Trish Turner and Allie Pecorin contributed to this report. Oct 03, 2:12 pm Trump was on oxygen on Friday, sources say Sources close to Trump tell ABC News the president was having trouble breathing and received supplemental oxygen on Friday at the White House after his oxygen levels dropped. This in part prompted the president to be transferred to Walter Reed Hospital late Friday afternoon. In addition, following that health assessment provided by doctors a Walter Reed, a senior administration official told ABC News that "according to [the president's physician] Dr. [Sean] Conley, the next 48 hours are critical for monitoring of potential illness progression." This official added that some of the presidents vitals Friday morning were "concerning." The pool was told by a "source familiar with the president's health" that Trump's "vitals over last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are still not on a clear path to a full recovery." As of Saturday morning, the president's medical team said in their briefing he is not currently on supplemental oxygen. At one point, the president's doctor said, "yesterday and today he was not on oxygen" but in another answer later he said, "Thursday, no oxygen. None at this moment. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen." Asked whether Trump has experienced difficulty breathing, Conley said, "No. No, he has not. Never did." ABC News' Katherine Faulders and John Santucci contributed to this report. Oct 03, 1:21 pm Trump was on oxygen on Friday, sources say Sources close to Trump tell ABC News the president was having trouble breathing and received supplemental oxygen on Friday at the White House after his oxygen levels dropped. This in part prompted the president to be transferred to Walter Reed Hospital late Friday afternoon. As of Saturday morning, the president's medical team said in their briefing he is not currently on supplemental oxygen. In addition, following that health assessment provided by doctors a Walter Reed, a senior administration official told ABC News that "according to [the president's physician] Dr. [Sean] Conley, the next 48 hours are critical for monitoring of potential illness progression." This official added that some of the presidents vitals Friday morning were "concerning." ABC News' Katherine Faulders and John Santucci contributed to this report. Oct 03, 12:49 pm Trump doing 'very well,' no longer has fever, doctor says Trump "is doing very well" Saturday morning, Dr. Sean Conley, physician to the president, said from Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Trump is in exceptionally good spirits and is not having difficulty breathing or walking around, Conley said. "He did have a fever Thursday into Friday and since Friday he's had nothing," Conley said, though he would not say how high Trump's fever was. "The president's been fever-free for over 24 hours. We remain cautiously optimistic, but he's doing great," Conley said. "We have monitored his cardiac function, his kidney function, his liver function, all of those are normal," Conley said. Trump will be treated with a five-day course of Remdesivir. The president is not on oxygen, Conley said. "Thursday he had a mild cough with some nasal congestion and fatigue all of which are now resolving and improving," Conley said. "The team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made." Reporters questioned when Trump last had a positive test, but Conley would not answer. Conley also raised questions about the timeline by saying the president was "72 hours into the diagnosis," though Trump's diagnosis was announced to the public about 36 hours ago. A White House administration official told ABC News that Conley "meant its day three -- not yet 72 hours." Conley did not say when Trump would be discharged. "I don't want to put a hard date on that," Conley said. This was Conleys first on-camera briefing on the presidents condition. ABC News' Elizabeth Thomas contributed to this report. Oct 03, 12:13 pm Chris Christie tests positive Former New Jersey governor and ABC News contributor Chris Christie, who helped Trump prep for Tuesdays debate from the White House on Monday, tweeted Saturday morning, I just received word that I am positive for COVID-19. I will be receiving medical attention today and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition, he wrote. I just received word that I am positive for COVID-19. I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues who have reached out to ask how I was feeling in the last day or two. I will be receiving medical attention today and will keep the necessary folks apprised of my condition. Governor Christie (@GovChristie) October 3, 2020 Oct 03, 11:56 am President's doctor says he's doing 'very well' This morning, the president is doing very well, Dr. Sean Conley, physician to the president, said Saturday morning as he provided an update on Trumps condition from Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. This morning I'd like to start by first by sharing with the president, first family, first lady are extremely grateful with the enormous outpouring of support and prayers that the whole world and country have been providing and sharing, Conley said. Trump is in exceptionally good spirits and is not having difficulty breathing or walking around, Conley said. "He did have a fever Thursday into Friday and since Friday he's had nothing," Conley said. "We have monitored his cardiac function, his kidney function, his liver function, all of those are normal," Conley said. Trump will be treated with a five-day course of Remdesivir. Reporters also questioned when Trump last had a positive test, but Conley would not answer. This was Conleys first on-camera briefing on the presidents condition. Oct 03, 11:02 am Trump rested through evening after experiencing shortness of breath While the president had experienced a shortness of breath after testing positive for the virus, Saturday morning he is not having difficulty breathing, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News. Trump went to Walter Reed Medical Center after experiencing a low-grade fever, chills, nasal congestion and cough. The president still has those symptoms on Saturday, multiple sources said. Trump rested well through the night as doctors continue to monitor and evaluate him through the weekend to determine when he can return to the White House, sources told ABC News. As of Saturday morning, the president was still feeling fatigued but was signing papers and working, the sources said. The president is still not considering any transition of power to Vice President Mike Pence. However, the president is worried, as coming down with the virus has spooked him and top aides, sources said. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who stayed at Walter Reed with the president overnight, tested negative for COVID-19 again Saturday morning. ABC News' Katherine Faulders and John Santucci contributed to this report. Oct 03, 10:45 am Donald Trump Jr. tests negative Donald Trump Jr., who attended Tuesdays debate with the president, tweeted Saturday that hes tested negative. "I'll give it a few more days out of and [sic] abundance of caution and test again and if Im clear Ill be back to work asap," he tweeted. "Thanks to all those who so lovingly have reached out It truly means a lot to us, he added. Thanks to all those who so lovingly have reached out about @realDonaldTrump and the rest of the family. It truly means a lot to us. I tested negative so Ill give it a few more days out of and abundance of caution and test again and if Im clear Ill be back to work asap. Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 3, 2020 Copyright 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. PM to chair special meeting on Covid-19 tomorrow Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is expected to chair a special meeting on Covid-19 tomorrow, according to Federal Territories Minister Annuar Musa. "Tomorrow the PM himself will chair a special meeting on Covid-19... hopefully, there will be stern and immediate action," he said in a brief tweet this evening. The Health Ministry reported 287 new cases today, with the majority in Kedah (129 cases), Sabah (113) and Selangor (31). The total cumulative cases are 11,771. To date, it's the highest daily number of new Covid-19 cases since the movement control order was implemented on March 18 Responding to Annuar's tweet, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi expressed hope that the new standard operating procedures (SOP) would curb the coronavirus outbreak. "Hopefully, the new SOP will prevent Covid-19 outbreak from becoming a more dangerous wave. "Don't be careless," he said. Zahid also called on Malaysians to come together to help overcome the pandemic. In a separate matter, Klang MP Charles Santiago told Free Malaysia Today that he and 64 parent-teacher groups have called for schools in Klang to be closed following the spike in Covid-19 cases. This comes after two students of SMK Pandamaran Jaya were reportedly infected with the virus while others were quarantined. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday evening visited Hathras gang-rape victims family and said the whole country was united in seeking justice for the daughter of India. He tweeted hours after meeting the family members of the 19-year-old Dalit woman who was gang-raped in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras by upper caste men on September 14. A fortnight later, she breathed her last in New Delhis Safdarjang Hospital and her body was cremated at midnight by Uttar Pradesh Police. The victims family members were allegedly not allowed to take part in the cremation. I met the afflicted family of Hathras and understood their pain. I assured them that we are standing with them in this difficult time and will help them in getting justice. The UP government will not be able to do anything arbitrary as it wants, because now the whole country is standing to bring justice to the daughter of this country, Rahul Gandhi tweeted. After spending over 30 minutes with the victims kin, Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi told reporters that the Congress party stood with the aggrieved family. The family couldnt see their daughter for the one last time. UP CM Yogi Adityanath should understand his responsibility. Till the time justice is delivered, well continue this fight, Priyanka Gandhi said. Rahul Gandhi said the state government must protect the grieving family. I stand with the family. It is the responsibility of the state government to ensure their safety, he said. By Express News Service SAMBALPUR: Farmers under the aegis of Paschim Odisha Krushak Sangathan Samanwaya Samiti (POKSSS) on Friday staged demonstrations across western Odisha protesting the new farm laws.In Sambalpur, the farmers staged dharna near the district Collectorate wearing masks and maintaining social distancing. Convenor of POKSSS Ashok Pradhan said the Union Government passed the farm bills without holding discussions with farmers organisations and without assessing the ground realities. It is not acceptable. Agriculture sector will cease to exist after the implementation of the anti-farmer laws, he said. POKSSS will organise meetings in villages across the region to sensitise farmers on the legislations. After taking farmers feedback, the body will launch a mass movement against the laws in the coming days, Pradhan said. Farmers leader Saroj said the new farm laws will sabotage existing institutions including Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), FCI and State Mandi Board. He said since MSP is not a legal right in the new Acts, there is every possibility that the farmers will not get their dues in private mandis. In contract farming, corporates may not abide by the agreement and reject FAQ or low quality of agriculture produce in the name of gradation. Since the majority of the farmers are small, marginal and share croppers, it will be tough for them to fight against the corporates when the agreements are violated. Saroj said there is no such thing as essential commodities under the new acts. Hence the businessmen will get ample scope for hoarding to create artificial scarcity of agriculture produce. He said agriculture and inter-state marketing are State subjects. Since the new farm Acts violate the federal structure, the Odisha Government should move the Supreme Court over the issue if it is really concerned about the welfare of farmers. Apart from Sambalpur, the farmers also staged dharnas in Bargarh, Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Balangir and Subarnapur districts. Rahul Tewatia woke me up, in the same way the IPL has woken up living rooms from the Netflix coma. For me, a passerby, an ignorant and cold spectator of the IPL, this was an unusual event. Both his name and the story of his spectacular over became a moment to sit up and take note. Especially the fact that his performance in the prior minutes was abysmal on that day. Tewatia, the name and the name bearers action woke me up and many others. Is Rahul Tewatia single? Asking for a friend. Tinder India (@Tinder_India) September 27, 2020 Indian Premier League, the mega event, turns workstations of brands and businesses into war zones. Nobody wants to miss an opportunity to connect with their audience, whether it is through advertisements, offers or simply social media posts. That evening, marketers, sitting with a hawk eye to catch an opportunity, observed Tewatias sixers and bombarded their social media with messages featuring Tewatia. War-zone like ambience of social media teams during events like these is a good example of Observe-Orient-Decide- Act- OODA Loop model. US military war strategist, John Boyd, a veteran officer known for his quickest reaction time for air attack, designed the OODA loop model. Not much is known about what went into Tewatias head in that over but a lot is known about Boyd and how he has used his strategies for his tactical wins. About John Boyd As my work involved strategy and then later entrepreneurship was appended to it, my interest in Boyds work grew significantly. Lesser known in the general management space, Boyds work is referred to in a few strategy discussions. One reason for his work not to be popularly known is that John Boyd didnt leave much documentation behind. First, let me tell you about him and then about his model. Colonel John Richard Boyd was born in 1927 and when he attained his age eligibility for voluntary military service, he joined the Army Air corps in 1944 and served in Japan. After completion of his service, he returned to the USA, studied economics and joined the United States Air Force. He became a fighter pilot and a stint in the Korean war positioned him as the leader in tactics for the squadron. When he returned to the USA, he was stationed at the Air Force Flying school where he wrote the manual, Aerial Attack Study, which is still considered as the definitive manual for the force. He was only 33 then. What I really admire about Boyd is how his urge to keep learning took him to do an engineering course at Georgia Tech, while he was still on Air Force duty. Take a look at his fascinating learning aptitude timeline school-military-graduation in economics-Air Force combat-engineering and then back to teaching at the flying school. It was during his studies that he designed the Energy Maneuverability Theory that radically changed military aircrafts designs. He went on his intellectual pursuits and wrote warfare theoryOODA Loop. He passed away in 1997. The OODA loop Observe: Like social media teams at different companies observed Tewatias action and turned it into a communication opportunity, Observe here is to take into account the details of the events happening in the environment. See an example unfold in the following images. Like an imaginary fintech company, say MadamRupaiya, may observe the amended farmer bill, see the story unfold in the illustrations. Orient: This is one of the most challenging steps in the entire decision making process. To orient is to form a mental model based on your hypothesis and observation. It is not simple. It is a totally individual experience and is governed by cultural traditions, previous experiences, genetic heritage, influences and biases. So how I orient or make a mental model about a situation is unique to me. If someone has a limited mental map or a narrow perspective, he will be restricted in his orientation, almost like watching a pyramid from an angle that looks only a triangle and taking that as the reality. Some political leaders who lead with religious biases demonstrate such limited orientation. In a business environment, the leader puts together a taskforce to this process. Members of the taskforce work individually and collectively both to arrive at decision points. Now, our imaginary company MadamRupaiya is orienting its thoughts. It is thinking of the current customer base, its understanding of lending in the agricultural space, its culture and teams ability, its competitor mapping etc. Decide: This is the time to commit to a course of action. Wait, Madam Rupaiya is now setting up a team to ally with corporates. The company is deciding to walk to the farmers fields with their corporate partners, one of them for the produce, the other to be the lending arm. Act: Get into action. Launch. Attack. Madam Rupaiya has made some inroads with the farmers. But the company learnt and observed unknown states policies. It is therefore reorienting its offerings in this state. It is called the OODA loop for a reasonhere, when you decide to act and take the actionable step you test your hypothesis, reorient, decide again and act. This is similar to MVP or minimal viable product model in innovation and startups. In the entrepreneurial world, you do not wait for a perfect product or a service. You observe the space, orient your offer and decide a course of action. As you launch the minimal viable product and gather information which becomes the base for your observation, it helps orient your decision and improve the product. OODA is not a single step, the loop is an on-going interdisciplinary process that continues. Boyds OODA loop sketch The speed of action was of critical value for Boyd. At the flying school, while working as an instructor, Boyd earned a name, Forty Second Boyd or his bet that beginning from a position of tactical disadvantage, he could defeat any opposing student pilot in less than 40 seconds. Boyds key strategy was faster use of his own mental OODA loop in air combat maneuvering. A real business example is Airbnbs story that demonstrates the model. The founders, at an age and time when they needed money to pay for their rentals while working on their projects, observed that there was a design convention being hosted in their neighbourhood. They oriented their thought process and decided to open their residential apartment to share with convention attendees who were willing to pay for bed, breakfast and internet. Observe the reaction, orient some more services, decide to use technology and act. The team exemplified an OODA loop then and it continues to observe and orient in the new pandemic-led circumstances. Orient and Decide steps are the organisations internal processes, whereas the Observe and Act parts are meant for the external world. For any company, Orient is the differentiator. It involves strategic, creative thinking, analysis, cultural understanding and becomes the step that builds the moat around an organisation. Tewatia, at the war front on that day, was able to orient and act at the right time. And, so were the social media teams. OODA Loop is a strategic tool that is based on scientific theories, but that is a discussion for some other day. The point to remember is that an OODA loop is a mental process for both an individual and the business. Machines dont fight wars. People do, and they use their minds. Col John R Boyd (Vishakha Singh, author of a forward-thinking course SHIFT, is a business strategist & a design thinking practitioner. She writes at www.habitsforthinking.in , offering insights into the ever-changing business environment.) PIGGS PEAK A shop owner, by virtue of being a taxpayer, indirectly pays firefighters salaries but when he needed their help, they refused, to render their services to him. As a result, a fire which started inside a shop owned by a businessman of Asian origin, known as Arricka Investments, which sells electronics and clothing, caused damage amounting to about E250 000. The fire is said to have been caused by a faulty electricity connection. When the fire started, Hussain Azor, who is the owner of Arricka Investments, said he first called 999, an emergency call centre but was advised to call 933. He said he dialled 933 but he was surprised when no firemen arrived. This is despite that the fire emergency service station is about two kilometres from the shop. Fuel Unlike situations where other emergency personnel complained about shortage of fuel, this was not the case at the Piggs Peak Fire and Emergency Services Station. We then went to the fire station but we were told that there was no one to assist us, said Azor. He said this was surprising because he did not understand why the same person he was talking to failed to get into a vehicle and drive to the shop to assist him. Azor said he then returned to the shop to seek help from other members of the public, including security guards from the First Action Security Service. One of the security guards was injured in the hand in the process of assisting him put out the fire. Azor said other members of the public then assisted using basic fire extinguishers as well as water which they carried in buckets. He said one of the windows had to be broken so that the fire could be put out from outside. He also revealed that the shop employed three emaSwati who had families to support. Azor said such damage could deprive emaSwati of an income. However, he assured that the shop would resume operations within the next 48 hours. The fire was eventually put out but not before causing damage amounting to at least E250 000. Disappointed Shaffi Ali, who is also an Asian businessman, said he was disappointed at the service of the fire and emergency service. Ali said this was disappointing because as a business owner, he was a taxpayer. It is through these taxes that firemen salaries are paid, he said. Ali said had the emergency personnel arrived, the damage could not have been extensive. Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Ukraine Anka Feldhusen considers that banking sector and decentralization reforms are the most successful ones implemented in Ukraine. "One of the most successful is banking reform. I think that Ukraine is a country in the Eastern Europe region where banks now work best, and that's very good," the Ambassador said in an interview posted on YouTube channel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Also, in her opinion, the decentralization reform works quite successfully. "Now we have all these united communities and the local elections which will take place in October. This is like the end of the first stage. But the process also requires the adoption of a community budget law. We work very actively with the Verkhovna Rada now, so that the law is passed before the elections and these communities get all the opportunities to decide what their priorities on the ground are," Ambassador Feldhusen noted. The diplomat added that the medical reform had also started well in Ukraine. "The coronavirus crisis shows the problems still left. Our partners the UK, Canada work with Ukrainians not to forget the initial ideas of this reform. There is a lot of money there, and since all this is public procurement, there is now a great opportunity for corruption. This issue must be addressed," the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Ukraine said. The Ambassador also praised such projects as the ProZorro e-procurement system, Diia application, which provides Ukrainians access to many public services, and Dii Vdoma application designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Ukraine. ol New Jerseys two major ferry companies have added more commuter and weekend service, hoping it will pay off in more riders seven days a week. NY Waterway and Seastreak are not just banking on commuters who are gradually returning to their offices, but on weekend travel as New York City slowly lifts coronavirus restrictions. The Seastreak ferry parking lot in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, is still mostly empty on weekdays. Heywood Jablonsky (@slurmslurper) September 14, 2020 Islamabad, Oct 3 : Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has sacked 54 employees after finding them involved in submitting fake credentials, bribery, smuggling and indulging in narcotics and theft of government record, it was reported. Friday's action by the flag carrier came after inquiries and committee reports found them guilty of the charges against them, reports Dawn news. However, 13 other employees were awarded with appreciation letters for their dedication and commitment while seven others were given monetary awards for working beyond the call of duty. A PIA spokesman said as the accountability process in the organisation was continuing, the 54 employees were dismissed from service for various charges proved against them during inquiries and committees reports. He said of the 54 employees, seven were dismissed for tampered documents, eight for prolonged unauthorised absence, two for taking bribe from customers/contractors, four for involving in illegal and immoral act of omission, one for indulging in alcohol and narcotics. He said two employees were dismissed on the charges of theft and destruction of official record, one was shown the door for smuggling, another demoted for disobedience and refusing to carry out a lawful order. Moreover, five employees were given the penalty of withholding increment for disorderly and indecent behaviour, nine awarded with reduction to lower pay scale for insubordination and another employee was served with censure notice for sleeping on duty. -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) was in the debate hall on Tuesday night, and on Friday morning went to get tested for the coronavirus. I started my morning off with a cup of coffee, Maria Bartiromo, and then a Q-Tip down my nose, he said. He expressed anger at the Trump family for not wearing masks during the debate, as they were instructed to do. The rules dont apply to them, he said. As COVID-19 cases once again rise in Russia, the federal government is preparing to cut health care expenditures. On Wednesday, the Kremlin sent a proposed 2021-23 budget to the Russian parliament that will ax spending on the medical system by 162 billion rubles ($2 billion) by the end of the fiscal cycle. The news comes as daily new confirmed coronavirus infections have nearly doubled in comparison to August lows of below 5,000. On Friday, Russia added another 9,412 infections to its almost 1.2 million total. At least 21,000 people have died from the illness. Starting next year, health care spending will fall to 1.13 trillion rubles ($14.5 billion), down about $2 billion from this years COVID-crisis high. By 2023, expenditures will drop somewhat further to 1.1 trillion rubles. In contrast, the state security services will have an annual budget of nearly 6 trillion rubles ($76 billion). Bearing in mind that Russias medical facilities found themselves woefully lacking the necessary equipment, gear, and personnel when coronavirus initially hit in the spring, and that medical needs will only grow due to the pandemic, the proposed cuts are a brazen assault on the populations life chances. Health care personnel in particular are targeted in the new budget, with expenditures on Development of human resources in health care set to fall by 15 percent. Russias doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians and other providerswhose salaries often amount to just a few hundred dollars a monthwill see further wage cuts and increased workloads. Many of these workers have never seen promised bonuses for their work on the front lines this past spring and summer. Thousands of medical providers labored under deplorable conditions to treat patients and stem the spread of the infection, with many contracting the disease themselves and hundreds dying. The effect of the cuts in federal-level health care spending will be intensified by reduced expenditures at the regional level. In order to close its budget shortfall and sustain an increase in financing for the security services, Moscow plans to reduce the amount of money it transfers to provincial governments. Local bodies, which are already suffering major shortfalls because of the economic fallout of the pandemic, will in turn have to impose cuts of their own. In St. Petersburg, Russias second largest metropolitan center, local-level health care spending is being axed, with salaries and medical supplies being the central targets. The city, which is facing $1.3 billion in lost revenues due to the COVID shutdown earlier this year, is pulling $1.2 million in funding from its leading institute for research and treatment of the coronavirus, the Botkin Infectious Disease Hospital. These measures are being implemented as cases spike, with the reproduction rate of the infection now exceeding 1. By late September, just 6 percent of St. Petersburgs hospital beds for COVID-19 patients were available, and medical centers have once again been scrambling to convert wards to handle the influx of second-wave patients. While health care workers report that they are more prepared now than previously because of a greater supply of personal protective equipment (PPE), the citys health care facilities have been crippled by years of massive cuts implemented as part of the optimization of Russias medical system, which has meant the shuttering of facilities. Between 2000 and 2015, the number of hospitals in the country decreased by well over 10,000. Over the last several years, there have been ongoing protests by medical workers against the so-called reform of the health care system. The far-eastern island of Sakhalin, off Russias Pacific coast, also just announced major cuts in government spending in medicine, welfare, education and energy. Authorities in the region, where the monthly median wage is about 57,000 rubles ($740), will ax 435 million rubles ($5.5 million) from health care alone. The assault on the Russian working class living standards is not restricted to federal drawdowns in health care spending. In the new Kremlin budget, set-asides for families with children are also being cut, as are expenditures on household utilities and support for new mothers. These measures are being implemented as millions of households struggle with wage cuts and job losses stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent study by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the size of Russias middle class has shrunk dramatically over the course of the year, with another 6.1 percent of working people entering the ranks of the poor. The Russian ruling class knows that these conditions are setting the stage of major social conflicts. By the end of the new budgetary cycle, the financing and supply of the army, national guard and security forces of the interior ministry will account for 27 percent of all federal expenditures. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 20:30:53|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TOKYO, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The confirmed COVID-19 cases in Japan increased by 577 to 85,451 as of Saturday night, according to the latest figures from the health ministry and local authorities. The figure excludes the 712 cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was quarantined in Yokohama near Tokyo earlier in the year. The death toll in Japan from the pneumonia-causing virus stood at 1,613, with four new fatalities announced Saturday. The death toll includes 13 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The health ministry also said 137 patients were considered severely ill with ventilators or in intensive care units. In Tokyo, the epicenter of Japan's outbreak, 207 new cases were reported on Saturday, hovering around 200 for five consecutive days, with the capital's cumulative total reaching 26,376, the highest among Japan's 47 prefectures. In a move aimed at tackling the spread of the virus, the Japanese Health Ministry's advisory body approved a policy on Friday to provide all members of the public in Japan with a free dose of vaccine against COVID-19. Enditem by Ati Nurbaiti People trying to stop expropriations approved by the authorities for plantations, ports and other maritime structures endure intimidation and arrests. The Church is helping victims. Offers of compensation for seized land is pitiful. The authorities are working in league with foreign groups. Jakarta (AsiaNews) The Indonesian government has major plans to develop strategic infrastructures and agricultural projects, but for farmers, fishermen and indigenous communities, this represents a threat to their livelihoods, food, water, and even homes. Attempts to stop seizures and expropriations approved by the authorities to develop plantations and build ports or other maritime structures have been accompanied by acts of intimidation and arrests of those opposed. In several Indonesian cities, dozens of people have been arrested in recent protests against an omnibus bill designed to boost investments by weakening environmental protection and facilitating land acquisitions. Despite the pandemic, Indonesian small-scale farmers have been able to support their communities, but seizures and expropriation have made them "refugees in their own land", said Dinda Nuur Annisaa Yura, president of Solidaritas Perempuan (Womens Solidarity), a human rights organisation. In East Nusa Tenggara province, home to the famous Komodo dragon lizard, dozens of indigenous families who live in the Pubabu forest were driven out in August, forced to sleep outdoors until a local church provided them with shelter. A video showing the abuses against them attracted public attention. Meanwhile, on 17 August, Indonesias Independence Day, President Joko Jokowi Widodo wore a traditional costume when he visited Timor Tengah Selatan Regency where the evictions took place. A local woman, Martheda Esterlina Selan, aka Mama Ester, told the authorities to move her and other Basipae indigenous people "out of the country" if they can prove that the seizure of their customary lands has a legal basis. We guard [this land] so that no one damages the forest, Mama Ester said in a recent webinar, noting that her community now can no longer look for tamarind and honey to sell. Lawyers say that locals have long proven ownership of the land, but some are wondering if a "land mafia" is influencing decision-making. The authorities reply that the new projects have created hundreds of jobs, growing medicinal plants like Kelor (Moringa oleifera) and trees for firewood (lamtoro). The same pattern was replicated in northern Sumatra. According to press reports, dozens of local indigenous people said they were attacked by security guards from a state-owned plantation company, as well as police and military personnel. For the People's Alliance of the Archipelago, the clash in Langkat Regency was a warning for 500 families to leave a 117-hectare area set for sugar production. Residents turned down an offer of 2 million rupiahs (US$ 135) per hectare of land. They point out that growing fruit and vegetables earns them 2.5 million rupiahs (US$ 170) a month per family. In southern Sulawesi, the Coalition to Save the Seas of Indonesia asked the Indonesian and Dutch governments to stop land seizure for the expansion of the Makassar New Port container terminal, which will displace 5,000 people. The Dutch-based dredging company that won the contract said that it has provided environmentally sustainable solutions for the development of maritime projects in 90 countries. Authorities claim that locals have accepted the compensation package, something that the latter deny. The new Makassar Port terminal is a key component in Jokowi's ambitious plan to enhance maritime links with Indonesia, the world's largest "archipelago nation". According to project managers, the development of the facility has already reduced queues in loading and unloading operations from 2-3 days to 24 hours, and is expected to cut logistics prices by 30 per cent. For their part, fishermen in the capital have protested against plans to develop a new port facility and large dam to prevent flooding. In addition to paying more for their drinking water, the plan would increase their fuel costs since they would be forced to sail further out to sea to find fish. in 2016, they had already experienced a drastic drop in income from 300,000 (US) to 50,000 rupiahs (US) a day. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Permanent Representative of Armenia to the UN Mher Margaryan gave an interview to Arab News Daily, noting that the aggression of Azerbaijan and Turkey against Armenia and Artsakh is not just an aggression against Armenians, but against the basic values of the humanity and what the United Nations stands for. ARMENPRES presents the non official translation of the interview. Question: The clashes over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh have been the fiercest since 1990s.Fears are growing over a regional war that might draw in Russia and Turkey. We are going to talk in depth about whats going on there with Ambassador Mher Margaryan, Armenias Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. Thank you so much for joining us,Ambassador. Over the past few days, France has been sparring with Turkey over the clashes. PresidentMacron has sent a very clear message to Turkey that these war-like messages are not going to be accepted by France. At the same time, we see Russia point to the foreign interference. Reuters has reported that Turkey sending foreign fighters to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh. How concerned are you about foreign interference and outside forces slowly taking part in whats happening right now? Answer: Thank you for this opportunity. As you have already mentioned, there are many credible reports about the involvement of foreign terrorist fighters and mercenaries, and there have been calls from the international community, also, from the Minsk Group Co-chairs. The foreign mercenaries, who, actually, are being recruited and transported with the support of Turkey (and we have to name the names here), have been very destructive elements, and their activities and transportation to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone needs to be stopped. Q A lot has been said about the timing of the eruption, or re-eruption of this conflict. What can you tell us about the timing? Why now? A: The belligerent actions of Azerbaijan have been preceded by many years of dangerous rhetoric of hate speech and Armenophobia, openly and consistently promulgated by Azerbaijan at the highest political level. The leadership of Azerbaijan has been promoting hate crimes and glorifying hate criminals. At the same time, they have been spending billions of dollars to acquire deadly offensive weaponry and openly threatening the people of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh with promises to use force. It comes as no surprise for those who have been following it that the statement made by the president of Azerbaijan at the General Debate of the 75th session of the General Assembly last week was not only a textbook manifestation of hate speech but also, as we have come to realize, as a declaration of war against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, with a clear genocidal intent. The offensive also comes amidst a global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, when the international community is focused on fighting the disease. Obviously, one may think that the leadership of Azerbaijan has decided to take advantage of the global vulnerabilities caused by the pandemic, also, in light of the internal instabilities that they are experiencing. This is not just an attack against the Armenians. This is an attack against the basic norms of humanity, an attack against what the United Nations stands for. Q Speaking of the United Nations. The UN Secretary-General Guterres has called for cessation of all hostilities and for all the parties to come together to a negotiating table. Of course, Azerbaijan and Armenia refused to come back to the negotiations. What can you tell us about that? What will it take to sit down and negotiate and is that a possibility, to start with? A Armenia has never refused peaceful negotiations, we have been on record of encouraging, also, the participation of the representatives of the elected authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh to sit down with Azerbaijan and to engage in peaceful talks. The UN Secretary-General has, indeed called for immediate return to negotiations and to stop fighting and deescalate tensions. It doesnt seem to be the intention of Azerbaijan to follow that call, though. I would also like to recall that the UN Secretary-General has made an appeal for an immediate global ceasefire, at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in March, he was calling for pulling back the hostilities and silencing guns, stopping artillery, ending air strikes. Armenia was one of the first countries to support this appeal, and more than 170 countries supported it, too. Azerbaijan not only refused to support the Secretary-Generals appeal but also resorted to large-scale military aggression. Q What is the role of the Mink Group today, in the circumstances we are living in? Is it still capable of containing the dispute effort to contain the dispute? Do you expect the members - France, US, Russia - to overcome their differences over other conflicts and maybe rally behind Armenia? A: The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship is the only internationally mandated format to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Co-chair countries have expressed on several occasions their unified position on the principles of the resolution of the conflict and they have made it clear that the hostilities need to stop. There have also been statements by the Co-chair countries, calling for external parties and foreign fighters to stay away from the conflict. I believe it is clear who the calls are addressed to. Q What do you think Turkey really wants out of all of this? What is your message to your international community on how Yerevan expects the world to deal with Turkey right now? A We see the Turkish involvement as another attempt of exporting instability to our region. We have been observing increasing engagement of the Turkish military in the conflict zone. This is something that needs to be condemned by the international community. The destabilizing record of Turkey, be it in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Middle East, is well known. Q How much of this is about the strategic importance of the region, being a corridor to the oil pipelines that distribute oil to markets all over the world? How much of it has to do with this important fact? A This makes the situation very dangerous and, if Azerbaijan and Turkey are not contained, it can lead to an escalation, the consequences of which can have devastating impact on the entire region and beyond. Azerbaijan and Turkey must come to their senses and head to the calls of the international community, including the recent calls of the UN Secretary General, also, bearing in mind the outcome of the UN Security Councils meeting yesterday, and need to commit to peace, in good faith. Q How do the Armenians feel about the conflict in that region that has consumed decades and caused many lives and displacement? What is the importance of this region in the consciousness of the Armenians? A The people of Nagorno-Karabakh exercised their right to self-determination in 1991. They have every right to live in their ancestral historical land, without fears or foreign coercion. The right to self-determination, which is enshrined in the UN Charter, is at the core of the issue. They have exercised this right by way of a referendum, back in December 1991, in accordance with the applicable laws of the time. Armenia, as a guarantor of the security of the people of Nagorno-Karbakh, will take every measure to defend their inalienable rights. Armenians all over the world are strongly united on this matter, because we, as Armenians, we cannot allow another genocide to be perpetrated against the Armenian population in course of the Azerbaijani military aggression encouraged and supported by Turkey. Q What about the United States? The United States has not prioritized the Nagorno-Karabakh since 2001, I believe. Do you expect a more active American role? A: The United States is one of the Co-chairs of the Minks Group. We very much appreciate their role and engagement, along with that of Russia and France. The United States has been vocal on the recent escalation, calling for immediate cessation of hostilities and discouraging external actors from getting involved in this conflict. We would very much wish to see a stronger engagement, together with the other two Co-chairs of the Minsk Group. Q Do you see the region, being what it is right now, with all the conflicts in the Eastern Mediterranean, the conflict with Iran - your Prime Minister talked today to the President of Iran - do you think all of these may be an incentive for the United States to move Nagorno-Karabakh up on its priorities? A We hope it is on the list of priorities, and we hope the Co-chair countries will continue to have a unified, cohesive position on the principles of the resolution of the conflict. Q Who wants this conflict to escalate? Who is benefiting from this conflict? A It is hard to say who would benefit from this conflict but apparently it is well known who is instigating this conflict and who has started it, not only to the expert community and the mediators but also to the larger international community. We have been observing years of accumulation of military build-ups and offensive weaponry by Azerbaijan, observing the escalation of hate speech and instigation of hatred against the Armenians, not only those who live in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia but Armenians in general, all over the world. Those are very well-documented facts, strongly criticized by the international organizations. It is no surprise that in his address to the General Assembly, the President of Azerbaijan singled out several prominent international human rights organization and criticized them for condemning the human rights violations in that country. Q Can you send a very direct message to the Azeri president? A In fact, the message to the Azeri president has been sent several times by the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan who made it very clear that any solution to this long-standing conflict must be acceptable to the people of Armenia, to the people of Nagorno Karabakh and to the people of Azerbaijan (he also clearly mentioned that this should be without prejudice to the order to the parties concerned). This very strong and very important message, however, has not been reciprocated by the Azerbaijani side. Instead, the recent instigation of violence by the leadership of this country gives very little assurance that they are able to reciprocate such a call. So, the message has been expressed loudly and clearly by the Prime Minister of Armenia. It has not been reciprocated, and the recent reckless attacks and aggression against Nagorno-Karabakhleads us to believe it will not be reciprocated any time soon. About 5:45 p.m., the girl and the man were on the sidewalk when a vehicle approached and an occupant opened fire, striking the girl in the thigh and ankle, and hitting the man in the head. The man was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead, said police. The girl was taken to Comer Childrens Hospital, where she was listed in good condition. New Delhi: Former Chief election commissioners have welcomed the cap of Rs 2,000 per person on cash donations to political parties. However, they feel that the provisions can be made more stringent as parties can still find ways to bypass laws aimed at cleansing electoral system of black money. Sceptical that parties can always hoodwink laws, they also suggest that efforts should be made to make donations to political parties totally "cashless" to usher in more transparency. The former CECs, who had proposed a slew of electoral reforms in their tenure at the Nirvachan Sadan, said the Election Commission should also be given power under electoral laws to "deregister" parties which have not contested elections for a long time as they are being used as a conduit to convert black money. As part of a major move proposed in the Budget to cleanse the electoral system of black money, hence forth, political parties can receive only up to Rs 2000 in cash donations. Announcing this, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said political parties will be entitled to receive donations by cheque or digital mode from their donors. As of now, the limit to accept political donations in cash is Rs 20,000. The poll panel had recently asked the government to reduce the cap from the present Rs 20,000 to Rs 2,000 by changing Representation of the People Act and the Income Tax Act. "It is a welcome step though not an ideal one... It is 90 per cent perfect. After all, somewhere you have to start," said former CEC H S Brahma, who was succeeded by incumbent Nasim Zaidi. He said while the cap has been reduced to Rs 2,000 now, "tomorrow, it can be zero. There are several ways to donate money now -- online, cheques, so why use cash at all in comingdays... It is a good beginning for the democracy and electoral reforms." Another former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami was a little sceptical. "What if the same story repeats...(political parties can claim) 80 per cent or 90 per cent people gave us cash, they gave us less than Rs 2,000. Then we are back to square one," he said. He said the first step has been taken to reduce the cap on cash donations, by 2018 it will be clear if substantial receipts of political parties have come from cash donations. He said if more than 10 per cent of the donations are received in amounts less than Rs 2000, "then the entire amount should be taxed". For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Tower Hamlets has become the first London borough to ask residents to stop mixing, as the Government comes under increasing pressure to place the whole city under local lockdown. The boroughs mayor John Biggs asked households to avoid meeting each other 'unless absolutely necessary' in an open letter due to a rise in coronavirus cases. Mr Biggs called the situation a 'matter of life and death' and said urgent action was required, adding that the borough had one of the highest levels of Covid-19 in London. Tower Hamlets' rate for the seven days to September 28 was 44 cases per 100,000 people, up from 38.5 the previous week. But the Labour mayor's request comes independently from the national Government, who have so far not made any move to put restrictions in place, and cannot be enforced by the council. Tower Hamlets mayor John Biggs asked residents to avoid visiting each other 'unless absolutely necessary' in an open letter due to a rise in coronavirus cases Mr Biggs wrote: 'Despite a fall over the summer, we are seeing cases of Covid-19 rise and we need to accept that the situation is once again worsening. 'Tower Hamlets now has one of the highest levels of Covid-19 in London. 'As a second rise in infections hits us, we must take all steps necessary to limit the spread of the virus and protect those most at risk.' He added: 'I am clear that the current national rules are a minimum and my advice to you all is to do everything in your power to protect each other. 'Our individual actions have consequences for us all. The next few months will be very challenging. A high-stakes political meeting is due to take place to decide whether London should face restrictions like those in Liverpool and Newcastle, it emerged yesterday. Pictured: Passengers at Canning Town Station on London underground on Friday 'Without a vaccine or more effective treatment, our primary weapon against the virus is responsible behaviour. 'Measures to curb the spread of the virus will only work if people follow them.' Deputy mayor of Tower Hamlets Rachel Blake told the Evening Standard: 'We have to be really open with people about how serious this is. 'We've got the fourth highest infection rate in London. 'Our evidence shows that households visits is a high area of transmission and that is why we are asking people to avoid visiting other households.' It came after it emerged yesterday a high-stakes political meeting is due to take place to decide whether London should face restrictions like those in Liverpool and Newcastle. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and councils in the capital have urged the Government to implement additional measures for Londoners Any such moves are likely to face a sharp uproar from businesses still reeling from the last lockdown and last week's decision to get people working from home again. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and other councils in the capital have urged the Government to implement additional measures for Londoners, but so far no extra restrictions have been put in place by ministers. A spokesperson for Mr Khan warned last week that London was at a 'very worrying tipping point' and 'immediate action' was needed to regain control of the virus. The spokesman said: 'One in three Britons will be living under tougher Covid-19 rules than the rest of the country tomorrow, despite data showing local lockdowns don't work in most places and that infection rates have actually risen. On Monday, leader of Redbridge Council Jas Athwal called for an immediate ban on different households mixing in the most overcrowded areas to prevent the situation getting worse 'From Saturday, two million residents in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough will be banned from meeting people they don't live with indoors in a bid to curtail outbreaks there.' On Monday, leader of Redbridge Council Jas Athwal called for an immediate ban on different households mixing in the most overcrowded areas to prevent the situation getting worse. 'Quite clearly I think in overcrowded parts of London we have got to be looking at bringing that in so that different households cant mix,' he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. 'Mixing face-to-face should be stopped immediately because there are problems and we are seeing there the pandemic take hold. It is only going to get worse with the flu season coming into play as well.' The Tube system is running a full service but receiving only a third of regular passengers numbers In contrast, Transport Commissioner Andy Byford urged people to use the London Underground more, saying tests by scientists had found it was clear of coronavirus. The system is running a full service but receiving only a third of regular passengers numbers. Swab tests were carried out on escalators, smartcard readers and grab handles, plus buttons and handrails on buses by Imperial College researchers. Air samples were also taken at locations including Euston and Waterloo stations. Mr Byford told the Evening Standard: 'We are ready when you are ready. The system is safe. We encourage people to use it.' Andy Byford (pictured) wants perople back on the Tube. But Tower Hamlets mayor John Biggs has told households to stop mixing One in three Britons will be living under tougher Covid-19 rules than the rest of the country tomorrow, despite data showing local lockdowns don't work in most places and that infection rates have actually risen. From Saturday, two million residents in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough will be banned from meeting people they don't live with indoors in a bid to curtail outbreaks there. It will mean a total of 22.4million Brits will be living under some form of economically crippling and socially restricting local shutdown. Ministers have justified the measures by claiming they are the only way to stop a second national wave of the disease. But data shows Covid-19 infections have doubled in the majority of areas in England that have been subject to long-term restrictions. The proportion travelling to workplaces slipped from 64 per cent to 59 per cent, after the government's guidance shifted to recommend doing it where possible Coronaphobia is back: Just 20 per cent of adults said they had met another household in a private place last week, down from 30 per cent the previous week, an ONS survey shows In 11 out of 16 English cities and towns hit with lockdowns in the last nine weeks, the infection rate has risen at least two-fold and in some cases by more than 10 times. In Bolton, Britain's current Covid-19 hotspot, there were 200 infections per 100,000 in the last seven days, up from 14 per 100,000 on July 31. In Wigan cases have risen from seven per 100,000 people to 102 in the same period. Luton is the only area in the country which has successfully managed to drive down cases far enough to break free from the shackles of a local lockdown - but even the Bedfordshire town could be slapped with restrictions once again because cases have started to rebound. Scientists, MPs and local leaders say adherence to the rules is low because they have been too 'complex and confusing' to follow. In Middlesbrough, the mayor Andy Preston said he would 'defy the government' and that his town would 'not accept these measures' because there was no evidence they would work. Coronavirus outbreak: India records 79,476 new COVID-19 cases as tally mounts past 6.47 million India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P New Delhi, Oct 03: Union health ministry on Saturday said that India's tally of the novel coronavirus mounted to 6,473,544 after 79,476 new infections and 1,069 related deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. India's touches 1 lakh Covid-19 deaths | What this means | Oneindia News According to the health ministry, the number of active cases was 944,996 and the country's death toll mounted to 100,842. The country's total recoveries from the viral disease are 5,427,706 as 75,628 COVID-19 patients were cured in the last 24 hours across the country. The national recovery rate is currently pegged at 83.84 per cent. Trump shifted to hospital after testing positive for COVID-19 "The last 10 lakh recoveries were added in just 12 days. With this, India continues to maintain its global position of being the country with maximum number of recovered COVID patients in the world," the health ministry had said on Friday. It said that 76.62 per cent of the active cases are in 10 states and Union territories and that the active cases contribute only 14.74 per cent to the positive caseload of the country. Maharashtra is leading the states' tally with more than 250,000 cases and Karnataka follows with more than 100,000 cases. Diabetics at higher risk if they contract coronavirus Of the new COVID-19 cases, 78.07 per cent are concentrated in states and Union territories. Maharashtra contributed more than 16,000, Karnataka added around 10,000 cases and Kerala follows with more than 8,000. As 10 states and Union territories account for 72 per cent of the newly recovered cases, Maharashtra has the highest number followed by Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. On Friday, 83.37 per cent of the deaths were reported from 10 states and Union territories with 36 per cent from Maharashtra with 394 deaths, followed by Karnataka with 130 deaths. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 10:20 [IST] She is currently enjoying a sun-soaked trip to Antalya, Turkey. But Rhian Sugden still appeared to keep busy with work as she was sure to set pulses racing when she shared a very busty snap via Instagram from behind-the-scenes of a photoshoot with for Pony Magazine on Friday. The model, 34, looked sensational in a plunging yellow top that she wore with a pair of white underwear while posing for the publication. Wow! Rhian Sugden put on a VERY busty display in a plunging yellow top and white underwear in behind-the-scenes shoot Pony Magazine that she shared via Instagram on Friday Rhian wore a sultry expression as she posed for the camera while wearing glasses, as she sat cross-legged in Nike socks. Her revealing ensemble highlighted her slender legs while she reclined on the sofa, and she pulled her top taut to accentuate her ample assets The blonde beauty styled her golden locks into loose waves that fell over her shoulders, and she used a light palette of make-up for the occasion. Wow! Rhian revealed earlier this week that she had jetted off to Antalya in Turkey, though she appears to still be keeping busy with work despite the getaway Earlier this month, Rhian revealed she put on a half a stone during lockdown but is embracing her new curves. She wrote on Instagram: 'Has anyone else packed on a few pounds in lockdown? Ive put on over half a stone and cant for the life of me get motivated to go to the gym. 'But putting my gym gear on is a step in the right direction right? 'I wish I was one of those people that enjoys working out and running etc... I just like eating and laying down too much.' Self love: Earlier this month, Rhian revealed she put on a half a stone during lockdown but is embracing her new curves The glamour model is married to former Coronation Street actor Oliver Mellor and the couple have been enduring gruelling IVF for 20 months. After discovering that she wouldnt be able to conceive naturally, they went through two rounds of IVF and are planning their third. Throughout the process, experts recommended she stopped using all cosmetic products that contain hash chemicals or additives, which is when she decided to go tan-free for over 12 months. Please register or log in to keep reading. No credit card required! Stay logged in to skip the surveys. Felda settlers to suffer from US ban on FGV Felda settlers will suffer from the US decision to ban palm oil imports from FGV Holdings Berhad. The National Association of Smallholders Malaysia (Nash) said a substantial number of Felda settlers rely on FGV to sell their produce. "The majority of Felda settlers sell their fresh fruit bunches (FFB) to FGV factories as one of their commitment and support for FGV," said Nash deputy president Adzmi Hassan in a statement today. He said there are more than 100,000 Felda settlers, 32,000 of which are Nash members, who will see their income affected. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Sept 30 announced a ban on the import of palm oil from FGV over allegations of forced labour. It said the ban is the result of a year-long investigation that revealed forced labour indicators including abuse of the vulnerable, deception, physical and sexual violence, intimidation and threats, retention of identity documents, among others. However, Adzmi dismissed the allegations as untrue. "The issues raised do not occur as most settlers operate their own farms," he said, adding that they also have a Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification. "FGV is subject to MSPO certification implemented by the Malaysian government, where the implementation of MSPO includes assurance of environmental, economic and social aspects that are closely related to employee welfare and labour utilisation. "Therefore, FGV must comply and follow the instructions issued by the government," he added. Adzmi said the US needs to show strong evidence before taking any drastic action. "We fear this action will further tarnish Malaysia's reputation especially in the current situation where Malaysia is still trying to counter the anti-palm oil campaign implemented by the European Union. "Nash always ensures the welfare of more than 650,000 oil palm smallholders, including Felda settlers. "With an average of five people per household, this action will definitely affect more than three million people who depend on this commodity crop in the future," he added. La Botanica will close its doors permanently on Oct. 20. The popular vegan restaurant and bar on the St. Marys Strip reached the end of its existing lease and was denied a new contract, owners Rebel Mariposa and Andrea Vince said in a statement Friday. La Botanica launched in 2015, offering vegan twists on traditional Mexican eats and a gathering space for the queer community. The name refers to Mariposas ancestors, who were curanderas, or natural, herbal healers. On ExpressNews.com: Rebel Mariposa of La Botanica serves up vegan dishes, activism Mariposa and Vince noted they told themselves at the outset, "If La B can make it to five years, I know we'll be okay." "In a bittersweet twist of fate, we find ourselves here at five years and 3 months with all the blood, sweat, tears, and joy poured into creating an inclusive safer space in SATX," the owners wrote. BIPOC and queer businesses have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, they wrote, noting that "odds have always been stacked against entrepreneurs like us." La Botanica announced a temporary closure in July after reopening in May. Mariposa and Vince invited its community to stop by while the restaurant remains open and urged them to remember the people not the building were what gave La Botanica life each night. "We dont want to close off the possibility of La B 2.0 reopening in the future so we will keep our eyes and hearts open." Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped in Hathras, officials said. The development comes within hours of Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police H C Awasthi meeting the victim's family at her home. "Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered that a probe should be done by the CBI into the complete Hathras case," the chief minister's office tweeted. Reacting to the announcement, the family members of the victim said they want a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry. Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly TD has appealed to Wicklow people to play their part in reducing the spread of Covid-19. Photo: Julien Behal A rise in Covid-19 cases in Wicklow could see the entire county face extra public health restrictions, even though the increase appears to be concentrated in the north east of the county. The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) will meet tomorrow (Thursday, 1st) and are expected to consider if Wicklow should move from Level 2 to Level 3. A total of 92 positive cases of Covid-19 were recorded in County Wicklow between September 14 and September 27 with an incidence rate of 64.6 per 100,000 population, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. However, the latest 14-day data regarding the incidence rate of Covid-19 by Local Electoral Area (LEA) shows a spike of cases in Bray West, with 38 confirmed cases and an incidence rate of 206.5 per 100,000 people between September 8 and 21. This data is approximately one-week old, with updated 'two-week' numbers expected this week. Bray East has 23 Covid-19 cases confirmed and a LEA rate of 134.3 per 100,000 population while Greystones LEA recorded 18 cases and a rate of 68.4 per 100k population. The national incidence was 70.7 cases per 100,000 population over this two week period. Six positive Covid cases in the Baltinglass LEA over the same period, meant a LEA rate of 22.9 cases per 100,000 population. Wicklow LEA had six cases and a LEA rate of 21.3 per 100k. Six cases were also recorded in the Arklow LEA, giving an LEA rate of 22.9 per 100,000. A total of 896 Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Wicklow up to Saturday, September 26 since the start of the pandemic in Ireland. Arklow councillor Pat Fitzgerald said 'if things don't improve, there is a danger of a second lockdown. This would have huge impact on businesses struggling to get back on their feet after the last lockdown.' Cllr Fitzgerald said he had been contacted by many older people who were concerned that some people were not following the public health guidelines to reduce the spread of Covid-19. Cllr Sylvester Bourke said a further lockdown would be 'tough', however, people would have 'to do as we are told if that's what decided'. He also said people travelling across the county border to Dublin could also be contributing to the increase in Covid-19 cases in Wicklow. 'A second lockdown would have desperate impact on local businesses and livelihoods, but, if that's NPHET's decision, they are doing it in the public interest to safeguard lives,' Cllr Bourke added. Cllr Avril Cronin said she would favour more targeted restrictions in areas where there has been a spike in Covid-19 cases, instead of the entire county moving to Level 3. 'As you know Wicklow is a huge county geographically, divided by mountains. I think there is a need to look at restrictions in particular areas rather than the entire county. 'While we all stand together in the fight against Covid-19, we cannot ignore the fact that there is a huge difference in the number of cases across a wide geographical area in Wicklow. 'Although numbers are increasing in Wicklow, numbers are relatively low in west Wicklow in the Baltinglass Municipal district,' Cllr Cronin said. 'According to the most recent data from the HSE over the period from September 8 to 21, there have been six confirmed cases in the Baltinglass Electoral Area, an area which covers Kilbride down to Carnew. A population of over 26,167 spread over a huge rural area, the data shows a rate of 22.9 per 100,000 population,' Cllr Cronin said. 'However, Bray West, a population of 18,000 has seen a huge increase in cases. Case numbers are currently standing at 206.5 per 100,000 population. The people of west Wicklow should not have to suffer due to the increasing numbers in the north east of the county. 'Our rural towns and villages have suffered enough over the past number of months. People have made sacrifices and businesses such as the "wet pub" have suffered. Many of these pubs are a social outlet for people living in rural areas on their own, a place for human interaction. 'We cannot justify restricting these communities, some of which are over 80km from the urban areas in north east Wicklow.' We are all making sacrifices, if we all continue to reduce our social contacts, wear our masks and follow the HSE guidelines, we can stop the spread,' Cllr Cronin said. Other counties to be discussed amidst rising numbers include Louth, Cork and Galway. Dublin and Donegal are currently at Level 3. 'I would appeal to the residents of Wicklow to do everything they can to reduce the risk of Covid being spread,' said Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly. 'One useful way of thinking about it is to have a look at all the people you were planning to meet this week and see if you can halve that number. 'I have been asked if it is not possible to simply separate out areas of the county where infection rates are highest to spare the rest of the county. But that is not the public health advice we are getting for the simple reason once you stop using the county borders it creates an element of confusion.' 'I am convinced that your vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with this dangerous virus,' the Kremlin quoted President Vladimir Putin as saying World leaders on Friday wished US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania a quick recovery following his announcement that they were quarantining after testing positive for coronavirus. - Russia - "I am convinced that your vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with this dangerous virus," the Kremlin quoted President Vladimir Putin as saying. "Of course we wish President Trump a speedy and easy recovery," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. - UN - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "sends his best wishes to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a quick and complete recovery," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. - WHO - World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wished the couple "a full and speedy recovery". Trump is pulling the United States out of the UN health agency, accusing it of mishandling the coronavirus pandemic and being too close to China. - EU - "Wishing @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS a speedy recovery. Covid-19 is a battle we all continue to fight. Everyday. No matter where we live," European Union chief Charles Michel said in a tweet, referring also to the First Lady of the United States. - UK - "My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted. "Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus." Johnson himself spent three nights in intensive care in April after contracting Covid-19. - Germany - "I send Donald and Melania Trump all my good wishes," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert tweeted on her behalf. "I hope that they recover well from their corona infection and will be quite healthy again soon." - Austria - Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said: "I wish a full & swift recovery to @realdonaldtrump & @FLOTUS. #COVID19 is a worldwide pandemic which we all need to fight together." - NATO - "My best wishes to @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS. I hope they both have a speedy recovery from COVID-19," the alliance's chief Jens Stoltenberg said. - Canada - Also on Twitter, Canadian President Justin Trudeau wrote: "Sophie and I are sending our best wishes to @POTUSTrump and @FLOTUS. We hope you both get well soon and have a full recovery from this virus." - India - "Wishing my friend @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS a quick recovery and good health," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter. - Israel - "Like millions of Israelis, Sara and I are thinking of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump and wish our friends a full and speedy recovery," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. - Egypt - "My sincere wishes for a speedy recovery to US President Donald Trump and the First Lady," Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said. He said he wanted the couple to "quickly overcome this stage and return to complete health and wellness to resume leading the valued US efforts to combat this virus worldwide". - Jordan - King Abdullah II said he was "wishing US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania a speedy and full recovery. Jordan is keen to continue working with the US and other partners to counter COVID-19 and its implications around the world". - South Korea - "Together with the people of the Republic of Korea, my wife and I wish you and the First Lady a speedy recovery. We would also like to convey our sincere words of encouragement and support to your family and the people of the United States of America," President Moon Jae-in said. - Poland - "Our good wishes for speedy recovery to our Friends @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS. #Poland and #USA will get through the hardships and succeed in fighting #COVID19," Polish President Andrzej Duda tweeted. - Zimbabwe - In Africa, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa tweeted: "My best wishes to President Trump @realdonaldtrump and the First Lady @FLOTUS as they make a full recovery from COVID-19." - Colombia- In South America, Colombian President Ivan Duque tweeted: "With the news they have tested positive for #COVID19, we express our solidarity with the president of the United States, @realDonaldTrump and the First Lady, @MELANIATRUMP. We wish them a quick recovery." - Guatemala - The Guatemalan government tweeted: "The @GuatemalaGob wishes President Donald Trump @POTUS and the First Lady Melania Trump @FLOTUS , a speedy recovery of #COVID19". Search Keywords: Short link: Premium of Virginia Richmond, in its first Top Workplaces program, rose to the top as the leading company in the midsize category. The wholesale beer distributor competed with 28 companies in the midsize category, which includes firms with 125 to 399 employees in the region. Premiums Henrico County operations were created in late 2018 when the nations largest beer distributor acquired Loveland Distributing Co. The family-run Loveland business was folded into the Reyes beer division, a family-owned division of Reyes Holding LLC, a food and beverage distributor based in Rosemont, Ill. Love the people I work with, an employee wrote for the nomination. Autonomy. Flexibility. Openness. Advancement, wrote another. Our people, our culture and our ability to drive results to be the best as a team makes [Premium of Virginia] Richmond a top workplace, said Lane Medlin, vice president of sales. Premium of Virginia Richmond distributes more than 500 brands of beer, ranging from Miller Lite, Coors Light, Corona, Modelo Especial and White Claw to craft beers and ciders from breweries such as Stone Brewing, Blue Mountain and Buskey Cider. RTHK: China's Xi sends sympathy message to Trump President Xi Jinping sent a message of sympathy on Saturday to US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump following their coronavirus diagnosis, state TV reported. My wife, Peng Liyuan, and I express our sympathies to you and your wife and wish you a fast recovery, state TV on its website cited the message as saying. Chinese-US relations have tumbled to their lowest point in decades amid disputes over trade, technology, security, Beijings tightening of control over Hong Kong and complaints about abuses in Chinas Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang. Trump has blamed China, where the coronavirus outbreak began in December, of mishandling the outbreak and allowing it to spread. (AP) This story has been published on: 2020-10-03. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A Russian journalist recently set herself on fire in front of the police headquarters in Nizhny Novgorod. The incident comes a day after investigators searched the woman's home. The victim, before her self-immolation, posted on Facebook, saying that the Russian government was responsible for her death. Woman burns herself to death According to The New York Times, 47-year-old Irina Slavina is the founder and editor of local news site Koza Press, which later confirmed her passing. Russia's equivalent of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Investigative Committee, said the victim's accusations were baseless. The official statement of the search of Slavina's apartment wrote that the investigation was part of a criminal case where authorities considered the victim as a witness. Slavina posted on social media that 12 people had conducted a search in her apartment in the early morning, which includes several members of the special police unit. The online post noted law enforcement agents were searching for brochures, leaflets, and accounts from Open Russia. Open Russia is an opposition organization that goes against the Russian government and is financed by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who is a prominent critic of the Kremlin. Khodorkovsky was forced to escape the country after being imprisoned for more than ten years. Investigators searched Slavina's apartment as part of the criminal case against local entrepreneur Mikhail Ioselevich. Authorities suspect that he is working with Open Russia, which officials openly called an "undesirable organization" operating within the country. Slavina's death is the latest incident that reminds Russian journalists of the risks that they face whenever they write about topics that the Kremlin deems objectionable. The number of incidents where journalists are threatened or attacked has increased in recent years, according to a compilation by advocacy group Justice for Journalists. Also Read: Ransomware Attacks Causes Concern for Russian Election Interference Pressuring opposition of the Kremlin Dmitry Gudkov, an opposition politician, said that security officials have, for years, subjected the victim to continuous persecution due to her opposition activities, as reported by The Guardian. Another Kremlin critic, Ilya Yashin, regarded the death of Slavina as a nightmare in a post on Twitter. He added that the efforts that police officers conduct in persecuting opposition is not a mere game but noted they are breaking people psychologically. Slavina was previously fined by authorities for taking part in opposition demonstrations held in Nizhny Novgorod and another time for some of her previous posts that mentioned Open Russia. Several local authorities across the nation have continuously pressured independent media outlets and journalists. Many individuals have been forced to quit established publications and create their own small websites or blogs. In 2016, before founding her own news website, Slavina was working for multiple local media outlets at the same time. During which, authorities subjected her to varying forms of censorship. Last year in September, the suspect said in an interview that she had previously lost three jobs because of her intrusive actions that trespassed what the government deemed appropriate. Slavina was the only editor and writer of Koza Press, which she founded, and it is where the victim published investigative articles that detailed the internal workings of the Federal Security Service, which is considered to be the most powerful agency in the country. Related Article: Putin Proposes Nin-Interference Pact With US Amid Rising Number of Russian-Linked Hackers @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Why Mewalal Choudhary, Bihars new education minister is in the eye of a storm Bihar Elections 2020: Grand Alliance almost finalises seat sharing India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Oct 03: The political parties in Bihar are trying to finalise the seat sharing arrangements ahead of the crucial assembly elections. The latest proposal by the opposition alliance is that the Congress will contest in 70 seats, the Left parties on 29 and Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) of Mukesh Sahani, 11. The RJD would contest the remaining 133 seats. Once the Grand Alliance identifies the respective constituencies, a formal announcement will be made in the next couple of days. The BJP and JD(U) on the other hand have more or less formalised the seat sharing arrangement. The two parties have broadly agreed to fight on those seats which are their strongholds. Bihar Elections 2020: Why NDAs seat sharing may not be a smooth ride However there are some discussions on as the JD(U) has insisted that it would contest on most of the seats. A crucial meeting of the BJP's parliamentary board and election committee will meet on Sunday, following which a final call will be taken. Voting for Bihar assembly elections will be held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7 in one of the biggest elections globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by counting of votes on November 10, the Election Commission announced last month. Announcing the poll schedule for the 243-member Bihar assembly, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said voting will begin as usual at 7 am but the period will be extended by one hour until 6 pm, except in the Left Wing Extremism-affected areas, so that COVID-19 patients can vote in the last hour of the day. "The world has changed significantly since the last major election in our country, which was held for Delhi assembly, and the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a new normal in every aspect of our life. "Bihar assembly polls will be one of the biggest elections globally to be held during prevailing COVID-19 situation," Arora said. He also said special protocols have been readied for voters who are COVID-positive patients. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Announcing the poll schedule at a press conference here, Arora said the number of phases for 243-member Bihar assembly polls has been reduced keeping in mind security arrangements and festive season, among other factors. Bihar polls: RJD to provide 10 lakh govt jobs if voted to power, says Tejashwi Voting for the first phase on October 28 will cover 71 assembly constituencies, while the second-phase voting on November 3 will cover 94 seats. The third phase of voting on November 7 will cover 78 assembly seats. Counting of votes for all seats will take place on November 10. According to the Election Commission, 7 lakh hand sanitisers, 46 lakh masks, 6 lakh PPE kits, 6.7 lakh face shields and 23 lakh pairs of hand gloves have been arranged for Bihar polls. Besides, postal ballot facility will be provided wherever required and requested. Social distancing norms will need to be followed at public gatherings during the poll campaign. Arora further said anyone using social media for mischievous purposes, such as for flaring communal tension, during elections will have to face consequences, while hate speech will be also dealt with harshly by the Election Commission. On bypolls for one Lok Sabha seat and 64 assembly constituencies, Arora said the Election Commission will take a decision after a meeting on September 29 where issues raised by some states on timing of polls would be discussed and a press release should be issued subsequently the same evening. The notification for the first phase of Bihar assembly elections would be issued on October 1, while last date of nominations would be October 8 and withdrawal of candidature can be done till October 12. For the second phase, notification would be issued on October 9, nominations can be filed till October 16 and candidature can be withdrawn till October 19. The third-phase notification would be issued on October 13, the last date of nominations would be October 20 and the last date for candidature withdrawal has been fixed October 23. The number of people accompanying a candidate for submission of nomination has been restricted to two, while door-to-door campaign can have maximum five people including the candidate. Arora further said there are about 18.87 lakh migrants across 38 districts of Bihar, out of which 16.6 lakh are eligible to vote. While 13.93 lakh already had their names on the electoral rolls, 2.3 lakh more have been registered and the the process is still on, he added. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 8:29 [IST] BAY CITY, MI Maria Vasquez, owner of Bay Citys Tex-Mex Grille, takes pride in serving flavorful food her mother and grandparents taught her to cook. Her restaurants slogan is comida con sabor, or food with flavor. YEREVAN: Armenia's Defence Ministry on Friday (October 3) said Nagorno-Karabakh air defence systems had shot down an Azeri warplane and two drones, an online government platform reported, but Azerbaijan`s defence ministry denied the report. Fighting between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces continued for a sixth day in the heaviest clashes since the 1990s around the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, with both sides claiming to have inflicted significant damage on the other. Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Armenia said it would work with Russia, the United States and France on renewing a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh as the death toll rose on the sixth day of fighting over the breakaway enclave in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan, which is fighting ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, has not responded to a call for a ceasefire on Thursday by the three countries - co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, which mediates in the crisis. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev ruled out talks with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday and Azerbaijan's ally Turkey said on Thursday the three big powers should have no role in peacemaking. "It is obvious that Armenia is not interested in resolving the conflict through negotiations and is trying to annex the occupied territories," Azerbaijan`s Foreign Ministry said. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement he had spoken on the phone successively with the prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, and the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and had proposed a new method to restart talks within the Minsk group. Macron said work would start from Friday evening, as he upped his efforts to broker mediation in his role as co-chair of the OSCE Minsk group. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Atal Tunnel at Rohtang in Himachal Pradesh shortly after 10 am on Saturday (October 03, 2020). The Prime Minister was accompanied by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and Army Chief General MM Naravane were also present at the inauguration ceremony. Following this, Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to address a public gathering at Sissu, Lahaul Valley. The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) from the Mean Sea Level (MSL). Live TV At 9.02 km, it is touted to be the longest highway tunnel in the world. it will connect Manali to Lahaul-Spiti Valley and will ensure movement throughout the year. Earlier, the Valley was cut off for about six months each year owing to heavy snowfall. The tunnel reduces the road distance by 46 kilometres and will cut the travel time by nearly four to five hours. The Prime Minister also enquired about the construction process, layout and other details about the Tunnel from the Army officials present. Credit: CC0 Public Domain President Donald Trump was hospitalized Friday and given an experimental COVID-19 treatment, but said he was "well," following bombshell news he had contracted the virus, knocking him off the campaign trail a month from the US election. After having not been seen in public since the shock announcement, the president walked out of the White House Friday evening, wearing a mask, and flew by helicopter to the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington. In an 18-second video recorded inside the White House and released on Twitter, Trump broke his silence, saying he was being hospitalized but "I think I'm doing very well." "We're going to make sure that things work out," he said, adding that First Lady Melania Trumpwho also contracted the viruswas "doing very well." Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was receiving the anti-viral drug remdesivir following consultation with specialists. The president was "not requiring any supplemental oxygen," she said in a statement late Friday. Earlier, she said that medical experts recommended Trump work from the presidential offices at Walter Reed "for the next few days." The hospitalization indicated an intense effort to make sure the president's reportedly "mild" symptoms do not deteriorate. The development also highlighted the uncharted waters for the US election on November 3, with Trumpwho is well behind his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in the pollshaving to freeze much of his campaign. At first, aides gave rosy assessments, with Trump's chief of staff saying the president, 74, had only mild symptoms, was in "good spirits" and feeling "very energetic." But later Friday White House physician Sean Conley said Trump received a single dose of Regeneron's antibody cocktail, a treatment not yet approved by regulators. "He's being evaluated by a team of experts, and together we'll be making recommendations to the President and First Lady in regards to next best steps," Conley wrote. The president's son Donald Trump Jr told Fox News his father was "obviously taking it very seriously, but he's a fighter." Biden out on his own Trump's illness upended the White House race, with Biden suddenly finding himself alone on the campaign trailand able to argue that his more cautious approach to COVID-19 had been vindicated. Biden has made Trump's frequent downplaying of the pandemic and mixed messaging on mask-wearing a central campaign theme, while Trump has tried to shift the narrative to areas where he feels stronger, like the economy. The former vice president, who stood in close proximity to Trump for 90 minutes during their ill-tempered first debate Tuesday, announced that he and his wife Jill tested negative Friday. Underlining his sudden advantage in the bitter race, Biden, 77, traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, going ahead with a previously scheduled campaign stop. Biden said he was praying for Trump and his family, and his campaign announced it would take down all negative ads. However, Biden also reminded voters that he has pushed consistently for taking seriously the coronavirus, which has killed more than 208,000 Americans, unlike his opponent who has mocked the Democrat for his rigorous use of masks. "Be patriotic," Biden told supporters in Michigan through a blue surgical mask. "It's not about being a tough guy. It's about doing your part." Campaign grounded Trump's shock diagnosis was a huge blow to his reelection effort, triggering a freeze on plans to barnstorm the country in an attempt to catch up in the polls. The Trump campaign said all planned events involving the president were either being postponed or going virtualstarting with the cancellation of a Florida rally Friday, one Saturday in Wisconsin and others in western states like Arizona next week. Even the second Trump-Biden debate, scheduled for October 15, is now in some doubt. Rallies are such a key part of the Trump brand that his sudden inability to travel leaves the campaign scrambling to reinvent its strategy. In addition, Trump has made his argument that coronavirus dangers are overblown a central plank of his reelection platform. Contact tracing News of Trump's infection came after one of his closest advisors, Hope Hicks, tested positivesparking fears of a cluster of cases emanating from the heart of the White House. Trump met with dozens of people through the week and reportedly went to a fundraiser in New Jersey after it was known that Hicks had contracted the virus. The White House said it was carrying out contact tracing, while Melania Trump's spokeswoman said the couple's 14-year-old son Barron had tested negative. Vice President Mike Pence and other senior figures tested negative. The White House said Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was negative too. Former White House top aid Kellyanne Conway, however, announced late Friday she had tested positive with "mild" symptoms. Trump's campaign manager, 42-year-old Bill Stepien, said he had tested positive, US media reported, and was in quarantine with mild symptoms. In his 70s and technically obese, the president is in a higher-risk category. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist, told AFP Trump had an estimated 20 percent chance of developing severe disease requiring oxygenation. As the news rattled global stock markets, leaders including Germany's Angela Merkel, Britain's Boris Johnson, and Russia's Vladimir Putin wished the president and first lady a speedy recovery. Trump's predecessor Barack Obama noted the US is "in the midst of a big political fight" but set aside the bitter election battle to extend "best wishes" to the first family. Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak 2020 AFP By Michael Thomas Duffy Twenty years ago, I was part of the team that opened the MATCH Charter Public School in Boston. We knew we would have to account for our results in a measurable way that demonstrated academic progress for our students. It was this imperative that drove us toward a program centered around intensive, personalized tutoring for each one of our students. We found that university work-study students were effective when paired as tutors with our students. The key wasnt just the number of hours spent tutoring, it was also the relationship between pupil and tutor that provided even an inexperienced college student the insights and leverage to advance student learning. Our method, dubbed High Dosage Tutoring, produced statistically significant academic gains for the students who received it. Ten years later, I helped start the Great Oaks (GO) Foundation, building on my experience at MATCH. Great Oaks supports schools through High Dosage Tutoring provided by AmeriCorps members young people who provide a year of service in communities across America and in return receive a modest annual living allowance of $14,000 and help to pay for college. A study released this summer by Voices for National Service found that every $1 invested in national service programs like AmeriCorps produces a $17 return to society, program members and the government. The GO Foundation launched and supported its first school in Newark. The results have been impressive: the college persistence rate of those high school graduates is more than five times their peers in Newark public schools who dont have the benefit of high-dosage tutoring. With the onset of the COVID pandemic, learning went online at schools across the country, including those that are supported by Great Oaks with AmeriCorps tutors. Their responsibilities include helping students with lessons, as well as communicating with families about how their child is doing, homework they are struggling with or lessons that never got turned in. At the school that Great Oaks supports in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for instance, AmeriCorps members were the glue that kept students connected when it was all too easy for a kid to get lost in a forest of Zoom classes. The 50 AmeriCorps members serving there made a critical difference in the lives of the 500 students at Great Oaks Bridgeport. As Congress continues its deliberations over a COVID-19 economic stimulus, decision-makers should include the bipartisan CORPS Act, which would expand and strengthen AmeriCorps to provide critically needed services and give Americans purpose-driven work, a living stipend and help to pay for college. During the fall and early winter, roughly 25 people a week applied to the Great Oaks Foundation to serve as an AmeriCorps tutor; lately, that number has been trending closer to 75 per week and more. As the pandemic has decimated the job market, particularly for those fresh out of college, a big expansion of AmeriCorps could provide needed jobs as unemployment claims begin to tick upward again. In a country that is polarized over issues as mundane as the delivery of the mail, expanding AmeriCorps in order to serve Americas public school students through High Dosage Tutoring appears to be an issue whose time has come. Michael Thomas Duffy is the founder and president of the Great Oaks Foundation, which deploys 300 AmeriCorps members as tutors in public schools in Newark, Bridgeport, CT; the Lower East Side of Manhattan; Wilmington, Delaware and Baltimore, Maryland. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Heres how to submit an op-ed or Letter to the Editor. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Guatemala's Vice President Guillermo Castillo Reyes paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi on his 151st birth anniversary in an event at the National Palace of Culture on Friday, October 2. According to reports, Indian Ambassador BS Mubarak also attended the event and presented a plaque as well as Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography to the Guatemalan leader. Read: Burj Khalifa Honours Mahatma Gandhi On 151st Birth Anniversary With Marvelous Light Show Reyes on importance of Gandhi's message The Guatemalan leader spoke during the event and highlighted the importance of Mahatma Gandhis message of non-violence and peace. Indian Embassy in Guatemala's official Twitter account posted about the event. Vice President of Guatemala @GuilleCastilloR participated in an event to commemorate the 150th Birth Anniversary of #MahatmaGandhi. Ambassador of India @mubarakbs presented a plaque on #Mahatma150 and the Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. #GandhiJayanti @MEAIndia @ICCR_Delhi pic.twitter.com/Fhl7ZDYRHg India in Guatemala (@IndiaInGuate) October 2, 2020 Read: Gandhi Jayanti: Listen To Sparsh Shah's Version Of Mahatma Gandhi's Favourite Song UN Chief remembers Gandhi's message Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke at an event titled Gandhi@150: A non-violent approach to peace and development. During his address, Guterres re-emphasised the importance of non-violence and peaceful protest and called for a global ceasefire. Gandhi Jayanti is also marked as the International Day of Non-Violence. During the event, Guterres also express a sense of hope despite the constant mistrust in the international community and said now is the time to intensify the efforts. Referring to the COVID-19 pandemic as a common enemy, the UN Sec-Gen called for a global ceasefire and urged the leaders to make it a reality by the end of 2020. (Image: @IndiaInGuate/Twitter) Read: Mizoram Guv, CM Pay Tribute To Mahatma Gandhi Read: UN Chief Guterres Remembers Gandhi's Message Of Non-violence, Urges Global Ceasefire The reopening of college campuses at the State University of New York (SUNY) has led to a series of catastrophes. On September 3, SUNY Oneonta was forced to close all on-campus activities after 500 students tested positive for COVID 19. Just two weeks later, SUNY Oswego was forced to switch to two weeks of online instruction after 200 students tested positive in a 14-day period. SUNY campus The total number of students who have contracted the virus has risen to nearly 2,000 just one month into the new semester. Testing remains insufficient, with fewer than 122,000 tests administered on the 64 campuses that serve 1.4 million SUNY students. Rather than closing schools until the virus is under control, SUNY has taken to vilifying students, creating harsh punishment guidelines for students who break social distancing rules. The response of SUNY to the pandemic is bound up with its ties to the Democratic Party and New York state government, which has enthusiastically endorsed the policy of herd immunity and the drive to reopen schools. In order to understand the response of the SUNY system to COVID-19, it is important to examine the membership of its Board of Trustees and its particular connections to the Democratic Party apparatus, the military and state, as well as the ruling class as a whole. Chancellor: James Malatras James Malatras was appointed as chancellor in August of 2020 after his predecessor, Kristina M. Johnson, left to become the president of Ohio State University. Malatras is not an educator, but a political adviser by profession. His first job was as a staff member for Democratic Assembly member Richard L. Brodsky from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 he became a policy adviser to the states future governor, Andrew Cuomo. At the time, Cuomo was working as attorney general of New York state. Following Cuomos election as governor in 2011, Malatras was shifted around to multiple jobs within the state government, including as executive director of the New York Education Reform Commission and as SUNY Vice Chancellor for Policy and Chief of Staff. In 2014 he left the SUNY administration to return to Cuomos side where he worked as the director of state operations. Malatras was also an adviser to Cuomo on his response to the pandemic. Despite media praise, Cuomos response was completely negligent, allowing New York to become the global epicenter as 30,000 New Yorkers died from the virus. Chair: Merryl H. Tisch Merryl H. Tisch is the chairperson of the Board of Trustees, appointed to this position in September of 2019. Before her time on the SUNY board she served for 20 years on the New York Board of Regents, acting as chancellor from 2009 to 2015. As a member of the Board of Regents, Tisch implemented George Bushs No Child Left Behind policy, a direct attack on teachers and public education that launched the tying of school funding to test scores. As chancellor, she was a leading advocate for high-stakes testing evaluations under Obamas Race to the Top competition and Common Core standards, which slashed education budgets and closed underperforming districts, all while increasing the number of charter schools. While schools were being defunded, Tisch swam in unimaginable wealth. She is married to James S. Tisch, heir to the Loews Corporation, with huge assets in hotels, oil refining and finance. The Tisch family is worth $6 billion, placing them among the top fifty families in the country. Privatized education would certainly be a lucrative investment opportunity for a company like Loews. The Tisch family is also involved in both Democratic and Republican politics in New York City, having supported Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat Bill Thompson for mayor among other political ventures. Vice Chair: Cesar Perales Cesar Perales is the vice chair on the SUNY Board of Trustees, taking the position after the promotion of Tisch from vice chair to chair. Perales is a long time political operative of the Democratic Party. In the 1970s, he worked as the regional director of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) before rising to the administration of President Jimmy Carter as the departments assistant secretary. After the Carter administration, Perales continued his career in the Democratic Party. During the 1980s he served as commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services under Governor Mario Cuomo (father of the current governor), and in New York City he served as deputy mayor to David Dinkins from 1990 to 1993. In 2011, Perales was appointed as the 66th secretary of the New York Department of State, before which he had spent time working as a lawyer and top adviser to Governor Andrew Cuomo. Robert Duffy Before entering politics, Duffy was a police officer in Rochester, New York. Starting his career in 1976, Duffy became deputy chief of police in 1992 and chief of police in 1998. Several killings by police occurred during his time leading the RPD. Complaints of racial profiling were also rampant, and police infamously intimidated attendees of the Puerto Rican Festival by showing up in riot gear to disperse the crowd in 2004. Duffy served as mayor of Rochester from 2006 to 2011. His most notable action as mayor was his proposal to abolish the Rochester Board of Education and place the school district under direct control of the mayor and city council. Duffy claimed that the school board was ineffective and inefficient. In reality, the policy centered around removing elected officials from the education process. This proposal is still in contention today as the school district racks up an $85 million budget deficit after more than a decade of austerity. Duffy was selected as Andrew Cuomos running mate in his 2010 bid for New York governor. With Cuomos victory, Duffy became lieutenant governor from 2011 to 2014. As such, Duffy participated in the implementation of the disastrous Common Core program. He is now the president and CEO of the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce, representing the citys business community. Richard Socarides Richard Socarides is currently the head of Global Corporate Communications and Government Affairs for Gerson Lehrman Group, a company that provides guidance to corporations and investment firms. Before that, he was the vice president for corporate relations at AOL Time Warner and has worked at several prominent New York law firms. Politically, Socarides was a top adviser to Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, in 1991-1992. Harkin was a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, which is in charge of allocating funds to US imperialist projects around the globe, including $2 billion in funding for the Israeli military. As a Democratic presidential candidate in 1991 Harkin was an enthusiastic proponent of the first Gulf War. In a speech to the American section of the World Jewish Congress, Harkin attacked Republican President George H.W. Bush for coddling then-Syrian president Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Harkin was also one of many congressional Democrats who voted in support of the USs 2003 invasion of Iraq. From 1993 to 1999, Socarides held several top advisory positions in the Clinton administration, most notably as chief operating officer of the 50th Anniversary Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It was during this NATO conference that the alliances new strategic concept was announced, projecting NATO power abroad. Its immediate effect was to justify the US bombing of Yugoslavia by Bill Clinton, which laid the groundwork for further imperialist interventions in the future, including the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Socarides is also a fervent promoter of identity politics. Socarides promotes himself as a gay rights advocate, although his service in the Clinton administration has tarnished this image due to Clintons signing of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, as well as his support of the Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy in the US armed forces. Socarides refers to these episodes as very principled decisions necessary for Clintons reelection. Chair of Community College Committee: Stanley S. Litow Stanley S. Litow is IBM's former vice president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs. Prior to his time at IBM, Litow worked as the deputy chancellor of New York City Public Schools from 1989 to 1993, where he was influential in collective bargaining talks with school unions, extracting concessions from educators and school workers when budget cuts were made. A regular commentator on education issues, Litow frequently refers to the education business model and approaches education issues along the nationalistic lines of preserving American competitiveness in the job market. As far as Litow is concerned with the quality of education in the United States, it is only to supply companies like IBM with domestic labor. Litows response to the pandemic is indicative of the forces guiding SUNY policy. In mid-April 2020, Litow wrote an article for the New York Daily News in which he argued against the closing of schools in response to the virus. He argued that the loss of education would be too great and that sending students home would be more detrimental than any amount of harm caused by the virus. As with all of these board members, the protection of profits comes before the needs of students and educators for SUNYs Board of Trustees. The eruption of COVID-19 infections at the school systems various campuses is the practical result of the social interests they serve. Researchers used National Cancer Database data to find minority-serving hospitals offer a strong level of evidence-based care when accredited by the Commission on Cancer CHICAGO: Among accredited U.S. cancer centers, hospitals serving primarily minority patients are as likely as other hospitals to offer the standard of surgical care for early-stage breast cancer, according to results presented at the virtual American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2020. "There are a lot of health disparities in cancer: in access to care, treatment, and outcomes," said senior study investigator T. Salewa Oseni, MD, FACS, assistant professor of surgery, Harvard Medical School, Boston. "In our study, we were pleasantly surprised there was no difference between the care that Black, Hispanic, and white women receive." The researchers examined hospitals' axillary management practices involving removal of the lymph nodes from under the arm called the axilla. At the breast cancer operation, the surgeon performs a sentinel lymph node biopsy to remove and test the sentinel lymph node or nodes. These are the lymph nodes where the cancer most likely will spread first. In the past, if the results show cancer in the sentinel lymph nodes, called node positive, the surgeon removed most lymph nodes under the arm, Dr. Oseni said. However, this procedure, known as a completion axillary lymph node dissection (ALND), often results in lymphedema, which is a condition marked by swelling and sometimes pain in the arm, hand, or breast. "Five to 10 years ago, studies found that not every woman needs to have an axillary dissection after a positive sentinel lymph node biopsy," Dr. Oseni said. "The combination of radiation and chemotherapy in certain instances may be sufficient, with the same survival and fewer clinical complications." Recommendations from these study results are rapidly becoming the standard of care in breast cancer with up to two positive lymph nodes, said lead study investigator Olga Kantor, MD, MS, an associate surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. When more than two sentinel lymph nodes are positive, the standard of care remains an ALND. Racial-ethnic disparities Dr. Kantor and her fellow researchers assessed whether disparities exist in the application of these evidence-based guidelines depending on whether a hospital serves predominantly minorities. The researchers defined minority-serving hospitals (MSH) as those in the top 10 percent treating the largest proportion of Black and Hispanic patients. Many patients at MSH lack health insurance and have decreased access to high-quality care, such as cancer specialists, she said. Additionally, some studies have found lower adherence to cancer treatment guidelines among MSH.1 Using data from the National Cancer Database, Dr. Kantor's group included more than 21,000 breast cancer patients treated in 2015 and 2016. Cosponsored by the ACS and the American Cancer Society, this database includes information on more than 70 percent of newly diagnosed cancer cases in the U.S. The information comes from more than 1,500 cancer programs, all accredited by the ACS Commission on Cancer, and is the largest database of its kind. The researchers studied whether the cancer centers omitted ALND in appropriately selected patients, which they called uptake of results from three landmark clinical trials. These studies were the ACS Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z0011 trial published in 2011,2 the ACOSOG Z1071 trial in 2013,3 and the After Mapping of the Axilla: Radiotherapy or Surgery (AMAROS) trial by the European Organisation of Research and Treatment of Cancer in 2014.4 The studies included patients with early-stage breast cancer and small tumors on examination or imaging (clinical T1 or cT2) who underwent breast conservation (lumpectomy) or, in the AMAROS trial, mastectomy. There was no survival difference in patients with one or two positive sentinel lymph nodes between those who had ALND and those who did not in the ACOSOG Z0011 trial. Similarly, the AMAROS investigators found no survival difference between patients who had ALND and those who received axillary radiation therapy but no ALND. The Z1071 trial results showed it was possible to do sentinel lymph node biopsy alone after a response to preoperative (neoadjuvant) chemotherapy. Surprising results Dr. Kantor and her team divided patients into three groups by matching the cancer characteristics to the inclusion criteria for these clinical trials. Among the 7,167 patients who met the criteria for the ACOSOG Z0011 trial, there was a similar uptake of the recommendation to omit ALND between MSH and non-MSH (74.6 percent versus 72.9 percent, respectively), Dr. Kantor reported. Likewise, uptake of the ACOSOG Z1071 results was similar among the 4,546 patients meeting study criteria: 41.9 percent for MSH and 44.9 percent for non-MSH. In the 9,433 patients who matched criteria for the AMAROS trial, uptake was slightly lower at MSH--11.7 percent--compared with 14 percent at non-MSH, according to the study abstract. However, after the researchers adjusted their statistical analyses for multiple factors, they found no difference in uptake by MSH status, Dr. Kantor said. "Minority-serving hospitals offer a strong level of evidence-based breast cancer care if accredited by the Commission on Cancer," Dr. Oseni concluded. However, they cannot generalize their study findings to hospitals lacking this accreditation. ### The other study authors were Cecilia Chang, MS; Katharine Yao, MD, FACS, NorthShore University Health System, Evanston, Ill.; and Anna C. Weiss, MD, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. The authors report no disclosures related to this research. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Citation: Uptake of Breast Cancer Clinical Trial Results at Minority Serving Cancer Centers. Scientific Forum, American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020, October 3-7, 2020. 1 Felder Rhoads K. Association of minority-serving hospitals with lower resources for cancer care. J Clin Oncol. 2016;34(15 suppl):6547. 2 Giullano AE, McCall L, Beitsch P, et al. Axillary dissection vs no axillary dissection in women with invasive breast cancer and sentinel node metastasis: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2011;305(6):569-575. 3 Boughey JC, Suman VJ, Mittendorf EA, et al. Sentinel lymph node surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with node-positive breast cancer: the ACOSOG Z1071 (Alliance) clinical trial. JAMA. 2013;310(14):1455-1461. 4 Donker M, van Tienhoven G, Straver ME, et al. Radiotherapy or surgery of the axilla after a positive sentinel node in breast cancer (EORTC 10981-22023 AMAROS): a randomised, multicentre, open-label, phase 3 non-inferiority trial. Lancet Oncol. 2014;15(12):1303-1310. About the American College of Surgeons The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 82,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org. (Natural News) On September 11th, Gallup headlined Bias in Others News a Greater Concern Than Bias in Own News, and reported (based upon polling a randomized sample of 20,046 American adults) that: (Article by Eric Zuesse republished from Strategic-Culture.org) 69% of Americans say they are more concerned about bias in the news other people consume than its presence in their own news (29%). In other words: 69/29, or 2.38 times, as many Americans are closed-minded (prejudiced) regarding information-sources which dont fit their ideology, than are not. Overwhelmingly in America, only Democratic Party information-sources are trusted by Democrats, and only Republican information-sources are trusted by Republicans. Each side distrusts the others information-sources. Gallups news-report aptly noted the important fact that This plays into the political polarization in the U.S. national discourse. The more prejudiced a population are, the more polarized it will be. Of course, one would expect this to be the case, but Gallup has now found striking new empirical evidence for it that the publics closed-mindedness is greatly increasing Americas political polarization. Each side is craving propaganda instead of truth, but each sides voters want only the type of propaganda that is funded by the billionaires who also fund that sides politicians and control that sides news media. Consequently, American politics is controlled by the conflict between liberal billionaires versus conservative billionaires totally controlled by billionaires (instead of by the public). There is the liberal herd, and the conservative herd, but theyre both herds not by the public in an actual democracy. And each of these two herds is controlled by its shepherd, who are its billionaires. (Here is how thats done.) Billionaires control each Party and thereby control the Government. This is why the Government ignores the preferences of Americas public. As will be shown here, the September 11th Gallup findings help to explain how and why that results. Neither Democrats nor Republicans can become exposed to the other sides evidence and arguments unless they see those the other sides evidence and arguments, both for its own case and against the opposite sides case (i.e., against the case that oneself believes). Not to see the opposite sides viewpoint is to be blind to it, and thus to become locked into whatever oneself believes. This 69/29 is like a jurys rendering its verdict and nearly three quarters of the jurors having not listened to and thus not considered the opposite sides presentations. Thats a frightening situation to exist in any court of law, and it is an equally frightening situation to exist in any nations electorate. As a consequence of Americans strong tendency to be closed-minded, Americas politics are, to a very large extent, driven more by prejudices than by the realities that the public are actually facing. Individuals are seeking for sources that will likeliest confirm what they already believe, and are seeking to avoid sources that are the likeliest to disconfirm their beliefs. This is consequently a population thats highly vulnerable to being manipulated, by playing up to, and amplifying, the given Partys propaganda, to which the given individual already subscribes. Republican Party billionaires (by their use of their conservative newsmedia and think tanks, etc., which they control) can easily manipulate Republican Party voters, and Democratic Party billionaires can, likewise, easily manipulate Democratic Party voters, by their liberal media, think tanks, etc. Thats billionaires, on each of the two sides, guiding each of the two Parties voters; and, therefore, the nation is an aristocracy a country which is controlled by its wealthiest few instead of an authentic democracy (which is controlled not by the numbers of dollars, but actually by the numbers of residents, each one of whom is independently and open-mindedly seeking for credibly documented facts). An aristocracy rules any such land. The public are not the rulers in such a nation. Its not a democracy; it is a collective dictatorship, by its billionaires (its aristocracy). Both of the two Parties voters vote in accord with their billionaires agenda, but especially in accord with whatever is on the agenda thats shared by both liberal and conservative billionaires billionaires fund both of the national Parties: Democrats and Republicans, and thereby control both Parties. Billionaires, in each Party, have their very golden, very heavy, thumbs, pressing down hard upon the scale of any such democracy, such that regardless of which group of billionaires ends up winning any ultimate election, the public inevitably will lose, because its really just a contest between billionaires, who are stage-managing the nations entire political proceedings. This is like two boxers fighting in a ring, in which the selection-process which placed them there was corrupt; and, so, even if the ultimate winner is not equally corruptly pre-determined, the final result has nonetheless already been rigged (during the primaries). When the contenders have been selected by a corrupt process, the ultimate outcome cannot be a democracy. This happens not only regarding elections, but regarding particular issues. For example, in 2002 and 2003, regime-change in Iraq, and Saddams WMD, were just as much agendas of liberal billionaires media and think tanks as they were of conservative billionaires media and think tanks (and were thoroughly based on lies); so, a closed-minded public were actually trapped, into the lies that were agreed-upon by both sides of the domestic American political spectrum the sides that are funded and controlled by the liberal billionaires, and by the conservative billionaires. The nearly $2 trillion cost of the invasion and military occupation of that country, and the consequent destruction of that country, were done for Americas billionaires, and produced nothing for the American people except that enormous public debt and those injuries and deaths to Americas soldiers and to Iraqis. And thats typical, nowadays, in this (just as in any) aristocracy: the aristocracy are served; the nations public serve to them. (In the U.S., this has caused U.S. Satisfaction at 13%, Lowest in Nine Years, as Gallup headlined on 4 August 2020; and it has caused Americas satisfaction with their Government to have ranged from its all-time low of only 7% in 2008, to its all-time high of only 45% at the very start of 2020 well below 50%, for as long as Gallup has surveyed this.) What all of the billionaires want is what the American public get as their Government. Its bipartisanship amongst its billionaires. Thats what produces this Governments policies. Its what determines the Government that Americans get. However, what is basic in making it a dictatorship of the aristocracy-type (such as this America is) is that the population is very prejudiced, not open-minded not each individual constantly seeking solid evidence to change ones mind about how society works (what the reality in the nation actually is), so as for ones view to become increasingly accurate over time. Instead, ones myths are constantly being fed. Such a public, as this, are not individuals, in a democracy, but more like mobs, very manipulable. Often, Americas bipartisan views are based upon lies that virtually all billionaires want the public to believe. In such cases and these instances are frequent the truth is being simply ignored, or else outright denied, by both sides (and by the media, for both sides). Individuals prejudices are thus being increased, instead of reduced, by what the public see and hear in the news. Everyone has prejudices, and truth can predominate only if people are constantly skeptical of the sources that they are relying upon constantly trying to root out and replace whatever false beliefs they have. This is the essence of scientific method. Democracy depends upon it. Aristocracy requires the opposite. America has the opposite. Change away from this present situation, to a democracy, would be difficult. On both of Americas political sides, there needs to be far less trust of the Establishment (including its politicians, its media, its think tanks, etc.), in order for any real democracy to become able to exist. Its not even able to exist now. And, therefore, it does not exist. But what is even more depressing is that Americas educational system, most especially its colleges and universities, are encouraging, instead of discouraging, this situation, this closed-mindedness. The more educated an American is, the more closed-minded that person becomes as is further shown in this same September 11th Gallup news-report: Whereas 52% of Americans with a high school education or less are more concerned about bias in others news than in their own [and 45% of that minimally educated group think that the news which they are reading might be biased], the figure is 64% among those with some college education and is even higher among college graduates (73%) and those with postgraduate education (77%) [and only 22% of that maximally educated group think that the news which they are reading might be biased]. The most-educated Americans are the most-manipulable (the most closed-minded) Americans. No finding in this Gallup report was as extreme as the finding that the more highly educated an American is, the less open that person is likely to be to changing his or her mind (outlook) about the situation. In other words: the more educated an American is, the more closed-minded that person tends to become. Higher education in America increases, instead of decreases, an individuals closed-mindedness. However, other contrasts which were almost as extreme are: Those who identify as liberal (80%) are more concerned than conservatives (68%) and moderates (65%) with other peoples media bias. In other words: liberals are 80/65 or 1.23 times as closed-minded as are moderates, and are 80/68 or 1.18 times as closed-minded as conservatives are. While 58% of Black adults are more concerned about bias in others news than in their own, fully 73% of Asian Americans and 72% of White adults say the same. Thus, African-Americans are 58/72.5 or 80% as closed-minded as are Euro-Americans and Asian-Americans. This is the worst combination possible: its a closed-minded population, which is especially closed-minded amongst its most educated segment. The leading segment is also the most closed-minded segment. These are crucial agents of the billionaires, and they crucially inculcate into the next generation of Americans the aristocracys values. This means that the leaders keep themselves, conceptually, inside a cocoon. They have minimal contact with the most vulnerable members of the society, which is the less-educated members. That enhances inequality of opportunity, throughout the society. Since the most-highly-educated Americans are the group that are the most-closed to opinions which are contrary to their own, its easy for the most-highly-educated Americans to view individuals who disagree with those persons views as being simply a basket of deplorables. Their disagreement then becomes their contempt. Facts about politics are for those persons, highly educated persons more derived from their values and priorities, than their values and priorities are derived from the political facts. Scientific epistemology is being turned upside-down, regarding political issues, in such a country. Overwhelmingly, some sort of faith, instead of any sort of science, determines what individuals in such a country believe about politics. In every aristocracy, this is the way that both conservative and liberal persons view any persons in the general public who oppose themselves: theyre viewed as being a basket of deplorables. Its the very essence of elitism on both sides. (For prominent examples of this: both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had contempt for each-others voters blotted them out.) The leaderships minimal contact with the public makes exceedingly unlikely the leaderships compassion, concern about the sufferings that they, themselves, are causing down below. Actually, though every aristocracy claims to want to improve conditions for their public, the reality is that whenever doing that would entail their own losing power, that claim becomes exposed to be sheer hypocrisy a lie; often a self-deception, and not merely a deception against the public. Deceiving themselves about their own decency is easy, because they have minimal contact with the most vulnerable members of the society, the very people whom they claim to care the most about (and to be working in politics to help). Fakery is built into each and every aristocracy. Americans strong tendency to be closed-minded causes the aristocratic con to be widely accepted as if it were instead truth. (Again: the WMD in Iraq con was a good example of this the aristocracys media just blocked-out the reality.) Scientific studies have even demonstrated that the wealthier a person is, the less compassion the individual tends to have for people who are suffering. Furthermore, since the less-educated persons aspire to be more-educated, they are even without knowing it aspiring to become less open to contrary views, instead of to become more open to such views. One bad consequence of this is: it strangulates imaginativeness, openness, and creativity, in favor of being rote, rigid, and bureaucratic. Another bad consequence of it is that the authority-figures, in such a society, are, in some important ways, actually inferior to the rest of the population. Moreover, Americas colleges and universities are not increasing their students open-mindedness (as they should) but the exact opposite they are reducing their students open-mindedness. Even if professors are teaching some truths, the professors are training their students to be authoritarian, instead of to be open to a more truthful, comprehensive, and deeper understanding, which encompasses those truths, but also many more which the majority of professors either ignore or else deny, because such deeper understanding violates the existing Scripture, or standard viewpoint (shaped by both sides billionaires). At least in the United States, this is now the normal situation. That Gallup poll showed it not merely weakly, nor even only moderately, but extremely. This is a perverse situation, which bodes ill for the future of the entire nation. Any country which is like this is not only an aristocracy instead of a democracy, but it is greatly disadvantaged, going forward. It will be disadvantaged both in the arts and in the sciences. Its future will be stultifying, instead of dynamic. Aristocracies tend to be this way. Also, because it will remain highly polarized, its internal ideological frictions will waste a large proportion of the nations efforts. As a nation, its forward-motion, its progress, will thus largely be crippled, by its internal discord and distrust, between the two warring factions of its aristocracy and friction between the respective followers on each side. This describes a declining culture a nation that is in decline. Thats what this poll-report, from Gallup, indicates, as clearly as any poll-findings can. It indicates a nation in decline. During the Presidential primaries in the Democratic Party, a major point of difference between the two major candidates, Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders, was whether billionaires are bad for the country: Biden said no; Sanders said yes. (This was a major reason why the billionaires made sure that Sanders would lose.) In any country where wealth-inequality is so extreme, there can be no authentic democracy. Americas extreme inequality of wealth makes democracy impossible in this country. Americas other problems follow from that. In reality, its a one-party state, and that party is controlled not actually by the counts of voters, but by the counts of dollars. It is an aristocracy; and its decline to what has been documented here follows from that fact. Whatever democracy America might once have had is gone now. It has become replaced by a land of mass-deceptions, which are bought and sold. Read more at: Strategic-Culture.org Odisha government has issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) on the use of Favipiravir tablet by Covid-19 patients who are in home isolation. This comes as the state reported 3,000-odd news cases of infection on Saturday. Additional chief secretary, health department, Pradipta Mohapatra said as around 80 percent of Odishas 30,000-odd Covid-19 patients have been allowed home isolation, trained doctors can prescribe Favipiravir after assessing the condition of patients with the latters written consent. Favipiravir is an antiviral drug that was developed for the treatment of resistant influenza virus in Japan. In case of Covid-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms, the medicine has proved to be effective. It works by inhibiting RNA dependent RNA polymerase enzyme, a key enzyme blocking replication of RNA viruses. Also read: 70% of Covid-19 patients dont transmit virus, reveals study conducted in AP, TN The health secretary said Rapid Response Teams of the state government in various districts will be trained to assess the condition of patients in home isolation and, in consultation with doctors, will ascertain whether the patients need to be administered Favipiravir at home. Once the patient is found to be suitable for the administration of Favipiravir, the RRT will explain the patient and the family members about the dosage of the tablet, side effects, precautions, and actions to be taken. Under no circumstances can the patients go for self-medication. Also read: Odisha man forced to live in toilet for over a year after rain damages house Favipiravir is not recommended for children and pregnant women. Those above the age of 60 years have been advised to consult a doctor if they experience any side effects of the drug. In case of adverse reactions or worsening of general conditions, the RRT will consider moving the patient to the local Covid Care facility. The Health and Family Welfare department has directed all district collectors, CDMOs and municipal commissioners to set up a dedicated helpline and telemedicine facility for early launching of the programme for online training, sensitisation of RRT teams, doctors on call. Marie Curie, Mother Teresa and Malala are among the just five percent of women Nobel laureates. But women are also heavily underrepresented in the institutions that select the prizewinners each year. The Nobels for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics are all awarded in Sweden by separate committees, while the peace prize laureate is selected by a committee in Norway. Both Scandinavian countries pride themselves on their reputations as champions of gender equality -- yet on the Nobel committees, women make up only a quarter of members. With the exception of the peace prize committee, all are also currently headed by men. Would more women on the committees make a difference in the number of women laureates? For Olav Njolstad, secretary of the peace committee in Oslo, the answer is: probably. Since 2001, 24 women have won Nobel prizes, compared to 11 in the two decades leading up to 2000. "It is not illogical to think that there is a connection between the increasing feminisation of the committees and the growing number of female laureates," he told AFP. While progress has been made in recent years, the economics prize committee has just two women out of 11 members, chemistry has three out of 10, medicine has four out of 18, and physics has only one out of seven. Even the literature committee, with two out of seven, is still far from gender parity. Eva Olsson, the lone woman on the physics committee, says "role models are important in order to inspire more young female students to study physics." But she insists that discrimination is not the issue, and says her committee's work is not affected by gender ratios. "Considering the fact that the proportion of women is low in the discipline of physics, I am not surprised that the proportion of women is lower than men," Olsson told AFP. - Feminisation in progress - The committees vet potential candidates and propose worthy winners to the various academies entrusted with awarding the prizes. Story continues The Swedish Academy awards the literature prize, the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm decides on medicine, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is in charge of the physics, chemistry and economics prizes. The number of women in the latter's ranks is growing and "gradually improving, although slowly," Goran Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told AFP. For the peace prize, the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee appointed by Norway's parliament both vets candidates and crowns the winners. It is the exception when it comes to gender parity: in recent decades women have dominated, sometimes claiming four of the five spots, even leading to jokes about the need for male quotas. This year there are however only two women, although one is the chair. In Njolstad's view, there is a simple explanation for the contrast with the science prize committees. "The scientific committees carry with them the tradition of having had more highly qualified male scientific professors until today." Appointments to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences are also for life so moving the needle is a slow process, unlike the Norwegian committee where members are elected for six-year terms. Only 15 percent of Royal Swedish Academy of Science members are currently women, but Eva Mork, the first woman to sit on the economics prize committee in 2011, noted it is "getting more and more women." As for literature, which might be considered a less male-dominated field, the Swedish Academy counts only five women among 18 members, though two seats are currently vacant due to recent deaths. Author Kristina Lugn, who passed away in May, was to have sat on this year's Nobel committee. Of the seven on the Academy's Nobel committee this year, two are women. "Our aim is gender balance... In putting together the committee a number of aspects have to be considered, and a perfect equilibrium has not been possible," the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary, Mats Malm, told AFP. The Swedish Academy's first woman permanent secretary, Sara Danius, stepped down in 2018 amid a scandal that tore the institution apart. bur-hdy/jll/po/spm Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Kyodo News) Beijing, China Sat, October 3, 2020 20:20 476 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48f0a4e 2 World Donald-Trump,Xi-Jinping,COVID-19,Melania-Trump,hospital Free Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday wished US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania a speedy recovery, Chinese media reported. Xi's message comes a day after Trump tweeted that the couple had tested positive for the new coronavirus. In the message, Xi said that learning of their infections, he and his wife Peng Liyuan extend sympathy to the Trumps and wish them a speedy recovery, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Trump, 74, is being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington and is expected to stay there for several days, according to the White House. According to his physician, Trump was "fatigued." US media reported that he had a fever, a cough and congestion. He has received antiviral remdesivir therapy, according to the doctor. Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-26 11:31:23|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close MALE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 cases in the Maldives has crossed 10,000, local media reported here Saturday. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) on Friday evening confirmed 75 new cases of COVID-19, including 53 locals and 22 foreigners, raising the country's total case count up to 10,014. Public Health Expert Dr. Sheena Moosa was quoted in state media as saying that despite a recent decrease in the rate of infection, it is still not appropriate to ease restrictions. "It's crucial that we maintain the new normal behaviors, at least until a vaccine is available," Moosa said. Meanwhile, state media reported that the Health Emergency Operation Centre (HEOC) has inspected 259 establishments in the fourth round of mass inspections in the capital region of Greater Male. Health Emergency Operation Centre (HEOC) Spokesperson Dr. Fathimath Nazla Rafeeq said that four cafes and a shop were found to have violated official health and safety guidelines. According to HPA data, the Maldives now has 1,300 active cases of COVID-19 spread across 22 inhabited islands and 26 resorts. A total of 8,673 people have fully recovered from the virus in the Maldives, while 34 have died so far. Enditem Over the past 24 hours, Russian occupation forces in Donbas have opened fire on Ukrainian positions four times, the Joint Forces Operation's headquarters has said. "Over the past day, on October 2, four ceasefire violations were recorded in the areas of responsibility of the Ukrainian brigades. There were no combat losses or injuries as a result of enemy shots," the headquarters said in the morning summary on Facebook page on Saturday. In addition, servicemen of the Armed Forces and rescuers of the State Emergency Service localized fires near the settlements of Kriakovka, Triokhizbenka, Artema, Aidar and Stanytsia Luhanska. From the Armed Forces of Ukraine, more than 700 people and 30 units of engineering and special equipment were involved in fire suppression. The signing ceremony of the MOU between TCCT and KCTC took place at Tan Cang Cai Mep port of Saigon Newport Corporation in Ba Ria Vung Tau The tie-up will help both parties to maximise their strengths, thereby contributing to the socioeconomic development of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and the key southern economic zone. According to the MoU, the two parties will extend investment in the two parties' projects and others where their member units have strengths and advantages. The two parties will also tap into each other's capacities and experiences to develop and expand markets, as well as share information on key investment projects that are of mutual interest in the coming time. KCTC Vietnam is a FDI enterprise with 49 per cent Korean investment. Established in 2008, the company is headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City and has seven major branches in other provinces. KCTC Vietnam focuses on multimodal transport business, cargo handling services, warehousing services, logistics consulting services, goods storage. "With over 12 years of experience in logistics services, KCTC Vietnam is aiming to become a centre providing the best logistics solutions to customers in the East-South-North Asia region," Park Hyun Bae, general director of KCTC said. Meanwhile, Tan Cang Cai Mep JSC (TCCT) is a subsidiary of Saigon Newport Corporation, established in 2007. Put into operation in June 2009, TCCT is Vietnam's first deep-water seaport, capable of receiving ships up to 160,000 DWT. Ngo Minh Thuan, general director of Saigon Newport Corporation said that after 11 years of development, TCCT seaport continues to expand and upgrade facilities with new warehouse and logistics services. Recently, TCCT has teamed up with KCTC to handle Out of Gauge shipments in the Cai Mep port area. Therefore, the new partnership is expected to pave way for promising development for both companies while effectively serving foreign investors in Vietnam. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump is "doing very well," the president's physician told reporters on Saturday hours after the president was taken to the hospital after experiencing fever, congestion and symptoms from coronavirus. "This morning, the president is doing very well," said Dr. Sean Conley, who said he was "extremely happy" with the president's progress so far. Doctors said the president had been fever free for over 24 hours and was not on oxygen Saturday but did not answer several questions about whether he had been at any point previously. Trump's medical team denied a report Friday that the president was having trouble breathing. "Hes not on oxygen right now," Conley said, adding that Trump had an oxygen saturation level of 96%, within the normal range for a healthy person. Doctors monitor oxygen in blood as an indicator of whether there's low oxygen levels, one of the problems that occurs with COVID-19. Conley said the president developed a fever Thursday and said that doctors were continuing to evaluate when he could return to the White House. Asked why, specifically, he had been transferred to Walter Reed, Conley indicated it was out of an abundance of caution. "Because he's the president of the United States," Conley said. Trump, 74, remained at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Saturday after he and first lady Melania Trump announced early Friday they had tested positive for COVID-19. White House officials, who initially described the president's case as mild, later said he was experiencing symptoms such as fatigue and fever. President Donald Trump walks off Marine One while arriving at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland on October 2, 2020. Soon after Trump arrived at the hospital, the White House released a memo from Conley indicating the president was starting remdesivir therapy. Conley said at that time that Trump was "doing very well" and was "resting comfortably." Trump also received a single 8-gram dose of Regeneron's polyclonal antibody cocktail as a precautionary measure, according to Conley. The antibody cocktail is being studied in four late-stage clinical trials and its safety and efficacy have not been fully evaluated by any regulatory authority, the company said on its page. Story continues The White House has provided some information of the president's condition, including memos from Conley. However, many of the details were unclear late Friday, including the full extent of his symptoms, which test was used to confirm his case and specifically why he was moved to the hospital rather than recovering at the White House. More: President Trump hospitalized at Walter Reed after testing positive for COVID-19 More: Woodrow Wilson downplayed the 1918 flu pandemic. Then, he got violently sick. Trump himself has remained uncharacteristically out of view since announcing the diagnosis and White House officials sought to convey a sense of business-as-usual throughout the day Friday. On Saturday, officials announced that Trump had signed two resolutions appointing citizen regents to the board of the Smithsonian Institution. After remaining silent on Twitter for much of Friday, he posted a message at 11:30 p.m. EST saying that things were "going welI, I think!" Contributing: Courtney Subramanian This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump doing 'very well' says White House physician Sean Conley The United Nations and Germany are co-chairing a ministerial meeting of world powers and other countries with interests in Libya's long-running civil war in hopes of promoting a cease-fire between its rival governments The United Nations and Germany are co-chairing a ministerial meeting on Monday of world powers and other countries with interests in Libya's long-running civil war in hopes of promoting a cease-fire between its rival governments. Germany's deputy U.N. ambassador Gunter Sautter said Friday the virtual meeting is ``an important follow-up'' to a conference of the same parties in Berlin on Jan. 19 that approved a 55-point road map to peace in oil-rich Libya and agreed 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. Stephanie Williams, the top U.N. official for Libya, warned last month that the conflict-torn North African country is at ``a decisive turning point,'' with foreign backers of its rival governments pouring in weapons - in violation of the Berlin agreement - and the misery of its people compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. Sautter said Monday's meeting ``comes at a crucial moment.'' He pointed to ``some encouraging developments in Libya'' including talks on security, ``the long-term agreements on transition, and progress on the question of oil exports.'' In the years after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has sunk further into turmoil and is now divided between two rival administrations, based in the country's east and west, with an array of fighters and militias - backed by various foreign powers - allied with each side. Tensions escalated further when east-based forces, under National Libyan Army commander Khalifa Haftar, launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture the capital, Tripoli. But Haftar's campaign collapsed in June when militias backing the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli, with Turkish and Syrian mercenaries support, gained the upper hand. Haftar is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Jordan and Egypt while the Tripoli forces are supported by the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar and by Turkey and Syrian mercenaries. Sautter said Germany hopes participants in Monday's meeting - co-chaired by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas - will renew their commitments to the Berlin road map and its implementation. ``We hope that they will call on the parties to accelerate efforts to achieve a cease-fire,`` Sautter said. ``We hope that continuing blatant violations of the arms embargo will end.'' U.N. experts monitoring sanctions against Libya said in a report, seen by The Associated Press last month, that the arms embargo was being violated by both sides and their foreign backers, and remains ``totally ineffective.'' Sautter said Germany also hopes Monday's meeting ``will strengthen the United Nations as key facilitator of the political dialogue in Libya.'' *This story was edited by Ahram Online Search Keywords: Short link: What Michelle Arastu likes most about being an English as a Second Language teacher is that she is constantly learning from her students. As an ESL teacher at Fort Settlement Middle School in Sugar Land, she said that flexibility and understanding are key in helping English language learners achieve academically in an unfamiliar setting. Lone Star College-CyFair hosted a virtual education speaker series event Thursday evening with current educators to discuss the need for more bilingual teachers and how to improve academic performance on state valuations among bilingual students and English Language Learners. On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas republishes data on school COVID cases but omits hundreds of districts Shamim Arastu, professor of education at Lone Star College-CyFair, said the education department invited people who have experience serving English Language Learners and bilingual students to have a conversation about educational institutions meeting the needs of the growing bilingual student population in Texas public schools. The demand is strong, we need effective bilingual teachers and ESL teachers to meet the needs of this population, Shamim Arastu said. Among the special guests was Yvonne Casares Khan, a Houston and Austin institutional liaison, recruiter and advisor for the 2+1 TechTeach Across Texas Teacher Preparation Distance Program for the College of Education at Texas Tech University. On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston ISD could see 100,000-plus students stay home when campuses reopen later this month Khan said teachers that are trained and taught the strategies to work with English Language Learners, dont necessarily need to know Spanish, or any of the languages and ELL student may speak. They just need to have the strategies and the support system to be able to work with English Language Learners, Khan said. Open and welcoming Karim Seminario a Spanish teacher and parent liaison at Cy Falls High School said some high schools have centers where students are placed to help them start the first year as ELL students and then are moved to ESL classes. Michelle Arastu teaches newcomers when they first arrive and said that how students are served as English Language Leaners depends on the school district. At Ford Bend ISD, she said ELL students do not have a special arrival center but instead are on campus from day one. Michelle Arastu said that instead of a primary language, they have multiple languages on campus like Turkish, Chinese, Taiwanese and Arabic to provide flexibility, understanding and support for students across their content areas in whatever way they can. I think something that really resonates if this is something that youre interested or passionate about doing is you really have to be very aware that its not just the language but theyre adapting to a whole new country, a new culture, a new school system, Michelle Arastu said. They dont understand the behaviors and the norms of an American school system. Seminario said educators not only have a responsibility to teach students but also the families and to create programs to invite them to come to the school to learn the system. She said the key is to open the mind and never assume that students or families should know or dont care. We have to really have to be culturally aware and responsive to their needs because their experiences are so different, Shamim Arastu said. Something Michelle Arastu learned in her first year on campus was how students were uncomfortable coming to her room and did not want people to know they were in ESL they felt embarrassed. She said they currently have an international festival thats focused on educating teachers by having them follow a demonstration, like modeling how to make milk tea, instead of just speaking to them. Lessons like this can help open their minds up to the little things they can do in their classrooms to help students in their content areas. I just really wanted my room to be open and welcoming to everyone on campus, Michelle Arastu said. I felt that would help them also be part of our campus. Rewarding career Khan said all her experience in teaching has been in classrooms with monolingual and bilingual students. I really work hard in creating a collaborative environment and Im very intentional when I group the students so they can have an opportunity to become each others mentors, Khan said. She said that giving students opportunities to value their culture and offering collaborative opportunities for friendships is crucial. Theres a lot of things that theyre not used to, so when they have that collaborate environment with the other students that theyre working with, it makes them feel comfortable, Khan said. Luz Gutierrez Torres is the Department Chair of Foreign Language Department and Spanish teacher at Cy Falls High School. Gutierrez said in dealing with bilingual working families, its important to have patience, empathy and a spirit of service to them. She said its a community that are appreciative of teachers and will be very grateful. I feel blessed serving the bilingual community and the English Language Learners; I have learned so much and I have gotten so much culturally and personally that its amazing, Gutierrez said. If you are embarking through this journey of teaching bilingual students and serving the bilingual community, you are going to enjoy it. Youre going to be so rewarded from it. Michelle Arastu said part of what shes learned is to not think that everything she does one year is automatically going to work for next group of students coming in, especially in her school with so many different cultures and languages. I absolutely love it, and one of things that I would say I like the most is the fact that I can build relationships, Michelle Arastu said. My job is to really be there for those kids, for everything that they might need and for their families. Shamim Arastu agreed in that creating connections with not just bilingual and ELL students, but with all students is of great importance. If you can connect and show that you can relate in some way, shape or form, then the learning part becomes so much better and so much easier, and then that connection with the family, it just becomes a natural part of the teaching, Shamim Arastu said. Michelle Arastu said teachers have to be willing to just laugh, smile and have that relationship with students where they can take the mistakes and risks that students make and teach them to be OK with it. Ive learned to never think that I understand whats going on, that Im continuously learning from my students; I think I got something figured out and I dont, and thats actually the most enjoyable part of this job, Michelle Arastu said. alvaro.montano@chron.com NEW DELHI: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday (October 3) left for Hathras to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman whose brutal gang-rape, murder and forceful cremation triggered widespread protests across the country. Along with the two leaders, dozens of Congress MPs including Shashi Tharoor are also travelling to Hathras. A massive traffic jam was witnessed on the DND flyover on Saturday amid deployment of a heavy police force of 200 personnel as a cavalcade of Congress leaders moved down the stretch to meet the gang-rape victim's family. Barricades were installed with scores of police personnel present at the DND even as CrPC section 144 remained imposed in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar. UP Police allows 5 people including Rahul, Priyanka to visit Hathras: Meanwhile, the latest development on the incident said that the Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday afternoon allowed the visit of 5 people including Rahul and Priyanka to proceed to Hathras. Saturday's visit to Hathras by Congress leaders comes barely two days after Rahul and Priyanka were stopped and allegedly manhandled by Uttar Pradesh Police during their visit to Hathras. On October 1, Rahul was allegedly roughed up by UP Police personnel and pushed to the ground when he was marching towards Hathras after their vehicles were stopped on the Yamuna Expressway in Gautam Buddh Nagar. Other Congress leaders were also detained, and a case registered against them under the Epidemic Diseases Act. Earlier in the day, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi made it clear she'll make sure she meets the family of the Hathras girl who died on Tuesday at any cost. I will visit Hathras at any cost even if the police does not allow us," she said. Live TV Meanwhile, Union Minister Smriti Irani termed the Congress leaders' visit to Hathras a 'political gimmick' with no intention of seeking justice for the victim's family. While speaking to media Irani said, "People are aware of Congress' tactics and that is why they ensured a historic win for BJP in 2019 polls. People understand that their (Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi) visit to Hathras is for their politics and not for justice to the victim." The 19-year-old woman, who was gangraped and brutally assaulted by four men, succumbed to her injuries at Delhi's Safdarjung hospital on September 29. According to reports, all the four accused in the Hathras incident have been arrested. Amid huge public outcry over the horrific Hathras gang-rape, the Yogi Adityanath government on October 2 suspended Hathras SP, CO, Inspector, SI and head constable in the case. The Chief Minister also ordered the narco test of both the parties along with the police officials. LONDON Britains lengthy divorce proceedings with the European Union entered a make-or-break phase on Saturday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the European Commission president agreed that the two sides shared enough common ground to aim for a final settlement. The announcement, after a video call between Mr. Johnson and the Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, fell well short of a breakthrough, but neither was it a breakdown. Negotiations for a long-term trade agreement, which have ground on inconclusively for months, will now intensify as the two sides scramble to meet a deadline that would allow a deal to be in place on Dec. 31. The two leaders agreed that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained," according to a statement from 10 Downing Street. They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps. Britain formally left the European Union at the end of January. But under the terms of its withdrawal agreement, it remains part of the blocs customs union and single market until the end of the year while the two sides hammer out permanent arrangements on issues like fishing quotas and state aid to industries. The hotelier community in Bengaluru have come together to start a community social service initiative called Sanchigondu in which customers will be given the offer to buy coupons to buy a meal for the economically disadvantageous amid the Covid-19 crisis. The project by the Bruhat Bengaluru Hotel Association, Rotary Bangalore South Parade, and Corona Warriors Banashankari is inspired by a similar initiative undertaken in Venice, Italy popularly known as One for me and one for the wall. The initiative offers people buy a meal for themselves and pay for another extra meal which can be given to the needy. The donation is held in trust by the hotelier and displayed as a paid receipt stuck on the wall, which the needy can claim. Localising the concept by calling it Sanchigondu, in which sanchi in Kannada means a small sack, people can pay for these meals and can be redeemed by anyone. Over 50 hotels in Bengaluru have come forward to implement the idea. PC Rao, President of the Bruhat Bengaluru Hotels Association, says that the concept has been welcomed by many. We feel obliged to give back to the society that has supported our businesses at all times. We are happy to serve for this cause and we look forward to increasing the number of hotels in the coming days," he said. The helicopter that will carry President Donald Trump to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre (J Scott Applewhite/AP) US President Donald Trump will spend a "few days" at a military hospital on the advice of his physicians after contracting Covid-19, the White House said on Friday night. Mr Trump announced his diagnosis in a tweet in the early hours of Friday, following a positive test from one of his closest aides. Less than 24 hours later, the White House said the president would travel by helicopter to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre and would spend a few days there. Earlier, officials had said Mr Trump, 74, was experiencing mild symptoms of the virus which can notably cause fever, a cough and a loss of smell or taste. His diagnosis came after aide Hope Hicks returned a positive test on Thursday, with Mr Trump later tweeting: @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! The presidents re-election campaign said all events featuring Mr Trump and members of his family would either be postponed or go online, but that vice-president Mike Pence would resume campaigning as he had tested negative. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was admitted to intensive care following his own positive test, has expressed his best wishes to Mr and Mrs Trump. He said: Well, obviously, I think we all want to send our best wishes to the president and the first lady, and I have done that this morning as you can imagine, and Im sure that they will both stage a very strong recovery. My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady. Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus. Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) October 2, 2020 Mr Trumps Covid-19 diagnosis is the latest among world leaders, with Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier also falling ill. While waiting for the results of his test following Ms Hicks diagnosis, Mr Trump said he had found it difficult to socially distance while meeting members of the armed forces. He told Fox News: Its very hard when youre with soldiers, when youre with airmen, when youre with the marines, and with the police officers, Im with them so much. And when they come over to you its very hard to say stay back, stay back you know, its a tough kind of a situation, its a terrible thing. He added: They come over to you and they want to hug you and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them and you get close and things happen. Meanwhile in the UK, new figures showed the reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the country still remains above 1, and is continuing to creep up. The data released by the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) shows the estimate for R for the whole of the UK is between 1.3 and 1.6. Last week, the R number was between 1.2 and 1.5. Sage has cautioned that while there are some early indications that suggest the growth of the epidemic might be slowing, it is too early to draw firm conclusions. The scientific advisers said it is still highly likely that the epidemic is growing exponentially across the country and more data is needed to accurately assess recent changes in coronavirus transmission. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also released on Friday said an estimated one in 500 people were infected with coronavirus in England between September 18 and 24. The developments came as SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon called on Margaret Ferrier to quit as an MP after she made a monumental error of judgment by taking a train from London to Scotland when she knew she had tested positive for Covid-19. The Metropolitan Police are now investigating after Ms Ferrier admitted breaking self-isolation rules by travelling to Parliament after experiencing symptoms and then taking a train to Glasgow having tested positive. Her party swiftly suspended her after the disclosure but leaders Ms Sturgeon and Ian Blackford faced questions over what they knew and when amid anger at the MPs actions. Ms Sturgeon said on Friday she had made it crystal clear Ms Ferrier should resign her seat. The row comes on the eve of new local lockdowns which will be imposed in the north of England. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) More than a third of the UK will be under heightened restrictions when Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough enter local lockdowns on Saturday. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced new restrictions on north-west England, similar to those imposed in the North East earlier this week. He told MPs that action was needed with there being 268 cases per 100,000 people in Liverpool. It will be illegal for households to mix indoors there, as well as in Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, from Saturday. Local lockdowns came into force in Denbighshire, Flintshire, Conwy and Wrexham in North Wales from 6pm on Thursday. Proposals being considered in Whitehall could see a simpler, three-tiered approach to local restrictions, but these have yet to be finalised. While speaking at a virtual event, Indian Envoy to United Nations TS Tirumurti on Friday, October 2 paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi and said non-violence will forever be relevant. At the event titled 'Gandhi@150: A non-violent approach to peace and development', Tirumurti said, "We need to practice non-violence as a potent weapon for truth and to cleanse our own outer and inner selves. On International Day of Non-Violence, let's not forget our pursuit of truth even as we remember our pursuit of non-violence. Read: Sri Lanka PM Mahinda Rajapaksa Pays Tribute To Mahatma Gandhi On 151st Birth Anniversary The teachings of Non-violence are 'timeless': Tirumurti Non-violence is and will always be directly relevant to address the burning issues of the day. Let us not forget that these issues are not merely those which are external to us but those which are internal to us too, the Indian Envoy added. As per reports, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was also present at the virtual event. During his address, Guterres acknowledged that Gandhi's message of non-violence and peaceful protest. "This international day highlights the remarkable power of non-violence and peaceful protest. It is also a timely reminder to strive to pull values that Gandhi lived by -- the promotion of dignity, equal protection for all and communities living together in peace," UN Sec-Gen said. Read: Burj Khalifa Honours Mahatma Gandhi On 151st Birth Anniversary With Marvelous Light Show Guterres also said that now was the time for the international community to unite against their common enemy, the COVID-19 pandemic. UN Chief further called for a global ceasefire so that countries could concentrate their efforts on beating the virus. Guterres said, On this year's observance we have a special duty -- stop the fighting to focus on common enemy that is COVID-19. There is only one winner of conflict during a pandemic -- the virus itself. I call for a global ceasefire. Today we need a new push by the international community to make this a reality by the end of this year." (With ANI inputs, Image: ANI ) Read: Guatemala Vice President Reyes Pays Homage To Mahatma Gandhi On 151st Birth Anniversary Read: UN Chief Guterres Remembers Gandhi's Message Of Non-violence, Urges Global Ceasefire Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily newsletters. To support our non-profit public service journalism: Donate Now. Her voice vibrating with emotion as she held a microphone, Nurnisa Kurban stood on a sidewalk in Los Angeles, gazing at the crowd of about 150 people who had gathered around her by nightfall Thursday. There were immigrants from Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and Hong Kong. And there was her own community of Uyghurs, some waving sky blue flags with a star and moon representing East Turkistan, their name for their home. "I'm very excited and empowered that we all came together," Kurban said from a folding table operating as a stand. "We have the same goal: to resist Chinese government and demand social justice for our people." Nurnisa Kurban of Uyghur LA, an assistant hs principal from Santa Clarita, was 1 of the first to speak and thanked the LA coalition supporting her community pic.twitter.com/LPyTKCHPi2 Josie Huang (@josie_huang) October 2, 2020 With more than 1 million Uyghurs detained in concentration camps in the Chinese territory of Xinjiang, Kurban said her people's plight had grown more urgent and needed championing by others fighting repression by China's Communist Party. The group stood in full view of the Chinese consulate across the street, which had closed for the day and was devoid of activity save for about 10 uniformed LAPD officers monitoring the unity event. No one in the consulate's press affairs office was responding to phone calls earlier in the day. The pandemic prevented earlier protests by the group, but the coalition of activists made sure to meet up by the Chinese consulate, located in Koreatown, because Thursday was China's National Day, when the country celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China. "We believe that a regime that has total disregard for human rights, freedom, and violations of so many things should not be celebrated," said Gabriel Law, a member of the Hong Kong Forum-Los Angeles, a pro-democracy group. For Law, China's treatment of Uyghurs forebodes a frightening future for Hong Kong, which falls under Chinese sovereignty while operating its own government. Yifei Liu stars as Mulan in Disney's live-action adaptation of its animated classic. (Disney) But China has moved to tighten its grip over the territory and tried to quash the pro-democracy movement. Uyghurs and Hong Kongers have forged a bond that has jumped the ocean to the United States, where the different communities speak out for one another and join common efforts, like the boycott of the Disney release "Mulan." It was seen as doubly offensive, in part because the blockbuster's star has publicly sided with the Hong Kong police cracking down on protesters. The production was also filmed in Xinjiang, without any acknowledgement of the concentration camps located in the territory. At Thursday's event, the largest contingent was from Hong Kong, wearing the familiar black and yellow colors that have become protesters' hallmark colors. The Hong Kongers played one of their protest movement's most beloved anthems "Do You Hear The People Sing" from the musical Les Miserables, as they brandished yellow umbrellas which have become the symbols of Hong Kong resistance. The Hong Kongers brandish their symbol of resistance the yellow umbrella to the pro-democracy movements anthem, Do You Hear The People Sing? from Les Miz pic.twitter.com/Q3KoWUcWa6 Josie Huang (@josie_huang) October 2, 2020 WE LOVE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS New Delhi, Oct 3 : As educational institutes adapted to online learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Delhi Tamil Education Association (DTEA) has distributed 110 tablets to underprivileged students in its seven schools to help them study. According to DTEA, many impoverished students across India have been deprived of their education, as they lacked the tools - either smartphone, tablet or laptop, and the network as well. The DTEA consists of seven senior secondary schools. Since the beginning of the lockdown, the economically backward students in these seven schools have been deprived of the ongoing online classes. The DTEA Alumni Trust decided to look into this pressing challenge. They raised funds through voluntary contributions. "Through our efforts, disparate individuals and entities have joined hands to enable accessibility, availability and affordability of online learning for the underprivileged," Anand, Chairman of the DTEA Alumni Trust, said in a statement. The association said that the calls for contributions saw a very strong and encouraging response from alumni members. One of the alumni members, based in the US, decided to match 50 per cent of the total funds raised in India. To get technical expertise and select the right technological tools, the Trust reached out to Prabhu Ram, Head, Industry Intelligence Group, CMR. "It is my fiduciary duty to leverage my tech understanding and learning in connecting the dots where possible, for the benefit of the underprivileged," said Ram. "From my vantage point, I have been fortunate to see the efforts by corporates across the board, to enable e-learning," he added. A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. J. Scott Applewhite, STF / Associated Press Donald Trump Jr. was supposed to be in Texas today, but that plan was scrapped after President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19. Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle were scheduled to be at a luncheon get-out-the-vote event at the Valencia Event Center in McAllen this afternoon, but because of the COVID-19 scare in the White House, they had to postpone the trip. Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial insight, gathered from around the web: Conned? Venmo still wants payment Trying to recoup money from canceled payments, "Venmo has threatened to dispatch debt collectors against victims of scams," said Peter Rudegeair in The Wall Street Journal. Rachel Karpen-King discovered she'd been scammed after sending $2,500 via the popular payments app to imposters pretending to sell her software for a new job. Her bank stopped the payment. But Venmo threatened to report her to a collection agency if she didn't pay back the amount the app had already forwarded. Part of Venmo's appeal is that "transactions appear instantaneously in the app," even though the actual bank transfers take longer. Venmo fronts the payment, and some recipients pay a small fee to get it in their bank account more quickly potentially leaving PayPal, which owns Venmo, on the hook when transfers are stopped. The secret world of Amazon 'fixers' In what "sounds like a made-for-Netflix crime drama," six people were charged after allegedly bribing Amazon workers to access company secrets, said Spencer Soper and Isabelle Lee in Bloomberg Businessweek. According to the prosecutors, the ring "stole terabytes of confidential company data and devised ways to game the system so some merchants would get more business while their competitors got shut down." Other scammers "got products Amazon removed for safety reasons put back on the site." The enterprise "flourished for years" without Amazon's detection, revealing a "Wild West atmosphere rife with cutthroat tactics" on the world's largest online retail platform. One Brooklyn-based "e-commerce consultant" allegedly sent $8,000 in a suitcase to accomplices in exchange for confidential Amazon information. Premature rumors of her demise... A woman in Oregon was told by Wells Fargo that she had died, said Mike Rogoway in the Portland Oregonian and that the bank had "taken it upon itself to tell three credit-reporting agencies." When Judy Cashner got a letter addressed to her estate saying, "We are sorry for your loss and understand this is a difficult time for you," she thought little of the "computer-generated snafu." But it turned out that the bank had been reporting her dead since 2019. "Cashner and her husband were in the process of refinancing their home," and their lender couldn't verify her income. It took weeks to resolve the problem, ultimately settled with a form called a "declaration of life." Still unclear: "how Wells Fargo got the notion that Cashner had died." This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here. More stories from theweek.com Trump is reportedly 'bored' watching TV at Walter Reed, 'angry' at how his illness is being covered Trump is sick. So is the GOP. Mark Meadows defends Trump's motorcade ride after White House aides call it 'selfish' Moctar Ouane, pictured in January 2009, has been appointed as Mali's new prime minister UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this week called on Mali's transitional government to maintain a 2015 peace agreement deemed critical for the country's stability. The appeal came in a report submitted to the Security Council. "The peace agreement remains the relevant framework for the urgently needed institutional reforms, and its implementation must remain a priority," the UN chief said in the document, which has not yet been made public but was obtained by AFP. The peace deal, signed under the country's previous president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was meant to disarm rebel groups and integrate them into the national army, but its implementation has dragged on for years despite international pressure. "There is no viable alternative. I call on the transitional authorities to take ownership of the agreement," Guterres added. A military junta overthrew Keita last month, before taking over leadership of the West African nation long plagued by instability, a simmering jihadist revolt, ethnic violence and endemic corruption. "The political vacuum is of great concern, as it may further delay the implementation of the peace agreement, and the reform agenda, which had already slowed down significantly in previous months," Guterres said. Mali's interim president Bah Ndaw on Sunday named former Malian foreign minister Moctar Ouane as prime minister. The appointment of a civilian premier opens the way for the country's neighbors to lift sanctions imposed after the August military coup. prh/bfm/caw/ North Haven Police Department NORTH HAVEN A 17-year-old male from East Haven has been arrested in connection with a December 2019 incident in which gunshots were fired at a vehicle, police said. Police were initially advised a confrontation had occurred between two groups at Hanson Park, and a vehicle fled the area at a high rate of speed, police said. President Donald Trump leaves the White House for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on Oct. 2, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Trump Doing Very Well, Begins Remdesivir Therapy President Donald Trump is doing very well and is beginning remdesivir therapy, an experimental antiviral therapy, White House physician Dr. Sean Conley said in a memorandum Friday evening. This afternoon, in consultation with specialists from Walter Reed and Johns Hopkins University, I recommended movement of the president up to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for further monitoring, Conley said in the memorandum. This evening I am happy to report that the president is doing very well, he continued. He is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but in consultation with specialists we have elected to initiate remdesivir therapy. He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably. Trump announced on Twitter Friday evening, Going welI, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!! Going welI, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2020 Trumps Twitter feed has been unusually quiet since announcing his COVID-19 diagnosis in the early hours of Friday. The president made his first public appearance roughly 17 hours since announcing his positive test for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus around 6:20 p.m. on Friday, as he walked out of the White House to take a flight to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Trump will be working at the presidential offices at Walter Reed, which has a special suite available for the president with multiple rooms for rest, treatment, work, and dining, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced prior to Trumps move: President Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days. The Marine One helicopter lands with President Donald Trump aboard as he arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, Oct. 2, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Marine One helicopter on Oct. 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) On Friday afternoon, Conley released a health update (pdf) saying that the president remains fatigued but in good spirits. The update also said that as a precautionary measure, the president completed an infusion of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail of 8 grams. In addition to the polyclonal antibodies, the president has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and a daily aspirin, Conley said in the update. Trump released a video shortly after he arrived at Walter Reed thanking the public for the support. He said: I think Im doing very well but were going to make sure that things work out. The first lady is doing very well. The latest health update from the presidents physician comes as Trumps campaign manager, Bill Stepien, has tested positive for the CCP virus. Campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh confirmed the news, reported The Associated Press. The campaign of Democratic Party presidential and vice-presidential candidates Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris published an open letter on Monday demanding that Facebook increase political censorship on its platform before the general election on November 3. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) In the three-page letter from campaign manager Jen OMalley Dillon, addressed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Biden-Harris camp states that the social media platform is the nations foremost propagator of disinformation about the voting process, and demands that posts from the Trump campaign be removed. Dillon writes that Facebook has failed to live up to its September 3 commitment to fulfill its responsibility to protect our democracy and fight misinformation. Instead, she says, Facebook has allowed the Trump campaign to use your platform to spread falsehoods about mail voting. She adds that rather than seeing progress, we have seen regression. Dillon gives specific examples of Trump campaign content that she claims should have been removed by Facebook. In one instance, Dillon writes, Donald J. Trump, Jr. posted a video on September 21 claiming that those who oppose his father have a plan to add millions of fraudulent ballots that can cancel your vote and overturn the election. He then implores viewers not to let this happen. According to Dillon, he then urges every able bodied man and woman to join an army for Trumps election security. Many corporate news organizations, along with the Biden-Harris campaign, pointed out to Facebook that Trump Jr.s post violated the social media platforms policy against misinformation about the elections. Dillon writes, Your response was that the video yielded extensive discussions, which reached the conclusion that it was consistent with your policies. In the end, Facebook placed a banner at the bottom of the post that says, Voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the US and the same is predicted this year (Source: Bipartisan Policy Center). In response, Dillon writes, No company that considers itself a force for good in democracy, and that purports to take voter suppression seriously, would allow this dangerous claptrap to be spread to millions of people. Removing this video should have been the easiest of easy calls under your policies, yet it remains up today. Dillon describes the presidents repeated use of Facebook to encourage supporters who have voted by mail to show up at their polling place and demand to vote again unless it is demonstrated that their vote has been counted. Claiming that these posts violate Facebooks prohibition of misrepresentations about voting logistics, methods, or requirements, Dillon writes that the solution should have been simple: remove Mr. Trumps posts, which violate your policies. The demand by the Biden-Harris campaign that Facebook remove political content from its platform is not the first time that the Democrats have called for censorship measures from the worlds number one social media company, with 2.7 billion users worldwide and 235 million in the US (72 percent of the population). The Biden campaign sent an open letter to Facebook on June 29 in response to Mark Zuckerbergs announcement that the platform was reviewing policies regarding authoritative information about voting. In that letter, the Democrats called for increased censorship and demanded that Facebook confirm that it would remove posts on a range of topics and refuse to make exceptions for politicians such as Donald Trump and right-leaning publications. Going back to the defeat of their presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by then-Republican nominee Donald Trump in 2016, the Democrats have been engaged in a steady campaignin cooperation with US intelligenceover unsubstantiated claims of Russian interference, foreign misinformation and coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook. One year ago, during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demanded that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg take down lies on the platform. As the World Socialist Web Site explained at the time: The basic assumption of the first amendment is that the government does not know what is a fact and what is a lie. It is for the electorate to decide for themselves, and not the business of the government, or corporations acting on its behalf, to force-feed ideas to the public. Over the past year, Facebook and the other major social media giants such as Twitter and YouTube have been working directly with US intelligence agencies to censor online content, especially socialist publishers and websites, in order to defend the capitalist two-party system against a growing movement to the left by workers and young people. This process has been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic and the disastrous response of the entire ruling class to it. On September 24, in cooperation with the US imperialist think tank Atlantic Council and its Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRL), Facebook removed hundreds of accounts, pages, groups and Instagram accounts from three networks deemed to be engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) on behalf of a foreign or government entity. Facebook claimed all three networks originated in Russia. In announcing the Facebook censorship moves, Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy, wrote that a primary concern about the Russia-based networks is the threat of hack-and-leak operations where a bad actor steals sensitive information, sometimes manipulates it, and then strategically releases it to influence public debate. Although, Gleicher writes, we have not seen the networks we removed today engage in these efforts, or directly target the US 2020 election, they are linked to actors associated with election interference in the US in the past, including those involved in DC leaks in 2016. In other words, Facebook is claimingon behalf of US intelligencethat censorship of such organizations is necessary to prevent a repeat of the hack of Democratic Party email servers that exposed the criminality of the Democratic National Committee and the lies of candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary campaign, information that was then spread in a viral manner on social media. One of the networks, from which Facebook removed one Page, five Facebook accounts, one Group and three Instagram accounts, is called United World International (uwidata.com). The organization describes itself as an independent analytical center, where politologists and experts in international relations from different countries will exchange opinions and their views of outstanding political situations. Facebooks Gleicher claims this small network originated in Russia and focused primarily on Turkey and Europe, and also on the United States. Gleicher further states, Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identity and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with past activity by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA). Gleicher gives no evidence to prove any of these assertions. Behind both the demands of the Democratic Party for increased censorship and the actual censorship actions of Facebook is the deepening political crisis and attack on democracy in the US. The Biden campaign is calling upon Facebook to censor the posts of the Trump campaign while largely ignoring the fact that the president and his supporters are engaged in a criminal conspiracy to mobilize fascist squads to intimidate or commit acts of violence against voters, and to overthrow the US Constitution by refusing to leave office regardless of the election result. For its part, the intelligence state is moving to shut down left-wing and socialist publishers on Facebook out of fear that the working class and youth will move outside of the confines of the capitalist two-party system and begin to organize their own response to the moves by Trump to establish a presidential dictatorship in the US. All factions of the ruling establishment are united in their efforts to shut down the growing influence of the revolutionary socialist program advanced on social media and the internet by the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party. New Delhi: In a major development, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Forensic Department which submitted its report with the CBI in relation to the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput has ruled out 'murder' angle. The AIIMS forensic panel which was set up to assist the CBI in the medical investigation into the death of Sushant has ruled out murder claims, as per sources. It has been learnt that the five-member team may have called it a case of suicide, rejecting the claims of poisoning and strangling made by the actor's family and their lawyer. This development comes in at a time when late actor's family, friends and fans across the globe are seeking justice for Sushant. Several social media campaigns are being organised in ensuring that he gets justice and the mystery around his death is solved. Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Bandra residence on June 14, 2020. The case was initially probed by the Mumbai Police but after massive public demand, the case went to CBI. Soon, Enforcement Directorate came into picture and probe began in the money-laundering angle involving Sushant's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, brother Showik and her family. Another premiere agency the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) joined the investigation when consumption of drugs was revealed through some retrieved WhatsApp chats of Rhea and Sushant's manager Samuel Miranda. Reliance Industries announced that Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and global private equity firm TPG Capital would invest nearly $1 billion in its retail arm, Reliance Retail Ventures. GIC will invest Rs 5,512.5 crore and TPG will invest Rs 1,837.5 crore in the retail arm. In a regulatory filing, Reliance said that the firms would pick 1.22 per cent equity stake and 0.41 per cent equity stake in RRVL respectively. The Mukesh Ambani-helmed oil-to-telecom conglomerate said that the investments value Reliance Retail at a pre-money equity value of $58.47 billion. Reliance has already secured more than $2 billion in investments from global investors including General Atlantic, Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala and Silver Lake Partners for the retail arm. This investment is TPG's second in Reliance after its $598 million investment in Reliance's Jio Platforms. Mukesh Ambani has approached Jio Platforms investors to pick stakes in Reliance Retail. Also read: General Atlantic to invest Rs 3,675 crore in Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail "It gives me great pleasure to welcome GIC to the Reliance Retail family. I am delighted that GIC, with its track record of close to four decades of successful long-term value investing across the world, is partnering with Reliance Retail in its mission to transform the Indian retail landscape. GIC's global network and track record of long-term partnerships will be invaluable to the transformation story of Indian Retail. This investment is a strong endorsement of our strategy and India's potential," said Mukesh Ambani. "I am pleased to welcome TPG as valued investors in Reliance Retail Ventures mission of growing and transforming the Indian Retail ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. TPG has a proven track record of being a valuable partner to global technology businesses and industry leaders and we look forward to their guidance and support in our journey," he added. Isha Ambani, Director of Reliance Retail, said, "We are delighted to welcome TPG to the Reliance Retail family in our journey of revolutionizing the Indian Retail landscape and improving the economic prospects of millions of merchants and enhancing consumer experience. TPG's rich experience will be invaluable to the Reliance Retail mission." Reliance Retail is already India's biggest retailer with around 12,000 stores. It acquired Future Group's retail business in a $3.38 billion deal. Also read: Silver Lake to invest additional Rs 1,875 crore in Reliance Retail Also read: Mubadala to invest Rs 6,247 crore in Reliance Retail Manitobans living on low incomes have a new resource they can turn to with financial questions. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Manitobans living on low incomes have a new resource they can turn to with financial questions. Three community agencies have partnered to create a financial helpline that provides free information about a range of topics, including tax filing and government benefits. The helpline was created, in part, to respond to the anxiety some people are feeling now that the Canada Emergency Response Benefit has ended, says Millie Acuna, a program manager at Supporting Employment and Economic Development Winnipeg. "There is a fear and a stigma when it comes to money management," Acuna says. "Were not there to criticize. Were there to be a trusted advocate and support." SEED Winnipeg is partnering with Community Financial Counselling Services and Community Unemployed Help Centre to run the helpline. People can access it by calling or texting 431-813-4357. There is also a toll-free option at 1-855-955-4234. Each partner has a unique focus, according to Acuna. SEED Winnipeg helps people obtain identification and will offer assistance with benefit applications. The staff at Community Financial Counselling Services have expertise in the area of tax filing, and Community Unemployed Help Centre advocates on behalf of people who are on Employment and Income Assistance or Employment Insurance. Community Financial Counselling Services is happy to be a part of the helpline, says John Silver, the agencys executive director. "I think one of the benefits of this particular line is that its set up so that there can be an almost immediate handoff or referral to a staff person from one of the three agencies who can help the (caller), rather than just giving them a phone number or telling them someone will call them in a few days with an answer to their particular problem," he says. During a typical tax season, staff at Silvers agency prepare tax returns for about 10,000 low-income Manitobans. Staff helped about 3,000 people this year before they had to stop meeting clients in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now Silver is anticipating that his agency will be assisting people who havent yet filed their tax returns. For Sandra Guevara-Holguin, an EIA advocate at Community Unemployed Help Centre, the helpline is exciting because it bolsters awareness of her agency. "Over the years we have tried our best to get the word out in the community that we do this work. The constant struggle is funding and resources to do so," she says. "Now that we are in a partnership with SEED and Community Financial Counselling Services, we are reaching way more people." Since its launch on Sept. 16, the helpline has been receiving 15 to 20 calls every day. Acuna expects that number to increase this month. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Many people are in crisis mode as a result of their financial situation, Acuna says, which can make long-term planning difficult. The helpline is for people in that situation. "Our hope is to reach those folks that are most vulnerable right now," she says. The helpline is supported by Prosper Canada, the provincial and federal governments and United Way Winnipeg, which is currently in the midst of its annual fundraising campaign. "Without the United Way, basically we couldnt do what we do on a daily basis," Guevara-Holguin says. "We know right now that people are having very serious issues (with) their financial security," she adds. "Thats why we want to help people as much as we can to get the best outcome possible." aaron.epp@gmail.com A man has been arrested and charged for allegedly scamming Real House Wives of Sydney star Krissy Marsh. Ms Marsh, 48, was targeted by online hackers while putting down a property settlement for a $10 million beachfront home in Noosa, Queensland in August. Pretending to be from law firm Mills Oakley, the hackers allegedly tricked the mother-of-three into transferring more than $500,000 as part of the property settlement. A 28-year-old man arrested in Hillsdale in Sydney's east on Friday allegedly helped in the scam by moving the money, according to The Daily Telegraph. Real House Wives of Sydney star Krissy Marsh (pictured) was reportedly conned out of $500,000 in August from an intricate online scam. A 28-year-old man who allegedly helped move the move the money was arrested in Hillsdale in Sydney's east on Friday Police allege the man received money in his bank account and was instructed to buy gold bullion with the funds, which he allegedly complied with. He allegedly gave the gold bullion to another person, who is yet to be charged. The 28-year-old was charged with knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime and making a false statement in a statutory declaration and will appear in court on October 28. The 'property princess' was targeted by online hackers while buying a $10 million beachfront home in Noosa, Queensland in August Ms Marsh is a former real estate agent who starred on the Real Housewives of Sydney and is married to property developer John Marsh. They have three children - Billy, Nicco and Milana. She is currently living in her home in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Dover Heights, which she listed for sale for $8million in 2017 but never sold. Ms Marsh bought the $10 million mansion in Noosa in April but is unable to visit due to Queensland's closed border. The former real estate agent starred on the Real Housewives of Sydney and is married to property developer John Marsh. They have three children - Billy, Nicco and Milana While it was reported that Ms Marsh was allegedly swindled out of $550,000 in August, she is yet to confirm this figure. In these scams, funds are often transferred to offshore accounts, which makes them very difficult to get back. More than 1,500 college alumni have signed a letter in opposition to fellow former student Amy Coney Barretts nomination to the US Supreme Court by president Donald Trump. In a statement issued by alumni of Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, more than 1,500 signatories said they firmly and passionately opposed" Ms Barretts selection because she did not represent their views and values. Ms Barrett, who graduated from the liberal arts school in 1994, went on to establish a career as a conservative judge before her nomination to the United States highest court. Outlining Ms Barrett's stances on abortion law, the LBGTQ community and the Affordable Care Act, Rhodes alumni Rob Marus, Katherine Morgan Breslin, and 1,513 alumni said they were also firmly and passionately opposed to Rhodes administrators attempts to embrace Amy Coney Barrett as an alumna of our beloved alma mater, We oppose this embrace because we believe both her record and the process that has produced her nomination are diametrically opposed to the values of truth, loyalty, and service that we learned at Rhodes. Ms Barrett's nomination to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an abortion rights supporter and liberal icon who died 18 September, swiftly elicited praise from Republicans and conservatives and dismay from liberals and Democrats. Opposing sides have since rained down statements for or against appointing Ms Barrett, who is currently a Chicago-based federal appeals court judge. Before Ms Barrett's time, the school already had a Supreme Court connection via Abe Fortas, who graduated in 1930 before becoming a justice. Judge Coney Barrett participates in this tradition of academic excellence, Mr Hass' statement said. Ms Barrett's abortion views are a particular point of contention, having voted at least twice on abortion issues as an appellate judge, both times joining dissenting opinions to decisions that favoured abortion rights. The Rhodes alumni letter was signed by students who graduated as far back as 1959, and some who knew Ms Barrett and were in her graduating class. It expresses concerns that she might vote to overturn or seriously curtail Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that declared abortion a constitutional right. The letter accuses her of sidestepping questions about how she would rule if the abortion case were challenged before the Supreme Court. And it claims she has deflected questions about her stance toward the LGBTQ community and her alleged association with an anti-LBGTQ group. Amy Coney Barrett has repeatedly shaded the truth about her own views and past associations, the letter said. It added that Barrett "has demonstrated a judicial philosophy and record that fails to serve and protect the vulnerable in our society, including immigrants, those in the criminal justice system, and individuals reliant on the Affordable Care Act." In a subsequent statement following the alumni's letter, Hass encouraged all members of the Rhodes community to rise to this moment with courage and to speak, act, and vote in the service of justice. I hope that your letter as well as the support, dissent, and attention it has generated serves as a spur for robust engagement with the political process, Mr Hass wrote. She stood by her previous letter and public remarks praising Barretts exceptional record of academic achievement" at Rhodes. "The college will continue to speak of her with respect and friendship," Mr Hass wrote. Later, she added, she was happy to re-affirm my own commitment and the commitment of the college to stand against bigotry and for the rights of minority and marginalised students and alumni. Ms Barrett had no public comments on the letter. Mr Trump said during Tuesdays debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden that he doesnt know Ms Barretts views on Roe v. Wade and didnt discuss them with her when they met at the White House three days after Ginsburgs death. Marus, co-author of the alumni letter, told The Associated Press the letter's signatories were upset and concerned the college's reputation could be diminished in the eyes of potential and current students who disagree with Ms Barrett and Mr Trump. He called her views antediluvian," adding some alumni are terrified of any lifetime appointment for Ms Barrett to the court. We thought it was time to speak out, said Mr Marus. We never thought we'd change how the Senate voted on her. What we wanted to affect was public perception of Rhodes, the education we received there. With agencies A sample ballot on the web site of the Ranked Choice Voting 2020 Committee. League of Women Voters Endorses Question 2, Ranked-Choice Voting WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. Advocates for ranked-choice voting, the second public question on the ballot in November's election, point to last year's mayoral recall election in Fall River as Exhibit A when making their case. Anne Skinner also points to a different election -- far less recent but far more impactful for all Bay Staters. "There's very little question that Ralph Nader threw the election in Florida to [George W.] Bush," Skinner said, referring to the 2000 presidential contest. "[Nader] had 95,000 votes, and the margin of victory was less than 1,000. That creates a lot of bitterness toward third-party candidates. "This would allow them to be considered on their merits rather than as spoilers." Ranked-choice, or instant runoff, voting allows voters to select their truly preferred candidate and not have to "settle" for the most electable choice. The question, if passed, would radically change the way voters cast ballots in Massachusetts for statewide offices (like governor), statewide legislative offices and federal congressional offices starting in 2022. Rather than making one selection in a race with three or more candidates, each voter would be allowed to rank their choices numerically, starting with a "1" for his or her first choice. If one candidate earned more than 50 percent of the first place votes, he or she would be declared the winner. If not, then the candidate who comes in last would be eliminated, and his or her second place votes would be allotted to the remaining candidates. If no one emerged from "Round 2" with a majority, then the remaining candidate with the lowest vote total would be eliminated and his or her second- and third-place votes are distributed as the voters designated and so on until a winner is declared. Proponents say ranked-choice voting more accurately captures the true preferences of voters and, through voter empowerment, could increase voter engagement and turnout. That is one reason the Massachusetts chapter of the League of Women Voters has endorsed passage of Question 2 on Nov 3. Skinner, the president of the Williamstown League of Women Voters, also points to the "spoiler" problem that impacts voters and third-party candidates alike. In the 2000 presidential race Skinner cited, historians and political scientists argue that the voters (actually north of 97,000) who pulled the lever for Nader and the Green Party likely would have chosen Democrat Al Gore as their second or, at worst, third choice (no other third-party candidate received more than 17.500 votes in the Sunshine State that November). Bush won the state and its decisive Electoral College votes with fewer than 49 percent of the state's votes -- a plurality but not a majority. Had ranked-choice voting been in effect then, advocates say, subsequent rounds of tabulation would have been run, incorporating voters' second-, third- and fourth-place preferences until either Bush or Gore had attained a majority. An even more stark example of the pitfalls of plurality votes came in the March 12, 2019, recall election in Fall River. That day, the city's residents voted by a margin of 61-39 to recall their mayor. But on the same ballot, the mayor faced off against four other candidates and won back his post with a plurality (35.4 percent) of the votes. "What people say is three of those four people should have seen the writing on the wall and dropped out," Skinner said. "But that's hard on the process. We say democracy is not a spectator sport. We want people to participate. But right now, their participation can lead to something that is not actually what they had in mind." Question 2 is opposed by the right-leaning Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which provided the secretary of state with arguments against ranked-choice voting for the commonwealth's votes guide. According to the Boston-based group, ranked-choice voting is "confusing" for voters and it "forces voters to guess the candidates who will remain standing in multiple voting rounds." Skinner dismissed the first argument. "I think a lot of us are already familiar with the idea of ranking something," she said. "I get surveys all the time that ask me to rank things in order. It's the same thing. And proponents of instant runoffs note that no one is "forced" to rate any of the candidates. If there are five names on the ballot, an individual voter can rank one, two, any number of them or none at all in a given race. Opponents of ranked-choice voting point to the city of Burlington, Vt., which used instant runoffs for its mayoral elections in 2006 and 2009 but repealed the practice after a vote that went three rounds of tabulation and saw the eventual winner claim the seat after drawing just 29 percent of the first-place votes after round one (the eventual runner-up had 33 percent of the first-round votes). Skinner is not bothered by the notion that the person who gets the most "first-place" votes may not always win an election conducted with ranked-choice voting. "There's no question that the person leading at the end of the first round may not end up the final winner, but the suggestion then is that that person didn't enjoy majority support," she said. "If you think we should have majority rule rather than plurality rule, that [ranked-choice voting] result affects the person who lost, but it's an accurate reflection of the wishes of the constituency." Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Should being an active Christian bar you from public service? Yes, say many pundits today. It would seem that the left wants to impose a religious test to bar anyone who truly believes in Jesus from serving in government. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg left a vacancy on the Supreme Court. In the days following her death, all of the candidates on President Trumps shortlist to replace her were dedicated Christians, and the left once again bared their anti-Christian bigotry. The Constitution says there can be no religious test applied to those seeking office at the federal level (Article 6, clause 3). A famous incident in 2017 involved California Senator Diane Feinstein scorning Catholic judge, Amy Coney Barrett (who is now Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy), for being too religious. The senator said, I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and thats of concern. Washington Post writer Ron Charles recently criticized Judge Barrett because of her belief that a legal career is but a means to an end and that end is building the Kingdom of God. When George W. Bush, an outspoken Christian, was president, one of his biggest antagonists (at least behind the scenes) was George Soros. The billionaire venture-capitalist is committed to a secular vision for America. Soros has paid out billions of dollars to try and impose his godless vision on America. With Bush 43 in mind, Soros said, The separation of church and state, the bedrock of our democracy, is clearly undermined by having a born-again president. These are amazing statements. Why not just hang out a sign on Constitution Avenue: Government Service Openings: Christians Need Not Apply? One man had the impertinence to hold a different opinion than these. He said, Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege of interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. Oh my goodness. Who was this backwoods rube? Didnt he know anything about the Constitution and about our nations sacred institutions er, make that secular institutions? That quote was from founding father John Jay, one of the three authors of the Federalist Papers, perhaps the finest political science writings in American history. John Jay was appointed by President Washington to serve as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. I spoke recently with my friend Dr. Peter Lillback of the Providence Forum on the radio, and I mentioned the Diane Feinstein quote to him. He noted that we could turn it around and observe that Senator Feinstein is also dogmatic. But her dogma is one rooted in secularism. Gary DeMar of American Vision puts it this way: The left hates any dogma that questions their dogma. Meanwhile, an honest reading of American history shows that faith the Christian faith was very important to most of the settlers and the founders of America: This year we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower. The Pilgrims said they were establishing their colony for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Rev. John Winthrop, the leader of the Puritans who founded Boston and Harvard, said of their colony, For we shall be as a city upon a hill, providing a metaphor for the future nation that ultimately came from Jesus Himself. George Washington said, [T]rue religion affords to government its surest support. In his Inaugural Address, John Adams said, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service [emphasis added] Rather than prevent one from serving, being a devout Christian is an asset to ones service in government, said our second president. Alexander Hamilton expressed his desire to create the Christian Constitutional Society, but his premature death scuttled his plans. Thomas Jefferson, certainly not as orthodox as most of the other founders, nonetheless said, Of all the systems of morality ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus. (Letter to William Canby, September 18, 1813). The dogmatic anti-Christian bigots in our society are very wrong in their notion that being a devout Christian should somehow disqualify you from public service. The idea that theres some sort of anti-Christian magnet over the threshold of government buildings does not comport with our history nor with our Constitution. ..................................................Select your country................................................ Australia Canada Chile Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France (FR) Germany Ireland Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Portugal Spain Sweden Turkey United Kingdom Sweden's educational context Students: Sweden performed below the OECD average in PISA 2012, with performance in mathematics, science and reading decreasing throughout PISA cycles. The impact of students socio-economic background on mathematics is below the OECD average. Early childhood education usually starts between the ages of 2 and 3, and most 3-4 year-olds are enrolled in pre-primary education. Schooling is compulsory from age 7 to 16, organised in a single structure corresponding to primary and lower secondary education, and there is no provision for grade repetition unless parents specifically ask for it. School choice and student selection mechanisms, such as ability grouping, can hamper achieving greater levels of equity. Sweden has above-average upper secondary and tertiary attainment rates. The country also has a slightly above-average enrolment rate in vocational education and training VET programmes in upper secondary education, with transitions possible from upper secondary VET programmes to tertiary education. Greater differentiations between VET and general upper secondary paths have taken place as part of broader reforms in 2011. The literacy and numeracy skills of Swedish adults (16-65 year-olds) are higher than in other countries participating in the Survey of Adult Skills, with younger adults (16-24 year-olds) scoring even higher in literacy and problem solving than other adults. Unemployment is lower than the OECD average. The economic crisis has had a large impact on those who did not reach upper secondary level. Institutions: Schools have less positive than average learning environments. Autonomy over resource allocation in Swedish schools such as hiring and dismissal of teachers is above the OECD average, and autonomy over curriculum and assessment is below average. Lower secondary teachers are required to follow a pre-service teacher training programme of 4.5 years, including a mandatory teaching practicum. Teaching conditions include below-average salaries and below-average ratios of students to teaching staff in primary and secondary institutions. A much lower proportion of teachers in Sweden than the TALIS average consider that the teaching profession is valued in society and would choose to work as teachers if they could decide again. Moreover, evaluation mechanisms exist at each level of governance. A national framework for evaluation and assessment clarifying the roles among governance levels could improve the education system and reduce variation between municipalities. System: The education system is steered by the central government and local authorities. The central government defines goals and learning outcomes and has overall responsibility for education. The municipalities are responsible for providing and operating primary and secondary schools, and most of the decisions in lower secondary education are taken by schools or local governments. Post-secondary and vocational education (ISCED 4) is organised and run by a specialised agency. Expenditure on educational institutions as a share of GDP (for all education levels combined) is above the OECD average, with a higher share of funding from public sources than the OECD average. Selected indicators compared with the average Click here to access the underlying data Note: For each indicator, the absolute performance is standardised (normalised) using a normative score ranging from 0 to 180, where 100 was set at the average, taking into account all OECD countries with available data in each case. See www.oecd.org/edu/policyoutlook.htm for maximum and minimum value countries. Source: The Sweden Snapshot was produced combining information from Education Policy Outlook: Australia, (OECD, 2013) with OECD data and the countrys response to the Education Policy Outlook Snapshot Survey (2013). More information on the spider chart and sources is available at www.oecd.org/edu/policyoutlook.htm. Key issues and goals Students: Among the key targets reported by Sweden are increasing students performance and reducing dropout rates to achieve greater equity and quality. Institutions: Sweden aims to provide secure and positive learning environments in schools, as well as to make the teaching profession more attractive and recruit more skilled teachers into the profession. Another priority reported is improving equity in assessment and grading. System: Sweden could benefit from a more overarching vision of education, of its priorities, and of developing a stronger and clearer steering system that is aligned to the complex structure of the school system. Selected policy responses The Education Act was implemented in 2011, aiming to provide all students with the opportunity to reach achievement targets and complete upper secondary school with improved skills, both for the labour market and further studies. Students who run the risk of not achieving the targets have the right to receive individual support. Other objectives include: 1) to give school leaders and teachers greater authority to provide students with better and more conducive learning environments; 2) to set stronger requirement for municipalities to provide greater access to student health facilities; and 3) to provide equal opportunities for all organisers of education. A new upper secondary education system (2011) aims to improve VET programmes by providing the option of apprenticeship. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate (2008) has authority to exert sanctions and can impose fines (through a strengthened role granted by the Education Act, 2011) to schools not complying with regulation and standards. The Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education (NAHVE, 2009) administers a common framework of publicly funded vocational education at the post upper secondary level, decides which programmes will receive public funding and be included in the framework, audits the quality and outcomes of the courses, and analyses and assesses demand for qualified labour and trends in the labour market. The OECD-Sweden Education Policy Review analyses and proposes recommendations to increase student performance in Sweden. Spotlight: Improving the attractiveness of the teaching profession Sweden recently introduced some reforms to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession: In 2011, Sweden started new teacher education programmes , structured as four main degrees: a degree in pre-school education, a degree in primary school education, a degree in subject education and a degree in vocational education ( Bast i klassen en ny lararutbildning OBS Prop. 2009/10:89). Teaching practice in initial teacher training will be carried out at specialised training schools ( ovningsskolor, 2014 ). More stringent requirements for admission in teacher education including aptitude tests have been set up, and a teacher registration system (2013) was also introduced. Through a career development reform (2013), the government created advancement stages and provided salary increases for professionally skilled teachers in compulsory and upper secondary school. Two new career categories for teachers (senior master and lead teacher) were also created. Through this reform, teachers can receive a salary increase of about EUR 566 to EUR 1 132. Approximately one of six teachers qualifies for one of the positions. The Boost for Teachers programme ( Lararlyftet ) (2007-11) offered 30 000 teachers the possibility of following advanced continuing professional education at higher education institutions, and about 24 000 took part in this initiative. Boost for Teachers II offers the possibility for registered teachers without formal teaching qualification in a subject or age group they teach, to take specialised courses. Training in effective teaching methods through peer learning has been introduced: all teachers in mathematics can participate in Mattelyftet (an in-service training about mathematics), while starting in 2015, teachers of Swedish can participate in Laslyftet (an in-service training about literacy). A Science Boost for science teachers has also been developed . Arthur Baselice, Jr. and Robert Hoatson stand outside the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Camden holding protest signs a day after the Camden diocese declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Arthur holds a board with an image of his son, who committed suicide after alleged sexual abuse by two priests. Read more More than two-thirds of the victims who signed up to participate in a fund set up by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden to compensate survivors of clergy sex abuse were left with their claims unresolved and diminished expectations of seeing a payout, according to previously unreleased information included in the dioceses bankruptcy filings this week. Now, 141 people who were encouraged by Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan to come forward and recount their trauma for fund administrators last year must join a line of other creditors including banks, independent contractors, and lawsuit plaintiffs to jostle in court over a limited pot of money that will be divided up by the bankruptcy court. In announcing the move late Thursday to become the first diocese in New Jersey to seek Chapter 11 protection from creditors, church leaders said their intent was not to dodge their responsibility to abuse victims, but rather to ensure a future for the institution that serves South Jerseys nearly half-million Catholics. The diocese does not seek bankruptcy relief to hide the truth or deny any person a day in court, wrote the Rev. Robert E. Hughes, the dioceses vicar general, in a declaration filed with the bankruptcy judge. But beyond its obligation to creditors, the diocese has a fundamental and moral obligation to the Catholic faithful it serves [and] the greater community. In order to do this, the diocese must survive. Victims and their lawyers decried the decision Friday, saying they believed theyd been victimized again this time by a bait-and-switch. The diocese first betrayed survivors when church leadership protected their priests over the children these priests harmed, said victim attorney Rita Gribko, then canceled their compensation program. Now, this bald-faced, self-interested legal tactic is yet another betrayal. Outside Sullivans residence adjacent to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Camdens Market Street, Robert Hoatson, 68, and Arthur Baselice, 72, stood Friday with signs featuring photos of victims, their abusers, and a slogan: Church bankruptcy equals cover-up. READ MORE: Camdens Catholic diocese left two-thirds of the claims filed with its sex abuse victim fund unpaid as it sought bankruptcy protection Hoatson, founder of the victims group Road to Recovery, said he was sexually abused by a priest in West Orange, N.J., in the 1960s. Baselices son, Arthur III, died of a drug overdose in 2006, which his father has blamed on two priests who molested him as a child. Hoatson said, theyd been promised every individual victim would have their opportunity to tell their story and then be compensated if they participated in the victim compensation fund. Now, these individuals become part of a pool, and theyre not treated now as individuals, he said. Bankruptcy tends to lower the amounts that will be given." Inside the cathedral, noon Mass proceded as normal. No one mentioned the bankruptcy filing during the service. The rector, the Rev. John Fisher, said afterward that the bankruptcy is for the best for everybody. Signs of the dioceses strained finances had been evident for months. Sullivan prematurely suspended the Camden churchs participation in the victim compensation fund in July, citing a precipitous decline in revenue due to COVID-19 and a rash of sex abuse lawsuits enabled by recent changes to New Jerseys civil statute of limitations. The fund had paid out a total of $8.1 million to 71 victims by the time it was shuttered. The financial strain only continued to grow over the next several months, the bishop said, prompting the bankruptcy declaration. The dioceses court filings Thursday revealed for the first time the extent of those pressures. For instance, in the nine months since New Jersey opened a temporary two-year window granting victims of decades-old abuse a second chance to sue, the diocese has been hit with 52 new lawsuits, according to the court documents. By comparison, it faced only 99 viable legal claims in all of the previous 30 years, the filings said. Sullivan announced the Independent Victim Compensation Fund last year, hoping it would serve as a stopgap to fend off some of those suits by offering settlements determined by outside administrators and sparing victims from having to prove their abuse in drawn-out public court proceedings. When the bishop halted that program this summer, church officials and fund administrators declined to say how many victims who had signed up for that offer were left hanging. But according to Thursdays bankruptcy filings, only one-third, or 71 of the participants, received a payout. Proposed settlements had been extended to 21 more and the claims of 120 were left unprocessed before the program ended, court papers said. The bankruptcy pressed pause on all pending lawsuits and the claims of those who signed up for the fund while the court decides how to divide assets of the diocese available for distribution among all of the creditors. In the coming months, the court, working with an oversight committee that will likely include at least some lawyers for abuse victims, will decide how much money will be made available for splitting up those who are owed and how much will stay protected by the bankruptcy process. Church officials told the court in their filings Thursday that the diocese had more than 200 known creditors, including clergy sex abuse victims, and estimated liabilities of $25.7 million, including a $2.4 million loan it took out as part of the federal Paycheck Protection Program in April. They listed $53.6 million in property assets, including the diocesan headquarters, as well as bank accounts, cars, and several items of jewelry. As they are separate legal entities under state law, the bankruptcy is not expected to affect any of the 62 parishes and 29 schools the diocese oversees across Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem Counties. An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the circumstances of Arthur Baselice IIIs death. He died of a drug overdose in 2006. Ukraine's Ambassador to the U.S. Volovymyr Yelchenko was invited to attend the launch. The American/Ukrainian medium-class Antares launch vehicle, whose stage 1 core structure had been designed by Ukraine's Pivdenne (Yuzhnoe) Design Bureau and manufactured at Pivdenmash (Yuzhmash), successfully launched from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Saturday, October 3, That's according to the Ukrainian Embassy in the U.S. Lifted by the Antares launcher, a robotic Cygnus spacecraft, is hauling 7,624 lbs. (3,458 kilograms) of cargo that includes scientific equipment, an experimental space toilet, food, hardware and other supplies for the Expedition 63/64 astronauts living and working on the International Space Station, according to Space.com. Read alsoZelensky compares Pivdenmash rocket plant with Elon Musk's companyUkraine's Ambassador to the United States Volovymyr Yelchenko was invited to attend the Antares launch, Ukrainian diplomats wrote. "Antares is comprised of two stages and the Cygnus cargo spacecraft (third stage). The Antares Stage 1 Core Structure was developed by Pivdenne SDO and manufactured by Pivdenmash in cooperation with Ukrainian enterprises such as Hartron-ARKOS (Kharkiv), Kyivprylad (Kyiv), Hartron-Yukom (Zaporizhia), CHeZaRa, Rapid (Chernihiv), and others. The prime developer and integrator of the Antares launch vehicle is Northrop Grumman Corp. of the United States," Pivdenne wrote in a press release. "Under the Antares program, the Ukrainian companies completed the entire work package related to design, development, and manufacture of the Stage 1 Core Structure hardware commissioned by NASA," the release reads. "The Antares launch vehicle was prepared for launch, tested, and launched by specialists from Pivdenne SDO, GP PO Pivdenmash and Khartron-ARKOS. Under the contract, Pivdenne provided technical support to the launch and received and processed telemetry in real time. Ukrainian specialists performed the full scope of operations under their responsibility. Read alsoRFE/RL: U.S.-Ukraine produced rocket lifts off, takes supplies to International Space StationIt is noted that "this year rocket's preparation for launch, which always takes place in the United States, saw additional challenges over the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on international travel. In April, the embassy actively helped the U.S.-based Northrop Grumman set up a separate special flight to bring a team of experts from Ukrainian space enterprises to the United States." "Without their participation, launching Antares on schedule would have been impossible," diplomats stress. Antares launch: Details There was heavy security presence at the Central Mosque at Asawase following demands from some Muslim youth for the Ashanti Regional Chief Imam, Sheikh Abdul Mumin Haroun, to resign. The youth are angered the religious head continues to make political comments that connote his allegiance to the governing New Patriotic Party. On Monday the youth gave the Imam three days to vacate his post and join active politics if he could no longer maintain his political neutrality. The Secretary to the Chief Imam Ustaz Ahmed Seidu told reporters the scenery was a response to intelligence they picked that some disgruntled youth were coming to cause mayhem at the Friday prayers. He disclosed: The boys gave an ultimatum of three days but someone told me the boys were coming here to cause mayhem so we informed the security services. I have seen the presence of the police, the military, and some security agents who are not in uniform. Once you are not going to cause any mayhem, you should not be afraid. No one is going to hurt you if you are not coming here to threaten the peace. Just come and worship and pray, he admonished. Meanwhile, the leadership of the youth calling for the head of the Chief Imam has indicated that they have no such plans to be lawless. Convenor for the group, Mohammed Rabiu told Ultimate News Ivan Heathcote Fumador they are rather preferring legal charges against the Chief Imam. We know that per our constitution, Traditional and religious leaders are barred from doing active politics. We have our lawyers with us. Why should we entertain lawlessness? he questioned. He pointed out that the group has video and audio evidence of Sheikh Abdul Mumin Haroun openly stating that he is AN NPP person. He went on to chastise Professor John Evans Attah Mills and John Dramani Mahama for not providing him with a diplomatic passport and for refusing his request to clear a car he brought from Canada without paying duties, He expatiated. Mohammed Rabiu indicated that they are done with all their documentation and are waiting for a green light from their lawyers to release a statement denying the threat and further proceed to the courts. ---kasapafm YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan gave an interview to Al-Jazeera today. A number of news outlets published an out-of-context formulation attributed to the PM, causing various comments in the media. For avoiding any future speculations over the issue, ARMENPRESS state news agency is authorized to present to all its media partners the transcript of that part of the Prime Ministers interview. Bernard Smith Would you want to see Russian peacekeepers for example in Nagorno-Karabakh? Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan You see those issues could be discussed in the context of the wider resolution, within the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmanship ARMENPRESS news agency calls on the specialists to deal with such important issues with great sense of responsibility and caution. Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan - James Cameron spoke to Arnold Schwarzenegger about the filming of the second and third films in his Avatar franchise - Cameron said live-action filming on Avatar 2 was complete with around 95% of Avatar 3 finished too - The epic sci-fi sequel has had multiple pushbacks but is now set to hit cinemas in 2022 Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Ghana Director and creator of the Avatar franchise, James Cameron, has reportedly confirmed that the live-action filming for the second instalment of the franchise has been completed. The production is based in New Zealand and filming had previously been shut down due to Covid-19 regulations. Cameron announced the news during a conversation he had with Arnold Schwarzenegger prior to the 2020 Austrian World Summit environmental conference. Schwarzenegger himself first worked with Cameron on The Terminator in 1984. Director James Cameron alongside 'Pandora', the new Avatar-themed amusement park. Source: Getty Images Source: UGC James Cameron spoke to his colleague about the difficulties that he and his crew had experienced due to the pandemic as well as acknowledged how fortunate they were that, back in 2009 for the first movie, they had chosen New Zealand as their primary location. New Zealand's response to the coronavirus has been widely praised as one of the best in the world. Despite the Avatar 2 release date being pushed back eight times already, Cameron seemed in high spirits as he spoke to Schwarzenegger: "We are able to operate. We're able to shoot, and we're able to more or less have a normal life here right now." The writer-director also mentioned that live-action filming was "95% complete on Avatar 3". The third film's live-action portions were filmed simultaneously with those of the second. According to IMDB.com, the entire Avatar franchise will consist of five movies with the final one set to be released in 2028. Cameron had previously posted the announcement of filming suspension to his Instagram, describing how the original release date of December 2021 for Avatar 2 would be unreachable. The film is currently set to be released in December of 2022. In other movie news, some easy and legal ways to stream were published back in March. Due to so many peeps having to adapt to working from home, a list was compiled of places to get your movie fix while having to wait out the ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic. "Life has been better for me since I exited the Shatta Movement Camp" Addi Self | #Yencomgh Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: YEN.com.gh In this ongoing series, we are sharing advice, tips and insights from real entrepreneurs who are out there doing business battle on a daily basis. (Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.) This interview was conducted via email with Joe Duran, Head of Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management. You started a company, United Capital, which was acquired by Goldman Sachs. What was that experience like? I had just sold my company to General Electric and made the decision to leave. I then interviewed 100 entrepreneurs who had successfully sold their businesses for my second book. Related: 10 Ways to Make Money While You Sleep I started every interview by asking the question, 'What did it feel like after you sold?" And after they initially told me it was the American dream, everything you could imagine I would tell them that it didnt feel that way to me. Then they all, regardless of gender, background, or race, shared that it had felt like a death in the family and they would have done it differently. They had all made huge sacrifices in a manic race to be successful and get to the top. It was during this process while putting my book together that I came to the realization that we all make huge sacrifices for money, but money is just fuel. I needed to help people focus on living richly, rather than dying rich. I started United Capital to change the industry to make it more about life and less about money. The idea was to focus on having people understand what really mattered to them and use money to narrow the gap between the lives they wanted and the ones they were living. For entrepreneurs hoping to follow a similar trajectory, what do you think enabled you to catch the eye of Goldman Sachs compared to similar businesses? We have a unique client-centric culture that unifies all of us. We are on one platform delivering a consistent experience to all of our clients. That is extremely rare in the wealth management business, which is traditionally quite niche. I also feel that they believe, like I do, that we could do more together than apart and that they could accelerate their plans to expand the firm with our help. Why did you decide to stay on as Head of Personal Financial Management? I love new challenges. Im learning more now than I ever have and I feel that Im making a bigger impact too. The ability to take everything that we can now do and expand Goldman Sachs beyond the Ultra High Net Worth individuals they already served was and continues to be incredibly appealing to me and the entire team. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs looking to build and scale a business? First, you need to be adaptable to change. Keep your eyes on the big picture beyond your competitors and your industry. Client experience is evolving in every purchase of every product or service that we each make. Focus on how your clients live their lives and how the technology they use shapes their expectations of service. Related: Online Content Monetization 101: How to Make Money From Content Second, humility is very important. Ask yourself the questionwhat if Im wrong? It allows for others to speak up and challenge you. It makes your firm more resilient. The team you build works to serve your clients, not your ego. If youre doing it right, your company is never really yours. Beyond that, share the spotlight as you grow, give others the opportunity to learn and shine. Lastly, practice what you preach to your clients or customers. If youre burning both ends of the candle, not getting any sleep and not taking care of yourself, it will impact not only your own health but the culture of your business and your ability to sustain your work over the long term. Related: This Entrepreneur Wants to Bring Independence and Dignity to Mealtimes for Stroke and Paralysis Patients Concentrate on Living Richly, Not Dying Rich, Says This Entrepreneur How a Personal Mess Became a Passionate Message for This Entrepreneur Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Tesco has launched a traffic light system to tell customers whether or not they can enter the store to allow social distancing. Supermarkets have had to control how many customers enter their store since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, with queues and marshals telling customers when it is safe to enter. Tesco has joined Aldi, which has already introduced a traffic light system, and Home Bargains, who are working on introducing them. The type of system the supermarket will use and at how many branches this will be implemented at is unknown, The Sun reported. Tesco has launched a traffic light system to tell customers whether or not they can enter, as stores continue to control the number of customers amid the coronavirus pandemic to adhere to social distancing guidelines (file photo) 'Over the coming weeks, you will also start to see a simple "traffic lights" system at the entrances of some of our larger stores, to help us manage the flow in and out," Tesco boss Jason Tarry said in an email to customers. Aldi's traffic light system was introduced at the end of May, with red and light LED lights above the entrances to its stores. The lights signal green if customers are allowed to enter and it is dependent on the amount of shoppers inside at that time. They rely on sensors in the doorways which count how many people go into the store and how many leave. In May, the German budget retailer confirmed that doors would remain closed and locked until the light went green. It added that fully trained marshals would be on patrol in the stores at all times 'if they are required' to ensure social distancing guidelines were being adhered to. Many supermarkets installed protective screens at the checkouts and installed a one-way system to allow for social distancing. Under current guidelines, shoppers are advised to stay 2 metres apart where possible and wear a face covering while they shop, unless they are exempt. Budget supermarket Aldi introduced a traffic light system in May which locked the doors until the LED light above the entrance went green Aldi communications director Richard Thornton, said: 'The protection and safety of our customers and employees is our top priority and this new system is an accurate and effective way to allow us to control customer numbers in stores. 'The system's trial was well received by our customers and we will be gradually rolling this new social distancing measure out nationwide from this week.' It has also put up 'sanitation stations' and signs with advice on how to stay safe from coronavirus while shopping. The German discount supermarket chain has 875 stores across Britain and employs 33,000 people. It plans to have expanded to 1,200 stores by the middle of the decade. In March, supermarkets had to put restrictions on popular items such as toilet paper and pasta after customers began stockpiling. In recent weeks, some supermarkets have had to reintroduce these restrictions after fears of a second wave led some to buy more items than they needed. A huge blaze has ripped through a Derbyshire school, with police investigating it as a possible arson after an apparent break-in before firefighters were called, according to reports. Firefighters rushed to the scene of the blaze, at St Mary's School in Darley Abbey, Derbyshire, after being called at 5am today. Six crews spent the day tackling the blaze, which was said to be 'well-developed' when firefighters arrived. Despite their efforts, the fire resulted in the 'total loss' of a building, Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service has said. Meanwhile, police have today revealed they are investigating the cause of the fire, which is being treated as a potential arson, reports say. According to the BBC, the city council was told an alarm was raised about a break-in shortly before the fire service was called. These shocking images show the aftermath of a 'devastating' fire which ripped through a school in the early hours of this morning Firefighters rushed to the scene of the blaze, at St Mary's School in Darley Abbey, Derbyshire, after being called at 5am today A spokesperson for the force said today: 'On arrival firefighters were met with a well-developed fire.' Residents have been advised to keep their doors and windows closed, due to the volume of smoke in the area. School chiefs say they are devastated by the incident. St Mary's tweeted: 'Thank you for all the kind messages of support we have received. The strength and faith of our school community and Trust will help us through this difficult time.' Gavin Tomlinson, chief fire officer at Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: 'Another devastating school fire total loss of the building despite fantastic efforts by crews from @DerbyshireFRS. 'We need to protect vital buildings like this with sprinklers. With support from @NFCC-FireChiefs. 'I will continue to lobby for sustainable change within legislation.' Others tweeted in support of the school, including fellow teacher Caroline Spalding, who said: 'As a fellow Derby teacher, I wish your school community so much love and strength. Six crews spent the day tackling the blaze, which was said to be 'well-developed' when firefighters arrived Despite their efforts, the fire resulted in the 'total loss' of a building, Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service has said 'You are all in my thoughts. I have no doubt your faith and strong MAT will help you find hope at an immensely difficult time.' Road closures were put into place around the school while firefighters tackled the blaze. Meanwhile, Derbyshire Police are investigating the incident. In a statement on Twitter, the force said: 'Investigations are ongoing to establish the cause of the fire and anyone with information should contact the force with ref 160-031020.' MailOnline has contacted Derbyshire Police for more deThe fire comes exactly a month after students were welcomed back to the school, which closed along with schools across the country following the outbreak of coronavirus. Teachers were welcomed back a day earlier, and were greeted with a goodie-bag which included items such as candles, paper clips, tea bags and sweets. In a tweet on September 3, school bosses said: 'It was lovely to see our children back today. Lots of smiles could be seen everywhere.' Judge Amy Coney Barrett listens during her nomination to the Supreme Court, in Washington on Sept. 26, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) Graham and McConnell Say Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings to Proceed as Scheduled Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Saturday that the Senate Judiciary Committee is proceeding with the same Supreme Court confirmation hearing schedule starting on Oct. 12, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would adjust the floor schedule to accommodate the hearings. Graham, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that there would be no change to the confirmation hearing schedule and that the panel will proceed with the consideration of the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the nations highest court. McConnell, in an Oct. 3 statement regarding the upcoming Senate floor schedule, said that he plans to obtain a consent agreement for the Senate to meet in pro forma sessions for the next two weeks and that previously scheduled Senate floor activity would be rescheduled until after Oct. 19 to allow the Judiciary Committee to hold its hearings without conflict. The Senates floor schedule will not interrupt the thorough, fair, and historically supported confirmation process previously laid out by Chairman Graham, McConnell wrote. Questions have been raised about whether the COVID-19 diagnosis of two Republican members of the committeeSen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)would impact the confirmation hearing schedule. Both senators have said they plan to undergo a 10-day quarantine, set to conclude by the time Barretts confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin. Republicans hold a 12-10 majority on the Judiciary Committee and, with Democrats expected to vote against, participation of all GOP senators is key for Barretts candidature to clear the committee for a floor vote. In separate remarks, the South Carolina senator told reporters on Friday that he had spoken to President Donald Trump and told him that the hearings were on track. Graham earlier said that the Judiciary Committee would vote on Barretts nomination on Oct. 22, possibly setting up a floor vote by the end of the month. McConnell, who has vowed to put Barretts candidacy to a vote this year, said on Friday that her nomination is full steam ahead. Just finished a great phone call with @POTUS. Hes in good spirits and we talked businessespecially how impressed Senators are with the qualifications of Judge Barrett. Full steam ahead with the fair, thorough, timely process that the nominee, the Court, & the country deserve, McConnell wrote on Twitter. McConnell told radio Hugh Hewitt on Friday that safety considerations amid the COVID-19 mean the Judiciary Committee hearings may be held remotely. Should the hearing be conducted remotely? Should the room be kept relatively uncrowded if in fact the Senate Judiciary Committee convenes at the instruction of Senator Graham? host Hugh Hewitt asked. Members, some of them have, I think, done their interviews in previous hearings remotely. This sort of underscores, I think, the need to do that. And I think every precaution needs to be taken, because we dont anticipate any Democratic support at all, either in committee or in the full Senate, and therefore, everybody needs to be in an all hands on deck mindset, McConnell replied. In his Senate floor schedule statement, McConnell said that the Judiciary Committee has, since May, operated flawlessly through a hybrid method that has seen some Senators appear physically at its hearings while other members have participated virtually, adding that all Republican senators intend to take part in the hearings. Trump nominated Barrett to fill a vacant seat on the high bench after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If Barrett is successfully appointed, this would give the Supreme Court a 63 conservative majority. Republicans have largely hailed the decision to move forward with the nomination, while Democrats have been vocal in their opposition. Two people have been arrested by the customs officials for smuggling gold, worth nearly Rs 52 lakh, by concealing it in their rectum at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, according to an official statement issued on Friday. The accused, a man and a woman, were intercepted here after their arrival from Dubai on Wednesday. The officials seized gold weighing 1.14 kg, amounting to Rs 51.8 lakh, from the two passengers concealed in rectum in paste form," the statement issued by the customs department said. The passengers, both natives of Madurai, admitted to previous smuggling of gold and goods amounting Rs 1.03 crore during their past visits, it said, adding that the duo were arrested. In another recent development, sleuths of the NIA, probing the Kerala gold smuggling case, visited the office of an autonomous institution under the state Higher Education department and gathered information on it allegedly facilitating distribution of the Holy Quran brought from the UAE through diplomatic channel. In a related development, a special court in Kochi sent Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the gold smuggling using diplomatic baggage, to four days custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Reaching the Kerala State Centre for Advanced Printing &Training (C-apt) office in Thiruvananthapuram morning, NIA officials sought details from its employees, including an official and a driver, regarding the distribution of Quran brought from the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, official sources said. The development comes days after Higher Education Minister Jaleel was questioned by the NIA at its Kochi office in connection with the case and the opposition Congress and BJP continued their protests seeking his resignation, alleging that gold was smuggled under the pretext of importing Quran. Sources in the Central agencies probing the case had claimed that the consignments of Holy Quran were brought toC-apt before distribution at various places using its vehicles. Official sources said the NIA officials gathered information in detail from the C-apt officials on the Quran packets brought from the UAE consulate. ( with inputs from PTI ) The UK government has ruled out giving refunds or extensions to the people holding railcards they have been unable to use as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The scheme, which offers discounts of about a third on travel, is available to a wide range of groups across Britain including senior citizens, 16- to 25-year-olds, families and disabled people. It operates in England, Scotland and Wales but not Northern Ireland. Railcard holders including older people who have been shielding have been asking why they were not entitled to refunds or time extensions for cards they have been unable to use. Most of the cards cost passengers 30 for a year, meaning that refunding the 5.1 million customers who hold them could cost 150m. The Rail Delivery Group manages the railcard scheme and a spokesperson said: After careful consideration, the government has confirmed to us that railcards will remain non-refundable and will not be extended. We understand that this decision may not be the news our customers had been hoping for. Refunding or extending railcards for over 5.1m customers would come at a significant cost to the taxpayer at a time when the focus must be on maintaining rail services to support the countrys recovery from the pandemic. Anthony Smith, the chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: Passengers bought railcards in good faith and will be disappointed by the decision not to extend them or offer a discount on renewal to make up for the period when we were encouraged not to travel. While the government continues to provide high levels of support to make sure the day-to-day railway keeps operating, it seems a pity some slack could not be given on this issue to encourage people back to rail travel. Source: Guardian News Online Ukraine plans to join European Union sanctions against Belarus officials. "I want to look at the final legal decision on persons on this list. But yes, we are determined to join these sanctions as there is an issue of policy coherence," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said in an interview with BBC News Ukraine. "Ukraine believes that it is important to act as a united front in this situation. We do everything we can to help the people of Belarus in this difficult situation," Kuleba explained. He noted that the cost of such solidarity for Ukraine is much higher than for EU or NATO because Ukraine is not under the "umbrella of protection" of these associations and the expansion of Russia's influence in Belarus threatens Ukrainian security. At the same time, the foreign minister emphasizes that Ukraine plans to join the sanctions against certain Belarus officials. Kyiv does not plan to impose any economic sanctions or restrict trade. "As for economic cooperation, we do not plan to attack. We do not plan to make things even worse for Belarus, we wish them only good. We do not plan to impose embargo or any trade restrictions," Kuleba said. According to him, Belarus-Ukraine trade is mutually beneficial, so the introduction of trade sanctions by Ukraine or Belarus - in response - will not be a reasonable step. However, this stance may change if Russia establishes control over Belarusian enterprises. "That's when we need to sit down and analyze every big contract, see if some additional risks emerge because we have large-scale cooperation in the military and trade sector," the minister explained. "I see no reason to sever diplomatic relations or to reduce Ukraine's presence in Belarus to the level of charge d'affaires as we did with Russia," the minister said. On October 1, the European Union imposed sanctions on 40 Belarus officials. Alexander Lukashenko is not on the list. President of France Emmanuel Macron explained that imposition of sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko could undermine efforts to involve him in the negotiation process. If Lukashenko fails to establish a dialogue with his own people, sanctions against him may be imposed in the future, Macron warned. On September 23, foreign minister Kuleba announced that Ukraine did not recognize Alexander Lukashenko as a legitimate president of Belarus and did not recognize his inauguration as legitimate. ol The Army just awarded a $1.2 billion contract to General Dynamics Land Systems for Stryker combat vehicles equipped with new short-range air defense weapons. Under the contract, the company will produce, test and deliver Interim Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (IM-SHORAD) Strykers to the Army, a key modernization effort for the service, according to an Oct. 2 company news release. Read Next: Launch of E-6 Nuclear Command Plane Not Tied to Trump's COVID-19 Diagnosis: Pentagon The IM-SHORAD is designed to counter threats from unmanned aerial systems, as well as enemy helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft, according to the release, which adds that the Army's initial, $230 million order calls for 28 Stryker IM-SHORAD vehicles. "This dedicated SHORAD capability adds a new operational dimension to the Stryker fleet in all of the Army's maneuver formations," Don Kotchman, vice president and general manager of GD Land Systems -- the company that also manufactures Stryker vehicles for the service -- said in the release. General Dynamics has partnered with Leonardo DRS and Raytheon on the deal, which has an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2025, according to the release. Air and missile defense is a major modernization priority for the Army as it prepares for future, large-scale conflicts with adversaries such as Russia and China. The IM-SHORAD vehicles will be equipped with Raytheon's Stinger Missiles. The Army is also working to equip Strykers with 50-kilowatt lasers under the Directed-Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) effort. In July 2019, the service selected Northrop and Raytheon to develop competing prototypes of 50-kilowatt laser-equipped Strykers as part of a $203 million deal that includes Kord Technologies as the prime contractor. Northrop and Raytheon will each bring their laser-equipped Stryker to a competitive shoot-off scheduled for the third quarter of fiscal 2021. Army officials plan to select one of the prototypes, which will ultimately be among four vehicles fielded to the first platoon equipped with the 50-kilowatt version of M-SHORAD. -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. Related: Soldiers to Shoot Lasers from Stryker Vehicles in Upcoming Test Commissioner of Police (COP) Isaac Ken Yeboah, Director General, Criminal Investigations Department (CID), says officers who indulge in criminal activities would be prosecuted. No officer who commits a criminal act would be speared, COP Yeboah told a press conference in Accra on Friday to throw light on the arrest of General Lance Corporal Bright Akosah, who allegedly shot and killed a taxi driver at Adjin Kotoku after robbing him of his vehicle. Lance Corporal Akosah, a Police officer with the SWAT Unit at the Regional Police Headquarters in Accra, is said to have shot 40 year old Samuel Tawiah, a driver, three times with his service pistol. Akosah was nabbed together with two other accomplices namely Ebenezer Tetteh and Francis Aidoo aka Keche. COP Yeboah said on September 12, this year, Akosah went to Pokuase Junction and hired the services of Samuel Tawiah who was then in charge of a Nissan Versa Taxi with registration; GW 6818-20 to send him to his (Akosahs) site at Adjin Kotoku and the deceased obliged. The CID Boss said on their way, Tetteh was hiding in a nearby bush so on reaching there, Akosah asked Tawiah to stop. COP Yeboah said Tetteh emerged from the bush and joined them in the taxi. Akosah shot Tawiah two times and Tetteh pulled him out of the taxi and they damped him in the bush. Akosah also shot Tawiah for the third to make sure that Tawiah was dead. The suspect left the deceased in the bush and drove away his car. According to COP Yeboah, Akosah and Tetteh went to Cape Coast with the deceaseds taxi to look for a prospective buyer after agreeing to sell the taxi for of GHS8, 000.00. Akosah, Tetteh and Aidoo have since been put before court and they have been remanded into Police custody. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Jaswant Singh was an enigma. There were times when he could be warm and generous, and other occasions when he was cranky, pernickety and awkward. I never knew how he would respond and always approached him with trepidation. I was in my late teens when I first met him. Back home on holiday from Cambridge, my cousin, Romila, felt I had become cut-off and needed grounding. She asked Jaswant Singh to meet me and he invited me for a drink. The memory of that meeting will always colour the way I remember him. It was a cold winters evening only warmed by the roaring fire in his drawing room. The two of us sat on either side of it. He offered whisky which I accepted with alacrity. The alcohol extinguished whatever shyness I felt. The loquacity that replaced it was self-indulgent. Jaswant Singh treated me like an adult. He listened carefully, asked probing questions and, occasionally, shared his own experiences. For a 19-year-old, still wet behind the ears, this was a wonderful feeling. Others would have patronised me. Jaswant Singh took me seriously. I cant recall the evening in detail, but I left knowing I had met a gentleman. Perhaps one of the last of that breed. Its an old-fashioned term thats not popular today. Many might not even understand it. But I can think of no better term to describe him. We did not become friends and there were occasions in the years that followed when, I think, he distrusted me. This was particularly true during his ministerial years. But, obviously, something of that first meeting remained, because in 2009, when his book on Partition and Jinnah was ready for publication, he asked if I would interview him. It was the only pre-publication interview he intended. He sent me the spiral-bound proofs and a letter telling me which chapters to read. I quickly realised the book takes a markedly different view of Jinnah to the accepted Indian demonisation. Jaswant Singh saw him as a nationalist, a great Indian and admired him. He believed Jawaharlal Nehru and Mountbatten were as much to blame for Partition as Jinnah. In fact, the Congress repeated inability to accept that Muslims feared domination by Hindus and wanted space in a reassuring system pushed Jinnah to seek a separate country. Since all of this would be first revealed in my interview, even before the book was on sale, I realised he was giving me a scoop. I did a two-part interview, part one broadcast at 8:30 pm and the second at 11 pm the same night. This is how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first learned of his views. The next morning he was expelled. In the second of the two interviews, I asked if he realised his portrait of Jinnah would anger his party. Why should they be angry? he responded, a quizzical look on his face and his eyebrows furrowed. They may disagree but whats there to be angry about? I pointed out the BJPs chintan baithak was scheduled for three days later, and his book would be excoriated. He smiled and reminded me it was nearly 700 pages long. They wont even have read it. The point he made needs to be underlined in todays India. He didnt care what his party thought of his scholarship. It was the truth as he saw it. Such courage and conviction is rare. In Indian politics, its probably unique. Let me end by quoting from a third interview done days after his expulsion. I didnt think they would be so small-minded, so narrow-minded, so nervous about Jinnah, he said. When I pointed out that the BJP felt he had provoked it, he smiled. Why should truth be provocative? After a pause he added: On the other hand, the party should be worried if untruths become the core of the party. I didnt pursue this point. In 2009, there seemed no need to. Today, perhaps, there is. Karan Thapar is the author of Devils Advocate: The Untold Story The views expressed are personal SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Ian Ziering praised "resilient" Shannen Doherty during her cancer journey. (Photo: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images) Its been 30 years since the series premiere of Beverly Hills, 90210, but Shannen Doherty and Ian Ziering are still tight. In fact, Ziering is her biggest fan. "You know, Shannen is so resilient," Ziering told E! News on Friday. "If I was ever going to war, I would want her on my side, because that woman is a fighter and she gets it done." Doherty, 49, has been fighting breast cancer since 2015 she underwent chemotherapy, radiation and a single mastectomy and in 2017, her cancer went into remission. However this year, it returned as stage IV. "It's going to come out in a matter of days or a week that I'm stage four, the actress told Good Morning America in February. So my cancer came back. And that's why I'm here...I don't think I've processed it. It's a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways." Doherty has shared both uplifting and difficult moments on social media: dance videos with her mother Rosa, tributes to photographer Kurt Iswarienko, her husband of nine years and emotional images of her hair loss, the result of chemotherapy. Ziering, who joined his former cast mates for the 2019 reboot series, BH: 90210, told E! News that hes been texting with Doherty. Shes handling and managing to the best of her ability [and] knowing Shannen, she's got her finger on the heartbeat of whatever the cutting-edge science is adding that Doherty is doing great. The cast of "Beverly Hills, 90210": Gabrielle Carteris, Jeannie Garth, Luke Perry, Jason Priestley, Ian Ziering, Shannen Doherty, Tori Spelling, Brian Austin Green. (Photo: mikel roberts/Sygma via Getty Images) This week, Doherty told Elle that shes been savoring simple moments and thinking positivity, although that took a bit. When she first received her diagnosis, she questioned herself. I was like, OK, do I have good karma? Do I have bad karma? Why would I have bad karma? she said. I started taking stock of my life and the things Id done, and the things I hadnt done. How I was with people. Controversy has followed Doherty throughout her successful television career, including feuds with her 90210 co-star Jeannie Garth (who played Kelly Taylor, best friend to Dohertys Brenda Walsh) and showing up late to the set. In 2019, Doherty told People that shes felt misunderstood my whole life due to coping with her fathers health problems. Story continues The actress also told Elle that she joined the shows reboot with persuasion from 90210 co-star Brian Austin Greene and to pay tribute to actor Luke Perry (he played Brendas boyfriend Dylan McKay), who died of a stroke last year. Although the reboot was canceled after one season, Doherty said she was grateful to reconnect with the cast from a new perspective. The gang feels the same in 2016, when Doherty couldnt attend a 90210 reunion at RewindCon in Bloomingdale, Ill., due to medical appointments, they showed her love. "None of us are up here today without Shannen," said Perry, per ABC News. "Shes been through a lot. Shes not doing well right now but sometimes her contributions are minimized. Shes been thrown under the bus. Ive been accused of driving it. But shes a very big part of the success of this show. She taught me a lot. Im glad she was my scene partner. She was great at what she did in the character with me." And Garth posted an Instagram photo that read, Fight Like a Brenda writing that Doherty was her soul sister. Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: When the coronavirus pandemic hit Wisconsin schools, most businesses and other buildings closed their doors. Houses of worship were no exception. As Kenosha County began loosening some restrictions under the states reopening plan, houses of worship gained a few more choices for operating during the pandemic. Guidelines such as groups of 50 or fewer, 25% or less capacity, social distancing and face masks were all set in place to allow churches and other houses of worship to reopen. As expected, those planning for weddings, baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations and funerals have had different experiences this year. Outdoors events, limited attendanceAccording to Dr. Sandi Schmitt, director of Holy Cross Parish in Wilmot, due to limitations of the maximum attendance of 25 percent capacity for weddings, she was only able to accommodate a wedding by receiving permission from the Chancery Office to have it outdoors at the Bristol Oaks Country Club. Both the bride and groom are from large families and it was important for the couple to have all of their family members in attendance, she said Funerals were a challenge during the Safe at Home order. We had one funeral during that time when we were limited to a 10-person maximum in the church. That was heartbreaking. Now we are able to have 25 percent capacity in the church. It is better but many families are choosing to have a prayer service at the funeral home instead of Mass followed by the burial. Some plan on having a memorial Mass at a later date. Infant baptisms were moved to September at the parish. Confirmation was rescheduled to Sept. 23 at St. John the Evangelist in Twin Lakes as they have a larger building to accommodate social distancing. While many of the elderly have been afraid to return to Mass, Schmitt said they are slowly coming back and, when they do return, tell her how happy they are to be back. They usually have tears in their eyes, she said. It is so beautiful. Milestone events postponed for nowSeveral milestone events were postponed due to COVID at Lord of Life Lutheran Church over the summer and Rev. Carol Jeunnette said they are planning to hold them this fall. Unlike some congregations, we have suspended all activities in the building, with the exception of the Ladies and Gents of Lydia, the sewing group that makes quilts and, now, masks, she said. They are allowed to meet in the Parish Hall if they wear masks. The other exception is that the office is open a couple hours, a couple days a week, so people can drop off offerings and purchase Scrip cards. First Communion and Confirmation services were postponed and the annual third grade bible presentation that was supposed to happen the first weekend of the shutdown was also postponed. Despite these obstacles, Jeunnette said she is confident God is present and also confident that creativity is part of what God is all about. Between online teaching, outdoor worship and drive-through celebrations, we will figure it out, she said. Unfortunately, Lord of Life was in flux and suffering even before the pandemic hit. In 2019 and over a six-month period, two pastors left; Jeunnette became interim pastor midway last November. Now that it looks like we will be in this situation for a while, the focus of the leadership is shifting to using this time to really think, pray and explore what it is God is calling Lord of Life to do and be, she explained. Much of this will happen. not through in-person workshops and meetings but through small group, online gatherings. My hope and prayer are that these small groups also will be connection and support groups building relationships and different ways of being together that will be life-giving in the future. Facing the fear, scaling things back Throughout the months of the pandemic, Rev. Charlie Hansen, pastor of Holy Spirit Community Church said the biggest thing he has seen in that time is fear. We have people who have not left their homes, have not seen their family except via computer or window visits, he said. Church was closed for several weeks and this was very difficult for me, as a Pastor. We continued to live stream as we have been doing for a few years, but not having anyone here to sing and pray was different. Weve opened and people are slowly starting to come back. Some have said they wont be back until COVID is gone. Not sure that will ever happen. Weddings were scaled from packed congregation and large reception to a small affair with only 4-6 guests, including the bride and groom. Funerals have been impacted maybe the worst. When COVID first started it was limited to only 10 people. Families struggled with this as many of them were not with their loved one when they died because of the restrictions, said Hansen. They felt at a loss as they couldnt honor their loved one with the entire family and friends. One person shared with me they felt empty and didnt feel they had closure. Hansen added that as a pastor and chaplain at Hospice Alliance is that individuals are struggling because they are separated from their loved ones if they are in a facility or hospital. This complicates their grief as they feel guilty their loved one died alone, he said. We will see more depression, anger and frustration in people as we continue to isolate ourselves. Services over Zoom, parking lot worship COVID has had an enormous impact on the congregation of St. Paul Lutheran. The church building is closed with no meetings or inside worship. Meetings with parishioners are done via phone or ZOOM. Since the beginning of the Safe at Home mandate, the church has provided online worship presence on YouTube. According to Rev. Cindy Aasen, pastor of St. Paul, they began parking lot worship on July 12. We have made our parking lot into five lanes where people are directed to park, one behind the other. If people would like to sit outside, they need to be masked and bring their own chair, she said. I lead the worship on scaffolding. Because of the spread of COVID, we do not have any singing, but our music director plays the keyboard. One of the most difficult aspects of the pandemic is not being able to gather in the church for funerals. Since March, three members have died (not due to COVID) and two of the families opted to wait to have a service until it is safer to gather in the church. One family gathered for a small socially distanced and masked service that was streamed for others, said Aasen. All three funerals, if it was in normal times, would have been well-attended. Not being able to gather the church family together to grieve is so difficult. We want so much to gather to give thanks for those loved ones who passed away and hear the promises of our faith for comfort and peace. Two young men to be confirmed at St. Paul will do so separately with only close family in attendance, said Aasen. The parish bible studies are done via ZOOM, as are committee meetings and youth events. This has been so hard to be socially distanced and yet we are taking these precautions to keep one another safe, she said. Festivals cancelled, private Mass events According to Fr. Dwight Campbell, J.D., S.T.D., they had to cancel their festivals at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Therese of Lisieux Parishes. We saw that Holy Rosary had a successful curbside pick-up Spaghetti Dinner, so we did one as well he said. First Communion was held at Mt Carmel but not during the normal Sunday Mass, they held a private Mass on a Saturday morning instead. We had some weddings that were coming up, but they were postponed due to a lack of halls, Campbell said. For the funerals, we have to space ourselves apart and cant invite a lot of people, only 25 percent are allowed inside the church. Our Masses seem to be back to normal attendance as more people are coming. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 New Delhi: The Delhi metro will begin to begin at 6 am on October 4 (Sunday) from terminal stations of all lines as a measure to facilitate the students for the UPSC examinations. The DMRC gave the information on its official Twitter handle. "To facilitate students for the UPSC examinations, Delhi Metro services will begin at 6 AM from terminal stations of all lines on 4th October," the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation tweeted on Saturday. Public Service Announcement To facilitate students for the UPSC examinations, Delhi Metro services will begin at 6 AM from terminal stations of all lines on 4th October. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation I (@OfficialDMRC) October 3, 2020 The Civil Services exam is scheduled to be held on October 4. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the central service recruiting body, has set guidelines which the candidates appearing for the exam in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Live TV The metro, which had suspended its services in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, reopened with caution putting into place a series of measures such as closed token counters, limited entry and exit points, thermal scanners, and sanitisers among others to enable commuters to adhere to COVID-19 protection protocols. Apart from regular frontline staff at the stations, the DMRC has made the additional deployment of around 1,000 officials/staff across the line(s)/network to assist and guide passengers in the wake of new norms of Metro travel, which may take some time to settle in. However, DMRC is not the only one to provide these facilities to UPSC candidates but the South Western Railway (SWR) will also operate a special train from Hubballi, in northwest Karnataka, to Bengaluru on Saturday to enable candidates appearing for the UPSC civil services exams on Sunday reach the state capital. The South Central Railway (SCR) zone will also operate two more special trains in Andhra Pradesh between Kadapa and Anantapur and Kurnool and Anantapur to help UPSC aspirants reach their examination centres easily. UPSC had earlier scheduled the exam on May 31 which got postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic. The US unemployment rate fell to 7.9% in September, from 8.4% in August, a big drop that in normal times would be welcome news for a presidential incumbent seeking reelection in just over a month. These are not normal times. As the best-known summary statistic of the labor market, the US unemployment rate is a "a psychologically important number" for voters, said Michael Brown, principal US economist at Visa. But President Donald Trump's announcement on Friday that he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus pushes that number into the background: Voters may ... A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped, a senior party leader said. IMAGE: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with party workers on their way to Hathras, to meet the family members of the alleged gang-rape victim, at Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida, on Thursday. Photograph: PTI Photo Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be part of the delegation that will meet the family to hear their grievances and demand justice for them, sources said. 'Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year old-daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted & murdered,' Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal tweeted. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman. In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable to me. No Indian should accept this." Hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi said the UP government is 'morally corrupt'. 'The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test,' she said in a tweet in Hindi. 'This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family,' she said. The party alleged that the woman and her family have been denied justice and 'severely traumatised' by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in their attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out 'as per the wishes of the family'. GREENPORT, NY During the days of coronavirus, families are often left searching for ways to find activities that are fun and socially distanced. And more often than not, during these unprecedented months, those experiences have been found out on the water with kayak and boat sales skyrocketing and residents turning to water sports to find the freedom so many were lacking during the COVID-19 lockdown. In Greenport, the East End Seaport Museum offers Lighthouse Excursions a two-hour cruise to, and tour of, Bug Light, the only area lighthouse that allows visitor tours. There are two dates left for the season, Saturday, October 3 and Saturday, October 10. To purchase tickets for the event, which takes place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., click here. Social distancing protocols are adhered to, with temperature checks, face masks, and a reduced occupancy limit of two-thirds on the boat, and 50 percent at the lighthouse. Guests can enjoy the sweeping views and sunsets out on the water and, once at the lighthouse, built in 1871, enjoy hear stories about the structure's fabled history from Bob Allen, the great-grandson of William H. Follett, who was the last lighthouse keeper from 1912 until 1940. The lighthouse, lost in a fire in 1963, when "kids came out on the Fourth of July with a can of gas and burned down the lighthouse," Allen said. "For 27 years all that was left was the foundation." The iconic structure, also known as the Long Beach Bar Lighthouse, was resurrected by the efforts of the East End Seaport Museum, which fundraised to bring it back to its former glory, rebuilt on its original foundation in 1990. "They raised $140,000 and in 60 days they rebuilt this lighthouse on the land," Allen said. The lighthouse, Allen said, is a "screw-pile" style, a platform with iron rods that are screwed down into the seabed. "You don't really find this type of a lighthouse up here. You find them down in Baltimore, MD, or in North Carolina," he said. Story continues The foundation was originally first laid in 1926, he said. Allen's talk about the lighthouse's history is interspersed with humor as he introduces a plastic "pirate" figure who watches the structure when no one is there. The stories delight children and adults alike. Allen describes icy winters in the past when the winds were so bad inside the lighthouse would shake. "So what Congress did is allocate $20,000 for riprap, or irregular rocks," that were placed around the structure to protect the lighthouse from ice. While guests today can walk right up, via the dock, to the lighthouse door, in the "old days," Allen said, visitors found a concrete slab. "You had to put a cable on the bow of the stern and they would have to crank you up, swing the boat over on the slab." Bob Allen, a descendant of the Bug Light lighthouse-keeper, shares stories. Lisa Finn/Patch Allen also displays photos of the lighthouse when first built, and explains its deep meaning to his family. "A lighthouse keeper has to make sure the light is on. He takes care of the building. If there is a leak in the roof he takes care of it he takes care of everything." Nowadays, Allen said, there are cell phones, Direct TV, the internet. Back in the days of lighthouses, lighthouse keepers had to find ways to pass the time, he said. The talk is rich with stories, lore and memories. He speaks of how lighthouse keeper would catch fish right outside on the rocks, lobster and crab. Lighthouse keepers also kept lobster traps to sell and make some extra money, he said. The lighthouse, Allen said, is a "composite" lighthouse that looks like it did in both 1871 and 1926. Speaking of his family, Allen said his great-grandfather was stationed in Rhode Island, then in Montauk, then at Cedar Island Lighthouse at Cedar Point, and then, to Bug Light. He asked Allen's father William Allen to leave school in the seventh grade and come work with him, Allen said. "He quit school, came over here and was his grandfather's righthand person," Allen said. In 1926, the foundation, benches, a bathroom, and a cistern were added, Allen said. Unable to get water at the lighthouse, rainwater was used, he said. Rainwater, which hit the roof flowed into gutters, headed into a downspout and down into the cistern; the cistern was used to pump up the water, which was boiled for bathing and cooking. A clothesline was set up right outside the lighthouse to dry garments, he said. During the memory laced discussion, Allen shows family photos at the lantern, the fog bell, rich with history and a deep legacy. "My great-grandmother Atta hated this place," he joked. At Cedar Island, were the couple was stationed for 17 years, there were three acres and cousins and relatives could visit. "When they came here they couldn't bring anyone over. She didn't like it at all. In fact, when she came over, she had a little problem. She couldn't get up to the light. The concrete slab was 12 rungs they had to climb up and she was a little bit overweight, and she couldn't. They didn't know how to get her to the lighthouse." Finally, he said, they had an idea, dropping her off on the smooth rocks. "She slid up every rock, on her rear end," he said. "They used to kid her; they called it the 'Grandma heinie shuffle.'" There are years of memories: A ship ran aground once, he said. His family survived the Hurricane of '38 at the lighthouse, Allen said. "My dad looked out the window and saw these big, heavy storm clouds coming in. . .Pretty soon the winds started picking up, over 140 miles an hour. The waves were really getting high. The water went up 54 feet above, went through the window, and put out the light. Dad said listening to the Hurricane of '38 was like having a steam locomotive in the room with you on high speed, for a long period of time. That's how noisy it was." They lived on canned food and were rescued and survived, he said. Allen shares memories of Brownie, the "lighthouse dog" whose ghost, according to lore, lives at the Lighthouse. In 1946 to 1948 the lighthouse was officially deactivated, but when his family left, it was essentially shut down, Allen said. When it was rededicated, his mother Frances helped to illuminate the light. But the history, the memories, the legacy live on, a flame Allen is dedicated to keeping alive. "What I like about it the best is I get to share my lighthouse heritage with other people," Allen said. "I like to see the looks on their faces when I'm taking to them and I tell them I a descendant of the lighthouse keeper." There's a magic to the lighthouses of yesterday, Allen said. "They're all automated now or solar powered. It's in the past. You can't go back to lighthouses. But I like to watch people's faces as I share the memories." This article originally appeared on the North Fork Patch John Fisher had his key in the door, ready to close his barber shop for the final time when a longtime customer rushed up to him. A customer drove from Ottawa to get his last haircut, having rushed back to Barrie from the nations capital upon hearing that the shop was about to close, said the generational barber. And although the customer, a now a federal government worker, had been coming into the downtown Fishers Barber Shop for 35 years, Fisher knows him only as Brad. Fisher reopened, Brad took a familiar seat and after 42 years of barbering, Fisher gave his last haircut in his iconic business where three generations once worked. The barber then finally did close up the shop for the last time and made his way back to his Elmvale-area farm, which hes been running nearly as long as the Dunlop Street barber shop. Word of last weekends closure, which Fisher suspects is the longest continuously run business in Barries downtown, brought many notes of congratulations and memories on the Facebook page, If You Grew Up in Barrie You Remember. Among them is self-described old soul Spenser Arksey, who happily calls Barrie his lifelong home. Its sad to see a longtime staple of Barrie disappear, said the 29-year-old health-care worker, who was first attracted to the shop seven years ago by its classic barber pole. That pole a throwback to a time when the barber shop served as a leisurely male hangout was a true reflection of what he found inside: an old-style, folksy atmosphere where men would gather, sometimes just to chat. It was a tribute, said Arksy, to small-town Barrie and the people who once populated it. A lot of the time Id go in and wed talk about the news of the day, or fishing, he said. Sometimes not even for a haircut, just for a chat. Fisher kept things simple and old school. It was walk-in business only, no appointments. Anyone who tried to call would be out of luck; Fishers Barber Shop has never had a phone. If he, or anyone in the shop needed to make a call, the phone booth just outside on the sidewalk accommodated. That is until a couple of years ago when the booth was removed, which roughly coincided with the time Fisher got his first cellphone. Fisher and the shop hearkened to another time when things were simpler, said Mike Metzger, who, with his sister, Bev, has been running their jewelry business, Metzger Studio, four doors down from the barber shop for the past 21 years. I think hes the only guy in town that still does traditional barbering with the straight edge and the foam, said Metzger, a lifelong Barrie boy. I remember getting a haircut there one time and he had the baby powder going and the big old whippy brush from way back. I remember going home and feeling how smooth my neck was, he added. I dont think Ive ever felt it that smooth. Fisher said it was time to close. He saw the writing on the wall several years ago when patios starting dominating the main street in the core and storefront parking became next to impossible a problem for Fishers clientele, many of whom are now elderly. Two years ago, street construction blocked traffic and just as merchants were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, the pandemic hit. By the time he was finally able to reopen the shop, many people had become used to their untended coifs, new beards and home cuts. Customers werent waiting in line outside. The Fishers Barber Shop sign was first posted by his dad, Bill, on Owen and Dunlop streets in 1955 when he moved to Barrie from Toronto, where his father, Fishers grandfather, had his own shop and worked as a barber dating back to 1927. In 1960, Bill moved the shop to his own building on Collier Street, where he created the largest barber shop north of Toronto with seven chairs. The first day that they opened, my dad did 100 haircuts that day himself, recalled Fisher. The only reason he knew that was because haircuts were $1 a shot and he had $100 in his till at the end of the day. Within a couple of years, Fishers grandfather started working at the shop as well, cutting hair in Barrie from 1962 until he passed away in the spring of 1971. In 1977, the building was sold to Mallory Insurance, which still occupies it, and the shop moved to its last location on Dunlop Street East. Fisher joined his dads business in 1978 after trying his hand at milking cows, labouring for bricklayers, working at the citys Woolworths store, and selling insurance. I never dreamt in a million years I was going to be a barber, Fisher recalled. And then one day I thought there must be something to this barbering. My dad and mother raised four boys and we always were well-dressed, we ate well, we lived in a new home, we drove a good car, and I thought maybe theres something to this. But the draw for Fisher, was the people: You met a multitude of people from every walk of life you could imagine. And he could contrast that to the solitary life of a farmer, which he took up in the 1980s after lifelong exposure to farming through extended family and that he continues to this day. Ive had quite a ride, Fisher said with a heavy heart. Added Arksy: Im really going to miss that place. The Abbeyleix Bog project is set to get thousands of euro to advance its conservation work at what has become a popular amenity for Laois people and visitors to the county. Laois County Council has received 16,000 to help with the conservation of habitats and species in the Abbeyleix Bog Project, as well as to increase the awareness and appreciation of the biodiversity and ecosystem services in Laois. Senator Pippa Hackett, Minister for State at the Department of Agriculture welcomed the announcement of funding. Local Authorities play a vital role in encouraging biodiversity, says Minister Hackett. The Local Authority Biodiversity Grant Scheme assists them with the implementation of projects that promote actions contained in the National Biodiversity Action Plan. The scheme is operated by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and my colleague Minister Malcolm Noonan has announced funding of 696,000 for 50 projects across all 31 local authorities. Im delighted to see Abbeyleix Bog Project among them, she said. The Environmental Protection Agency recently published a research report that presents the results of an integrated scientific study on two raised bogs, Abbeyleix Bog and Clara Bog, Co Offaly, which represent lowland peatland conditions. www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/research/biodiversity/ July 2020 marked the 20th anniversary of the blockade of the bog by local people. Stopping Bord na Mona at the entrance to what is also called Killamuck bog has culminated in Laois having a natural gem inhabited by plants and animals and enjoyed by humans. Here comes the Fall! Trees are just changing colors and this image is what Fall looks like for us. Pesky parrots: LONDON (AP) A British zoo has had to separate five foul-mouthed parrots who keepers say were encouraging each other to swear. Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade and Elsie joined Lincolnshire Wildlife Centres colony of 200 gray parrots in August, and soon revealed a penchant for blue language. We are quite used to parrots swearing, but weve never had five at the same time, said the zoos chief executive, Steve Nichols. Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it. Nichols said no visitors had complained about the parrots, and most found the situation funny. When a parrot tells tells you to f- off it amuses people very highly, he said Tuesday. Its brought a big smile to a really hard year. Nichols said the parrots have been separated to save childrens ears. They were moved to different areas of the park so they dont set each other off, he said. Wonderful I thought I had reported on every subject imaginable until this week, when I traveled to Attleboro, Massachusetts, and met Crystal MacDonald. Crystal's unlikely obsession with canned pasta began after the birth of her daughter, Ashlyn. Ashlyn is autistic, and earlier this year, she stopped eating food altogether with the sole exception of SpaghettiOs and meatballs. Teachers and therapists were working to expand her palate when the pandemic hit, clearing grocery store shelves of a lot more than just toilet paper. "Couldn't find SpaghettiOs anywhere," MacDonald said. "It's like they were there one day and the next they were gone." "Wait, wait, wait Why was there a run on SpaghettiOs?" I asked. "I don't know if people thought, like, if the world ended you could survive on SpaghettiOs I just know that I was losing my mind trying to find them," she said. Cmon Michigan: SALEM TOWNSHIP, Mich. (NewsNation Now) A Michigan township mailed out the wrong election date in their tax bill. It showed Nov. 10 vs. the actual date of the election: Nov. 3. Salem Township, which is located south of Grand Rapids, told NewsNation affiliate WOOD-TV that theyre grateful the mistake was caught with weeks to go before the contest, but wish it would have been caught sooner. It was a typo on our part. Thats really all it is, Salem Township Clerk Betty Brower said. Im surprised that somebody actually read it. Kathryn Kramer did read the letter mailed to taxpaying residents of Salem Township. She spotted the mistake. I received my tax bill last week showing my taxes were paid and inside the letter, they always give a little newsletter on whats going on, and so, like a good citizen you read through it to see if theres anything you need to look at, Kramer said. When I turned it over to the page two what I saw was kind of interesting. The letter read, in part, Salem Township will be welcoming in person voters at our open polls for the upcoming Primary on August 4, 2020 and the Presidential on November 10, 2020. Thank you Illinois! SPRINGFIELD, Ill. Four state agencies have signed a pact to protect monarch butterflies and other important pollinators whose numbers are dwindling. Representatives of the Illinois Departments of Natural Resources, Transportation and Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency signed onto the Illinois Monarch Action Plan on Friday. While feeding on nectar, monarchs pollinate numerous wildflowers and also serve as an important food source for birds, small animals and other insects. Milkweed is a favorite food source for monarch caterpillars. The project brings together public and private agencies and residents to preserve necessary habitat for monarchs to survive and continue their crucial migration. Though small, pollinators play an extremely important role in our survival here in Illinois and the world, said IDNR Director Colleen Callahan. The plan calls for 1.3 billion new stems of milkweed in the central U.S. Illinois contribution is 150 million stems by 2038. The Transportation Department, one of the states largest landowners, has adjusted roadside mowing schedules, reduced the use of pesticides and become more discerning in the species it plants, Secretary Omer Osman said. I get it that publishers are businesses, but this seems amiss to me. How about you? (RNS) LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, has sued its former president and CEO, accusing him of violating a noncompete clause in his contract. Thom Rainer, who announced his plan to retire as president and CEO in 2018, still serves as chief advisory officer for LifeWay. Under terms of a transition agreement, he was prohibited from working with a competitor for 12 months after his retirement, LifeWay claims in a suit filed in Williamson County, Tennessee, on Monday (Sept. 28). Rainer, 65, was earning the same salary he received as president, plus a car, which he could keep after his term as chief advisory officer concludes Oct. 31, according to the transition agreement he signed with LifeWay in 2018. But in April, the suit alleges, Rainer and Tyndale, a publisher of Bibles and other Christian books, reached a multi-book, multiyear agreement for publishing Rainers books, which LifeWay says violates the transition agreement. Tyndale is ecstatic about our long-term partnership with Thom Rainer and Church Answers. Thom is a gifted leader, teacher, and communicator whose personal mission aligns perfectly with Tyndales, Tyndale senior VP and publisher Ron Beers was quoted saying in a news release. Rainer, a prolific writer, runs a business called Church Answers, which is intended to help church leaders with resources, experts and community through the ups and downs of church ministry. A lifelong Southern Baptist and Alabama native, Rainer received his Master of Divinity and a doctorate from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Rainer said he was sad to hear about the lawsuit and said he received a written and amicable release from publishing with LifeWay on Oct. 1, 2019. Before learning of the lawsuit, I heard from a LifeWay representative about this concern only one time on September 8, 2020, Rainer said in an email response to RNS. LifeWays counsel sent me an email asking for an explanation of my relationship with another publisher. I gave a quick and substantive response that same day. Even more, I requested to meet with the board officers in my response. I assumed all was well until the lawsuit was filed yesterday. LifeWay claims Rainers agreement with Tyndale gives that publisher a significant competitive advantage. It is inevitable that he will disclose to Tyndale confidential information about LifeWays products, processes and services, the lawsuit says. Cool, a 12 year old college soph?!?! Before Caleb Anderson is old enough to get his driver's license or vote in an election, he will already have a college degree. The 12-year-old from Georgia has already started his sophomore year at Chattahoochee Technical College in Marietta, Georgia, which confirmed to TODAY that he is a student at the school. Anderson is well on his way to getting a degree by the time most kids his age are starting their freshman year of high school. "It was exactly how I expected it to be like, if I were 18 or something, the bright, young boy told NBC affiliate WXIA about his college experience. Anderson has been a prodigy from before he could even speak, learning sign language, reading the U.S. Constitution as a 2-year-old, qualifying for the high IQ society MENSA a year later, and learning to speak Spanish, French and Mandarin, according to his parents. "As we started to interact with other parents, and had other children, then we started to realize how exceptional this experience was, because we had no other frame of reference," his father, Kobi, told WXIA. A new career for this dog: JOHNSON COUNTY, Ind. (NewsNation Now) An abandoned dog found tied to a tree in Indiana has a new home and job, going from rescued to trained rescuer in a few short weeks. White River Township Fire Chief Jeremy Pell was moved by the story of Roadie, who was abandoned and tied to a tree with a heartbreaking note from her owner, reported NewsNation affiliate WTTV/WXIN. I was a spoiled girl, my dad gave me my own couch to lie on and my own memory foam bed, the note said. My dad lost his job and soon his home from COVID. Please pray for him and give him hope that I will find a good home! My heart breaks for a family thats in that position, and for a dog that is going through all these changes, Pell said. The fire chief adopted the nearly 2-year-old shepherd mix and set her redemption story into motion. Roadie is now Rosie and works for the Search and Rescue K9 Unit for fire department. We can give her a second chapter to her life and give her a job that helps people, said Pell. She spends her days at the White River Township Fire Department Headquarters in Greenwood, and then goes home in the evenings with Pell and his family. I saw something in her face, he said. The breed, the soulful eyes, the stance, just something caught me. Subway has been found out: Those wrestling with the great culinary-philosophical dilemmas of our time are jaffa cakes actually cakes or just up-themselves biscuits, is putting chorizo in paella really an act of gastronomic terrorism, and what kind of monster doesnt love Marmite? can give thanks to the Irish supreme court. Earlier this week, it brought clarity to an important, if less bitterly contested, debate. In a judgment published on Tuesday, the court ruled that the bread served at Subway, the US chain that hawks giant sandwiches in 110 countries and territories, could not in fact be defined as bread because of its high sugar content. The ruling followed an appeal by Bookfinders Ltd, Subways Irish franchisee. The company had argued that the bread used in Subway sandwiches counted as a staple food and was consequently exempt from VAT. However, as the court pointed out, Irelands Value-Added Tax Act of 1972 draws a distinction between staple foods bread, tea, coffee, cocoa, milk and preparations or extracts of meat or eggs and more discretionary indulgences such as ice-cream, chocolate, pastries, crisps, popcorn and roasted nuts. The clincher was the acts strict provision that the amount of sugar in bread shall not exceed 2% of the weight of flour included in the dough. Subways bread, however, contains five times as much sugar. Or, as the supreme court put it: In this case, there is no dispute that the bread supplied by Subway in its heated sandwiches has a sugar content of 10% of the weight of the flour included in the dough. If youve never read this one, its still worth reading: Ana De Armas as Paloma in No Time To Die (Credit: Universal) Ana De Armas has opened up about joining No Time To Die, saying that she ultimately decided to do so after it was confirmed that her character wouldnt be a stereotypical Bond girl. The Cuban actress made this admission during her recent discussion with Vogue Mexico, insisting that what mattered the most to her about her role as Paloma in the 25th installment to the James Bond franchise was that it represented women and female characters in an empowered, realistic way and outside of the stereotype. Read More: 'No Time To Die': Rami Malek introduces his 'unsettling' Bond villain Safin in new video She then said that she had spent plenty of time discussing the planned portrayal of the female characters in No Time To Die with its co-writer and director Cary Joji Fukunaga. MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA - APRIL 25: (L-R) Producer Michael G Wilson with cast members Lea Seydoux, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Ana de Armas, Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris, Lashana Lynch and producer Barbara Broccoli attend the "Bond 25" Film Launch at Ian Fleming's Home "GoldenEye", on April 25, 2019 in Montego Bay, Jamaica. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures) In this 007 movie I have been aware of paying the greatest attention and being careful with the subject. That was the main thing I addressed when I spoke with the director. De Armas comments very much echo those of Lashana Lynch, who will feature in No Time To Die as new 00 agent Nomi, and last week talked of how empowering it was to star in the blockbuster. Read More: 'No Time To Die': Lashana Lynch takes centre stage for Nokia launch photos Originally scheduled for release for November 2019, No Time To Die, which will mark Daniel Craigs fifth and final appearance in the James Bond franchise, was delayed after the departure of director Danny Boyle. Then, just a few weeks ahead of its release, the decision was made to push No Time To Die even further back to November 12 because of the Coronavirus pandemic. It has now been announced that No Time To Die will be released on April 2, 2021. Russia is consistently working on strengthening multifaceted relations with Africa despite the numerous challenges. After the first Russia-Africa summit held in Sochi, authorities have been moving to build on this new page in the history of Russia's relations, based on shared values and interests, with African countries. Within the framework of the joint declaration adopted in Sochi, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation created a Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum. On May 18, Deputy Director of the Department of Africa at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Borisovich Ozerov, was appointed Ambassador-at-Large and Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum. He is a diplomat with extensive experience at the Foreign Ministry, including Arab and African countries. In 2010-2017, he was Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and in 2011-2017, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. In this interview, Oleg Borisovich Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large, and Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, talks about the primary tasks of the Secretariat, current efforts at supporting Russian companies to work in Africa and the way forward with Russia-African relations. Here are the interview excerpts: Q: Why it has become important, in the first place, to create the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation? A: In October 2019 Sochi hosted the first ever Russia-Africa Summit, ushering in a new era in the history of Russian-African cooperation. The outcomes of this event are evident in its final declaration. The first few points in the document outline decisions made by the event's participants concerning the establishment of a Russia-Africa Partnership Forum as the Summit's supreme body. It also stipulates that annual political consultations will be held between the Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation and African States acting as the present, former and future presidents of the African Union. There needs to be coordinated action between Russian government bodies and economic actors. This is to ensure that the decisions reached at the previous Summit can be implemented, preparations for the next high-level Russian-African meeting made, and diplomatic support provided for communicating with the African Union and government bodies in Africa which oversee foreign policy. This need for coordinated action has led to the establishment of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Secretariat within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Incidentally, one of its key objectives will be to organize and conduct the aforementioned political consultations. The first round of these consultations was held in July of this year. Q: The Secretariat has already held a few meetings. Could you please talk about some of the decisions that have been taken with regards to strengthening cooperation with Africa? A: I would like to make a small correction. On 9 September this year, Moscow hosted the official presentation of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Secretariat and the Association of Economic Cooperation with African States. The senior management of the Secretariats working bodies were presented at this event. These included the heads of the coordinating council, research council, public council, and the working media group. These people are, respectively, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Roscongress Foundation Alexander Stuglev, Director of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Irina Abramova, Head of Rossotrudnichestvo Yevgeny Primakov, and Director General of TASS Sergey Mikhailov. The first meeting of the coordinating council is planned for October this year. The research and public councils should meet accordingly shortly afterwards. Draft resolutions concerning the work of the Secretariat will be discussed at the aforementioned meetings, and the media will be informed of the outcomes in due course. Q: Is it possible to discuss the roles of the three councils (business, research and public) that were created during the meeting of 9 September? A: The decision to set up the councils was taken much earlier, as the concept for the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Secretariat was being drawn up, which was established, as we know, in June this year. The Secretariat does not have a business council. Issues regarding coordination between federal government bodies and the business sector come under the remit of the coordinating council. The Association of Economic Cooperation with African States also performs the role of a business council, and operates in close collaboration with the Secretariat. All the three councils are staffed by highly qualified professionals. They include people specializing in international relations, economics and finance, science, business, society and the media, who provide expert support for the Secretariats operations. Q: In your objective view, is there a lot of potential in terms of increasing trade and economic cooperation between the African continent and Russia? A: Speaking to the press at the end of the inaugural Russia-Africa Summit, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin noted that in 2018 Russia's trade with African states exceeded US$20 billion. As pointed out by the Head of State, It is absolutely feasible to reach higher, and bring the value of trade to, at least, US$40 billion over the next few years. The official figures to come out of the Sochi Summit pay testament to the enormous potential of economic relations between Russia and Africa. Of particular note is the fact that delegations from 54 African nations took part in the event. Of these, 45 were led by Heads of State and Government. The Summit was also attended by the heads of eight regional organizations in Africa, 109 foreign ministers, and two vice presidents. The Russia-Africa Economic Forum, which took place alongside the Summit, was attended by more than 6,000 participants from 104 countries and territories. These included more than 1,100 foreign business leaders, 1,400 Russian business leaders, and 2,200 members of official delegations from Russia and abroad. Ninety-two agreements, contracts, and memoranda of understanding were signed worth a total of more than RUB 1 trillion. I would say that when organizing and holding the next high-level Russian-African meeting, one of the main objectives will be to further reinforce the powerful momentum built up in Sochi in 2019 in terms of economic collaboration between Russia and African countries. We are now enjoying comprehensive and enduring collaboration which is founded on long-term programmes. Q: Doing business is not easy in Africa, but what kind of approach do you envisage adopting when it comes to dealing with such issues? A: We see our mission as uniting economic operators from Russia and Africa, and facilitating the sharing of information between them. We also aim to ensure there is political and diplomatic support for Russian businesses in African countries. The Secretariat will work in close collaboration with the aforementioned Association of Economic Cooperation with African States. We enjoy robust ties and have established communications with relevant Russian ministries and government bodies responsible for foreign trade, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Coordinating Committee on Economic Cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa (AfroCom) and many other organizations. The task before us is to coordinate the actions of all stakeholders with the aim of effectively promoting Russias economic interests in Africa and to foster mutually beneficial cooperation with African nations. Q: Apart from corporate business at the state level, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has spoken about developing medium-sized enterprises. Is this part of your plan? A: Small and medium-sized enterprises have already been using the AfroCom platform to work together with African countries for a long time. Incidentally, this organization is planning to soon join the Association of Economic Cooperation with African States. Our embassies consular departments and trade missions where they exist are also providing assistance to small and medium-sized Russian businesses. They are helping them to find partners in African countries and to establish business ties. In accordance with the decisions made at the inaugural Russia-Africa Summit, we will also help build partnerships for small and medium-sized businesses, and help them to be more active and effective. The plans and strategies, which will be employed to achieve this, will be discussed at the first meeting of the coordinating council this October, as well as at other events. Q: Looking at current developments and other active foreign players on the African continent, what do you see as the key challenges there? A: In terms of intensifying economic collaboration between Russia and African countries, we need to anticipate the technical aspects of having Russian businesspeople, firms, and companies do business on the African continent. In particular, this means looking at transport accessibility (by air and sea), processes and forms related to mutual settlements, making payments, investment, providing loans, hedging risk, providing legal services and insurance, etc. Work on these aspects must be done immediately, in parallel with work on organizing the next Summit. That said however, the current coronavirus pandemic is causing considerable difficulties, at the moment. It is affecting international travel and is hindering economic activity across the board, including in African countries. In terms of competing with other countries on the continent, we are counting on building relations between Russian firms and companies in such a way as to create a sense of camaraderie and solidarity when it comes to withstanding foreign competitors on the African market. This will be another area of focus for the Association of Economic Cooperation with African States as it works in close collaboration with the Secretariat. Q: Why do you think Russia's soft power is not what it was during the days of the Soviet Union? A: I cannot say I fully agree with that statement. There are numerous examples of how Russia has achieved notable success through soft power. I would like to particularly draw attention to the fantastic work being done by the Russian news channel Russia Today, under Margarita Simonyan's leadership. And I cannot ignore the fact that in many African countries, a number of important roles within the African Union and a host of other regional organizations are staffed by graduates of Soviet and Russian universities. This says a great deal about the nature of Russian-African partnership. And there is still a high degree of interest among African people in studying in the Russian Federation. I am also aware that Rossotrudnichestvo (the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation) is working hard to make Russias humanitarian presence both more effective and more keenly felt abroad, including in African countries. Q: What plans do you have in terms of developing cooperation in education, the media and culture over the next few years? The final declaration of the inaugural Russia-Africa Summit includes an entire section on our collaboration in science, culture, education and social ties. Rossotrudnichestvo is the main body in Russia responsible for humanitarian cooperation, including with African states. At the next meeting of the public council, we intend to discuss this agenda in detail with Yevgeny Primakov, who heads the organization. This discussion will take place within the context of implementing the decisions of the Sochi Summit and working towards fulfilling associated objectives. Interview by Kester Kenn Klomegah. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 13:20:11|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close PHNOM PENH, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia had exported 488,785 tons of milled rice in the first nine months of 2020, up 23 percent over the same period last year, the Cambodia Rice Federation told Xinhua on Saturday. The Southeast Asian nation earned more than 328 million U.S. dollars in gross revenue from the commodity's export during the January-September period this year, it said in a statement. "Within nine months of export this year, China is the lead market, absorbing 35 percent of overall market destinations, which the amount is 171,896 tons, and the European Union is the second lead, absorbing 33 percent, generating in the amount of 161,614 tons," it said. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) market also absorbed 67,433 tons of the total export amount, the statement said, adding that the kingdom's milled rice has been shipped to 69 countries and regions across the globe. Ngin Chhay, director general of agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said recently that the COVID-19 pandemic had driven high demand for Cambodian rice. He forecast that the country's rice export to the international market is expected to reach at least 800,000 tons in 2020, an estimated rise of 29 percent from 620,106 tons last year. Cambodia produced about 10 million tons of paddy rice last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. With this amount, the country saw a paddy rice surplus of about 5.6 million tons in equivalent to 3.5 million tons of milled rice. Enditem Dhaka, Oct 3 : A journalist working for Shomoy TV was arrested from a hotel in Kuakata town in south-eastern Bangladesh early on Saturday and a schoolgirl he had allegedly abducted was rescued, police said. The girl, a student of Class IX at a high school in Barguna, was sent to the Barguna General Hospital for medical tests, the police told IANS. Her uncle had got a case registered against three persons, including M.A. Azim, at the Barguna police station on Friday night after the girl was abducted from near her house. The Barguna Senior Judicial Magistrate's court sent Azim to Barguna jail. A team of Barguna and Patuakhali's Mahipur police arrested Azim, the Barguna district correspondent of the private channel, from Hotel Golden Inn at around 3.30 am on Saturday, said KM Tariqul Islam, officer in-charge (OC) at Barguna police station. The police said they are trying to arrest the other accused. Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Ukraine Anka Feldhusen sees several opportunities for Ukraine-Germany economic cooperation, mentioning pharmaceuticals industry and clean energy among them. "I see two opportunities. The first is the fact that Ukraine is located very close to Germany, to Europe. I think we can move production here, for example, of drugs that are now [produced] either in China or in India. We got to know that it is better to have them closer because there are logistical problems with delivering them to Germany. Moreover, the pharmaceuticals industry in Ukraine is quite strong, and I believe it has a lot of opportunities," the Ambassador said in an interview posted on YouTube channel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. The development of clean energy initiatives was named the second opportunity for bilateral cooperation. "We want to revive Europe's economy through different and more eco-friendly standards after the crisis. There are a lot of respective funds in Europe and Germany now, and I think this is a good opportunity for Ukraine to join. Clean energy in Ukraine has always been very interesting for German investors, the German Ambassador to Ukraine said. Ambassador Feldhusen also noted that German investments in Ukraine remained at the level of 2015. "When I arrived a year ago, I was very unhappy to see that German investments [in Ukraine] are still at the same level as in 2015. Frankly speaking, the reason is insufficient judicial reform. Our investors don't think they can defend their rights in a fair court, and this is an obstruction. And everyone knows about it because one company tells another. I speak about this with everyone because the interest of German investors was great before the crisis, and I think it will be great after the crisis," Feldhusen said. As reported, in February 2020, Ambassador Feldhusen stated that German investors were interested in entering the Ukrainian market but they must be confident in the possibility of protecting their investments in Ukraine. ol Manama Bahrain welcomed the announcement of a framework agreement reached between the sisterly Republic of Lebanon and the State of Israel for peace talks on the demarcation of the maritime borders between the two countries. The talks are expected to be mediated by the United States and the United Nations. The Foreign Ministry considered the move as an important step for the demarcation of the maritime borders between the two countries, in a way that preserves the rights of the Lebanese Brothers. It congratulated the US governments efforts to pave the way for this agreement and stated that it will constitute a favorable opportunity for direct negotiations between the Lebanese and Israelis and preserve the interests of the two countries towards more stability, peace, and prosperity in the region. For decades, Lebanon and Israel were in a state of a formal war on issues of land and maritime borders. The United states has been mediating between the two countries to start talks on peace. On Thursday, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said the framework for talks had been agreed. This is a framework agreement and not a final one, Berri told a news conference, saying discussions would be held under the auspices of the United Nations at a base near the UN-monitored boundary with Israel, known as the Blue Line. The United States was asked by both sides, Israel and Lebanon, to act as a mediator and facilitator to draw up the maritime borders, and it is ready to do this, he quoted an agreement as saying. IFA Grain Chairman Mark Browne said tillage farmers have endured a torrid season. A wet Autumn/Winter was followed by drought conditions in late spring, culminating in a very difficult harvest, he said. Preliminary estimates by IFA indicate that at current spot grain and straw prices, the overall farm gate value of the Irish tillage sector could drop by at least 15% compared to 2019. Its likely that the main cereal harvest will come in somewhere between 1.9m and 2m tonnes. While oats tonnage is down on last year, the real hit is on barley and wheat with the combined output will be down approx. 400,000 tonnes, he said. After a very difficult harvest, the majority of it is now finished. However, there are pockets of spring crops still to be finished along with the bean crops. Yields have remained very variable. Some of the Spring barley crops were promising good late yield potential. However, the continuation of the broken weather scuppered this hope for a lot of farmers, he said. According to the Teagasc, tillage farm incomes fell by 15% in 2019 compared to 2018. Mark Browne said we are now looking at a collapse in farm income, following consecutive years of significant declines for the sector. This is unsustainable, final harvest grain prices must rise significantly just to cover production costs. The Government must support tillage farmers. Any reduction of funding for the sector under the next CAP will decimate the sector, he said. Ireland imported one million tonnes of maize from third countries such as Brazil in the 2019/2020 marketing season. This is double the figure we imported five years ago. These imports, which are produced to lower regulatory and environmental standards, are undermining the value of quality assured Irish grain. Other issues in the sector include the access to low cost finance, loss of Plant Protection Products (PPPs), access to new crop breeding technologies, support for renewables and limited R&D. Mark Browne said he looked forward to a meeting with the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to discuss these issues. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. During the last five years the Organization of American States has followed closely the unilateral arms race of Azerbaijan, that escalation was undoubtedly the preparation for this armed aggression against Nagorno Karabakh. There is clear evidence of Azerbaijans full responsibility regarding the escalation of the conflict, Secretary General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro said in his letter addressed to Azerbaijani Ambassador to the United States Elin Suleymanov. The OAS Secretary General said he is writing this letter in response to the Ambassadors reaction to the Organizations declaration regarding recent military attacks on Nagorno Karabakh. During the last five years we have followed closely the unilateral arms race of your country; it was a matter of deep concern because that escalation was undoubtedly the preparation for this armed aggression launched by Azerbaijan. There is clear evidence of your full responsibility regarding the aggression and the escalation of the conflict. A statement was made by France with evidence that Turkey sent 300 ISIS-affiliated Islamists to join Azeri military in the conflict, Mr. Almagro said in his letter. He added that the United States Defense Department has confirmed the presence of hundreds of Syrian mercenaries from Turkey to support Azerbaijan. Additionally, in the recent meeting at the summit of the Twenty-Seven in Brussels, European leaders have denounced any external interference. The proof related to the participation of the Turkish air force in the conflict is absolutely condemnable, he said. The OAS Secretary General noted that Armenia has already expressed their willingness to accept a negotiation. It is now your responsibility towards international peace and stability to accept the same, he stated. Luis Almagro emphasized that the statement which the Ambassador referenced in his letter was issued by the General Secretariat of the Organization of America States which he has the honor to lead, and stated its strong condemnation of military aggression, especially those attacks directed towards civilians, and called for cessation of hostilities. The core message of self-determination a principle that you have decided to ignore-the peaceful resolution of conflicts-another principle that you have decided to ignore-and promotion of peace and stability contained in the declaration is absolutely compatible with the values and activities of the OAS. What I do consider incompatible with the principles of self-determination and peace and stability, are both the recent military attacks against civilians in Nagorno Karabakh and the foreign variables intervening and threatening a negotiation process, he said. He added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia has reported that civilian infrastructure is being targeted in Nagorno Karabakh. According to the Armenian government, these criminal attacks against civilians were carried out by your country alongside Turkish military specialists. As we stated in our declaration on September 27, 2020, the practice of attacking civilians as military targets must be banished and constitutes a complete violation of most basic rules governing armed conflict, Almagro said. The OAS stands by its declaration regarding the recent military aggression in Nagorno Karabakh and reiterates the need to reactivate the negotiation process led by the authorities of the OSCE Minsk Group. We believe that this conflict can only be solved through a negotiation process based on international law and the principles established in the Helsinki Accords, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro said, in the end offering his condolences to the victims of both sides. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 03:39:36|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close MOSCOW, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in a telephone conversation on Friday expressed concern over the involvement of illegal armed groups in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Both sides expressed serious concern about the ongoing large-scale hostilities, as well as the involvement of illegal militants of armed groups from Syria and Libya in them," the statement read. "A call was made for an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation of tension, and the prevention of provocative and militant rhetoric," it added. Lavrov emphasized that Russia will continue to make all mediation efforts by political and diplomatic means both within the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group and to the best of the country's national capacity. "The ministers noted the important role that the countries of the region, especially the neighbors of Azerbaijan and Armenia, can play in creating conducive conditions for the parties' soonest return to the negotiating table," the statement said. On Sunday, Lavrov called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to halt any armed conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region as a new round of clashes broke out in the morning in the disputed region. Enditem Former Rajasthan chief minister held a detailed discussion with members of the Rajasthani diaspora in the United Kingdom on topics such as tourism and culture during a webinar held on Saturday. "Raje interacted with the members of Rajasthan Association-UK through a webinar on tourism, culture and held a detailed discussion. She also encouraged them to increase their role in the development of the state," a statement said. Raje, who is also the BJP national vice president, said the diasporic community plays the role of India's ambassadors abroad. So it is their responsibility to come forward to form a New India and New Rajasthan, she said. "Took part in an insightful interaction with members of the Rajasthani diaspora settled in the UK. A vibrant community serving as Rajasthan's finest ambassadors abroad, we discussed culture, tourism and the efforts we have undertaken to build a Naya Rajasthan, Raje tweeted later. "The plays a crucial role in the nation's development on various levels -- political, social, economical, cultural... Their participation is essential to our growth and during the interaction I urged members of @UKRajasthani to join efforts back home for the same," she 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 crime branch sleuths of Pimpri-Chinchwad police commissionerate have arrested a youth on charges of illegally possessing a firearm on Thursday. Besides, seizing the firearm, the sleuths have confiscated his bullets during the raid. The accused has been identified as Siddesh Dayanad Kamble (20), a resident of Chikahli. Farouque Mulla, a police naik attached to the crime branch lodged an FIR in this case. Acting on a tip-off that Kamble would be arriving in the area, a team of crime branch officials laid the trap and nabbed the accused. The pistol has been estimated to be worth 50 and a case under arms act has been lodged in connection with the incident. The crime branch has appealed to the citizen to provide them tip-off on such type of criminal elements operating in the area. British prime minister Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen spoke via video conference on Saturday to take stock of progress in the negotiations following the final scheduled round of talks between Brussels and the UK this week. The pair have tasked chief negotiators, Britains Lord Frost and the EUs Michel Barnier, with intensifying the talks after acknowledging that significant gaps remained between the UK and Brussels. They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps Mr Johnson has set the deadline of the EU Council meeting on October 15 for securing a deal only 12 days away. A Downing Street spokesman said: They agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future. They endorsed the assessment of both chief negotiators that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained, notably but not only in the areas of fisheries, the level playing field, and governance. Advertisement They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps. They agreed to speak on a regular basis on this issue. Lord Frost, in a statement issued after his meeting with counterpart Mr Barnier on Friday, expressed concern there is very little time now to resolve the outstanding issues on fishing, state aid and governance before October 15. But, taking to Twitter after the leaders conversation on Saturday, Lord Frost said the work to bridge the gaps between us would begin as soon as we can next week. The agreement between Mr Johnson and Ms von der Leyen to intensify the talks could soon pave the way for what is dubbed the tunnel, where the negotiating teams enter a media and briefing-free blackout in a bid to work out compromises on the outstanding differences. Here is the agreed statement from @BorisJohnson and @vonderleyen after their phone call today. It instructs me and @MichelBarnier to work intensively in order to try to bridge the gaps between us. That work begins as soon as we can next week. https://t.co/aSHoRbLjkn David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) October 3, 2020 The Prime Minister has struck a positive tone about the prospects of securing a trade deal in recent days, along with Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, who is in charge of Britains Brexit preparations. Mr Johnson told reporters on a construction site visit in west London on Saturday morning that there is a good deal to be done with the EU. Vote Leave campaigner Mr Gove, speaking at the Conservative Partys virtual conference, said: I suspect there will be one or two ups and downs along the way but I am optimistic that we will get a deal. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, however, took a tougher approach in his conference speech, telling members the days of being held over a barrel by Brussels are long gone, as he stressed any trade deal must be fair. Mrs von der Leyen on Friday said she believed a deal was still possible but warned time was running out without an intense period of negotiations. She said the most difficult issues including fisheries and state aid rules still had to be resolved if they were to get an agreement in place by the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31. But where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations because it is worth working hard on it, she told a press briefing in the Belgian capital. Job Title: Finance Officer (2 Fresher Jobs) Organization: WEI/Bantwana Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda Reports to: Finance Manager About US: Since 1951, World Education, Inc. (WEI) has been working to improve the lives of the poor through education and social and economic development programs. The Bantwana Initiative of World Education, Inc. is a recognized leader in delivering integrated comprehensive interventions to improve HIV outcomes and the quality of life for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and families affected by HIV and poverty. Rooted at the grassroots level, WEI/Bantwana builds the capacity of communities, civil society and governments to coordinate and deliver integrated comprehensive services for vulnerable children and families while strengthening structures and service delivery across the HIV continuum of care. About USAID ICYD Project: The USAID Integrated Child and Youth Development Activity (USAID ICYD Activity) aims to improve learning outcomes, advance HIV epidemic control in Uganda, and ensure that children and youth have the opportunity to lead resilient, healthy and productive lives. The USAID ICYD Activity will deliver critical HIV/GBV/violence prevention and response services to children and youth and their families in communities, clinics, and schools. Within USAIDs Journey to Self-Reliance Framework, USAID ICYD Activity will build the operational and technical capacity of four Ugandan Primary Local Partner (PLP) organizations to become direct recipients of USG funding within two years while strengthening government capacity to deliver core services to children within an integrated referral network and case management system. WEI/Bantwana is a leader in OVC programming and organizational capacity development in high HIV prevalence countries in southern and eastern Africa. Job Summary: The Finance Officer will support the Finance Manager in the daily finance function activities of cash management, budgeting, enforcing financial rules and procedures, processing accounting transactions, providing updates on project expenditures, and participating in the preparation of periodic financial reports. S/he will maintain finance files as required by the prime and/or donor, responsible for the expenditure-tracking database, conducts monitoring meetings, provides training, oversight and support for the preparation of reports and documentation required, conducts spot checks to ensure that project expenses are being tracked correctly; develops materials to facilitate compliance; reviews fiscal and performance activities to ensure compliance with statutory and contract requirements. Key Duties and Responsibilities: Monthly Financial Reviews: Check for accuracy, completeness and coding of transactions before entering them in the system Review cash books, vouchers and all supporting documentation for compliance with donor and WEI requirements Address voucher queries in a timely manner in close collaboration with headquarter staff Review bank reconciliation statements for the projects and file them systematically for audit purposes Provide feedback to the concerned parties after the review of the accounts received, and advise management on compliance issues Review and post all field data for the projects managed under your docket and advice on compliance issues and donor requirements Financial Reports: Track all donor financial reports on their dates for submission and requirements and regularly remind the concerned staff about their obligations in reporting Support the VAT reporting process to USAID and assist in filing and tracking of VAT vouchers Review reports and coordinate signing of reports Review and conduct analysis of expenditures against project budgets Support the preparation of expenditure reports for PEPFAR submissions Budget Management Monitor expenditure against the budget Prepare monthly and quarterly reports to monitor expenditure against budgets and disseminate this information to management and project teams Receive and check the accuracy and completeness of project team budgets Compliance & Audit Periodically follow up with project teams on implementation of audit recommendations Conduct site visits to monitor audit implementations Train and share experiences with project and partner teams in areas of weaknesses identified Support the Finance Manager in coordination of audits and follow up on their recommendations Carry out compliance checks of project transactions in line with USG Rules and Regulations, policies and guidelines Interpret donor financial guidelines to project teams and partner organizations Qualifications, Skills and Experience: The ideal candidate must hold a degree in Accounting or related field; a professional accounting qualification will be an added advantage At least three years of experience working on large projects. Strong preference for experience with USAID funded programs/projects Experience with accounting software, preferably QuickBooks Possess a high standard of personal and professional integrity Willingness to work as a team member, taking on additional tasks as needed to ensure the overall success of the project High level of attention to detail, ability to multitask and work well under pressure Strong analytical, organizational and interpersonal skills How to Apply: All applicants should submit a cover letter, updated CV, and three references to: BantwanaICYD@ug.worlded.org with the position title you are applying for in the subject line. NB: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until positions are filled. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Deadline: 2nd October 2020 by 2:00pm For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday put up a brave front, saying the regions people are in its favour and it would make a clean sweep in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC)-Leh polls on October 22. The polls are being held amid resentment over the BJP-led Centres failure in ensuring constitutional protection for Ladakhs resources and cultural identity. There are demands for the implementation of Constitutions Sixth Schedule in the region for these safeguards. Ladakh was split from Jammu & Kashmir and declared a Union Territory last year when Constitutions Article 370, which that provided these safeguards, was also nullified. Also read: Govt assures Ladakhs interest will be looked after, local groups withdraw call to boycott LAHDC polls People are in favour of the BJP and the issue of the Sixth Schedule is over because the Apex Body of Peoples Movement [ABPM] comprising older leaders recently went to Delhi, where they met [Union] home minister Amit Shah, who has given them an assurance to fulfil their demand, said LAHDC chief executive councillor and BJP leader Gyal P Wangyal over the phone. I am very much confident that the home minister will fulfil his promise. Wangyal, who emphasised he was not privy to the specifics of the talks between the apex body and Shah, said he has no doubt that the BJP will win the elections under Ladakh Parliament member Jamyang Tsering Namgyals leadership. Elections to the hill council are held every five years. The BJP has 18 seats in the outgoing 30-member council, while the Congress five, and the National Conference two. Former BJP lawmaker Thupstan Chhewang has formed the ABPM to seek constitutional safeguards under the Sixth Schedule on the lines of north-eastern states. The umbrella group includes political and religious organisations and the Ladakh Buddhist Association. It is also seeking legislative powers for two councils in Leh and Kargil. Following Shahs assurance, the body withdrew its call for a boycott of the council polls. Chhewang resigned from the BJP in November 2018 over the BJP governments failure in grating federal territory status to Ladakh as per the partys 2014 election manifesto. Chering Dorjay, a member of the apex body, said after Ladakh was given the Union Territory status without legislature on August 5 last year, the local people wanted safeguards under the Sixth Schedule for their land, jobs, language and culture. It still remains the sentiment of the people in Leh and therefore when high command did not heed it, I resigned in protest in May, said Dorjay. Within 15 day of the culmination of the hill council polls, Shah has assured to provide us safeguards under the Sixth Schedule. However, the exercise has to be preceded by the participation of the representatives elected in the polls. Further, we have to take the people of Kargil on board. Dorjay said the Sixth Schedule will guarantee no settlement of outsiders. The outsiders cannot purchase land or property in the region. That is the main concern of the people here because Ladakh region has vast swathes of barren land and they are vulnerable to outsiders, who can come and settle anywhere. Saturday is the last day for filing of nominations for the 30-seat council. The scrutiny of nominations will be held on October 5. October 7 is the last day for withdrawal of nominations. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ravi Krishnan Khajuria A principal correspondent, Ravi Krishnan Khajuria is the bureau chief at Jammu. He covers politics, defence, crime, health and civic issues for Jammu city. ...view detail Biden: Virus-Free, Back on Campaign Trail Virus test results for Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his wife Jill came back negative. After getting the go ahead, the pair headed back out on the campaign trail, this time to Grand Rapids Michigan. After receiving two negative test results, Biden departed from his home town of Delaware to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Biden began his event by sending prayers for the health and safety of President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump after their positive test results. New Delhi: United Nation secretary-general Antonio Guterres has reiterated his call for a global ceasefire amidst the COVID pandemic in his message on the birth anniversary of India's father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. Highlighting the "remarkable power of non-violence and peaceful protest", Guterres said, "its timely reminder to strive to uphold the values Gandhi lived by--the promotion of dignity, equal protection for all and communities living together in peace". He said, "This year we have a special duty, stop the fighting to focus on our common enemy COVID 19. Only one winner during a conflict during a pandemic--the virus itself...I have called for a global ceasefire, we need to make this a reality by the end of this year" Guterres was speaking at a mega first-ever virtual event on the occasion organized by Indian mission to the United Nations. Live TV Notably, Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary on 2nd October is also the international day of non-violence. Indian envoy to United Nations TS Tirumurti speaking at the event said," Mahatma Gandhi was born in India but belongs to all humanity. No doubt, non-violence, is and will always be directly relevant to address the burning issues of the day" He added, "Gandhi Ji did not see political freedom, only freedom worth fighting for..but also liberating human beings from all forms of bondage and injustice...for him non-violence was a tool to fight injustice" 21 foreign envoys to the United Nations spoke at the event on the relevance of Gandhi to the world and to there country. These were envoys of Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, Maldives, Mauritius, Mexico, Nigeria, Oman, Russia, South Africa, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sri Lanka and the United States. In October 1920, Prohibition, the nationwide ban on the production, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages, was in its 10th month. And, already, agents were having trouble enforcing the law in Central New York. Four years ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) ended her quest for the presidency proclaiming: Clinton's last campaign speech: 'Love trumps hate' Hillary Clinton finished out her 19-month presidential campaign with an emotional final rally in North Carolina that began after it had already become Election Day on the East Coast, declaring a campaign trail mantra: "love trumps hate." For liberals, the oh, so clever play on words against their hated opponent meant they were the good guys and gals, symbolizing love for all humanity bravely opposing someone who personifies hate. So, naturally, they would emerge victorious, trumping Trump. Well, they didn't, so for the past four years, the liberals have been spewing hate, acting hatefully, all in the name of...love against Trump. Or something. And nothing has...um, unmasked the naked hatred that permeates liberals when they don't get their way as the outpouring of vitriol they instantly vomited upon learning that the president and his wife, a legal immigrant, tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus. Oh, yes, of course, some liberals kept quiet or even wished the Trumps the best. Trump's opponent, Joe Biden (D), and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris (D), were fine examples of how decent people should react. Joe Biden wishes Donald Trump, Melania Trump 'swift recovery' after positive coronavirus test But they were outliers; few followed their example. What follows is a small sample of the liberal reaction. Warning: It is ugly. Click on the links are your own risk. The speaker of the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), set the mean tone. She allegedly "said she was praying for the commander-in-chief and the first lady but swiftly attacked his attitude toward the pandemic." President Trump's behavior was "a brazen invitation for something like this to happen," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday in the wake of the news he has been infected with the coronavirus. Ooooh. Vodkapundit highlighted a few, directing his readers to Zwetchkenstiel, who captured more liberal joy, expressed in fervent wishes for death to the Trumps. LU-U-UV! Just Jared exposes the public thoughts of some other minor celebrities such as Jimmy Kimmel and Padma Lakshmi. Ah, diversity. Legal Insurrection also shares a hate-filled round-up, including a short and not so sweet thought from Hillary's former spokeswoman, Zara Rahim. And there you have the liberal mind in action, embracing diversity and inclusion, where love just can't Trump. Alabama Republican party chief Terri Lathan is questioning C-SPANs Steve Scully - tapped to moderate the second presidential debate and his ties to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. In a tweet, Lathan said: #SteveScully interned for Joe Biden. How is this fair that of the thousands of journalists in our nation he is the moderator of the next #PresidentialDebate ??? This is wrong #alpolitics #KAG." #SteveScully interned for Joe Biden. How is this fair that of the thousands of journalists in our nation he is the moderator of the next #PresidentialDebate ??? This is wrong #alpolitics #KAG https://t.co/Gi4sPZYPv2 Terry Lathan (@ChairmanLathan) October 2, 2020 News of Scullys work history arose in recent days as the date for the second debate, planned for Oct. 15 in Miami, neared. According to Scullys biography, he served as an intern in Bidens office during college when the former vice president was a Delaware Senator. Scully later served as a staff assistant in Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedys communication office. Other tweets show Scully posing with Biden at a 2016 campaign event and, later, he shared an op-ed titled No, Not Trump, Not Ever. The status of the second presidential debate already in flux due to the chaotic nature of the first Trump/Biden showdown is now in question after President Trump confirmed he and his wife tested positive for coronavirus. The president has also said he will not accept major changes on the rules regarding debate procedures. Why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time? Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon. As falls from grace go, Nicolas Sarkozys is one of the steepest. On Monday, the man who led France from 2007 until 2012, will make unwanted history by becoming the first former French president to stand trial on corruption charges when his case is brought to a Paris court. It is the first of several lawsuits to be brought against him since leaving office, and could finally end any hopes of a political comeback for the scandal-tainted ex-leader. US President Donald Trump, who was shifted to a military hospital after being tested positive for COVID-19, is undergoing Remdesivir therapy and is "doing well", the White House physician has said. The Trump administration had issued an emergency use authorisation for Remdesivir earlier this year after the drug showed moderate effectiveness in improving outcomes for patients who were hospitalised with the coronavirus. Trump, 74, was flown to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington DC, on Friday. White House physician Sean Conley said medical specialists have recommended Remdesivir therapy to treat the president's COVID-19 infection. "This evening, I am happy to report that the President is doing well, Conley said in a health bulletin on Friday night, the first after the president was moved to the military hospital as a precautionary measure. He is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but in consultation with specialists we have elected to initiate Remdesivir therapy. He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably, he said. Conley, in a White House memorandum, said he recommended Trump be moved to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre for further monitoring. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, 50, were tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. While the president was taken to the military hospital, the First Lady stayed back at the White House. After having not been seen in public since his shock announcement that he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, the president walked out of the White House Friday evening, wearing a mask, and flew by helicopter to the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington. In an 18-second video recorded inside the White House and released on Twitter, Trump broke his silence, saying he was being hospitalized but I think Im doing very well." Were going to make sure that things work out," he said, adding that the first lady was also doing very well." . On Tuesday night, during the first presidential debate, Chris Wallace was weak and ineffectual. He was also a partisan without the decency to admit it. On Wednesday, Wallace blamed Trump for his own failings, a coward's way out. And Friday, he announced that Scott Atlas, M.D. is not qualified to talk about Wuhan virus policy because he is not an epidemiologist. This almost random collateral attack has nothing to do with the important skill sets Atlas brings to Trump's White House Coronavirus Task Force. The real reason why Scott Atlas is in the left's crosshairs is that he's a new voice on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and he's saying things the left dislikes. His usefulness lies in the fact that he's a brilliant man who is a counterweight to Fauci, who is all in for locking America down indefinitely. Although Fauci is primarily responsible for Trump's initial approach to the virus an approach the left now claims leaves Trump with blood on his hands the left loves Fauci. Leftists resent that Trump has added an opposing voice to the Task Force. The left's hostility to Atlas reflects a general problem with socialists: they value only their opinions (think "cancel culture") and invariably embrace groupthink. Groupthink creates conditions for Lysenkoism in scientific endeavors. This can be incredibly dangerous because there's no one to point out their factual errors or fallacious reasoning and conclusions. Atlas's ideas are especially repugnant for a party invested in the shutdown. Atlas, having looked at Sweden versus the rest of the world, concluded that, now that we have a better handle on the Wuhan virus, there's a lot to be said for re-opening the country, protecting the vulnerable, and letting the virus run its course. Atlas is also dangerous because he's opposed to Obamacare and might be a loud voice for continued changes to allow the free market to bring down medical prices in America. Certainly, Atlas has respectable credentials. He has a B.S. in biology and an M.D. from the renowned Pritzker School of Medicine in Chicago. He specializes in neuroradiology and worked and taught at Stanford University Medical Center, one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world. He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and has been a health care policy adviser for over a decade. His record shows that he's brilliant, that he's fully versed in core medical issues of the kind all doctors must know, and that he has a full understanding of biological processes. I have a particular fondness for Atlas because he wrote one of the best medical articles ever written. Called "The Worst Study Ever," he explained in clear, data-rich terms why the study known as the "World Health Report 2000," in which the World Health Organization gave America a very low rating, was a sham: In fact, World Health Report 2000 was an intellectual fraud of historic consequence a profoundly deceptive document that is only marginally a measure of health-care performance at all. The report's true achievement was to rank countries according to their alignment with a specific political and economic ideal socialized medicine and then claim it was an objective measure of "quality." Sadly, the article is no longer available online. Chris Wallace, once again showing his leftist orientation, has offered a peculiar complaint about Atlas's new role working with the White House. Despite Atlas's vast areas of study and experience, Wallace is troubled that Atlas is not a credentialed epidemiologist: Chris Wallace, on FOX: "I'm going to say something, and folks, I'm just trying to give you the truth. Scott Atlas is not an epidemiologist... he has no training in this area at all. There are a number of top people on the WH task force who have grave concerns about Atlas" Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 2, 2020 Wallace's criticism is particularly strange given that Fauci, whom Wallace seems to appreciate, is not an epidemiologist, either. Instead, he's an immunologist. The reality is that the best task force will always pull in highly intelligent, informed people who have a reasonably wide range of expertise and a willingness to examine different issues and approaches. Wallace, though, doesn't want someone who will challenge Fauci, even though Fauci was the man responsible for Trump's initial approach to the Wuhan virus an approach that leftists now claim was a disaster. Image: Chris Wallace (edited in Pixlr). YouTube screen grab. U.S. Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, talks to the media about President Donald Trump's health after the president was hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 3, 2020. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters) Trump Not on Oxygen, Will Likely Remain Off of Oxygen: Doctor Update: Dr. Sean Conley said Sunday that President Donald Trump received supplemental oxygen on Friday. Original story below. President Donald Trump has not received oxygen since testing positive for COVID-19, his doctor indicated on Oct. 3. Yesterday and today he was not on oxygen, Dr. Sean Conley said while speaking in front of Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Conley later clarified that Trump had also not been on oxygen on Thursday. Thursday, no oxygen. None at this moment, yeah. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen, Conley said. The clarification appeared to leave a window of time on Friday before Trump traveled to Walter Reed during which the president may have received oxygen. The White House didnt respond to a request for confirmation that Trump has received no oxygen since testing positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. Asked to estimate the probability that Trump would need oxygen at some point, Conley said he didnt want to put a percentage out there. But right now all indicators are that hell remain off of oxygen, going forward, he told reporters at a news conference. Trump was at a 96 percent oxygen saturation level, which is normal. If a patients saturation dips to below 90 percent, then supplemental oxygen would likely be needed, according to the Lung Health Institute. President Donald Trump disembarks from the Marine One helicopter followed by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as he arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Conley had penned three memorandums since Trumps diagnosis but it was the first time he answered questions about the presidents health. Trump showed symptoms of the new disease, including a mild cough, nasal congestion, and fatigue. He also had a fever on Thursday night into Friday. All the symptoms are resolving and Trump has remained fever-free since Friday morning, according to the doctor. Trump received a dose of Regenerons polyclonal antibody cocktail, as well as zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and aspirin, according to an Oct. 2 White House memo. Trump started a course of remdesivir, an antiviral produced by California-based Gilead Sciences, on Friday evening. White House physician Sean Conley (at podium) gives an update on the condition of President Donald Trump, outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 3, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) Trumps doctor and the medical team at Walter Reed plan on giving Trump a 5-day course of remdesivir. Theres no estimated date of discharge from Walter Reed, the nations largest joint military medical center, which sits about 15 miles northwest of the White House. Trump was flown there on Friday afternoon. Hes doing so well, but the known course of the illness, day 7 to 10 we get really concerned about the inflammatory phase, Conley said. Given that we provide some of these advanced therapies so early in the course, a little bit earlier than most of the patients we know and follow, its hard to tell where he is on that course, and so every day were evaluating, does he need to be here, what does he need, and where is he going.' President Donald Trump salutes as he boards Marine One outside the White House to go to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after he tested positive for COVID-19, in Washington on Oct. 2, 2020. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo) Trumps doctor expressed the idea that he didnt want to hold anything back in terms of treatment when questioned about the use of remdesivir. If there was any possibility that it would add value to his care and expedite his return, I wanted to take it, he said. Its possible Trump returns to the White House before 5 days have elapsed, depending on his condition. Doctors can continue providing treatment there. Trumps health is good overall, Conley said. Hes 74. Hes male. And he is slightly overweight. Other than that, he is very healthy, he told reporters. First Lady Melania Trump is still at the White House. She has no indication for hospitalization, advanced therapy, Conley said. Editors Note: This article was updated to clarify the doctors comments on Trump and oxygen. The chiefs and people of Dorfor in the North Tongu District have denounced linkage to any secessionist movement, and have cautioned dissident groups operating in the area. The District, which includes; the strategic industrial community of Juapong, was the recent stage of a crude attempt by some aggressors to cut off access to the Volta Region in a dawn mutiny. The area is also alleged to have hosted bases of secessionist groups, and had become the focus of counter military activity. Togbe Agbaliba VI, Mankralo of Dorfor Traditional Area, said at a News conference by the Dorfor Youth Development Association (DYDA), and the Traditional Council at Juapong, that there was no historical evidence tying the area to secessionism, and that the recent uprising was a shock. We wish to state without any equivocation that as far as DYDA and the Dorfor Traditional Council are concerned, all the Tongu areas formed part of the sovereign state of the Republic of Ghana and owes allegiance to the State and the Government of Ghana. We therefore state in no uncertain terms that none of our people should have nothing to do with the Western Togoland Secessionist or Separatist Group and should not associate themselves with them. We also want to extend our warning to the group never to attempt extending their illicit activities into our territories any longer as they are not welcome. Togbe Agbaliba noted that the area was a British protectorate, and further produced the results of the 1959 plebiscite, which proved Tongus non-participation. The Mankralo however said residents of the area were becoming subject of State security operations in the wake of the uprising, and appealed to stakeholders to facilitate the release of several of such innocent indigenes caught in the net. He commended the government's swift efforts and response, and pledged the support of the Traditional Area to efforts towards preventing further unrest. The Mankralo said life in the area was returning to normal, and noted an increase in Police vigilance. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A building topples over by the Cervo river after heavy rains in Biella, northern Italy (Firefighter Vigili del Fuoco via AP) Italian firefighters have rescued 25 people trapped on the French side of a high mountain pass by severe flooding that killed two people in Italy. Fifteen people were stuck in a train station for the night and eight more remained missing in France. A storm that moved overnight across south-eastern France into north-western Italy caused major flooding on both sides of the border, destroying bridges, blocking roads and isolating communities. In Italy, a firefighter was killed during a rescue operation in the mountainous northern region of Val dAosta. A search team found a body in the Piedmont regions Vercelli province, where a man had been swept away by floodwaters late on Friday. The Italian firefighters used a helicopter to ferry 17 people to safety from the French town of Vievola, including a woman with two grandchildren. A bulldozer fetched another eight people who managed to climb the Col de Tende, a high mountain pass linking France and Italy, to a tunnel. Fifteen more people were taking shelter in the Vievola train station after the operation to rescue them was put off until daylight. The spokesman for Italys firefighters, Luca Cari, said a search was ongoing for a missing shepherd who was pulled into floodwaters on Col de Tende. His brother managed to grab on to a tree and was saved, while authorities were searching on the French side for the shepherd. The situation at the tunnel on the high mountain pass was complicated by the fact that French emergency responders cannot access their side due to flood damage, Mr Cari said. Unrelenting rainfall overnight hit levels not seen since 1958 in northern Italys Piedmont region, where as much as 630 millimetres (24.8in) of rain fell in a 24-hour period, according to the Italian civil protection agency. Hundreds of rescue operations were carried out. Eleven campers were saved in Vercelli province, where floodwaters hit 20-year highs. And Alpine rescue squads have evacuated by foot seven people who were in houses cut off by flooding at Terme di Valdieri; some had to be carried on stretchers due to the muddy conditions and accumulation of detritus. On the other side of the border, in south-eastern France, almost a years average rainfall fell in less than 12 hours in the mountainous area surrounding the city of Nice. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said more than 100 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in the area. French prime minister Jean Castex, who flew over the area in an helicopter, confirmed that at least eight people were missing in France, including two firefighters whose vehicle was carried away by water when a road collapsed. I cannot hide our grave concern on the definitive toll, Mr Castex said. Many worried families had not heard from their relatives due to mobile phone services being cut off in the area. As I speak, priority goes to searching for victims, providing supplies and accommodation for the people affected, and restoring communications, the prime minister said. Expand Close A lone spectator is silhouetted against rain clouds at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris (Alessandra Tarantino/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A lone spectator is silhouetted against rain clouds at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris (Alessandra Tarantino/AP) Rescue efforts included 871 personnel working on the ground, as well as military helicopters and troops helping with emergency assistance, Mr Castex said. French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday expressed gratitude towards rescuers on Twitter. Together we will get through this, he said. Frances national weather agency, Meteo France, said that up to 500 millimetres of rain (19.7in) were recorded in some areas, the equivalent of almost one year of average rainfall. Meteo France issued a danger alert on Friday and all schools in the region had been closed. Local authorities urged people to stay at home. In central Switzerland, flooding along the Reuss River caused the closure of a stretch of the A2 highway a major transalpine route. Further east, 13 residents were evacuated from their homes in the town of Diesbach because of flooding. When Judith Bentleys husband Paul bought a three-acre plot of land in Oostburg, Wisc. on the edge of Lake Michigan in 1999, it took some convincing to get her to move. The plan was for the couple to retire on the lake, but Bentley says she was tied to the city. Paul said, Well, how about I let you pick the architect, Bentley recalls, and I knew immediately which one I would pick. It was Margaret McCurry. McCurry, who co-founded the Chicago firm Tigerman McCurry with her husband Stanley Tigerman, is known for her striking, often colorful contemporary vernacular. Her houses, which feature many windows, often incorporate metal cladding, bright trim, and atypical shapes whose form never gets in the way of function. In 2001, Bentley sent McCurry an email She responded that evening, and I was blown away, because we dont live in that social class, Bentley says. Adding to her surprise was that McCurry was amenable to the Bentleys initial budget, which ran from $800,000 to $900,000. (The final cost, Bentley says, was about $1.2 million, slightly more than we expected to spend, but it was certainly worth it.) After more than a year of planning and two years of construction, the house was completed in 2005. Thanks to its multiply colored windows and exterior details, the house was unofficiallylater, officiallychristened the Crayola House. It featured in a spread in Architectural Digest. Bentleys husband retired from his position as executive vice president of advertising firm Cramer-Krasselt Co.s Milwaukee office in 2003. When Bentley retired from her job as an English teacher in 2007, the couple moved to the 5,500-square-foot, five-bedroom house full-time. Positioned with 190 feet of private lake frontage, the propertys lawn slopes down to a rocky shore. The home was a fabulous gathering place for the couple and their four adult sons, Bentley says. The whole family can be together in this house without being on top of each otherand still have privacy. Her family celebrated birthdays and holidays in the house, her husband fulfilled a lifelong dream of becoming a scuba diver (he volunteered for Wisconsin Historic Societys maritime preservation program, documenting shipwrecks), and Bentley, to her surprise, took easily to country life. The house is only about an hours drive from Milwaukee, and some two and a half hours from Chicago. But when her husband passed away in May, Bentley decided to sell the house. Its lonely without him, and Im ready at my age to live small, she says. The property is listed with Mahler Sothebys International Realty for $1.175 million. Given that the Bentleys paid more to build it, this would represent something of a bargain to the houses future buyers. The Design Process When she chose McCurry, Bentley says, I didnt know I was a modernist, but I decided I must be one, because she was drawn to the symmetry and peacefulness of McCurrys houses. The design process began by McCurry asking Bentley and her husband to make separate lists of what they wanted from the house. Im very practical. I wanted a bulleted list of how I wanted the house to work, Bentley explains. The kitchen, she specified, should be in the center of the house because thats where she spent most of her time, and she didnt want to be isolated from whats going on. She wanted a living room filled with books and a fireplacewithout a TV. She didnt want a dining room because we have four sons, and they dont even use napkins; [a formal dining room] seemed like an archaic thing, she says. Her husband, in contrast, wrote a story. He envisioned how a retired sea captain would live, Bentley says, and he talked of how he needed to see the horizon and the sky with storms coming inand needed to be able to watch the waves and feel the air. When McCurry received the two documents, she just laughed, Bentley says, though McCurry did do her best to accommodate both perspectives. Out of the Way Mostly though, Bentley says she and her husband deferred to McCurry. Paul and I shared this idea: We really respect expertise, she says. The idea is that you hire the right person and then you dont get in the way. On occasion, Bentley continues, her husband would suggest something, and then [McCurry] would just go silent, which was her way of saying I dont think thats a good idea. And then hed say, Oh I forgot, I dont want a Paul Bentley house, I want a Margaret McCurry house. There was one exception. Initially, Bentley says, McCurry designed the house with red paint on one facade and yellow on another, but my husband thought it was too boring. After consulting with friends, who used colored pencils on a printout of the facade to reimagine the trim, the couple fell in love with the riotous spectrum. McCurry, Bentley says, did, too. (Eventually.) The ground floor of the home contains a kitchen and dining area in the center; flanking it are the two dedicated living areas. One wing of the house contains the garage, the other a screened-in porch. Upstairs, the master bedroom is in the center, with two bedrooms on either side. In total, the house has four bathrooms. McCurry designed the beds, which have built-in storage. The rest of the furniture is as light and contemporary as the house, an aesthetic Bentley has grown to love. I was looking at apartments, she says, and the only ones that were at all attractive were the ones that were open to the outside. Crayola House The house has become relatively famousit had the Architectural Digest feature in 2007 and has subsequently been in monographs of McCurrys work and a coffee table book on postmodernism that Phaidon published earlier this year (I was surprised to learn that, Bentley says. I didnt know.) The home is on a dead-end gravel road that discourages sightseers, but Bentley has noticed that the house attracts kayakers and pleasure boaters. Locals, she continues, started calling it the Crayola House, a name the architects adopted. But [locals] also call it the Lego House or, if they dont like it, the Clown House. The home, Bentley says, was everything she had hoped it would be. We just had so much fun here, she says. Obviously, Wisconsin in winter isnt exactly the best timethough its beautifulso we had all these things in the house to look forward to. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The contrast could not have been more striking. Mere hours after an American presidential debate that will go down in history for the infamous performance of the incumbent, the five parties in the House of Commons came together to unanimously endorse the latest federal pandemic-related relief package. That united vote should not be confused with an abdication of opposition duty. It is a reassuring sign that adults are running Canadas federal parties. In the lead-up to the bills adoption, the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois had argued vehemently against the Liberal decision to again rush a multi-billion-dollar relief package through Parliament. The point was worth making. But it did not at the end of the day make the content of the bill so fatally flawed that it did not merit support. Holding up the legislation would have put thousands of Canadian families at risk of finding themselves in financial limbo. In the midst of a public health crisis, most voters have little tolerance for political gamesmanship and the reciprocal finger-pointing that attends it. Based on the first round of the new parliamentary session, it is a message that all parties seem to be taking to heart. Take the Liberals. By all accounts, their latest throne speech was a toned-down version of the ambitious intentions the prime minister had talked about when he prorogued Parliament in August. If that is because the government concluded that Canadians were not necessarily as hungry for a social revolution as many leading policy activists, the early evidence is that Trudeaus team read the room correctly. Polls this week by Abacus and Leger reported a consolidation of the Liberal lead in national voting intentions. Leger further found that 52 per cent believe the Liberal plan will create jobs and speed up the countrys economic recovery. That passing grade actually looks pretty decent when one considers it is 12 points higher than the proportion of voters who told the same pollster they would support the Liberals in an election held this month. Notwithstanding rising public concern over the size of the deficit, there is still a large audience within the electorate for an aspirational progressive agenda. Trudeaus Liberals have a pressing interest in hanging on to that audience and not just so that their minority government survives in the House of Commons. Fear of the alternative, in the shape of Stephen Harper and Andrew Scheer, played an essential part in Trudeaus two election victories. That fear drove a critical number of progressive voters who otherwise might have preferred to support the NPD or the Bloc to the Liberals. Its early days but Conservative Leader Erin OToole looks like he will be harder to paint with the same brush as his two immediate predecessors. On the way to supporting the speech from the throne and ensuring the survival of the Liberal minority government, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was able to claim he wrestled two key concessions from the government. By demanding changes to the financial relief package rather than attacking a throne speech the New Democrats could have written themselves, Singh managed to carve a place for his party in the parliamentary dynamics. If the recent New Brunswick provincial campaign and the ongoing one in British Columbia are any indication, voters appetite for the stability that majority rule is on the rise. Given that, Singh cannot waste any opportunity to demonstrate that minority rule offers the NDP leverage it can put to constructive use. OTooles first appearance as party leader in the House was delayed by COVID-19. On Wednesday, he wasted no time in signalling that the official opposition is under new management. His maiden speech sacrificed partisanship to substance and the result was a solid performance. And then it is hard to think of the last time the Conservatives, in opposition, opened question period by pressing the government on Indigenous reconciliation. On the national day of remembrance for the victims of Canadas residential school system and against the backdrop of the disturbing fate of Joyce Echaquan, the Quebec Atikamekw woman who was subjected to racist slurs by hospital staff even as she lay dying earlier this week, OTooles choice of topic could be construed as a no-brainer. Except that under its previous leader, the Conservative party did not always let larger realities get in the way of its partisan game plan. To wit, on the day the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 pandemic, the official opposition left the task of questioning the government about its emergency readiness to the other parties so as to focus on a push to reopen the SNC-Lavalin file. For those who see partisan politics as a blood sport, one that requires someone to lose for someone else to win, this was a pretty poor week. The rest of us can only hope the three main federal parties stay on their current game. With just a month left until the November 3 US presidential election, contracting the virus could have politically positive or negative consequences for President Donald Trump. These will, of course, be contingent on how severe the presidents illness becomes. But we should not count him out and Biden in just yet. Here are the ways the diagnosis could swing the election either way for Trump. Negative Trumps days in isolation will halt his intense campaign schedule. Trump was much better at energising crowds in airport hangers than Joe Biden has ... Almost a year ago, a former Russia specialist on the National Security Council warned Congress about Russias nefarious intentions in American politics. The goal of the Russians in 2016, Fiona Hill told the House Intelligence Committee, was to put whoever became president under a cloud. Not only did the Russians succeed it was overcast before President Donald Trump even took office but they also managed to damage the credibility and reputation of the very agency that is supposed to protect against foreign interference in U.S. elections: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In her testimony last year, Hill warned that the opposition research commissioned by the Democratic Party against Trump and later used by the FBI to obtain a surveillance warrant against a campaign official named Carter Page would be a perfect opportunity for the Kremlin to inject disinformation into American political discourse. On Sept. 25, the Justice Department declassified documents that show the FBI investigated the primary source of the dossier for being a Russian agent. One of those documents is a summary of the bureaus investigation into a researcher at the Brookings Institution in 2009 and 2010. It says that in late 2008 he approached other researchers there who were joining the incoming administration of Barack Obama and asked if they wanted to make a little extra money once they were in their new positions and had access to classified information. The FBI later learned that in 2006 the primary source had contacts with known Russian intelligence officers at the Russian embassy in Washington. In 2010, the FBI closed its investigation because the primary source had apparently left the United States. But the bureau left open the prospect of reopening the probe if the primary source ever returned to the U.S. These facts alone are not dispositive. The former British spy who compiled the opposition research dossier on Trumps campaign, Christopher Steele, has said that he is able to distinguish between real and fake information. Its also possible that his source, the former Brookings Institution researcher, was acting as a kind of double agent. That said, much of the material in Steeles reporting could not be corroborated, wrote Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in his scathing 2019 report. The limited information that was corroborated related to time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available, he said. When the Justice Department declassified the three-day interview with Steeles primary source, it showed that he had disavowed much of the information in Steeles dossier. There were other signs that Steele was being played. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe informed the Senate Judiciary Committee this week that the U.S. government received a report that Russian intelligence surmised in July 2016 that Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Ratcliffe says the intelligence community does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication. Nonetheless, it was important enough for then-CIA director John Brennan to brief the president about it, according to Ratcliffe, and for U.S. intelligence officials to forward an investigation referral to the FBI in September 2016. Earlier this year, the intelligence community declassified a series of footnotes to the Horowitz report that showed other U.S. intelligence officers had warned that Steeles dossier may contain Russian disinformation. One might expect the FBIs leadership to be deeply embarrassed about all of this. People such as former FBI Director James Comey have been warning for years about the danger of Russias disinformation campaign against the public. The 2017 intelligence community assessment of Russias interference in the election of the previous year includes an entire section on Russias English-language propaganda station, RT. But in a hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey said he had no recollection that Steeles primary source had been investigated for being a Russian spy or that U.S. intelligence officers referred the intelligence on Russias assessment of Clintons campaign strategy to the FBI. None of this is to say that the FBI was colluding with Russia. Rather, it suggests that in their panic over the possibility of a Trump victory in 2016, FBI leaders much like many cable news networks embraced shoddy and now discredited intelligence to make a case against his campaign. The signs were there that Steeles research was bunk, but the bureau ignored them. None of this information gets Trump off the hook, either. He has aided and abetted Russian disinformation by repeatedly denying that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. This gives the Russians cover and encouragement to do it all over again this year, which is exactly what the intelligence community has been warning about. In this respect, Trump himself, like the FBI, is a victim of Russian disinformation. 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. Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The second round of dialogue between delegations of the High Council of State and the Libyan House of Representatives (Parliament) resumed on Friday in the Moroccan city of Bouznika, after three postponements for logistical reasons The city of San Antonios COVID-19 testing sites will begin offering free tests Monday to people who have no symptoms of the virus. Currently, asymptomatic people who want to be tested must visit a doctors office or a private lab. But the city is expanding its testing for the first time to patients showing no symptoms. The aim is to screen far more people and thereby reduce the spread of the virus. The expanded testing was made possible through a partnership with the new nonprofit Community Labs, chaired by San Antonio philanthropist Graham Weston, and BioBridge Global, the nonprofit parent company of the South Texas Blood and Tissue Bank. The newly created lab will be able to test up to 12,000 asymptomatic people a day, Weston said. This is one of the first labs of its kind in the United States, he said Friday during the citys daily coronavirus briefing. And its going to be a very fast lab. Were going to get our results back in less than 19 hours. Initially, the testing for asymptomatic patients will be limited to certain times. On Monday, the tests will be offered at Cuellar Community Center, 5626 San Fernando St., from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. only. On Tuesday, they will be available at Ramirez Community Center, 1011 Gillette Blvd., from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. only. On Wednesday, asymptomatic people can get tested at Freeman Coliseum, 3201 E. Houston St., between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. People without symptoms must schedule an appointment by calling 830-391-8559. The three testing sites will expand their screening capacity for asymptomatic people, offering daily testing starting Oct. 12. The tests are nasal PCR tests authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Weston, the former CEO and chairman of Rackspace Technology, was among a group of philanthropists who formed Community Labs with the goal of ramping up testing. The nonprofit aims to test people who gather in group settings, such as schools or businesses. On ExpressNews.com: Silent spreaders of the coronavirus are the target of a new testing venture in San Antonio The nonprofit has been running a pilot testing effort in the Somerset Independent School District in rural Southwest Bexar County. Nearly 1,000 students were tested in the past week, Weston said. We want to be able to send kids back to school and then send their parents back to work, he said. Weston began working on the endeavor after he caught the coronavirus in March from his 22-year-old son, who never showed any symptoms. Weston refers to asymptomatic carriers as silent spreaders of the virus. About half of the people who get COVID get it from people who dont have symptoms at that time, Weston said. Theres no pain, no need to wince, he said of the test. Its very easy to do. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said at the briefing that the coronavirus continues on a low trajectory in San Antonio and Bexar County with only 103 new cases reported on Friday. No new deaths were reported. Since the pandemic began seven months ago, 58,039 Bexar County residents have tested positive for the virus. Among them, 1,428 have active cases. The citys recovery rate stood at 97 percent as of Sept. 14. The local death toll remains at 1,138. Hospitalization numbers dropped below 200 on Friday for the first time in several months. Nirenberg said 196 patients who had tested positive for the virus were being treated in San Antonio hospitals, including 29 new admissions in the past 24 hours. Thats far below the peak of 1,267 hospitalizations recorded on July 13. On ExpressNews.com: New lab, backed by San Antonios Graham Weston, to pilot mass coronavirus testing with Somerset ISD students and teachers Among those currently hospitalized, 76 were in intensive care and 31 were on ventilators. Around 12 percent of staffed patient beds remain available at San Antonio hospitals, while 71 percent of ventilators are ready for use. Daily ambulance transports of patients with probable cases of COVID-19 have dropped well below the peak of 63 recorded on June 30, Metro Health statistics show. In Comal County, where New Braunfels is the county seat, seven new cases of the virus were reported Friday. That countys death toll remains at 116. Nearly 3,500 Comal County residents have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began in March. Around 93 percent of them have recovered. More than 750,000 Texans have tested positive in the past seven months. Nearly 16,000 have died statewide. That includes nearly 3,000 new cases reported across Texas on Friday, along with 72 more deaths. Around 89 percent of Texans who tested positive for the virus had recovered as of Friday, according to numbers posted on the state health departments COVID-19 dashboard. That amounts to almost 675,000 people. Nearly 70,000 Texans still have active cases of the virus, the dashboard indicated. Bexar County ranks third among Texas counties in reported COVID-19 fatalities. Only Harris and Hidalgo counties have reported more. Two Texas counties have reported no coronavirus cases at all Loving County in far west Texas and King County, east of Lubbock. 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 Chris Patten was Britains final governor of Hong Kong. In that job, he legislated several democratic reforms that were expected to last 50 years. In 1997, the island was returned to China, which had promised to respect its autonomy. Instead, Patten has watched Hong Kongs self-rule powers shrink under Chinese control. What the mainland government has done to Hong Kong is, in his words, the biggest assault on freedom and liberty in any city in the 21st century. Patten made the comment during an online policy discussion last week. What theyre doing in Hong Kong is to destroy what was promised in Hong Kong: a high degree of autonomy one country, two systems. Theyre doing that in a way which I must say will give Taiwan even greater room for thought because Im sure what theyre doing in Hong Kong, they would like to do one day in Taiwan, he said. The Canada-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the London-based Hong Kong Watch organized the discussion about Hong Kongs future. The EU-based European Values Center for Security Policy and the multinational Inter-Parliamentary Alliance also took part. Hong Kong should simply be another Shenzhen, Patten says in an attempt to capture the Chinese leader Xi Jinpings position about the island. Shenzhen is a central coast mainland city close to Hong Kong. The government named it an economic area and administers it differently than other places. Patten says Xi wants Hong Kong as a neighbor to Shenzhen that loves China and therefore loves the Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party has decided to rule Hong Kong in the same way as the rest of China. It is restricting or removing the freedoms of Hong Kongers, Patten said. That will slow Chinas own economic development, Patten added. "We know that 70 percent of direct investment that goes into China, and investment that comes out, goes through Hong Kong," he said. "One reason why so many investors will make their excuses and disappear to Singapore or to Seoul or to Tokyo is because they know the importance of free flow of information," he said. "They know thats not possible in a Chinese communist system." In the 90-minute discussion that included other speakers, Patten said the current 10 years may represent whats called peak China. Its true that China is the largest country in the world, and its true that China is a huge market for us. But the truth of the matter is: China needs us just as much, and perhapseven more, than we need China. British exports to China have increased in real terms by just 3 percent since 1980, while Chinas exports to Britain have risen by 9 percent, he said. So, whos helping whom? Patten said questioning Chinese actions in Hong Kong is not being anti-China. It is not anti-Chinese to say we should stand up for liberal democracy," he said. Standing up for liberal democracy means standing up for one another, not the least those in Hong Kong and in the rest of China. Since 2003, Patten has served as chancellor of Oxford University. He urged the international community to help provide a lifeline to those brave enough to resist the Chinese government and Hong Kong officials that support it. This should include providing more Hong Kong students with the chance to study at universities around the world, he said. I'm Susan Shand. VOAs Natalie Liu reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story autonomy n. self-rule, or self-direction assault v. to attack peak adj. the highest point chancellor n. a high official Watch: Spacecraft named after Kalpana Chawla lifts off; husband reacts A space station cargo ship named SS Kalpana Chawla rocketed into orbit on Friday. The spacecraft is named after Kalpana Chawla, the first India-born woman to enter space. SS Kalpana Chawla was launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Northrop Grumman launched its capsule to the International Space Station (ISS). The spaceship carries a 360-degree camera for spacewalking, radish seeds for growing, etc. The 8,000-pound shipment is likely to reach the International Space Station on Monday. On NG-14 mission, SS Kalpana Chawla will deliver approx 3,630 kms of cargo to the station. The launch marked a special moment for many, including Kalpana's husband. Kalpana was among the seven astronauts killed in the 2003 shuttle Columbia accident. ...read more Commercial motorcyle riders, popularly called Okada, in Twifo-Praso in the Central Region have urged the next administration of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to ensure that the cost of acquiring a motor riding licence is drastically reduced. While majority of Okada operators across the country have already declared their support for the NDC in view of the partys hailed plan to legalise and effectively regulate their operations, they believe that a reduction in the cost for a licence, would be helpful. Kwao Kumi, leader of the Okada operators at Twifo-Praso, who conveyed the request to Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang at a town hall meeting on Tuesday, during her campaign tour of the area, said the cost of the licence has been increased to over GH 700. This is too costly for us, he said, and prayed that it is reduced to the previous rate of about GH 150. The present difficult situation, he said, has led some operators to ride without the requisite licence. We trust John Mahama and we know the NDC is caring, and will do it for us, he said, amidst wild jubilation in the hall. Responding, Prof Opoku-Agyemang assured the operators of total assistance to regulate and facilitate their work to enhance their livelihood. You are all Ghanaians, and you deserve better so that you can contribute more meaningfully to the economy, she said. The running mate reiterated the NDCs commitment to support the okada business to thrive in a more regulated and safe environment, assuring that the interests of the operators would be protected. Source: The Ghanaian Times Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The American Library Associations Banned Books Week comes to an end on October 3. This annual event celebrating the freedom to read was launched in 1982 to highlight the surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. Among the most challenged books of 2019 were the usual suspects: Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, the Harry Potter series, and Peter Parnell and Justin Richardsons And Tango Makes Three. The concerns with these and other books? They were designed to pollute the morals of readers, they offered conflicting religious viewpoints and they were sensitive, controversial, and politically charged. No surprises there. Such objections sound quaint at a time when many allegedly offensive texts are available online. As Tariq Ali, speaking of the British governments recent educational guidelines prohibiting material from organisations with an extreme political stance, commented: If you put things on a banned list, lots of young people can access them via the Internet and read them. Banning them from schools will not work at all, aside from the fact its a sign of moral and political bankruptcy. Evidently, bans and condemnations can have a contrary effect. Philip Pullman, whose own books have frequently been contested, also underlined this: The inevitable result of trying to ban something book, film, play, pop song, whatever is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Its a version of the so-called Streisand Effect, in which attempts to censor information have the unintended consequence of further publicising it. This hasnt stopped almost every government from trying. Bans apart, more extreme measures have often been undertaken over the centuries, with the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s being an especially egregious example. In his recent Burning the Books, Richard Ovenden, senior librarian of Oxfords Bodleian Library, asserts that bodies of knowledge are being confronted today as they have been throughout history. Ominously, this means that the rule of law and open society are also under threat. His book emphasises how libraries and archives have become central to the support of democracy. The repeated attacks on them over the centuries need to be examined as a worrying trend in human history, writes Ovenden, also pointing out that the astonishing efforts made by people to protect such knowledge should be celebrated. At the heart of this is the idea of preservation, because knowledge can be vulnerable, fragile and unstable. Over the years, libraries have been a vital part of such preservation and dissemination. They have developed catalogues, provided reading rooms, sponsored scholarships, staged exhibitions, and made digitised content accessible. Burning the Books illustrates the many tragic ways in which knowledge has been lost: from the destruction of King Ashurbanipals library, to the blaze that destroyed the Library of Alexandria, to the ravaging of Caliph al-Mamuns House of Wisdom to the more recent shelling of the National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the burning of the Jaffna Public Library. Its a grim catalogue of how ideas are seen as enemies to be vanquished. However, with increasingly digital bodies of knowledge such as the Internet Archive, its become far easier to store and spread books and other information, whether permitted or verboten. The valiant publishers and distributors of Russian samizdat during the Soviet heyday would have looked upon the Internet with awe. This is not to say that threats to digital storage and dissemination dont exist. It hardly bears pointing out that many powerful digital organisations are in the private domain and can be swayed by pecuniary or political considerations. The Great Firewall of China is yet another example. Despite this, its undeniable that it takes much less effort to get ones hands on a book, whatever its nature. If book bans are seen as increasingly ineffective, one way around it is to start banning readers, so to speak. An example is to be found in the chargesheet against Sharjeel Imam, who was recently booked under Indias sedition law. According to reports, the chargesheet mentions that the JNU scholar was radicalised by books on Partition which he read for his MPhil thesis, such as Forms of Collective Violence: Riots, Pogroms, and Genocide in Modern India by Paul Brass. Similarly, books related to Lenin, Mao, Marx and others have been confiscated and used as evidence in cases against those such as K. Satyanarayana and Hany Babu. Perhaps, after all, we arent that far away from the world of Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451, in which resistance to totalitarianism takes the form of people committing entire volumes to memory. Sanjay Sipahimalani is a Mumbai-based writer and reviewer. A defiant Steph McGovern has insisted her new show will not be axed despite recording zero viewers and returning dwindling viewing figures. The journalist, 38, who returned to screens in September with her new daytime show Packed Lunch following her stint presenting The Steph Show on Channel 4, took to Twitter to dismiss axing claims earlier this week. When Packed Lunch, which airs daily at 12:30pm, first aired last month, it was claimed that the show was to end. This news came after Barb viewing figures later revealed that at 12.56pm on one September day there was not a single viewer tuned in, according to The Mirror. Defiant: Steph McGovern has said her show is not going anywhere, despite it recording zero viewers on one day in September But Steph is adamant that her show is not going anywhere. When a Twitter follower asked "Is your show closing?", Steph replied with a stern: "Nope". Packed Lunch is competing against well established show Loose Women on ITV, and has struggled despite boasting a range of big-name guests, such as Vogue Williams, Oti Mabuse and Chris Kamara. A source said: 'It was a tough call to go up against such an established and well-loved show as Loose Women and there's no doubt the decision is hurting C4 and these ratings show it.' However Channel 4 hit back against reports of zero ratings, saying about the zero-rating day: 'On Tuesday Steph's Packed Lunch attracted an average audience of 87,000 viewers from 12.30pm 2.10pm and drew 204,000 at its peak. Huh? But Steph is adamant that her show is not going anywhere. When a Twitter follower asked "Is your show closing?", Steph replied with a stern: "Nope" Getting started: The show, which is filmed from a studio in Leeds, didn't have any viewers at 12.56pm on one September day, according to Barb rating figures (Steph is pictured on the set of her show) Cosy: Steph has pulled in a range of big-name guests, such as Vogue Williams, Oti Mabuse and Chris Kamara 'Steph has brought a blast of energy to our daytime line-up and we're delighted with the live shows the team has produced.' It is thought that Loose Women had a high of a million viewers on the same day. Steph has previously spoken about being 'nervous' ahead of fronting her show and revealed that she'd blame herself if it didn't do well. She said: 'But yeah, when your name's on the tin, there's no one else to blame if it's rubbish. If it's rubbish, it's my fault.' Packed Lunch is filmed from a Channel 4 studio in Leeds and also sees a host of top chefs rustling up delicious lunchtime treats, including Jack Stein, Doctor Rupy Aujla and former Great British Bake Off winner John Whaite. Rivals: It is thought that Loose Women pulls in a million viewers at the same time as Steph's show It comes after Steph announced her Channel 4 talk show would go on hiatus amid the coronavirus lockdown, amid claims the decision to broadcast from her Harrogate home infuriated neighbours back in April. The star, who is mother to a baby girl with her partner, cited family reasons when breaking the news to her followers. She wrote: As much as Ive loved doing a lockdown show at home I never expected it to go on this long. Weve decided its time to have a break and give my family our home back. Hiatus: Steph's Channel 4 talk show took a small hiatus amid the coronavirus lockdown, amid claims the decision to broadcast from her Harrogate home infuriated neighbours Steph continued at the time: The proper prog will be launching when the Leeds studio is sorted, I may still be wearing slippers. The news came after it was claimed that Steph broadcasting from home had left her neighbours unimpressed. According to The Sun, other residents were allegedly beginning to get hacked off by the to-ing and fro-ing filming from home entails. It was claimed that 'the production equipment parked outside and the steady flow of deliveries for The Steph Show have gone down badly'. U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on the Marine One helicopter on Oct. 2, 2020. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo) 40 Percent of Democrat Voters Happy Trump Got COVID-19: Poll Four out of 10 Democrat voters are happy President Donald Trump contracted COVID-19, according to a new poll. Asked how they feel about the recent diagnosis, 40 percent of Democrat respondents told Morning Consult theyre happy. Respondents were able to choose more than one emotion. About the same percentage of Democrats said they were indifferent. The top emotions listed by Republican respondents were sadness and worry. Fifty-five percent of Democrat respondents said they were sad, while about 14 percent of Republican respondents said they were happy. Forty percent of respondents overall said the word surprised described them very or somewhat well. That was the third-most pick for both Republicans and Democrats. Other emotions available to respondents included nervous, confident, and depressed. The poll was conducted online among 1,990 registered voters on Oct. 2. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points. Respondents were asked about a range of related issues. The White House early on Oct. 3, 2020. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo) A slim majority said they were satisfied with the amount of information theyre getting on Trumps health. His doctor has released three memorandums and gave an update on Oct. 3 outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Maryland facility where Trump was moved on Oct. 2 for further monitoring. Hes set to return to the White House on Oct. 5. In addition, White House staff have given multiple updates to reporters outside the White House. Most Americans said they have seen, read, or heard a lot about Trumps diagnosis. A plurality of voters trust Vice President Mike Pence to lead if he were granted temporary governing power, with a sharp divide among parties. Some 81 percent of Republican respondents said they trust Pence, versus 24 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of independents. Nearly 7 in 10 respondents said they believe Trump should address the nation about his diagnosis. Trump posted a brief video on Twitter on Oct. 2 that was recorded inside the White House before he left for Walter Reed. I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support. Im going to Walter Reed Hospital. I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out, he said. The first lady is doing very well. So thank you very much I appreciate it. I will never forget it. Thank you. The president has continued to provide video updates. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the strategically-important Atal Tunnel, which connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. During the inauguration, PM was accompanied by state chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, defence minister Rajnath Singh, chief of defence staff Bipin Rawat and MoS Anurag Singh Thakur and the DG BRO Lt Gen Harpal Singh. PM Modi also addressed the nation after inaugurating the 9.02km Atal Tunnel and hailed the Border Roads Organisation for carrying out the construction work in harsh weather conditions. It is the longest tunnel built at an altitude of 3,000 meters. Here are the key quotes from PM Modis inauguration speech: It is a historic day; not only dream of Atal ji realised but also decades-long wait of people of Himachal is over. It will be a lifeline for Leh-Ladakh. Atal tunnel will give new strength to Indias border infrastructure. It is an example of world-class border connectivity. There have been demands to improve border infrastructure but for a long time, such projects either couldnt get out of the planning stage or got stuck midway. Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation of approach road for this tunnel, but after his government, this work was all but forgotten. It was accelerated after 2014. In just six years, we completed the work of 26 years. Connectivity has a direct connection with development. Connectivity in border areas is directly related to security issues. Experts say if the tunnel was constructed with the pace it was being built at that time, it would probably be completed in 2040. We completed the work in just six years. I want the ministry of external affairs to invite some universities for case studies on this tunnel. The world should know how our soldiers can do such a wonderful job in limited resources. I request the ministry of education that the students of engineering and technical studies related universities should be given a chance to do a case study of Atal Tunnel. The students must learn how this tunnel was built. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON New Delhi: A memorial has been built to commemorate the lives of the 20 Indian soldiers who matryred during a bloody skirmish with the Chinese Army in eastern Ladakh's Galwan Valley. The memorial has the names of 20 soldiers and the details of the June 15 operation. These bravehearts had fought off China's PLA and evicted them from an observation post near the Y-junction area under Operation Snow Leopard. The memorial has been built at the unit level near the KM-120 post on the strategic road Durbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie, Ladakh. The memorial wall reads: "On June 15, 2020 at Galwan Valley, Col B Santosh Babu Commanding Officer, 16 Bihar led the Quick Reaction Force of 16 Bihar and attached troops tasked to evict the PLA OP from Gen AY Nala and move further to Patrolling Point 14. The column successfully evicted the PLA OP from Y Nala and reached PP 14 where a fierce skirmish broke out between the IA and PLA troops. Col B Santosh Babu led from the front and his troops fought gallantly in hand-to-hand combat, causing heavy casualties to the PLA. In the ensuing fight twenty "Gallants of Galwan" achieved martyrdom," it says. It is said that the Chinese Army suffered more casualities in the clash but China has not divulged any details of the same. UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath Rahul, Priyanka doing drama in Hathras, quiet on Rajasthan: Prasad India oi-Briti Roy Barman New Delhi, Oct 03: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday accused Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi of "being quiet" over incidents of alleged rape in Congress-ruled Rajasthan and said an SIT has been formed by the Uttar Pradesh government to probe the Hathras incident. Calling the incident unfortunate Prasad asked, "What is this policy of the Congress to keep quiet on Rajasthan, where a similar incident has happened?" Prasad added, "Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi are not speaking anything on that, but are doing drama in Hathras." Meanwhile, police have removed the barricades near the rape victim's home and finally allowed the media to meet the bereaved family. Sadar SDM Prem Prakash says, "Since SIT probe in the village is complete, the restriction on media has been lifted. More than 5 media persons are now allowed to gather as Section 144 of CrPC is in place." The family has demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe, saying the SIT is "hand in glove" with the accused and has rejected the idea of a CBI probe too. The 20-year-old victim's mother says she kept begging the police not to cremate their daughter without their presence. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News Hathras gangrape case: Rahul Gandhi to make another attempt to meet victim's family today Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi's attempt on Thursday to meet the victim's family was blocked by the Uttar Pradesh police who detained and escorted the Congress leaders back to Delhi. Rahul Gandhi was pushed to the ground in the chaos, following which the party held protests in Delhi. Demands for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's removal in the aftermath of the Hathras gang rape case have grown louder with Priyanka Gandhi saying suspending "some pawns" won't make any difference. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 12:40 [IST] With less than five weeks to go before Election Day, two top House Republicans -- Jim Jordan, ranking GOP member on the Judiciary Committee, and James Comer, ranking Republican on the Oversight Committee -- have released a report warning that widespread dysfunction with mail-in voting could "put at risk the integrity of the nation's electoral process." The culprit: changes to state election laws and procedures, pushed by Democrats amid coronavirus concerns in the waning weeks before voting. States have long-established procedures for in-person voting. But now, the report says, "some Democrat-run states have belatedly changed election administration procedures and moved to all-mail balloting -- meaning that as many as 44 million total ballots will be mass-mailed to registered voters with no assurance the ballots reach the right person." The rushed schedule of changes gives many states no room for error as they attempt their first election with massive numbers of mail-in votes. But first, the report makes a critical distinction between all-mail voting and traditional absentee voting. "The two are fundamentally distinct," Jordan and Comer note. An absentee voter requests a ballot, that ballot is mailed to him, he fills it out and mails it back to election officials. All-mail voting, on the other hand, involves election officials sending out unsolicited ballots to every registered voter. "The voter may already be planning to vote in person, may have moved from the jurisdiction, or may even be deceased," the report notes. Soon some states will be awash in unsolicited ballots. This year nine states -- California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Washington State and Vermont -- as well as the District of Columbia, will have all-mail elections. Some of the states have been doing it for a while. Others, like California, will be trying it for the first time -- surely a high-wire act in perhaps the most contentious election in memory. But even those states that have some experience with all-mail elections have had their problems. The report notes that in the 2012 and 2018 elections, "the state of Oregon could not account for 871,000 ballots sent out -- or one out of every eight ballots that the state mailed out." Nationwide, the Election Assistance Commission found that a total of 28.3 million mailed ballots were missing during the four federal elections held between 2012 and 2018. Part of the problem: Those ballots, dumped in the mail by the millions, will be sent according to "inaccurate and outdated voter registration rolls," according to the report. It notes that in 2012, Pew found that nearly 24 million voter registrations were "no longer valid or significantly inaccurate." The law requires that the rolls be cleaned up periodically, but many local officials have faced Democratic opposition in doing so. And what happens when the ballots hit the mail? Democrats in a number of states have been pushing to extend deadlines under which a late-mailed ballot will be counted. In Michigan, for example, a judge ordered election officials to accept mail-in ballots that arrive two weeks after Election Day, if they were postmarked the day before the election. Pennsylvania will allow ballots to be accepted until Nov. 6, three days after Election Day, even, in some cases, if they don't have a postmark. It does not take a prophet to see lawsuits galore over late-arriving ballots. We've already seen a preview of that in New York's congressional races this past summer. "Gov. Andrew Cuomo changed election procedures at the last minute," the report notes, and "election officials discarded thousands of ballots for lack of postmarks in one congressional primary -- delaying certification of the result for six weeks." It turned out that the Postal Service, which usually postmarks election mail, had failed to do so for many ballots, leading to "confusion and litigation about the timeliness of mailed-in ballots." Look for that situation to be repeated in November. And then there's ballot harvesting. Several states, including swing state Nevada, have passed laws allowing party operatives and activists to collect ballots and deliver them to election offices. California has one of the worst laws. "Prior to 2016, California had sensible restrictions in place allowing only a family member of the voter to collect and deliver a ballot," the report notes. Then California passed a law that "permits any individual to collect and return the ballot of another individual without any limitation placed on the amount of ballots collected, the relationship between the collector and the voter, or the relationship between the collector and candidate for whom the vote is being cast." "Democrats weaponized ballot harvesting to their advantage in California during the 2018 congressional election," the report notes. "Although multiple Republican candidates had more votes on election night than their Democratic opponents, all saw their leads shrink due to ballot harvesting. In the days and weeks following the election, ballot harvesters flooded votes into the registrar's office -- eventually changing the results in four Republican-held seats in Orange County. The flood of ballots arriving so late after Election Day created considerable uncertainty and confusion about the results of the elections." Put it all together, and the nation's 2020 voting system is a recipe for disaster. What to do? The report has a simple solution: Vote in person. "The best and surest guarantee of electoral integrity is for Americans to vote in person where safe and possible," the report says, "with absentee ballots available for those who legitimately cannot make it to the polls." As Jordan has often said: If you can protest in person, you can vote in person. The report also includes statements from Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Robert Redfield that voting in person is safe amid worries about coronavirus. "What Democrats are trying to achieve around the country is a cynical effort using the coronavirus pandemic to inject uncertainty, inaccuracies and delay into the electoral process," the report says. The way to counter that, Jordan and Comer recommend, is as old as the republic itself: Go to the polls -- literally -- and cast a vote. Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 By Express News Service CHENNAI: The number of weapons seized in the State in 2019 was considerably higher than that in 2018, according to the NCRB data. While 167 weapons were seized in 2018, the figure jumped to 291 in 2019. Country-made guns constitute a considerable number of these seizures, revealed the data. In September last year, Salem police spotted a man with a gunny bag who began to flee on seeing the men in khaki. Police nabbed him and further probe led them to busting an illegal gun manufacturing unit near Dharmapuri. Several guns were seized from the spot. The police seized many more country-made and illegal guns in 2019 than previous years, after the Madras High Court observed that the police should keep in check the gun culture in the State. Tamil Nadu cannot be called a gun state because when compared to other states we prevent and detect crimes better, a senior police officer attached to the Intelligence section said. Speaking to Express, a senior police officer said that the number of seized weapons were high because the police in many instances prevented the distribution of the weapons. We keep a check on people procuring raw materials for manufacturing guns, like gunpowder or iron rods, he added. HC warns of gun culture In August this year, the Madras High Court had cautioned that gun culture slowly raising its ugly head in Tamil Nadu. The HC bench, consisting of Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice VM Velumani had said that unlicensed guns are being brought to TN from northern States like Jharkhand and Bihar and are used by goondas and contract killers. The court also directed the State government to take measures to control the proliferation of illegal firearms to the State Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said he understood the desire to be out and about, but he was angry about the actions of rule-breakers on the beach last night. Loading "It is a bit of an insult to everyone who has done it tough for months and months and months across the state for some people to be putting all our gains at risk," he said. "It is due to the fantastic sacrifices of everyone that we are at the point at which we are at. It is disappointing to see people breaking the rules." Police call on closing beaches The Premier says it is up to police if Victorian beaches need to be closed as a result of large groups ignoring social distancing rules at St Kilda on Friday. Daniel Andrews said police have a steely determination to make sure people are following the rules, but would not say whether he believed police should have broken up the gathering earlier. Vision from Seven News showed many people without masks packed close together on St Kilda Beach last night, before grabbing and kissing a television reporter. "There is a substantial additional police presence out there making sure that these coronavirus rules are enforced," Mr Andrews said. He said Victoria Police was "well aware" of the challenges caused by gatherings on beaches, and he would leave any determinations about whether beaches need to be closed up to them. "It was very disappointing, and I'm sure the cause of much anger across the community about what happened there last night," he said. "It was not just there, however, there were reports of similar activity and other beaches and in other places. But let's not detract from the fact that the vast majority of Victorians are doing quite an amazing job." Mr Andrews also would not say whether there would be concentrated testing launched in the suburbs of St Kilda and Elwood, but he encouraged anyone with symptoms to get a COVID-19 test. Police warned earlier in the weekend they would be stepping up their surveillance as Melburnians look to beat the heat over the weekend. A spokeswoman for Victoria Police said officers would not hesitate to fine those who "deliberately breach (COVID-19) restrictions and place lives at risk". "A number of fines were issued to people who breached directions at St Kilda beach on Friday and Victoria Police will be conducting increased patrols of popular public spaces this weekend," she said. "As the weather starts to warm up, we know this is a time when many people would normally like to be out and about but it is important that if you choose to leave your home you continue to adhere to the directions of the Chief Health Officer." Cases falling The state has recorded eight new cases of coronavirus and three deaths. In metropolitan Melbourne the 14-day rolling average has dropped to 12, while the regional 14-day rolling average is just 0.1. With only two active cases in regional Victoria, Chief Health Officer says that regional Victoria has to wait for Melbourne to get its cases down before it can take more steps. Professor Sutton said they need to make sure "regional Victoria is moving in a certain synchrony" with metropolitan Melbourne before they could open up further from October 19. "Regional Victoria always had to wait for Melbourne we had to control it and everything that has been achieved has been achieved because of the control in metro Melbourne and everything that regional Victoria has done right," he said. "The answer to (when regional Victoria can take more steps) is how well is metro Melbourne doing over the next few weeks. But we are on track. "I do think that we are where I expected us to be and we are tracking where the modelling suggests we should be." "Dont risk everything. What we can hold back now means a truly normal summer. Please - Hold. The. Line, Professor Sutton tweeted after footage aired of a large gathering of people surrounding a television reporter, grabbing and kissing the mans face in breach of COVID-19 restrictions. Victoria recorded seven new cases on Friday, six of which remain under investigation. The seventh is linked to an outbreak at Sunshine Hospital. Two people - a man and a woman in their 80s - were added to Victoria's death toll. Both deaths were connected to outbreaks in aged care. There are now 11 cases linked to the Butcher Club in Chadstone, with all staff forced in quarantine. A Frankston cleaner who failed to self-isolate when her family members contracted coronavirus sparked the COVID-19 outbreak at a butcher shop. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has wished US president Donald Trump a speedy recovery after he was rushed to hospital to be treated for COVID-19. Trump had 'trouble breathing' as he was admitted to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Maryland on Friday evening following his positive coronavirus test. Officials have told media Trump was 'very tired, very fatigued' and that his condition was much more acute than First Lady Melania Trump. Ms Ardern directed her best wishes to the US president while speaking at a Labour event at Otara in south Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday. 'We've seen now several world leaders who have been affected by COVID-19 and I know that I stand with others in wishing [him] all the best, because this is obviously a virus that had globally has a devastating impact,' she said. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured on Saturday) has wished US president Donald Trump a speedy recovery after he was rushed to hospital to be treated for COVID-19 Trump had 'trouble breathing' as he was admitted to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Maryland on Friday evening following his positive coronavirus test (pictured, Trump arriving at the hospital on Friday) Ms Ardern has been on the campaign trail as New Zealand heads to election day on October 18. Advance voting has opened ahead of the big day and Ms Ardern cast her ballot for Labour and her own government's re-election. Accompanied by partner Clarke Gayford - but not two-year-old daughter Neve - Ms Ardern submitted her vote at the Mount Eden War Memorial Hall. Her bright red blazer left little doubt as to her allegiance, and as she waited by the ballot boxes for Mr Gayford to finish voting, a pair of star-struck voters told Ms Ardern she had won their support. The prime minister is in one of the safest Labour seats in the country and is certain to be re-elected, and her party is a hot favourite to win a second term. 'I have a philosophy of campaigning as though it could go either way,' she said. 'We can't take anything for granted and so that's the way (Labour has) campaigned all the way through, working very, very hard.' New Zealand has non-compulsory voting, meaning most party's campaigning efforts are now geared towards get-out-the-vote operations. On Saturday, 450 polling places opened as part of an Electoral Commission push to spread out more of the voting before election day. In Mount Eden, Ms Ardern cast four ballots - an electorate vote for herself, a party vote for her Labour party, as well as her choices in the two referenda her government has put to New Zealanders, on legalising euthanasia and cannabis. Ms Ardern directed her best wishes to the US president while speaking at a Labour event at Otara in south Auckland, New Zealand (pictured), on Saturday Accompanied by partner Clarke Gayford - but not two-year-old daughter Neve - Ms Ardern cast her vote at the Mount Eden War Memorial Hall (pictured) Ms Ardern signalled her intent to vote in favour of the end of life proposal, but has kept her vote on the referendum a secret. After voting she headed to a Labour phone-banking event in South Auckland's Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate. Among homemade Labour signs adorned with the party's Let's Keep Moving slogan, Ms Ardern rallied volunteers and called supporters to thank them for their efforts. Unfortunately, the first four calls the wildly popular PM made went through to voicemail, before she finally got through to volunteer 'Shane' for a chat. Labour is hot favourite to defeat the opposition National party led by Judith Collins, who will vote on Sunday. Ms Ardern's key message is one of stability - not to change horses now - as New Zealand begins a recovery for its COVID-ravaged economy. US President Donald Trump walks off Marine One while arriving at Walter Reed Medical Center 'My very clear pitch will be in the midst of that uncertainty, we need that stability,' she said. 'We need a very strong plan ... and it's a plan that I do think also will create a better New Zealand in the aftermath.' Since electoral reform in 1996, no party has been able to govern on its own in New Zealand. For the last three years, Labour has been supported by centre-right New Zealand First and left-wingers the Greens, but polling has Labour within touching distance of a majority on its own. 'I will be seeking the strongest mandate for Labour that I can, but I'd like to think that we have a record that demonstrates we can equally work with what New Zealand delivers,' Ms Ardern said. More than 20,000 students from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh will appear for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services preliminary examination to be held in the city on Sunday. Around 50 centres, including various government schools and colleges, have been designated for the examination, which will be conducted in two slots9.30am to 11.30am, and 2.30pm to 4.30pm. Entry will begin an hour before the exam commences. Though the exam was supposed to be held on May 31, it was postponed in the wake of the Covid lockdown. However, standard operating procedures such as mandatory wearing of masks, temperature screening on entry and social distancing will be followed in all centres. Saturday, October 3, 2020 at 8:28AM Embed from Getty Images It will not affect the majority of users out there. But for those who are still clinging to their Daydream VR headsets, you'll have to know that Google is no longer supporting its software. You can still access the service and use the headset and controller to view VR content, but the device will no longer get software or security updates. Even the Daydream app will not work correctly on devices running Android 11 or later. Those third-party apps and experiences within Daydream can still exist as standalone apps in the Google Play Store. But we aren't expecting developers to work on new apps, especially without Google updating the device and its software. The Daydream VR will just be a nostalgic souvenir for those who want to keep the headset around. Lanesboro is the perfect location for a digital hub, according to Cllr Gerard Farrell, who proposed that Longford County Council acquire a property to develop such a facility in the town. Were in a new Ireland now where working from home is getting more and more popular, said Cllr Farrell at last weeks meeting of Ballymahon Municipal District. Lanesboro is perfectly positioned with two counties and several parishes. If the council could acquire a property and develop it, it would be huge for the economic development of Lanesboro. His motion was promptly backed by Cllr Mark Casey who said the old convent building in Lanesboro would be the ideal location for a digital hub. Cllr Paul Ross also agreed that it is a great idea, which would prompt a major change in the economy. We need to be proactive in developing employment and potential employment in Lanesboro, he said. Cllr Mick Cahill was also strongly in favour of the motion; It would be a benefit to that area, to two counties and six parishes. It also crosses the Shannon, so there should be opportunity there, he said. Cllr Pat OToole also expressed his support for Cllr Farrells very apt and timely motion, stating that something similar should be done for Ballymahon. Cllr Farrell, delighted with the level of support for the motion, agreed with Cllr Casey that the old convent building, with its three stores, would be perfectly positioned for a hub. Theres also a council carpark across the road from it, so it would be perfect, he said. Director of Services John McKeon agreed that the proposal was something we can look at but said the council is facing constraints. Its not something we could do on our own. We cant commit to anything other than to see what we can do, he said. Cllr Farrell also raised the issue of Just Transition applications, calling on Longford County Council to ringfence a sum of money from the Municipal Allocation Fund for 2021 to support applications. Its a new fund and we have to be ready to support community groups. If a worthwhile community project comes in, we would support them, he said. Cllr Mick Cahill warned that the council would have to be careful about how they phrase it as applications that would be supported should have to fully comply with requirements. Cllr Paul Ross agreed with the spirit of the motion but said that the council would need to assess each application on its own merits. Cllr Mark Casey stressed that they would need to make sure its community groups only and for the benefit of the community, not private enterprises. Testifying in a federal lawsuit, a postal union leader said managers at San Antonios main post office deceived a Democratic congressman during his visit this summer by rushing tens of thousands of delayed mail pieces to Austin and dressing up mail-sorting machines that already had been dismantled. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, toured the U.S. Postal Service plant on the Northeast Side in August to address cuts ordered by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that have caused delays in mail delivery ahead of the November election. Even as an unprecedented number of voters are requesting mail-in ballots during a deadly pandemic, President Donald Trump has claimed repeatedly but without evidence that such voting would lead to a fraudulent election. A Republican megadonor and ally of Trump, DeJoy took office in June and swiftly reduced overtime, banned late or extra delivery trips and ordered the removal of mail-sorting machines, including six at the San Antonio plant cuts that mail-in voters fear could leave them disenfranchised. Carlos Barrios, the union leader, said in a sworn affidavit on Sept. 2 that shortly before Castros visit, managers decided to hide up to 54,000 pieces of delayed mail that were lying on the sorting floor by sending the bundles to a plant in Austin. Most of the mail was several weeks late, and some of it had been delayed for months, he said. Now Playing: The Express-News Editorial Board interviews Rep. Joaquin Castro about the recent U.S Postal Service issues. Video: San Antonio Express-News Barrios, who has worked in the postal service for 33 years, also testified that managers at the plant dressed up two mail-sorting machines that already had been destroyed, then falsely told Castro during the tour that they were functioning. Management told the mechanics to make the machines look good, Barrios said in the affidavit. They even staged mail containers next to the machine, which would serve no purposes besides giving the implicit impression that the machine would, at some point, be used to process that mail. He added, The management of the facility, in my view, decided to put on a display that was entirely deceitful and designed to hide the serious issues we are confronting. During the tour, I was given, essentially, a gag order, and was told not to correct or clarify anything Rep. Castro was told. The San Antonio Express-News reported some of the allegations by Barrios shortly after Castros tour. At the time, plant manager Dennis Stasa declined to comment. Last month, Stasa responded to the allegations in an affidavit that was part of the same lawsuit filed in federal district court in Manhattan. Mail-in voters from six states brought the suit against Trump and DeJoy to block cuts to the postal service. Stasa acknowledged that before Castros visit, he asked the plant in Austin for assistance with delayed mail but he called this a routine, regularly occurring event. Stasa said he informed Castro during the tour of delays in mail delivery. Stasa also denied misleading Castro about the sorting machines. I did not, in any way, mislead Rep. Castro that any disassembled machines were currently operational, Stasa said. I did not hide delayed mail in advance of Rep. Castros visit by sending it to Austin. Jerry Lara /San Antonio Express-News On ExpressNews.com: Postal worker: San Antonio post office hid backlogged mail from congressman In a second affidavit, Barrios pushed back against Stasas assertion that sending so much delayed mail to Austin was part of a routine process. It is of course ordinary that some mail in San Antonio gets transferred to Austin, Barrios said. However, having delayed mail for months, that has sat for weeks on the mail floor shuffled to Austin to hide it makes no sense at all. On Friday, Castro said his office has spoken to USPS Inspector General officials as part of an ongoing investigation into any wrongdoing. I support the lawsuit against President Trump and Postmaster General DeJoy for violating the Constitution in a cynical attempt to undermine free and fair elections by sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service, Castro said in a statement. I witnessed firsthand the chaos and confusion in San Antonio, and I still have concerns over the prompt delivery of essential goods such as medicine and ballots. Castro added, Were fortunate that there are many hardworking postal workers, managers, and letter carriers who are dedicated to their jobs. Lets be clear: voting by mail is safe and secure, and folks can also drop off their ballot at the Bexar County elections office. I encourage Texans to vote early, in-person, which starts October 13. Two days after Castros tour, another Democratic congressman, Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, said a similar deception occurred during his own tour of a North Texas post office. I think that they definitely knew that I was coming in and they wanted to tidy the place up, Veasey said. And that meant just removing ridiculous volumes of mail off the floor of the post office and not being forthcoming about a lot of the things that we heard were going on there. Veasey said he was tipped off to the deception even before his visit. They admitted it when I got there, Veasey said. I asked them when I got there. Even after I left, I had somebody call and say, Hey, they lied to you, man. They didnt show you everything. Even before DeJoy took office in June, the postal service was struggling to process election mail, Barrios said. He testified that during the March primary, a significant volume of election mail at the San Antonio plant between two to three trays, each holding about 400 ballots slipped through the cracks and did not get delivered on time. The reason, he said, was that management had told postal workers to stop sorting election mail separately in the weeks leading up to the election. When Barrios raised this issue with management, they just simply did not fix the problem, he testified. In his own affidavit, Stasa denied hearing any complaints about election mail in the last two elections. I certainly did not receive complaints that election mail was left on the plant floor, undelivered, nor that the plant misprocessed election mail, nor am I aware of any other evidence that these things happened, Stasa said. Nonetheless, Judge Victor Marrero said he found testimony by Barrios credible that about 600 ballots in the March primary were left on the mail room floor. Barrios warned there is still an extraordinary mail backlog and delay at the San Antonio facility due to the pandemic and policy changes. Right now, I would estimate we are, on average, 2-3 days behind our usual service standard, with some mail far more behind, Barrios said in the affidavit. He warned that the current delays would persist into November because there are not enough qualified supervisors who know how to properly expedite the mail, and because limits to overtime are preventing more experienced postal workers from helping new employees. With the changes in processing and management Ive seen since March, I anticipate the problem will be worse in November, Barrios testified. In a ruling last month, Marrero referred to the warnings issued by Barrios as reason to fear for a sound election. Taken together, these delays have a direct bearing on the fundamental voting rights issues now before the Court, the judge wrote. Specifically, if the Postal Services mail delivery levels remain at current levels or continue to decline, under operational policies apparently still in place, such curtailed performance would put the ability of voters to timely cast their ballots at risk. Jerry Lara /San Antonio Express-News Wary of the postal services ability to process election mail, many voters are expected to drop off their ballots in person. But on Thursday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott blocked Texas counties from offering more than one drop-off location for those casting absentee ballots. On ExpressNews.com: Gov. Abbott forces Harris County to close 11 mail ballot drop-off sites, leaving just one In his ruling, Merrero ordered the postal service to treat all election mail, including ballots, as first-class or priority mail; and to pre-approve all overtime requested from Oct. 26 to Nov. 6, among other injunctions. The right to vote is too vital a value in our democracy to be left in a state of suspense in the minds of voters weeks before a presidential election, raising doubts as to whether their votes will ultimately be counted, Marrero wrote. The combination of war and Covid-19 is devastating to Libyans, already weary from nearly a decade of instability As the North African country of Libya heads into another day of extensive electricity outages, living conditions worsen and this time its not only because of the conflict. Covid-19 is also taking a large bite out of whats left of Libya. At this time of the year, blackouts are as intolerable as ever. In one day, an average power cut can take up to 20 hours, taking away every ounce of stability left from a Libyan persons life. In a 2020 research report called Tripolis electricity crisis and its politicisation, it describes how prolonged daily power cuts have had an impact on different aspects of everyday life. According to this research, This results in drastically reduced productivity and revenue, the death of new-born babies in hospital incubators, the spread of respiratory difficulties attributable to ubiquitous power generator smoke, and the undermining of morale among the capitals citizens,. Noise pollution accelerates as power generators are kept on for most of the day; making up for long hours without electricity to power the simplest of everyday needs. With generators being used so frequently. another issue arises the diesel fuel that powers these generators became immensely scarce. With no electricity, there is also no mobile phone signal or mobile data either. Libyans are almost completely cut off from the rest of the world and with Covid-19 cases on the rise, they are cut off from each other too. If you dont have money, life is miserable and if you do have money, life is miserable, said Libya Herald Editor-in-Chief Sami Zaptia. They spend all day either queuing up for cooking gas, looking for diesel or lining up outside the bank to get a hold of some cash, he added. Youre living just to stand still, not to progress. Its an encompassing depression, he said. These daily queues for lifes simplest essentials make it even more difficult to social distance, exposing many to the virus. A 39-year-old doctor illustrates the horror of coping with a pandemic in a country that barely has any health facilities left since war broke out. My whole family tested positive for Covid-19 and when we needed to seek more medical help, the hospitals were at full capacity; patients were scattered outside the hospital in hope of a free spot, said the doctor. Libyans are constantly living in fear whether it be fear of violence or fear of becoming ill and not being able to do anything about it. I had a friend who had tested positive for Covid-19 and because of the full capacity of hospitals youre forced to stay at home or forced to drive from one private clinic to another, said Zaptia. Libya is not the place youd want to be ill; it was never the place to be ill, he added. Due to the below average healthcare system, many Libyans would always seek medical help outside Libya. In some situations, those who could not afford it would sell their properties and personal belongings to get treated in neighbouring countries, Tunisia or Egypt. The pandemic, however, is not only a healthcare crisis; it also has a huge impact on the country economically and socially. The pandemic is already compounding Libyas tenuous economic situation with increased prices for food and goods. With people losing their income and unable to access food or pay their rent, continued food assistance will be crucial as needs are already on the rise, said UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Public Information Officer Jennifer Bose Ratka. The Covid-19 pandemic and emergency measures, including curfews and movement restrictions, are also impacting displaced peoples livelihoods, their ability to find safe shelter and their access to basic services, said Ratka. This added to already existing issues of gender-based violence and sexual assault as more people are forced to stay at home. Ive had objects thrown at me; Ive been pushed around and there was nothing I can do about it. I couldnt even go outside because of the lockdown, said a domestic violence victim who chose to stay anonymous. Women are amongst the most vulnerable in Libya. Just a few weeks back a middle-aged woman was abducted whilst driving her car. She was later found murdered. Stories like this have become common in the unstable country. Ongoing conflict and Covid-19 are a deadly combination, compounding human suffering and bringing Libya to the brink of collapse, said Ratka. Ratka lived in Libya for around two months for her job. One devastating story she remembers is when she recently met Omar, a father of seven and a migrant who came to Libya 15 years ago from Morocco to support his family. He was mine survivor recovering at Tripoli Hospital. He (Omar) rebuilds houses that are damaged by the conflict and lost his left leg when he stepped on a mine in one of the houses he visited for work, said Ratka. It broke my heart to see how this incident shattered his whole life. He does not know how to care for his children anymore, if he will ever be able to work again or even how to afford his medical bills. This is just one of the many examples of people in Libya having to bear the brunt of the conflict, she added. According to Ratka, around one million people in Libya are in need of humanitarian assistance. But due to ongoing clashes, and restrictions on movement, it is difficult to get humanitarian aid to those who need assistance. The situation for refugees and migrants in detention centres is particularly concerning as the dire and congested conditions, with limited access to sanitation, pose particular risks when it comes to infectious diseases, said Ratka. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Most of Stevens' new tracks are thickets of counterpoint, dissonance and noises that can be comic or ominous. And he never reduces his messages to preaching or polemic. He longs to believe, but isnt sure he can; he confesses to personal failings as he lashes out at cultural ones, and he finds no guarantees of hope. Die Happy repeats just one line I wanna die happy as the music brings out all the ambivalences of that sentiment: tinkling prettily and floating on celestial voices, later detuned and distorted and marching toward death. October 1 and 2: Official NCSAM Kick-off Official NCSAM Kick-off Week of October 5 (Week 1): If You Connect it, Protect it. If You Connect it, Protect it. Week of October 12 (Week 2): Securing Devices at Home and Work Securing Devices at Home and Work Week of October 19 (Week 3): Securing Internet-Connected Devices in Healthcare Securing Internet-Connected Devices in Healthcare Week of October 26 (Week 4): The Future of Connected Devices Now in its 17th year, National Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity across our Nation and ensure that all Americans have the resources to be safer and secure online.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) welcomes and thanks those of you joining us for another year of NCSAM, as well as those who joining for the first time. Every year, National Cybersecurity Awareness Month conveys a clear message of partnership between government and industry, from the White House to the individual. CISA and the National Cyber Security Alliance are proud to announce this year's theme: "Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart."This theme encourages individuals and organizations to own their role in protecting cyberspace, stressing personal accountability and the importance of taking proactive steps to enhance cybersecurity.Recognizing that all personal devices are potentially vulnerable, throughout October each weekly theme supports the overarching ask to "Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart." Partners are welcome to follow along but also encouraged to create their own areas of focus relevant to their organization.We encourage you to use National Cybersecurity Awareness Month's hashtag #BeCyberSmart before, during and after October to promote your involvement in raising cybersecurity awareness.Once again, thank you for your continued support and commitment to National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and helping all Americans stay safe and secure online. Please email our team or visit the NCSAM website to learn more. President Donald Trump and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro check out the new Endurance all-electric pickup truck on the south lawn of the White House on Sept. 28, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) White House Touts Record on Trumps Buy American Plan, Challenges Biden WASHINGTONThe White House released on Oct. 2 a new report outlining the successes of President Donald Trumps Buy American, Hire American policies that have sought to rebuild the United States manufacturing base. Over the past four years, this administration has lived by one beautiful phraseMade in the USAand two simple rulesBuy American, Hire American, the report states. The policies adopted not only created jobs and prosperity, but also strengthened the U.S. manufacturing base and the defense industrial base, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters during a conference call. Navarro, who accused Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden of plagiarizing Trumps strategy, said that the president delivered much more than simply Buy American rules in government procurement. The White House report came in response to Bidens $700 billion economic plan, which included his made in all of America plan. Navarro earlier criticized Biden for blatantly ripping off the presidents agenda. Biden promised to invest $400 billion to make additional federal purchases of products made in America, as part of his first-term agenda. His policy proposal relies heavily on federal purchasing power to increase demand and create a domestic market to support U.S. manufacturers. Bidens campaign states that his strategy would help create at least 5 million new jobs. During the call, Navarro accused Biden of backing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico in 1994 and the accession of China into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The White House report summarizes five critical dimensions that make up Trumps strategy, which includes Buy American government procurement; Hire American initiatives; trade negotiations and tariffs; defense budget and foreign military sales; and support for the U.S. maritime industry. Buy American, Hire American Trump signed at least 10 executive orders since he took office to support and expand the Buy American procurement policies, according to the report. One of the orders, for example, has minimized the use of unnecessary waivers. Trump also signed an executive order banning countries such as China from selling bulk-power equipment to the United States, to protect the national electricity grid against foreign threats. And one of the recent executive orders ensured that government agencies, including the departments of Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Defense, buy domestically produced essential medicines and medical countermeasures. Domestic procurement increased to $419 billion in the Trump-Pence years from $332 billion in the Obama-Biden years, a 26 percent jump, according to the report. In addition, Trumps Hire American policies have reduced visa abuses, expanded apprenticeships, and supported military veterans transition to the civilian workforce, the report states. Trade Policy and Tariffs The report also notes Trumps trade policies and tariffs, which have been a cornerstone of his economic plan. His rejection of globalism, focus on national security, and retaliation against unfair trade practices marked a fundamental shift in Americas trade policy. Going back to Bush-Cheney and through Obama-Biden, we lost over 70,000 factories and millions of manufacturing jobs to the NAFTA and China trade shocks, Navarro said. In one of his first acts as president, Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He signed the new United StatesMexicoCanada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA, and also struck trade deals with Japan and South Korea. Trump began a tariff campaign in 2018, mainly targeting China, as part of his strategy to end unfair trade practices against the United States. Despite skepticism, tariffs have been enormously successful, Navarro said. He stressed the importance of tariffs in countering the economic aggression of communist China and its seven deadly sins. These sins range from cyber-intrusions by Chinese government officials to steal American business secrets, intellectual property theft, and forced technology transfer, to the dumping of products below cost into our markets, the abuse of state-owned enterprises to bully American companies, and a long history of currency manipulation, according to the report. The report touches on tariffs on steel, aluminum, solar panels, and washing machine imports and their positive effects on U.S. manufacturers and jobs. In addition, orders for anti-dumping and countervailing duties by the Department of Commerce to fight dumping and unfair export subsidies have jumped to 188 during the Trump administration from 62 during the Obama administrations second term, according to the report. Defense and Shipbuilding The report cites the increase in the defense budget and foreign military sales as the fourth dimension in Trumps strategy to support the American industrial base. The increases in the defense budget translate directly into increased American manufacturing because much of the production in Americas defense industry follows very strict Buy American rules, Navarro said. The White House estimates that the hikes in the defense budget and sales support 1.1 million jobs and contribute about a quarter-point of GDP growth per year. Navarro also mentioned the Jones Act and improvement in shipbuilding under the Trump administration. Passed in 1920, the Jones Act requires that any vessel transporting goods between two points in the United States be U.S.-built, at least 75 percent U.S.-owned, and at least 75 percent U.S.-crewed. Navarro said the United States is competing with communist China, which provides really extreme subsidies to their shipbuilding industry. The Trump administration began to turn around the slump in shipbuilding, he said. During the eight years in the Obama-Biden administration, the number of U.S. flagships dropped 22 percent, and gross tonnage fell 13 percent. Right now, weve bounced off the Obama low by 10 percent, and tonnage is up to 7.3 million tons. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has defended his government's record on infrastructure spending and chastised federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg for suggesting the state government needed to get on board with infrastructure development. Mr Andrews said the federal Treasurer was "out of the loop" and that he should have spoken to his "boss" Prime Minister Scott Morrison as there were announcements to be made and plenty of partnership and activity between the state and federal governments. The Morrison government will ramp up its infrastructure spending commitments in the federal budget on Tuesday and Mr Frydenberg told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age this week there are projects the federal government wants to build in Victoria specifically. This will be in addition to $5 billion promised for the Melbourne Airport Rail Link and $2 billion for a fast rail line to Geelong. "We just want the Victorian government to help us get on with it," he said. Mr Frydenberg also told the Herald Sun Mr Andrews needed to "get on with" approving new projects. Beaches along Alabama's Gulf Coast have reopened more than two weeks after Hurricane Sally struck. Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Dauphin Island and Baldwin County announced that all beaches are reopening after the Sept. 16 storm damaged homes and businesses and sliced the Gulf State Park pier in half. Beaches are open starting at 6 a.m. 'Significant damage' from Hurricane Sally will keep popular Alabama beaches closed a while longer The reopening date for popular beach destinations along the Alabama coastline has been pushed after Hurricane Sally "significantly damaged" th All is not well, however. AL.com reports that "piles of debris are visible on roadways. In Gulf Shores, the West Beach area remains inundated with debris piled up on sidewalks. Tourist attractions remain mostly closed, and only 60% of beach rental units have reopened. Of the 24 hotels in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, only four are open this weekend. ... "The only access onto the beaches in Baldwin County is through a private rental agency, if they are open for business. City officials are recommending visitors to contact the condominiums manager to make sure they have reopened and that its safe to visit." "Now is not the best time to come to the beaches of Gulf Shores, said Grant Brown, recreation and cultural affairs director for the city of Gulf Shores," told AL.com. Public access points in Orange Beach, Gulf State Park and Gulf Shores remain closed until further notice. The affected access points include Gulf Place, Little Lagoon Pass Park and several others. The closures are due to safety concerns, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said. The access points should reopen in mid-October, the department said, but a reopening date for Gulf State Park has not been set and all trails remain closed. Paris Hilton shocked fans last month when she revealed she suffered abuse while attending the Provo Canyon School for behavior modification as a teen. And Paris Jackson voiced her support for the socialite and revealed she was diagnosed with PTSD after attending a similar school during her youth. Taking to Instagram stories Friday night, the 22-year-old daughter of Michael Jackson said 'I stand with Paris Hilton and all the survivors,' as she shared a petition to close the Provo school. Speaking out: Paris Jackson voiced her support for Paris Hilton in her fight against behavior modification schools, in a series of Instagram stories on Friday (pictured in February 2020) Jackson described herself 'as a girl who also went to a behavior modification "boarding school" for almost two years as a teenager.' She said in the time since she has been 'diagnosed with PTSD because of it' and that she continues 'to have nightmares and trust issues.' 'Please swipe up to shut the school down and stop the abuse of children,' Jackson added about the petition that Hilton created earlier in the week and has already garnered over 83k signatures to close the school. 'Let's start with Provo but not stop there,' she added of the movement and expressed her hope it would take a look at other schools. Shocking: Paris Hilton shocked fans last month when she revealed she suffered abuse while attending the Provo Canyon School for behavior modification as a teen (pictured in October 2020) Jackson went on to say she is still close to girls she was at the behavior modification school with and that they all share 'the same symptoms of PTSD and nightmares and trust issues.' In the past, Jackson has been open about her struggles with mental health from eating disorders to self harm. Speaking to The Independent earlier this year, she said she used self-harm as 'a distraction from emotional pain' and that 'tried to kill [herself] many times.' 'There's a lot of things that cause a dopamine release,' she said. 'Self-harm was one of them, tattoos was one of them and so there was that and then also it was a distraction from emotional pain and transferring to physical pain and the need for control.' Still dealing: Jackson described herself 'as a girl who also went to a behavior modification "boarding school" for almost two years as a teenager.' She said in the time since she has been 'diagnosed with PTSD because of it' and that she continues 'to have nightmares and trust issues' She put her perspective clearly as 'This is child abuse.' The musician also referenced '#BreakingCodeSilence,' a movement organized by former students at behavior modification schools who claim they were abused. While the movement has been around since 2019, Hilton's recent support and story has brought more attention to the industry that promotes itself of helping 'troubled teens.' In Hilton's documentary, This is Paris, she shared that at age 16 while living in New York City two men took her out of her bedroom in the middle of the night as her parents cried. Gaining momentum: 'Please swipe up to shut the school down and stop the abuse of children,' Jackson added about the petition that Hilton created earlier in the week and has already garnered over 83k signatures to close the school Abuse: Jackson put her perspective clearly as 'This is child abuse,' as she shared the her classmates suffer from the same PTSD symptoms She said she ran away from many schools until she was placed in Utah's Provo Canyon School in the 90s, where she remained until she was 18-years old. While at the Utah school she claims she was abused, forced to take drugs, and stripped down and placed in solitary confinement, among other experiences. Universal Health Services, which has owned Provo Canyon School since 2000, has distanced itself from Hilton's claims, noting they did not own the school at the time she and classmates recalled being abused. Though, more recent students have recounted similar claims of treatment, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. From his kitchen in Castleknock, the past and future Taoiseach is a busy bunny. Leo Varadkar is restricting his movements at home after an official at his department tested positive for Covid-19. He's making his presence felt though with ministers, TDs and advisers saying the emails and calls are flying in. A party wag noted they're looking forward to his return so they'll be hearing less from him. Riding high in the polls, Fine Gael heads into Budget 2021 in 10 days time in the invidious position of not being fearful of what's to come. The first Budget is a big test for any government, not least one which has struggled to find its stride. Unlike Fianna Fail and the Green Party, Fine Gael can cross the bridge of Budget 2021 confident enough of having a life jacket if it all collapses beneath the coalition. Fine Gael is gearing up for something. When that something happens is another matter. Read More In a throwback to the 1990s, Richard Bruton as party chairman has them all riled up with talk of policy development. Varadkar has appointed a bunch of backbenchers as party spokespeople in areas where Fine Gael does not have a minister. He is also assigning his ministers, juniors and TDs KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) to keep them on their toes. It's another take on Enda Kenny's ministerial report cards which never materialised. The primary consideration is implementing Programme for Government commitments relevant to their brief. Ministers have to be present for parliamentary meetings and ministers meeting. But he's also measuring their number of media appearances, constituency visits and getting back to backbenchers. Dublin ministers are being asked to visit every county at least once a year. Non-Dublin ministers are told to discover the capital beyond D2 and D4. "When a minister is let go, they often ask what they did wrong or didn't do enough of. Aspirant ministers often want to know what they should be doing," a senior party source close to the Tanaiste said. All systems go then and the activity is in stark contrast to the dysfunction in Fianna Fail where the turnover of personnel and sniping at the leadership of Micheal Martin is the main item on the agenda. Speaking of personnel changes, the 33rd Dail and 26th Seanad has its first by-election. The wheel comes around as Fine Gael is again dealing with a controversial Seanad by-election. Kenny's leadership of the country hit a small-minded low with a stroke from the school of Old Politics. Six years ago, the botched attempt to get John McNulty elected in a Seanad by-election by sticking him on a State board showed politics hadn't really changed that much from the days of the nod and the wink. Varadkar's leadership was supposed to encapsulate the era of New Politics, where higher ethical standards abounded. Instead, for the fourth time in a year, Varadkar is dealing with yet another party figure involved in a grubby affair that drags the party's reputation down. Isolated incidents can happen, but the series of selfish sagas implies Fine Gael's moral compass has been pickled by power. The party has been in Government so long now there seems to be a difficulty for some in recognising when behaviour is unacceptable. What's more, the Fine Gael leadership has appeared to give its blessing to those who put their own interest ahead of that of the party. Leaving politics to take up a job as a lobbyist in an area he governed only three months ago, Michael D'Arcy departed with the effusive praise of his party leader saying he was sorry to lose him. "I will always be grateful to him for his service to Wexford and to Fine Gael as a councillor, senator, TD and minister and the pivotal role he played in helping me to become leader of my party. His new employers are fortunate to recruit someone of his calibre," Varadkar said this week. Be loyal and then do what you want: that's the Leo rule. Yet just 24 hours later, Varadkar and his colleagues across Government were expressing disappointment that D'Arcy had taken up his roles with his "new employers" without checking in with the State ethics law observers. Calling the Standards In Public Office Commission a watchdog is a stretch. Sipo is more 'watch' than 'dog'. The spirit of the ethics laws are that a former minister isn't supposed to walk straight out the door into the arms of a vested interest. D'Arcy's departs the scene with a pat on the back from his leader and a shrug of the shoulders that nothing can be done about his practice. It's all too reminiscent of the high dudgeon around the end of the career of another former minister, Dara Murphy. The former Fine Gael TD claimed his full parliamentary and travel allowances of 4,300 per month, on top of his 94,000 salary, despite not having spoken in the Dail for almost two years. Moving on to a job with the European Commission in Brussels, Murphy resigned his seat in the shadow of the expenses scandal. When Murphy embarked on his lengthy European tour in September 2017, Varadkar "congratulated" him on his appointment as campaign director for the European People's Party, Fine Gael's European grouping. "At this crucial time with Brexit negotiations under way and discussions also taking place about the future direction and shape of the EU, Deputy Dara Murphy's appointment is further evidence of the important role that Fine Gael plays within the EPP, Europe's largest political party," the then Taoiseach said. Serve the party brand and ignore the peasants: that's the Leo rule. Among those promoted this week by Varadkar was Alan Farrell to the role of "Fine Gael spokesperson on Climate Action". "I look forward to playing a role in developing positive policies and initiatives that will benefit people all over Ireland," Farrell gushed in a statement on his appointment. Given his extensive knowledge of the insurance industry, it's surprising Varadkar opted not to give him a role there. The Dublin Fingal TD made a 15,000 claim for whiplash for neck and shoulder pain he claimed he suffered for up to 18 months following what a judge said were "minor injuries" sustained in a collision with a van. He was awarded 2,500 for his injuries in a case the judge branded as "unusual". Suffering from his injuries, Farrell managed to go up a ladder with an election poster at the time he claimed he suffered neck and shoulder pain, although he said it was for a staged photo. Unlike Maria Bailey, Farrell had the good sense and political nous to keep quiet and assiduously avoid questions about his case. Say nothing and get promoted: that's the Leo rule. Down to her handling of her swing fall compensation claim, Bailey ultimately got the heave-ho from the party ticket and dumped out of politics. The punishment meted out to her isn't matched by any consequences for her male colleagues. The Fine Gael hall of infamy, filled up with the actions of Dara Murphy, Maria Bailey, Alan Farrell and Michael D'Arcy, all happened on Varadkar's watch. It's time to rewrite the Leo rules. Its already hard to keepe up with the streaming services many people subscribe to. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime are the big three, with HBO Max, Showtime, Starz and more also providing new monthly content. October catalogs have added several great horror movies for Halloween on every service. There are also some great movies you can find outside those services, and they wont cost you anything. Mia Farrow in Rosemarys Baby | CBS via Getty Images Tubi, Vudu, Crackle, Peacock and YouTube offer feature-length films at no cost. You just have to watch some ads every few minutes, but they are showing some uncut horror movies in the month of October. Here are some of the best choices, and where to find them. The Blob spreads its Halloween horror on Crackle Steve McQueen got his big break in the horror classic The Blob. You can see the original 1958 tale of an expanding mass overtaking a small town on Crackle. L-R: Aneta Corseaut, Steve McQueen and Steven Chase | Paramount/Getty Images RELATED: Halloween Horror Movies Coming To Amazon Prime in October High school is scary enough without the horror of The Faculty on Vudu An all start then-teen cast starred in the 1998 horror classic The Faculty. Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Clea DuVall, Jordana Brewster, Laura Harris and Shawn Hatosy play the students who notice something is wrong with their teachers (Jon Stewart, Robert Patrick, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Christopher McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth.) L-R: Elijah Wood, Clea DuVall, Shawn Hatosy, Josh Hartnett and Laura Harris | Buena Vista/Getty Images Give The Exorcist III a chance on Crackle this Halloween Exorcist sequels get a bum wrap because its hard to live up to the original horror classic. This Halloween, the third film might deserve your attention. Author William Peter Blatty directed the adaptation of his own book which continues the story of Det. Kinderman (George C. Scott) and Father Karras (Jason Miller). Plus its free, so what do you have to lose See Halloween horror through The Eye on Tubi The 00s were when Hollywood discovered Japanese horror and remade The Ring and The Grudge in English. The Eye was another remake starring Jessica Alba as a blind woman whose eye transplant shows her scary stuff. Mind-bending horror in Frailty on YouTube Bill Paxton made his feature film directing debut and starred in this demonic horror tale. A father (Paxton) sees a vision asking him to kill demons. But are his victims really demons? The twists in this tale are real mind-benders, but it all makes sense in the end. Bill Paxton | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images RELATED: Halloween Horror Movies To Stream on Hulu October 2020 Got to Hell this Halloween in Hellraiser on Tubi Clive Barker introduced a sadomasochistic take on Hell in his story The Hellbound Heart and its movie adaptation Hellraiser. He also introduced horror icon Pinhead (Doug Bradley) who would lead the cenobites to torture victims who solved the puzzle box in every sequel. Spend Halloween with these classic Hitchcock horrors on Peacock With its acces to the Universal archives, Peacock has two Alfred Hitchcock horror classics for Halloween. The Birds was Hitchcocks horrifying tale of an avian attack on a small town. Psycho introduced the world to Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and his mother. L-R: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy | FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Images The Host is a Korean Halloween monster on Vudu Oscar-winning Parasite director Bong Joon Ho made this monster movie about a sea creature wreaking havoc on Seoul. Add this monster to your Halloween collection for free on Vudu. The horror of It Follows follows you to Peacock It Follows became a modern horror classic with its relentless pursuit of teenagers. Theyve passed it along to Peacock, which gives you a little more time before it follows you all the way in the end. The arresting horror of Maniac Cop 2 is free on Vudu Maniac Cop was compelling enough to make two sequels, and for a while there was talk of a remake. Maniac Cop 2 may actually be the best of the trilogy with its insane, fiery climax. Its a perfect introduction to the monster with a badge, for free on Vudu. The original zombie horror Night of the Living Dead is free on Vudu George Romeros original zombie classic fell into public domain due to a copyright error. You can see the one that started it all for free on Vudu. You can make Halloween your night of the living dead, but no need to wait for it. L-R: Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman and Kyra Schon | FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Images RELATED: Netflixs Halloween Lineup Will Leave You Petrified in Quarantine Phantasm philms are phree on Crackle and Vudu Phantasm introduced the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and his flying metal spheres. A remastered edition of the original is free on both Crackle and Vudu, as are Phantasm III and IV. Crackle also has Phantasm: Ravager, although youll have to pay for Phantasm II. Reggie Bannister in Phantasm III: Lord Of The Dead | Starway International Inc/Getty Images Prom Night comes early this Halloween on Crackle and Vudu When Jamie Lee Curtis was the original sream queen, she went from Halloween to Prom Night. She did not star in the sequels, but Prom Night II and IV are also free on Crackle and Vudu. Thats three proms you can attend without waiting until the end of the school year! L-R: Jamie Lee Curtis, David Mucci, Joy Thompson and Pita Oliver | AVCO/Getty Images RELATED: Horror Movies and Other Frightening Flicks Streaming on Showtime in October 2020 Christopher Walken is the angel of horror in The Prophecy on Crackle and Vudu Christopher Walken is already scary as a movie villain. He played the angel Gabriel in this modern day biblical horror film. The powers of this fallen angel will make believers out of wayward Christians, but will it be too late to save them? Christopher Walken | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Resident Evil sequels are free on Crackle Resident Evil turned a video game into a thriving zombie movie franchise. Crackle has four of the five sequels for a free Halloween zombie-thon. Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife and The Final Chapter skip the original and Retribution, but theres plenty of Milla Jovovich vs. the Umbrella Corps in those four. Deliver the horror of Rosemarys Baby on Tubi Rosemarys Baby is a classic about the title mother (Mia Farrow) impregnated with the Devils baby. At least watching Rosemarys Baby this month wont cost you anything but your wits. Sidney Blackmer and Mia Farrow | Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images The original slasher horror The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is free on Tubi The Texas Chainsaw Massacre paved the way for Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Chucky. Have a nice family dinner with Leatherface. Its free on Tubi. Marilyn Burns | LMPC via Getty Images A ticket for the Train to Busan is free on Tubi The Korean zombie movie Train to Busan just had a sequel, Peninsula, in theaters. The landmark original film, about survivors barricading themselves from zombies on a train, is now free to watch on Tubi. Universals original Dracula and Frankenstein are free on Peacock Universals monster movies were a lucrative franchise in the first half of the 20th century. It all started with Bela Lugosis Dracula and Boris Karloff as Frankensteins monster. Peacock has the original horror duo for free. Bela Lugosi and Helen Chandler | Universal Pictures/Getty Images Home invasion horror Youre Next is free on Peacock Youre Next is one of the best modern horror movies of the last 10 years. A gang of masked killers attack a familys remote home, and their sons girlfriend (Sharni Vinson) turns the tables on all the attackers. Watch it free on Peacock. The House of Representatives has adjourned its sessions for October recess, even though congressional Democrats have yet to strike a deal with White House officials for a COVID-19 relief bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a letter to her Democratic House colleagues, said that she and the administration officials remained in contrast on certain issues. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke many times this week to negotiate. The two also met in person at the Capitol on Tuesday. "Our negotiations with the Administration continue, and I am hopeful that we can reach agreement. However, we still have significant disagreement in key areas," Pelosi said. She noted that she and administration officials have opposing views on unemployment insurance benefits, schools, state and local funding, a child tax credit, testing and tracing, and appropriations. Pelosi said they are expecting a response from the White House on these areas and others with more detail. "In the meantime, we continue to work on the text to move quickly to facilitate an agreement," Pelosi said in a report. Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that the two sides are still far apart on issues including funding for state and local governments. Pelosi noted that there is also a "stark difference not just of dollars, but of values." The House passed a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 bill in Thursday evening. It is a slimmed-down version of the $3.4 trillion COVID-19 relief bill the House passed previously. The said legislation is unlikely to pass in the Senate as the Republican majority is unwilling to consider a proposal that costs more than $2 trillion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that the thought that Senate Republicans would approve of the $2.2 trillion is outlandish. Earlier this month, the Senate Republicans introduced a new COVID-19 bill with a smaller price tag. However, this GOP-backed bill does not include a second round of stimulus checks. The GOP's measures dubbed as "skinny bill" was one of the Congress's first move after its nearly month-long recess. The bill includes a provision that has liability protections for businesses and health-care facilities. It also has more money for health-care funding and schools, as well as a second round of funding for Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses. This was opposed by Democrats. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement that Senate Republicans appear determined on another bill, which does not come close to addressing the problem. The two Democratic leaders said the bill was heading nowhere. Meanwhile, Pelosi also offered her thoughts and prayers for President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. Both have tested positive for the coronavirus disease. Pelosi said this is a sad day for our country, knowing that more than seven million families have faced the same worry with COVID-19. She added that more than 209,000 have already died from the virus. Trump and the first lady tested positive for COVID-19 after White House senior aide Hope Hicks' diagnosis came out positive. The President will remain hospitalized for a few days, according to a report. Check these out: Stimulus Check Frauds Horribly Spike to Over $100 Million Losses from US Citizens Trump Jr. Warns of a Nation in Decline If Father Loses the Election Segregated Parks Contribute to COVID-19 Spread of Black and Latino Communities YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan, Turkey and terrorists backing them violate the international humanitarian law in their military operations unleashed against Artsakh, ARMENPRESS reports Foreign Minister of Artsakh Masis Mayilyan said in a press conference on October 3. Azerbaijan, Turkey and the terrorists backing them have violated the international humanitarian law, targeting the civilians, towns and villages of Artsakh, claiming lives and injuring many. The international community has called to respect the international humanitarian law, but Turkey and Azerbaijan cynically reject the calls of the international community, Mayilyan said. Turkey has deployed mercenaries from the northern parts of Syria to Azerbaijan to fight against Artsakh and Armenia. The number of mercenaries ranges between 3.000-4.000, who according to international media reports are paid 1500-2000USD monthly to fight against Armenia and Artsakh. Starting from September 27, Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, unleashed military operations against Artsakh, using its entire arsenal and targeting even civilian population both in Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia. Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a message to Donald Trump after the US presidents diagnosis with coronavirus, wishing him a quick recovery, state media said Saturday. He offered his sympathy to the president and the first lady, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. Also Read: I think Im doing very well : Trump says before boarding chopper for Walter Reed He sincerely hoped that they would be recovered as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it. He sent warm greetings to them. South Koreas Yonhap news agency said it was the first time Kim had sent well wishes to a world leader who tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Trump announced in the early hours of Friday that he had tested positive for Covid-19. Later in the day, he headed to a military hospital for further observation and treatment. Also Read: US Prez Trump to stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for Covid-19 treatment Trump and Kim held three high-profile meetings starting in June 2018, after an uptick in tensions between Washington and Pyongyang at the start of Trumps term. But nothing concrete emerged in terms of Pyongyangs denuclearization, and talks have been officially at a standstill for months. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in mid-September that talks were ongoing behind the scenes. Trump has consistently portrayed his close relationship with Kim as one of his foreign policy achievements. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin George Variyan and Agus Mutohar (The Jakarta Post) Melbourne Sat, October 3, 2020 08:09 477 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48d981c 3 Opinion #COVID-19--response,#COVID-19-task-force,COVID-19,COVID-19-children,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,Education,Education-and-Culture-Ministry,#wearmask,#keepyourdistance,#ingatpesanibu,#ingatpesanibucucitangan,#ingatpesanibupakaimasker,#jagajarakhindarikerumunan,#jagarak,#cucitangan,#cucitanganpakaisabun,#washyourhand Free As the pandemic has unfolded, we could all be forgiven for too soon assuming we had seen the worst of its effects. Around the globe, restrictions have been followed by relaxations, but then also the inevitable return of outbreaks. In Jakarta, the Indonesian capital and most populous city, Governor Anies Baswedan has reimposed large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), with various regions following suit. Educators, parents and school children watching this back-and-forth should rightly be concerned about whether their leaders are getting it right when it comes to learning and safety. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the Ministry of Education and Culture has continued to grapple with distance learning for the 68 million students whose schools remain closed across the archipelago. The ministrys distance learning approaches have varied, from online learning resource hubs to educational television programs broadcasted by the state-owned television, TVRI. More recently, the ministry has announced a new policy to support students with 35 GB and 42 GB mobile data packages to facilitate distance learning. However, despite the increased adoption of distance learning in Indonesian schools, about 60 percent of Indonesian students do not have internet access and digital technology devices. Moreover, region-to-region and local variations in economic and social conditions clearly point to diverse issues beyond digital technology devices that require the attention of policy-makers and educators alike. We should listen to the students voices. While educators might be meeting the challenges of online learning, there are still the same age-old challenges that should make us question our hopes for a return to normal. For example, the continued domination of teacher-centered approaches in Indonesian classrooms should give us a pause to consider how these practices have always privileged order and compliance above freedom and creativity. Our children, born into this age of seemingly endless crises, also know that the future will need their labor and wherewithal if solutions are to be found. Yet, we seem to be stuck doing education to our students rather than with them. In this moment of crisis, educators and communities grappling with their day-to-day challenges have risen up to meet the demands of their particular local situation. For instance, in some villages, distance learning is being conducted in the village meeting hall where a group of students meets to reach their teachers using free WiFi funded by the village. These types of partnerships between schools and relevant institutions and partnering with local public health centers are really important to ensure that distance learning activities and small-scale learning activities are conducted safely. This is the time for transformation to take place. Policymakers need to have a clear picture of these local solutions, but also the diversity of challenges within and between regions, if they are going to better target their interventions. For instance, the Education and Culture Ministry could establish regional and local task forces to understand just how local teachers are adapting to teaching and learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. These types of investments will be crucial to Indonesia navigating its way out of the precarity of this moment. Even now, economists grappling with the implications of the pandemic have argued that investing in education could future-proof the economy. However, this future-proofing is less than inspiring, considering that education has long been yoked to our more-ish global economic model, which at its core underpins an endless quest for growth that we all quietly know is leading to the catastrophic destruction of our biosphere. Yet, the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic to the fourth-largest education system in the world cannot be separated from the local context and culture. Thus, policymakers would be wise to consider the diversity of issues and factors arising from the various regional and local contexts to create multilayered solutions to teaching and learning in the COVID-19 pandemic. A one-size-fits-all approach will certainly not work. George Variyan is a lecturer of Globalization Leadership and Policy at the School of Education, Monash University. Agus Mutohar is a lecturer at the School of Islamic Education and Teacher Training of Walisongo State Islamic University Semarang and a PhD candidate at Monash University. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to continue counting for the 2020 U.S. census until the end of October rather than end it as it had planned on Monday. In a ruling late on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of California called Census Bureau messages sent out late last month announcing that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had announced Oct. 5 as the target date to end the count an "egregious violation" of an earlier order she made. Koh ordered that the bureau send a new text message to all Census Bureau employees on Friday stating that data collection operations would continue until the end of the month. She also ordered Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham to file a declaration by Monday "that unequivocally confirms ... compliance with the Injunction Order."The administration of President Donald Trump, who is bidding for re-election on Nov. 3, said in August it planned to shorten the census timeline by a month. It was sued by municipalities and civil rights groups, which argued the "rushed" schedule would lead to inaccurate census results and "a massive undercount of the country's communities of color." The census count's accuracy is critical, as the survey determines how the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures draw voting districts during the next round of redistricting and guides the federal government in allocating $1.5 trillion a year in aid. Koh issued a preliminary injunction last month barring the administration from winding down the count by Sept. 30. The Census Bureau, which is under the Commerce Department, counts all Americans every 10 years. It had suspended field collection in March because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; editing by Grant McCool) kWh WLTP NEDC ICE SUV Today, we begin production of the BMW iX3 , the first pure electric model from our core BMW brand. With a production system like this, specialized for high quality, we are able to deliver what customers worldwide demand from premium vehicles, said in a statement Franz Decker, head of BBA's Technology and Production division.In the news for quite some time, the first electric SUV from BMW is not built as an entirely new vehicle, but it is based on the X3. Sporting similar size and looks, the iX3 offers something else entirely though in the powertrain department.Were talking about a 80(gross energy content) battery that should give it a range of up to 460 km (285 miles) as measured under thetest cycle, or 520 km (323 miles) if theis your cup of tea.Power is not that far away from a regular,-powered Bimmer. Were talking about a fifth-gen eDrive electric motor that spits out 286 hp and 400 Nm of torque. That should allow for an acceleration time to 62 mph of 6.8 seconds and a limited top speed of 180 kph (112 mph).Theis the first car built by the Germans in China including for export. Aside from the local market, the model will sell in Europe as well, where the need to bring down fleet wide emission levels is huge. Word is the iX3 will not, however, make the trip all the way to the U.S.Initially, the SUV was supposed to come here, but for undisclosed reasons (that probably have to do with the range) the carmaker had a change of heart at the beginning of the year. - Abraham Mwendawa died on Monday, September 21 while undergoing treatment after a short illness - The Alliance Boys alumnus travelled to Russia in 2019 after he successfully secured a government scholarship to study engineering in Russia - His family had appealed to the government and the public to help them repatriate his body - William Ruto gave the family KSh 300,000 while Johnson Muthama gave them KSh 122,000 which he said was enough to bring back Mwendwa's remains. PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed The family of 19-year-old Abraham Mwendwa who was studying in Russia and died after a short illness will now be able to repatriate his body and give him a decent burial. This was after Deputy President William Ruto and former Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama stepped to help the family raise the needed funds to bring his body home. Andrew Mwndwa died in Russia where he was studying engineering at the St. Petersburg University. Photo: Citizen Tv. Source: UGC A tweet shared by the senator on his Twitter handle on Friday, October 2, showed he was moved after the family's plight was aired on Citizen TV and decided to help them. "Following the airing of the demise of Abraham Mwendwa in St. Petersburg Russia, I reached out to his family," tweeted the former senator. "We have had meetings to support them repatriate Abraham back home and give him a decent send off," he added. Muthama said he approached the deputy president who then gifted the family KSh 300, 000 and he topped up the amount with Kh 122, 000 totalling to KSh 422,000 " William Ruto gave KSh 300,000 and myself KSh 122,000 which has fully catered for the repatriation to bring our son back home," he added. Mwendwa was an engineering student at the St. Petersberg Electrotechnical University and died on Monday, September 21 while undergoing treatment. He was an alumnus of Alliance Boys High School and successfully landed a sponsorship to study abroad, much to the excitement of his parents; little did they know he will return in a casket. Despite being under the government scholarship program, the family claimed the embassy asked them to make arrangements on their own to repatriate his remains. The family had made an appeal to the government to help them bring back his remains so that they could accord him a decent sendoff. The Kenya Students Community in Russia also accused the embassy of neglecting them. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.ke's Patreon programme Source: TUKO.co.ke Patna: Ram Vilas Paswans Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) is poised to break its ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA in Bihar after talks over seat-sharing broke down between the two parties despite several meetings with the BJP top leaders in Delhi. As reported, LJP chief and son of Paswan, Chirag Paswan met with BJP national president J P Nadda five times in the past month only to be snubbed by the saffron party on his demand for more seats in the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls. According to a senior LJP leader, the BJP is not willing to give more than 15 seats to Paswan who is threatening to leave the coalition if his party did not meet his demand for 42 seats. A decision whether to remain in the NDA or leave could come as early as this evening when the LJP convenes its meeting of the Parliamentary Board today. It has already threatened to field its own candidates on 143 seats including one going directly against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who is once again likely to contest from his old seat of Nalanda. We may release the first list of 56 candidates if we decided to go on our own in Bihar, said a party spokesperson. As reported in the past, Nitish Kumar has already expressed that he has no desire to make a deal with the LJP since he is an ally of the BJP and not the party of Paswan. Voters in Bihar will go to polls at 243 seats in three phases starting on October 28 followed by November 3 and 7. Results will be announced on November 10. Within minutes, a couple, who asked not to be identified by name because of the stigma surrounding addiction, arrive early for their appointments. Theyve brought the staff homemade chicken enchiladas. They had been spending $8,000 a month buying OxyContin on the street, and their lives and finances were a wreck. He lost his house. She needs clean urine tests to see her son. The couple started their addiction treatment only three weeks earlier, after he learned about the RV clinic from a friend. They no longer have a car, so they walked a half-hour to get to their appointment. We wouldve done anything to get our drugs, she said. Walking 30 minutes to get better, its worth it. Even before theyve finished, another patient is at the door. Spencer Nash, 29, has been using opioids since he was 18. Nine years ago, when his wife got pregnant, the couple decided to get clean, driving two hours each way, six days a week, to a methadone clinic in Fort Collins. Now, he walks to the RV, outside the halfway house where he lives, to get his Suboxone prescription. Filling the Gaps U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 23, 2020. President Donald Trump pressured Congress to pass a coronavirus stimulus plan Saturday as his administration and congressional Democrats struggle to forge a relief deal. In a tweet sent as the president receives treatment for Covid-19 at Walter Reed Medical Center, the president wrote, "OUR GREAT USA WANTS & NEEDS STIMULUS." "WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE. Thank you!" he continued. Trump's tweet plunges him more fully into the tug-of-war over pandemic aid than he has been throughout weeks of talks between his advisors and Democratic leaders. Republicans and Democrats have failed to inject new money into the U.S. economy and health-care system for months as the GOP worries about runaway spending and Democrats push for a sweeping relief package. An unexpectedly weak September jobs report, along with tens of thousands of newly announced layoffs and furloughs this week, have added to concerns the boost from previous rounds of stimulus is fading. Sustained pressure from the president could make some Republicans, particularly in the GOP-held Senate, more comfortable embracing a stimulus deal. On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump's diagnosis "kind of changes the dynamic" of her talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin because Republicans will see "this is a vicious virus." Marital rape a crime of cruelty in India: Delhi govt to HC In UPs Ballia, 15 year old kidnapped and raped India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Ballia, Oct 03: A 15-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped in Sikandarpur Police Station area here, police said on Saturday. The girl was rescued on Friday morning from Rasra bus stand and the accused identified as 23-year-old Asif has been arrested, SHO, Sikandarpur Amarjeet Yadav said. The girl was allegedly kidnapped on Wednesday by Asif and raped, the SHO said. UP: 17-year-old rape victim tries to commit suicide by consuming poison in Baghpat On the complaint of the victim's father a case was registered, he added. Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News The girl was sent to the district hospital for medical examination, he said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 16:14 [IST] North Carolina's syndromic surveillance trend for COVID-like illness has a slight increase. North Carolina's trajectory of lab-confirmed cases is level. North Carolina's trajectory in percent of tests returning positive is level. North Carolina's trajectory of hospitalizations is level. Large outdoor venues with seating greater than 10,000 may operate with 7% occupancy for spectators. Smaller outdoor entertainment venues, like arenas or amphitheaters, may operate outdoors at 30% of outdoor capacity, or 100 guests, whichever is less. Movie theaters and conference centers may open indoor spaces to 30% of capacity, or 100 guests, whichever is less. Bars may operate outdoors at 30% of outdoor capacity, or 100 guests, whichever is less. Amusement parks may open at 30% occupancy, outdoor attractions only. The limits on mass gatherings will remain at 25 people indoors and 50 people outdoors. The 11 pm curfew on alcohol sales for in-person consumption in locations such as restaurants and outdoor bars will be extended to October 23. Contact: Ford Porter Ford Porter govpress@nc.gov North Carolina will ease cautiously some restrictions while continuing safety measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 as the state's metrics remained stable in September, Governor Roy Cooper announced today.said Governor Cooper.said Secretary Mandy K. Cohen, M.D.Dr. Cohen reviewed the state's key metrics:Trajectory in COVID-Like Illness (CLI) Surveillance Over 14 DaysTrajectory of Confirmed Cases Over 14 DaysTrajectory in Percent of Tests Returning Positive Over 14 DaysTrajectory in Hospitalizations Over 14 DaysIn addition to these metrics, the state continues building capacity to adequately respond to an increase in virus spread in testing, tracing and prevention.No-cost testing events are being deployed across the state and testing turnaround times are improving. New contact tracers are bolstering the efforts of local health departments. A new NCDHHS app, SlowCOVIDNC, is notifying users of exposure to the virus. Personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies are stable.As these metrics and capacity remain stable, the state will ease some restrictions starting Friday. Executive Order 169 begins Oct. 2 at 5 p.m. and continues for three weeks through October 23. Its new provisions include:State and public health officials will continue watching the key COVID-19 trends over the next several weeks to determine if any further restrictions can be eased when the current Executive Order expires October 23.Read Executive Order 169 Read the FAQs on Executive Order 169.Read the slides from today's briefing. The UKs humanitarian aid spending may be slashed for a second time this year, the Treasury has signalled. Aid agencies urged ministers not to cut the budget, saying this could have a damaging effect on healthcare, water, sanitation, education and food availability across the poorest countries. Rishi Sunak in July announced a 2.9bn cut to the aid budget, justifying the move by saying the UK economy had shrunk. The chancellor said the promise of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on international aid could be met with a smaller contribution. Ministers now say they are prepared to cut development spending further if the economy performs even worse than expected. Arrangements are in place to tailor our spend further during the remaining months as we start to gain a clearer economic picture, Treasury minister John Glen said in a written answer to a parliamentary question about the possibility of further cuts. Bond, the umbrella organisation for aid agencies whose members include Oxfam, ActionAid, British Red Cross, Cafod, and Christian Aid, warned that cuts to programmes would be coming at exactly the wrong time and that poverty-reduction plans should be left alone. The midst of a pandemic is not the time to be scaling back effective programmes to those most in need, said Simon Starling, policy director at Bond. The Independent revealed this week how the coronavirus crisis had left charities, including aid NGOs, fighting for their very survival because of a sharp fall in private donations, set to be compounded by further government cuts. Anti-poverty charity Oxfam is thought to be losing around 5m a month in lost income from retail and fundraising events. Labours shadow international development secretary Preet Kaur Gill, who wrote to ministers last month to ask them the basis for the 2.9bn cuts, told The Independent that the government had repeatedly refused to disclose the evidence behind cutting the aid budget by almost 20 per cent. We do not believe it is necessary or reasonable, she said, adding: We accept some savings could be made, but this must never be at the expense of tackling poverty and delivering value for money for British taxpayers. Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson said the government needed to wake up. No one will be free from this virus until we are all free. UK aid plays a major role in bringing us closer to making that a reality, as well as helping to eradicate poverty globally, she said. The UK government must commit to protecting the aid budget in real terms, and prioritise this spending on economic development and poverty eradication. Now is not the time to roll back on our support for the most vulnerable. The 0.7 per cent GNI target was created in 1970 by the UN general assembly. The UK has met the target since 2013, and it has been legally binding since 2015. The cuts imposed by the Treasury are not automatic: in 2015, the UK spent 0.71 per cent of GNI on aid without cutting programmes, but under Mr Sunak the 0.7 per cent has been treated like a ceiling, with the shrinking economy leading to cuts in aid spending. 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 Bonds Mr Starling told The Independent: We need to protect the most effective programmes that are up and running and ensure that the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) has the flexibility to adjust aid spending whilst continuing to meet the needs of those most affected by crisis now. We have asked that the government restrict any necessary cuts to programmes that are not explicitly focused on people or reducing poverty. UK aid that has been called out for being ineffective in terms of poverty alleviation includes that going to the CDC Group the UKs development finance institution the Prosperity Fund and the Newton Fund. Non-essential funding promised in advance to CDC and multilateral institutions should instead be reallocated towards programmes that are already delivering healthcare, water and sanitation, education and food. The Department for International Development and the Treasury did not respond to requests for comment. Ganna pink with delight after taking first Giro d'Italia stage Team Ineos rider Italy's Filippo Ganna, wearing the overall leader's pink jersey, celebrates on the podium after winning the first stage of the Giro d'Italia 2020 cycling race, a 15.1-kilometer individual time trial between Monreale and Palermo World champion Filippo Ganna produced a flying performance on Saturday to win the Giro d'Italia's opening day time-trial in Palermo and claim the 21-day race's first pink jersey as overall leader. The 24-year-old Ganna's Ineos team captain Geraint Thomas was fourth on the day, completing the tricky 15.1km inner-city course more than a minute faster than most of his pre-race rivals for the overall title. On his first Grand Tour former track specialist Ganna was the man to beat Saturday after winning the individual world time-trial title a week ago. Ganna completed the slightly downhill 15.1km in a furious 15min 24sec, or at an average speed of 58.831km/h, just slightly outside the Giro stage speed record set almost 20 years ago in Pescara by Rik Verbrugghe. Still wearing his rainbow time-trial winner's shirt the 193cm (6ft 4in) rider slipped on the Giro leader's pink jersey presented by the mayor of Palermo. "Both these jerseys are wonderful, but maybe this one, here today, feels better," said Ganna with a huge smile. "Today I knew was one of the hot favourites but I tried to stay calm. We did it, what a great result and what a thrill to wear the 'Maglia Rosa' on my first Giro, which is a good omen for the rest of the race." The 2018 Tour de France champion Thomas went down the ramp earlier than many key rivals and completed his race in less windy conditions. He goes into Sunday's run across the Sicilian valleys 26 seconds ahead of Simon Yates, over a minute faster than double Giro champion Vincenzo Nibali, and more than 1min 20sec ahead of Steven Kruijswijk of Jumbo-Visma and Jakob Fuglsang of Astana. A third Ineos rider Australia's Rohan Dennis was also fancied for Saturday's stage but finished 26sec adrift of Thomas, although the former time-trial specialist may be keeping his powder dry for challenges deeper into the race. Under overcast skies with wind scattering leaves across the sometimes less than perfect road surfaces Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez hit a bump and flew sideways crashing straight through metal barriers and into a shop front before being taken away in an ambulance. Story continues Lopez was at the race to support Fuglsang's Giro bid, which now appears doubly compromised even at this early stage. Sicily stepped in to host the first four days of the Giro after original hosts Budapest pulled out when the coronavirus crisis exploded in March. Sunday's 149km run from Alcamo to Agrigento will likely be less windy and finishes with 5km uphill racing that will again leave some interesting gaps between the various challengers. jm/dmc/td Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras. Amid mounting pressure on the state government due to protests across the country against its handling of the case, the CMs office tweeted the development on Saturday. Later, Adityanath said the state government is seeking an inquiry by the CBI for a probe into all aspects linked to the Hathras episode. We are determined to ensure the harshest punishment for all those responsible for this incident, he tweeted in Hindi. CM Adityanath had on Friday evening ordered the suspension of Hathras superintendent of police Vikrant Vir and three other police officers for negligence and tardy investigation in the case. He also ordered for narco-analysis polygraph tests to be conducted on everyone involved in the case. The Dalit teen died in New Delhis Safdarjang Hospital on Tuesday, a fortnight after she was brutally gang-raped and tortured by upper caste men in while she was out to get fodder on September 14. Opposition parties, including Congress, Trinamool Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and CPI, took part in protests at various locations and implored the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP CM Yogi to take action in the case. According to Priyanka Gandhi, the state government was trying to shift blame and the government must reveal the phone records of the district magistrate and SP (who were suspended) to ascertain who had been issuing instructions to them. On Friday, she tweeted, .@myogiadityanath RESIGN. You have no moral right to continue as Chief Minister of UP. Why is the Prime Minister silent and where is the Union Home Minister? What are they scared of? Why is Indias biggest state under Section 144? CPI leader Sitaram Yechury tweeted on Friday. After meeting the victims kin in Hathras on Saturday evening, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi said that the UP government should ensure the safety of the aggrieved family. I stand with the family. It is the responsibility of the state government to ensure their safety, Rahul Gandhi said. The family couldnt see their daughter for the one last time. UP CM Yogi Adityanath should understand his responsibility. Till the time justice is delivered, well continue this fight, Priyanka Gandhi said. Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo, a legal practitioner and member of the opposition NDC has called for the resignation of the Volta Regional Minister, Archibald Letsa, following separatist violence under his jurisdiction. At the minimum, the Volta Regional Minister should have gone because he failed, Mr Addo said on The Big Issue. It is on his watch that this activity happened. It is a major security failure, he insisted. Mr Addo further said the security apparatus in the Volta Region needed to be held accountable. Anyone connected with the security architecture in the Volta Region has questions to answer because, at the minimum, intelligence should have picked up the fact that something like this was going to happen. The lawyer stressed that the government needed to treat the separatist threat with more gravity. On hindsight, we are realising that these people are not playing if we are handling them with kids gloves, we need to tighten them. The Volta Regional Minister has had to fend off claims he is the patron of one of the separatist groups, the Homeland Study Group Foundation. Dr. Letsa has threatened to sue persons suggesting that he funded activities of the separatist movement. The Homeland Study Group has appeared to be the instigators of the most recent separatist violence in the region. Ghanaians woke up last week Friday to reports that the Western Togoland secessionist group had blocked some major roads leading into the Volta Region. They mounted roadblocks on the JuapongAccra and SogakopeAccra main roads. Security personnel also said they foiled a plan by the Group to burn down the Ho Central Market and other key installations. Now the security personnel say they are in firm control of the situation. The Homeland Study Group wants a part of the Volta Region to be an autonomous country known as Western Togoland. The group has made a number of attempts to push for the secession of the Volta Region from Ghana for the creation of a Western Togoland. The group even declared independence for the Western Togoland on May 9, 2019. The Western Togoland is a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). ---citinewsroom Job Title: Payroll Administrator Organization: Q-Sourcing Servtec Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda About US: Q-Sourcing Limited trading as Q-Sourcing Servtec is a manpower management solutions firm operating in the East African Region in the countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and South Sudan. On behalf of our client in the Agriculture sector, we are looking for a competent Payroll Administrator to work in Kampala. Job Summary: The Payroll Administrator is responsible for the day-to-day payroll operations, including payroll reporting, payroll system administration and payroll accounting (including, but not limited to all payroll financial month end and year end processes, payroll reconciliations, & payroll tax, Key Duties and Responsibilities: Ensures Payroll is accurately prepared and submitted in time to Finance for employee salary payments, Calculating payable hours, bonuses, taxes, and deductions. In conjunction with the Finance, ensure the continuous implementation and improvement of payroll policies, procedures and processes In conjunction with HR, process all terminations and redundancies in accordance with CBA and labour law legislation. Coordinates, supervises and assists in the preparation of payroll or payroll worksheets based upon payroll record, timesheets and/or automated timekeeping system reports for each employee; Compiles and maintains a complete payroll record for each employee including all payroll deductions such as for PAYE, social security tax, savings, union dues, terminal dues, loans, etc. Liaise with Finance to ensure accurate and timely management of end-of month and financial year-end Audits and reconciliations. Initiates or is provided with information pertaining to all appointments, salary increases, turnover etc. Answering employees questions and concerns regarding payroll Monthly reports of employee transfers, in and out employees, maintains an updated Staff Inventory File. Leave Management, Ensure up-to-date leave management system and monthly reports outstanding leave days for all employees. Handle the performance Management function of the company in liaison with the L & d specialist. Develop efficient systems for collection information on performance Gathering and analysing cross-functional performance data Presenting statistical performance analysis and recommending solutions Design and review policies related to employee performance Lead, develop and inspires teams Provide training and development to managers on best practices Identify, report, and resolve workplace or interpersonal barriers to performance Fully support the HR team in ensuring the department functions at the highest level at all times. Participate in project work as required. Qualifications, Skills and Experience: The ideal candidate must hold a Bachelors degree in Human resources or Bachelors in Business Administration majoring in HR or related field A minimum of four (4) years hands-on experience in payroll processing required Demonstrated skills in end to end payroll functions Excellent computer skills. (Ms. Excel) Proficiency in HRIS such as Paymaster. Good understanding of related payroll legislations, remuneration benefits, taxation issues and organizations Excellent communication and interpersonal skills and a high level of service orientation Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines High integrity and ethical standards Good planning and organizational skills like ability to make priorities Accuracy and attention to detail Problem-solving and analytical ability Work Environment/Condition: The position is Office based with frequent movements to the field, Flexibility working hours & days to meet all deadlines. Ability to work on simultaneous projects. How to Apply: All candidates who meet the criteria outlined as above are encouraged apply online under the job vacancy QSSU-RV-002-PA-Payroll Administrator Click Here to Apply Note: Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. Q-Sourcing Servtec is an equal opportunity employer. Any solicitation will lead to disqualification Deadline: 7th October 2020 For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline After a 95-loss season in 2019, the Blue Jays rebuild began to bear fruit in 2020 as the team went 32-28 and earned a wild card playoff berth. This result has left the Jays eager for more, and general manager Ross Atkins told reporters (including MLB.coms Keegan Matheson and Sportsnet.cas Shi Davidi) that despite all the financial uncertainty caused by the pandemic, the quickest way to recovery is winning. The quickest way to getting our business back to a very good financial spot is winning and our ownership knows that. The Blue Jays have their own unique set of revenue issues to deal with heading into 2021, such as not yet knowing if theyll be permitted to play in Toronto next season. In terms of pure player payroll, however, the Jays are in better shape than most teams. The Blue Jays have less than $54MM on the books for next season since so many of Torontos key players have yet to reach salary arbitration, or (like Teoscar Hernandez) are only just entering the arb process for the first time. This flexibility allows the Jays to pursue upgrades in several different ways, and Atkins didnt rule out the possibility of another big-splash acquisition like the Hyun Jin Ryu signing last offseason. I think we are in a position where we could add to this team with talent that is condensed in one player and a super high impact.Were going to continue to think about how we can build upon this group, and hopefully its both complementary as well as making as making a really high impact, Atkins said. Speaking of the broader offseason landscape, Atkins noted that the COVID-19 pandemic hit the finances of different clubs in different ways, creating an extremely uncertain outlook as we eventually approach free agency. Some believe this could open up the trade market, with teams more willing to use prospects over cash to acquire talent entering 2021. Its safe to assume the Blue Jays will look into both trades and free agent signings, though Atkins comment could be interpreted in two different ways the Jays could be one of those teams that prefer trades to signings, or they could use their payroll space to be more aggressive in free agency if other clubs are holding back. Looking at the 2020-21 free agent class, such names as J.T. Realmuto, Trevor Bauer, George Springer, and DJ LeMahieu stand out at the top of the market, if Toronto planned to look into the very upper tier of available players. Since Ryu and Nate Pearson seem like the only locks for next years Jays rotation, pitching is an obvious need, so the Blue Jays could be more apt to explore signing Bauer or a known AL East commodity in Masahiro Tanaka. Re-signing Taijuan Walker wouldnt be as expensive as those other names, though Walker is sure to attract a lot of attention given how well he pitched in 2020, particularly after joining the Blue Jays at the trade deadline. In regards to position players, Atkins said the front office will stay open-minded about possible additions. Davidi speculates that shortstop could be a target position, as the Jays have had interest in free agents Andrelton Simmons and Didi Gregorius in the past, and the club could also revisit trade talks with the Indians over Francisco Lindor. Bo Bichette would move off shortstop in this scenario, with Bichette and Cavan Biggio likely handling second and third base in some combination. A probe into the alleged fake encounter was launched by the Army after the families claimed that the deceased were their missing members Srinagar: Bodies of three men from Rajouri, killed in an alleged fake encounter by Army in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir in July this year, have been exhumed and handed over to their families, officials said on Saturday. The exhumation was done late on Friday night at an unidentified location in north Kashmir hours after Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh said the legal process to exhume and handover the bodies was on and would be completed soon. Officials said the families of the three men were called from Rajouri district in Jammu region and taken to the spot where the trio was buried. The families will take the bodies to their native village to bury them, they added. The DGP had on Friday said that the legal process to exhume the bodies had been started and will be completed soon. On 30 September, inspector general of police (IGP), Kashmir, Vijay Kumar said since the DNA samples matched with the family, the three bodies will be exhumed and handed over to families after due process of law. On 18 July, the Army had claimed three militants were killed in Amshipura village in the higher reaches of south Kashmir's Shopian district. However, the Army initiated an inquiry after social media reports indicated the three men were from Rajouri district and had gone missing at Amshipura. The families of the trio from Rajouri who worked as labourers in Shopian had also filed a police complaint. The Army completed the probe in record four weeks and on 18 September, the force said it has found "prima facie" evidence that its troops "exceeded" powers under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act during the encounter and initiated disciplinary proceedings. The police also launched its investigations and collected the DNA samples of the families to match with the slain persons. By PTI NEW DELHI: Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to end the "crisis of justice" for women and children, saying what is happening to "our daughters" across India is a matter of "national shame". Reacting to the Hathras incident and other cases of sexual assaults on women in the country, Satyarthi said he implores the prime minister to lead the "war on rape". "What is happening to our daughters across India is a matter of national shame. It is my humble appeal to our Hon'ble Prime Minister - the nation looks to you - to end this crisis of justice for our women and children. I implore you to lead the war on rape. Our daughters need you, and we are all with you," he told PTI. Calling for a people's movement to break "this mindset" of violence, Satyarthi said "we need both compassionate political will and people's action" to bring an end to the culture of rape." "We are lacking in a basic sense of humanity and compassion. We have failed to protect our daughters and hold our sons accountable for their actions. Our daughters can no longer continue to pay the price of our failure to bring up our sons right. It will take a people's movement to break this mindset of violence," he said. "In 2017, we led the Bharat Yatra across over 11,000 kms and 24 States and UTs where lakhs marched to demand a Rape-Free India. Since then we have seen the government take strong steps with stringent punishment being introduced. The Supreme Court passed directions for setting up of exclusive fast-track courts. But to bring an end to this culture of rape, we need both compassionate political will and people's action," the Nobel laureate said. The recent case of violence and alleged sexual assault of a Dalit woman in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh has led to nationwide protests and agitations. The 19-year-old woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14 and referred on Monday to a Delhi hospital in an extremely critical condition with spinal injuries, paralysis and cuts in her tongue. She breathed her last on Tuesday at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital. Her body was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging that the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. McMaster University is leading a new nationwide study on the impact of COVID-19 on aging Canadians as concerns over a second-wave of the virus continue to grow. On Thursday, the study received $4 million from the federal government to look at COVID-19 infections in Canadians over the age of 50. Older adults are widely considered to be at the highest risk for the most severe outcomes of the virus. The point of our study is to understand how many people in this age group were actually truly infected, said Dr. Parminder Raina, the scientific director of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging, who is leading the study. The research which is being funded by a federal task force for researching COVID-19 will collect blood samples and questionnaires from more than 19,000 participants through the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), a long-term federally-funded study led by McMaster with more than more than 50,000 participants. Dr. Raina, who is also leading the CLSA, said the new study will help paint a more accurate picture of the number of older Canadians infected because it will include individuals who didnt show symptoms. He noted the research team will look for antibodies in blood samples to determine the total number of people infected. The study will also include questionnaires to determine the actual experience of the virus in participants whether they showed symptoms or ever tested positive. Together with existing data from the CLSA, Dr. Raina said the study will help determine what factors led some individuals to get more sick than others. He added that the study will help inform future measures to reduce the spread of the virus and contribute to research on whether being exposed to the virus once can prevent individuals from becoming infected in the future. We dont know when the vaccine will come. Until then, we have to understand how do we design and implement public health measures going forward, said Dr. Raina. He expects the research team, which includes Dr. Susan Kirkland from Dalhousie University and Dr. Christina Wolfson from McGill University, to begin collecting data later this fall. In a bizarre statement, a BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh on Saturday said that incidents like the alleged gang-rape and murder of a 20-year-old Dalit in Hathras can be stopped if parents inculcate good values in their daughters. Emphasising on instilling values in women, BJP MLA from Ballia, Surendra Singh said neither governance nor use of weapons can prevent such crimes. Incidents like these can be stopped with help of good values, na shashan se, na talwar se. All parents should teach their daughters good values. Its only the combination of government and good values that can make country beautiful," news agency ANI quoted him as saying. #WATCH Incidents like these can be stopped with help of good values, na shashan se na talwar se. All parents should teach their daughters good values. It's only the combination of govt & good values that can make country beautiful: Surendra Singh, BJP MLA from Ballia. #Hathras pic.twitter.com/47AmnGByA3 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) October 3, 2020 Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the case. The announcement came as Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi arrived in Hathras on Saturday evening to meet the family members of the victim whose rape, murder and forcible cremation has triggered widespread protests across India. SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hagens Berman urges Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: KODK) investors with losses in excess of $500,000 to submit your losses now. The lead plaintiff deadline in a securities fraud class action that has been filed against the company and senior executives is fast approaching. Class Period: July 27, 2020 - Aug. 11, 2020 Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Oct. 13, 2020 Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/KODK Contact An Attorney Now: KODK@hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895 Eastman Kodak Company (KODK) Securities Class Action: The complaint alleges Defendants perpetrated a scheme to profit by misleading investors about a purported deal Kodak reached with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). Specifically, on July 27, 2020, Kodak issued a statement to media outlets about the imminent public announcement of a new manufacturing initiative involving the DFC and the response to COVID-19. Following publication, the Company claimed this information was released inadvertently. That same day, Kodak granted several insiders options to purchase approximately 1.885 million shares of Kodak, including Executive Chairman and CEO Jim Continenza and CFO David E. Bullwinkle. On July 28, 2020, the price of Kodaks shares jumped 200% following news the Company secured a $765 million government loan from the DFC to produce pharmaceutical materials. Shares continued to surge by over 300% the next day. This massive stock price increase allowed Kodak insiders to profit. Thereafter, media outlets uncovered Defendants compensation scheme. As a result of these revelations, Congress, the Office of Inspector General, and the SEC are reportedly investigating, the DFC paused the deal, and Kodaks share price has declined sharply thereby damaging Class Period investors. Recently, Kodaks Board released a report authored by Kodaks attorneys Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP purportedly absolving the Companys leadership of securities laws violations. But on Sept. 18, 2020, Congressional Reps. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. reiterated that Congress will continue to vigorously pursue their own ongoing investigation of the DFC loan, stating, Lets be clear: this report does not represent the findings of any regulator; it is a report generated by a law firm hired by Kodak. In fact, the lawmakers stated that the Akin Gump report raises more questions than it answers, including why the Trump administration would give a loan to the onetime photography giant to set up a pharmaceutical manufacturing arm despite no prior experience in that industry and related windfalls by insiders stemming from stock trades executed before the loan was made public. Were focused on investors losses and holding Kodak and its insiders accountable for their fraudulent compensation scheme, said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the investigation. If you are a Kodak investor who lost over $500,000 on Class Period investments, click here to discuss your legal rights with Hagens Berman. Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Kodak should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email KODK@hbsslaw.com. Foreign secretary Harsh Shringla and Indian Army chief Gen MM Naravane are set to visit Myanmar on Monday, the first time an Indian delegation to the neighbouring country has included both officials, for discussions to take forward ties in areas ranging from security to connectivity. This will be the foreign secretarys second foreign visit, after a trip to Bangladesh in August, since the Covid-19 outbreak and the army chiefs first such visit amid the restrictions related to the pandemic, people familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity. The visit comes against the backdrop of Indias five-month border standoff with China. New Delhi has been working steadily to boost ties with all countries in the neighbourhood barring Pakistan, and has announced a slew of initiatives ranging from currency swaps, budgetary support and connectivity projects to help other states in the region to overcome the economic impact of Covid-19. The visit will also come four days after the India-Myanmar foreign office consultations, which were conducted virtually by Shringla and permanent secretary U Soe Han on Thursday. During that meeting, Shringla announced that the two sides are working to operationalise Sittwe port by the first quarter of 2021 while the tendering process for 69 bridges for the trilateral highway, also involving Thailand, will begin soon. Indias assistance to Myanmar currently stands at $1.4 billion, and New Delhi will provide debt service relief under the G20 debt service suspension initiative to Myanmar from May to December to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges caused by the Covid pandemic, we are working towards operationalising the Sittwe port by the first quarter of next year. With respect to the 69 bridges on the trilateral highway, I am happy to inform you that we will soon be moving forward with the tendering process, Shringla said. Sittwe port is part of the Kaladan multi-modal transit transport project, which is crucial to Indias plans for the landlocked northeastern states to access the Bay of Bengal through Mizoram and to provide alternative connectivity to Kolkata without having to use the circuitous Siliguri corridor. The India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway has been held up due to problems associated with the stretch in Myanmar and the construction of the bridges is expected to speed up work on the project. Security cooperation between India and Myanmar also figured in Thursdays meeting, with Shringla describing it as robust. Both sides are sensitive to each others security concerns, he added. Myanmars handing over of 22 Indian insurgents was deeply appreciated by India as it sent a strong message of deterrence to inimical elements on both sides, he added. Shringla requested Myanmar for the early conclusion of an extradition treaty, a mutual legal assistance treaty on civil and commercial matters, and an agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons. Also Read: Army chief, foreign secretary to seal shipping agreement and security ties with Myanmar As part of defence cooperation, an Indian team for deployment of meteorological squadrons will travel to Myanmar this month, and India will receive Myanmars representative at its maritime Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean. The situation in Rakhine state also figured in the meeting. India recently entered into trilateral cooperation with Japan in Rakhine, under which it will create infrastructure for 15 schools. Our efforts towards ensuring an early, safe and sustainable repatriation of internally displaced persons to Myanmar will continue, Shringla said. This issue assumes importance as Bangladesh had raised the issue of one million Rohingya refugees it is hosting during the virtual meeting of the Joint Consultative Commission (JCC), which was co-chaired by external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Bangladeshi counterpart AK Abdul Momen on September 29. Momen had expressed the hope that India, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council during 2021-22, will play a more meaningful role for a lasting solution to the Rohingya crisis, including their early repatriation to Myanmar in a safe and sustainable manner, according to a statement from Bangladeshs foreign ministry. PARISItalian firefighters rescued 25 people trapped on the French side of a high mountain pass by severe flooding that killed two people in Italy, while 15 were stuck in a train station for the night and eight more remained missing Saturday in France. A storm that moved overnight across southeastern France into northwestern Italy caused major flooding on both sides of the border, destroying bridges, blocking roads and isolating communities. In Italy, a firefighter was killed during a rescue operation in the mountainous northern region of Val dAosta. A search team found a body in the Piedmont regions Vercelli province, where a man had been swept away by floodwaters late Friday. The Italian firefighters used a helicopter to ferry 17 people to safety from the French town of Vievola, including a woman with two grandchildren. A bulldozer fetched another eight people who managed to climb the Col de Tende, a high mountain pass linking France and Italy, to a tunnel. Fifteen more people were taking shelter in the Vievola train station after the operation to rescue them was put off until daylight. The spokesman for Italys firefighters, Luca Cari, said a search was ongoing for a missing shepherd who was pulled into floodwaters on Col de Tende. His brother managed to grab onto a tree and was saved, while authorities were searching on the French side for the shepherd. The situation at the tunnel on the high mountain pass was complicated by the fact that French emergency responders cannot access their side due to flood damage, Cari said. Unrelenting rainfall overnight hit levels not seen since 1958 in northern Italys Piedmont region, where as much as 630 millimetres of rain fell in a 24-hour period, according to the Italian civil protection agency. Hundreds of rescue operations were carried out. Eleven campers were saved in Vercelli province, where floodwaters hit 20-year highs. And Alpine rescue squads have evacuated by foot seven people who were in houses cut off by flooding at Terme di Valdieri; some had to be carried on stretchers due to the muddy conditions and accumulation of detritus. On the other side of the border, in southeastern France, almost a years average rainfall fell in less than 12 hours in the mountainous area surrounding the city of Nice. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said over 100 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in the area. French Prime Minister Jean Castex, who flew over the area in an helicopter, confirmed that at least eight people were missing in France, including two firefighters whose vehicle was carried away by water when a road collapsed. I cannot hide our grave concern on the definitive toll, Castex said. Many worried families had not heard from their relatives due to cellphone services being cut off in the area. As I speak, priority goes to searching for victims, providing supplies and accommodation for the people affected, and restoring communications, the prime minister said. Rescue efforts included 871 personnel working on the ground, as well as military helicopters and troops helping with emergency assistance, Castex said. French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday expressed gratitude toward rescuers on Twitter. Together we will get through this, he said. Frances national weather agency, Meteo France, said that up to 500 millimetres of rain were recorded in some areas, the equivalent of almost one year of average rainfall. Meteo France issued a danger alert on Friday and all schools in the region had been closed. Local authorities urged people to stay at home. In central Switzerland, flooding along the Reuss River caused the closure of a stretch of the A2 highway a major trans-Alpine route. Further east, 13 residents were evacuated from their homes in the town of Diesbach because of flooding. ____ Barry reported from Milan, Italy. Geir Moulson in Berlin, Germany, contributed to the story. Read more about: The presidents mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic is akin to criminal negligence. And hes getting away with this vast crime simply because no one is holding him accountable. by Sonali Kolhatkar President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania have both tested positive for the coronavirus in what is perhaps the most shocking October surprise in the history of presidential races. If he recovers with only mild symptoms, he will undoubtedly make the case that he was right all along in downplaying the virus. If he suffers, he will gain sympathy from the public at large. Even in contracting the virus himself, he is likely to use it for his political gain. But none of this should obscure the fact that Trumps negligence on the coronavirus ought to be the greatest stain on his presidencyand thats saying a lot considering the lengthy list of his cruel deeds, lies, and many potential conflicts of interest and crimes. If the House of Representatives felt a year ago that Trumps attempt to use his office for political gain by manipulating Ukraines president was worthy of impeachment, then surely abrogating his responsibility to protect people from a predictable and deadly disease is far worse. The evidence of his wrongdoing is all out in the open, and the impact of it is far greater as measured in human lives than anything he has done since 2017. Not impeaching him on this issue in essence lets him off the hook for transgressions too vast to be ignored. Voting him out of office is a good short-term mechanism to stop the crime. But it is neither guaranteed to work nor is it a means by which to hold him accountable for the mass deaths he has overseen. According to Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, a president may be impeached for, those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. If the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate can rush through a Supreme Court justices nomination in record speed, surely the Democrat-controlled House can impeach Trump over his deadly misconduct on the coronavirus pandemic now through the November 3 election and beyond. Just for starters, Trump lied to the American people about the coronavirus. As commander in chief, he would have known that a pandemic was a serious possibility because the U.S. military knew, and officials briefed him specifically about COVID-19 twice in January. A month later, Trump admitted in a taped conversation with journalist Bob Woodward that he was aware of how contagious and deadly it was while at the same time telling the public, Its going to disappear. One day, its like a miracle, it will disappear. He downplayed the disease dozens of times and continues to do so. That is all the evidence investigators need to establish that Trump deliberately lied to the American public about a deadly threat to the nation and he is therefore himself a threat to the people. Trump didnt just fail to protect the American peoplehe has not even tried. Throughout his presidency, he has used scare tactics to warn against imaginary invasions of immigrants, anarchists, criminals, rapists and more. His government has countered these claims with specific policies such as harsh anti-immigrant policies separating children from parents, a violent federal crackdown on cities like Portland, Oregon, and more. But when it came to a slow-moving, deadly and very real threat such as the coronavirus, he did not take serious action beyond self-aggrandizing press briefings. Even those were stopped when reporters rightly questioned him about his lack of action. There has been no plan now for many months to prevent infections and save lives. Plenty of other nations managed to come up with ways to tackle the disease and succeeded to varying degrees. Trump undermined the single cheapest, easiest, and most effective tool against the disease: masks. He deliberately muddied the water on mask-wearing as protection from the disease, repeatedly claiming that it might not help while alternately saying he didnt have a problem with wearing one. But researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, whose model the White House Coronavirus Task Force has relied on, made clear that tens of thousands of lives could be saved by December 2020 if most people began wearing masks as late as August of this year. The U.S. Postal Service in April was readying a plan to mail 650 million cotton face masks to Americans, but the White House intervened to stop it. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strongly emphasized mask-wearing as powerful protection during a congressional hearing, only to have Trump undermine him in public a day later. The whims of a single madman at the helm of the nation weakened the best protection for the public from the coronavirus ahead of a safe and effective vaccine being made available. Trump had ensured that he personally remained safe (until now) but allowed the public to face risk. Aside from mask-wearing, a policy of aggressive testing and contact tracing would have been an effective tool to reduce the number of infections. But in the presidents mind, exposing the extent of the disease in order to control it is a bad idea. Trump repeatedly claimed that testing was part of the problem of the disease, not the solution, because it made him look bad. He said the quiet part out loud when he told his supporters that he has asked his government to slow the testing down, please. In other words, he has wanted to cover up the true spread of the virus. Interestingly, the White House has an aggressive protocol in place to try to ensure Trump didnt get infected, using an effective rapid-testing and contact-tracing method that is a microcosm of what the entire nation needs (minus Trumps personal undermining of his own protocol). Yet Trumps White House opposed government spending on testing and tracing for the American public. When asked why he held dangerous indoor rallies where mask-wearing was not enforced, Trump made clear that his own health was protected, as that was all that matters. Indeed, to him it was. The news that he recently tested positive for the virus despite the White House protocols shows he cant lie his way out of the dangers of the spread and dangers of COVID-19. Instead of deploying a systematic approach to the virus based on masks, testing and tracing, Trump has instead placed bets on the ephemeral promise of a vaccine that he is convinced will be unveiled within weeks, contrary to predictions by his own government officials. Trump has poured billions of tax dollars into the coffers of private pharmaceutical companies with abandon and attempted to interfere in the vaccine approval process by the Food and Drug Administration. It is no surprise that there is deep public skepticism of vaccine safety and efficacy. While Trump has no plan to curb the disease, he does have a plan to make himself look good ahead of the November 3 election. The CDC, whose credibility Trump has destroyed through political appointments, was supposed to be our best defense against a deadly disease like COVID-19. But according to an explosive report in Politico, the Department of Health and Human Services has drawn money meant for the CDC in order to launch a $300 million public relations campaign to positively spin the governments response to the virus. A top spokesperson for the HHS, Michael Caputo, who stepped down recently, conceived the plan, saying the ad campaign was demanded of me by the president of the United States. Personally. One former Obama-era HHS official was shocked, saying, CDC hasnt yet done an awareness campaign about COVID guidelinesbut they are going to pay for a campaign about how to get rid of our despair? Run by political appointees in the press shop? Right before an election? During the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the president repeatedly claimed that 200,000 Americans dying of COVID-19 was a blessing and claimed fantastically that under a Biden presidency, 2 million would have died. His only defense for why the United States has about 20 percent of global deaths with less than 5 percent of the population was to claim without evidence that China and Indias death tolls are undercounts. Not only is the current death rate in the U.S. higher than in most nations around the world, but fatalities from the coronavirus also exceed even the worst-case projections made by the IHME model that the White House frequently uses. And, as Biden rightly said during the debate, The president has no plan. He hasnt laid out anything. He knew all the way back in February how serious this crisis was. He knew it was a deadly disease. Laying out Trumps criminal negligence of the pandemic is an easy exercise. He has numbed the American people so much to his bluster, rapid-fire lies, gaslighting, unethical deeds and corruption, that we are giving him a pass on the mass deaths he has helped to cause by simply relying on an election to oust him. Just because we are fatigued by his endless criminality does not mean that the ever-increasing death toll from the disease ought to be swept under the rug. The staggering crime is not even overit continues through to today and racks up more victims daily. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. WEST HARTFORD - Back in 1998 when Matt Warshauer moved into his house on Main Street, he decorated for Halloween in typical fashion with pumpkins, spiders and witches on trees. But reality became scarier than fiction for him in 2003 with the Iraq War. Warshauer said that was the first year he introduced political themes to his Halloween displays, enlisting the help of his daughters. President Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19. Heres the latest that we know about the virus, its spread and treatment. What are the risk factors associated with getting sick with Covid-19? Not everyone who contracts the coronavirus gets ill with its common symptoms, and the severity of how Covid-19 presents in people varies widely. The risk for a severe case of Covid-19 increases with age, as well as if a person has other medical conditions like cancer, diabetes or obesity, studies show. The greatest risk is for people ages 85 years and older. President Trump is 74 years old and narrowly meets the criteria for being obese. An estimated 42.4% of U.S. adults qualified as obese, according the most recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most people who get infected dont develop serious disease, though doctors are studying emerging evidence on potential long-term health effects of Covid-19. Treatment of Covid-19 has improved as doctors and hospitals gain experience and drugs prove to work. An estimated 5.4% of people over the age of 70 who are infected die as a result of Covid-19, according to the CDC, compared with 0.5% for people ages 50 through 69, and 0.02% for people aged 20 to 49. Data also suggest that men are at higher risk of dying from Covid-19 than women. View Full Image How droplets move. What are the symptoms of Covid-19? The most common symptoms include fever, dry cough and fatigue. White House officials said Mr. Trump is showing mild symptoms, including fatigue, but remains on the job. Some people experience aches and pains, sore throat, diarrhea, conjunctivitis, headache, loss of taste or smell, a skin rash or discoloration of their fingers or toes. Others experience no symptoms at all. The most serious symptoms include difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, and loss of speech or movement, according to the World Health Organization. Recent evidence suggests some Covid-19 patients show signs of heart damage, kidney damage or neurological issues, though not everyone shows symptoms related to those problems. What treatments are available for Covid-19? When might hospital care be required? Most people who develop mild to moderate symptoms and who arent hospitalized recover on their own, with doctors recommending fever-reducing medications, rest and fluids. Many doctors advise patients to regularly check their temperature and oxygen levels. Health experts say treatment recommendations depend on the severity of a persons infection. Most therapies authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to treat Covid-19 are for hospitalized patients. People who have access to superior medical care and who are diagnosed early, like President Trump, tend to have a better prognosis. The presidents physician, Dr. Conley, said the White House medical team would maintain a vigilant watch," and on Friday said Mr. Trump received one, 8-gram dose of an experimental treatment developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. The cocktail of monoclonal antibodies, which mimic the natural antibodies the immune system makes to fight off viruses, showed promising early results in a clinical trial It was found to reduce virus levels and improve symptoms in people in the early stage of illness with Covid-19. The treatment hasnt yet been cleared by regulators. Mr. Trump also took zinc, vitamin D, famotidinean antacid medicationmelatonin and a daily aspirin, the White House said. Doctors say the vitamins and minerals are relatively safe, and some might give the immune system a boost, but there is no definitive evidence that they provide benefit to prevent or treat Covid-19. Blood thinners, such as aspirin, could help reduce the risk of blood clots in Covid-19 patients. View Full Image Confirmed covid-19 cases How does the coronavirus spread and what can be done to prevent transmission? The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the virus is thought to spread between people in close contact, or within about 6 feet of each other, through respiratory droplets. Many scientists also say the virus can be transmitted through smaller respiratory particles, called aerosols, that can be inhaled as they linger in the air and travel greater distances. The CDC said last month that it is working to post new recommendations regarding aerosol transmission. Transmission is possible through surfaces, but this isnt thought to be the main way the virus spreads. Wearing a multilayered, well-fitting mask when in public and around people who arent members of your household remains the best way to prevent infection, infectious-disease experts say. They also caution that the virus can be spread by people who are asymptomatic. Social distancing and avoiding crowds, especially in indoor environments, are key. Sean Murray, president of the Covid-19 workplace testing program at lab-services company Eurofins, said testing alone isnt enough, and other measures including mask-wearing are essential: Its very easy to think you deflected the bullet when theres another buck shot coming right for you." View Full Image Percentage of Covid-19 cases How do you test for Covid-19? The gold-standard diagnostic test for the coronavirus, commonly called a PCR test, is processed in a lab. Thats also currently the most widely-available test in the U.S., though types and supplies fluctuate state to state (see this WSJ guide on Covid-19 testing). Rapid tests done outside of a laboratory, such as antigen tests, are often less sensitive and result in more false negatives than lab-based PCR tests, but they also are cheaper and offer faster results. The White House uses one of the rapid tests available on the market. Administration officials didnt immediately respond to questions about which test was used to diagnose Mr. and Mrs. Trump, and later said in a statement Mr. Trump tested positive on a confirmatory PCR test. Health authorities sometimes recommend a follow-up test after a persons initial results, depending on the circumstances. The administration has said previously that people who come in contact with Mr. Trump are tested daily. A person who tests negative one day can test positive the next, since it can take time for the virus to incubate and become detectable. Whether a test detects Covid-19 can depend on whether the virus was present at the site from which a sample was collected, as well as the quality of the sample collected. If you think of testing as a safety net, the safety net is going to have holes," said William Morice, president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories. A rigid testing regime doesnt completely make someone safe. What it does is it helps you detect an outbreak early." Is it possible to pinpoint when or where someone might have contracted the virus? It can be difficult to trace where someone may have contracted the coronavirus, especially if it is circulating widely in the community. The White House hasnt given details about where or how Mr. Trump contracted the virus. People typically dont test positive until several days after their initial exposure. It is possible that the president could have been infected for five or six days before he tested positive and could have been infectious for a few of those days, Dr. Morice said. But when he became infected remains unclear. We dont know when the clock started," he said. Its possible the president contracted the virus from or spread it to people he was recently in close contact with at the White House or on the campaign trail. Infectious disease researchers and the CDC have said presymptomatic people and people without symptoms can transmit the virus. Transmission is a higher risk in indoor settings where people dont wear masks or remain 6 feet apart. People with mild or moderate cases of Covid-19 are typically infectious for 10 days or less, according to the CDC, while those with more severe cases might be able to pass on the virus longer. Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, among others, tested negative for the virus on Friday. Because the incubation period for the virus ranges from two days to two weeks, infectious-disease experts recommend that anyone who has been exposed to a positive case, even those with a negative test result, quarantine for 14 days. It often takes several days after an exposure for an infected person to test positive. Caitlin McCabe contributed to this article. Write to Brianna Abbott at brianna.abbott@wsj.com and Sarah Krouse at sarah.krouse@wsj.com Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics New South Wales has reported just one new coronavirus case on Saturday, a returned traveller in hotel quarantine. This marks the state's eighth day of zero new cases acquired within the community. The promising figures are bolstering hopes Queensland will open its border to New South Wales within weeks. New South Wales (coronavirus testing pictured) recorded just one coronavirus case in hotel quarantine on Saturday. It marks the state's eighth day of no community transmission Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she would relax her border restrictions next month if NSW continued to record zero 'unlinked' cases of community transmission At least 10,334 coronavirus tests were performed in the last 24 hours. NSW Health are currently treating 51 people for COVID-19 with two in intensive care. The state has recorded a total of 4,043 coronavirus cases and 55 deaths. Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has promised to reopen the border as long as NSW goes 28 days without any 'unlinked' cases of community transmission of COVID-19. The planned border reopening would take place on November 1. Thousands of holidaymakers would be allowed to freely travel into the state ahead of Christmas in a massive boost to the local tourism industry. But if there is just one 'unlinked' community transmission case recorded in NSW the border reopening could be pushed back. The NSW border with Queensland (pictured) is set to open on November 1 if the state records 28 days without any 'unlinked' community transmission New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian (pictured above) has openly criticised the 28-day policy as a 'pretty tall order' New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was disappointed when she learned the border policy was based on community transmission. 'After having a second of excitement, because somebody had told me at the press conference that the border was coming down on the first of November... 'It was then brought to my attention that it's pretty much just a reiteration of the 28-day-free period of community transmission. Their definition hasnt changed,' Ms Berejiklian said on Friday. Ms Berejiklian has openly criticised the 28-day policy as a 'pretty tall order'. Communication between Ms Berejiklian and Ms Palaszczuk has deteriorated as the two premiers war over the closure of the state border. Ms Berejiklian has constantly insisted Queensland lift its border closure while Ms Palaszczuk has remained firm on her policy to keep it shut. In September, Ms Berejiklian said the pair had completely lost communication with each other and only spoke about the border issue at National Cabinet. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, October 3, 2020 15:41 476 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48e999f 1 National satgascovid19,satgas-covid-19,#covid19taskforce,#COVID-19-task-force,#mothermessage,#wearmask,#keepyourdistance,#washyourhand,#usesoap,#socialdistance,#avoidcrowd,#ingatpesanibu,#ingatpesanibucucitangan,#ingatpesanibupakaimasker,#pakaimasker,#jagajarakhindarikerumunan,#jagarak,#cucitangan,#cucitanganpakaisabun Free The price ceiling for individually requested COVID-19 swab tests will be evaluated periodically, a Health Ministry official has stated. The government has set the price ceiling for individually requested COVID-19 swab tests at Rp 900,000 (US$60.6) to eliminate price disparities following concerns over the high costs of tests at private laboratories. Prior to the policy, the national COVID-19 task force said several hospitals had charged more than Rp 2.5 million for swab tests. The price ceiling will be formally announced through a Health Minister circular expected to be issued soon. The price ceiling was determined after a discussion with the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) on analysis and surveys of healthcare facilities. According to the Health Ministrys acting health service director general, Abdul Kadir, the periodical evaluation would be based on the prices of the components of the test. We will take into consideration price changes for, among other things, services and human resources, Abdul said. He elaborated that the tests required the work of clinical microbiologists and pathologists, extraction officials and medical laboratory technology experts. The tests also require the use of single-use equipment, including level III personal protective equipment. In addition, we will also take into account the price of extraction and polymerase chain reaction [PCR] reagents, said Abdul. He expressed hope the ceiling price would not impact the speed with which the test results were delivered. We hope the tests will be carried out and the results delivered as fast as possible despite the ceiling price, said Abdul. To ensure the implementation of the price cap, the ministry has asked regional health agencies to monitor local health facilities in their respective areas. Iwan Taufiq Purwanto, one of the BPKPs deputy heads for government agency supervision, said the comptroller would also supervise the implementation of the price ceiling. With COVID-19 rapid tests still being widely used in the country, including as a requirement for travel, the ministry has also set the price cap for the tests at Rp 150,000 in July. According to Worldometer.info, Indonesia has conducted more than 3.6 million COVID-19 swab tests as of Oct. 2. The country has recorded 295,449 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 10,972 fatalities as of Friday. Lawmaker from House Commission IX overseeing health care M Nabil Haroen said the Rp 900,000 price cap was reasonable. Thats pretty moderate, he said during an online discussion held by MNC Trijaya radio network on Saturday. (iwa) She sparked a bit of controversy earlier in the week after slamming Kylie Jenner. But Bethenny Frankel seemed to be in great spirits while stepping out for dinner in the Hamptons on Friday night. The 49-year-old reality star rocked a pair of camouflaged slacks with a furry moto jacket while heading into Tutto Di Giorno's. Out and about: Bethenny Frankel seemed to be in great spirits while stepping out for dinner in the Hamptons on Friday night The former Real Housewives of New York star looked chic in her autumnal ensemble as she made her way into the trendy restaurant. She sported a dark brown tank top tucked into a pair of high-waisted green slacks with a black racing stripe running down the side. Bethenny's shearling coat featured black suede sleeves and she wore a matching leather cross body bag. Her dark brown hair was worn straight past her shoulders and she wore a protective face covering with a flashy red lips print. Dinner time: The 49-year-old reality star rocked a pair of camouflaged slacks with a furry moto jacket while heading into Tutto Di Giorno's The Skinnygirl founder was one of many to criticize Kylie Jenner's choice of threads for her little girl's first day at school earlier this week. Kylie who is worth an estimated $900 million posted a back-to-school-style snap of her toddler, sporting a light pink Hermes Taurillon Clemence Kelly Ado Backpack, which retails for an eye-watering $12K. Bethenny took issue with the picture, writing on Instagram: 'I never say anything about this stuff but this is the most transparent humble brag I've seen yet. It's everything wrong with everything.' Wow! Kylie who is worth an estimated $900 million posted a back-to-school-style snap of her toddler, sporting a light pink Hermes Taurillon Clemence Kelly Ado Backpack, which retails for an eye-watering $12K Yikes: Bethenny took issue with the picture, writing on Instagram: 'I never say anything about this stuff but this is the most transparent humble brag I've seen yet. It's everything wrong with everything' After receiving some backlash, Bethenny defended her comment on an US Weekly Instagram post, adding: 'I'm no stranger to an @Hermes_Paris bag & have a daughter & luxury cars, but flaunting (under the guise of a back to school post) during a pandemic & the greatest unemployment crisis in our lifetime is a choice.' She was not alone in her feelings on the matter either, as her comment received almost 3,000 likes, as other users quickly chimed in. 'We are in the middle of a pandemic. Some kids can't even do distance learning because they are homeless with no computer no WiFi no home! This is disgusting,' one person wrote. Another female fan wrote: 'Sad day when people are struggling with homeschooling their children being out of work or working from home and you are showing off a garage full of expensive cars and an expensive backpack for a child!!!!' Not happy! She was not alone in her feelings on the matter either, as her comment received almost 3,000 likes, as other users quickly chimed in STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh (Karabakh) Arayik Harutyunyan announced he is personally heading to the frontline to fight against the Azerbaijani ongoing aggression. Addressing the countrys military and volunteers, he said in a statement that heavy battles of various intensity are taking place at the entire length of the line of contact. Civilian settlements, including the capital city Stepanakert were bombarded, he said. The nation and the fatherland are threatened. The right to live freely, independently and with dignity on the land that was liberated by our brave sons blood is threatened. Therefore, right now I am heading to the frontline with our special forces units to fight my share of the battle because from now on I will be more valuable at the frontline than the rear, Harutyunyan said. This is our final battle, which we will most definitely win together. I am with you until victory. To arms. We have the honor, he said. Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan Deputy Chief Mike Hussey of Jackson County Fire District 3 recognized his firefighters just couldnt move fast enough as they tried to try to flank the roaring Almeda fire to get ahead of it. Their ground attack was overwhelmed by the speed and intensity of the wind-fueled wildfire tearing north from Ashland along the Bear Creek greenway and Interstate 5. They needed air support. Hussey made the request about an hour and a half into the fire on the Tuesday after Labor Day. It went up the chain of command to Dave Larson, who oversees aerial fire operations in southwest Oregon as district forester for Oregon Department of Forestry. Larson usually activates air tankers to drop fire retardant over forests, trees or grass. This time, he faced a much different landscape. Thats the first time in my career, and Im going on 31 years, that we actually dropped air tankers that close to and in town, he said. I know if incident commanders are making that request, the decision is dire and lives are in jeopardy, and Im going to give firefighters every tool they need. Soon, two very large DC-10 tankers and three large tankers one DC-7 and two MD-87s - were taking off from their base at Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport. The DC-7 is contracted by the Oregon Department of Forestry and all the other tankers are contracted through the U.S. Forest Service. Firefighters on the ground kept in touch with pilots via handheld radios and sent them to designated locations to slow the fires spread. Throughout the day, Hussey said, it was as if you were fighting a fire in front of a hair dryer. While the sight of air tankers coming and going has become more common in southern Oregon during wildfire seasons, this clearly was something else. Sections of I-5 closed at times as the hulking DC-10 planes hugged the freeway and people craned their necks and cameras skyward to capture the view. The sheer numbers of the tankers, the frequency of their runs and retardant drops so close to towns including Talent, Phoenix, Medford and Central Point set this operation apart from the norm and offered some comfort to people in the path of the wildfire. There were so many in the air, said Garrett McCaslin, who lives just outside Talent. It reminded me back in the days when I was in the service. They were leaving the airport and going and dumping the retardant and then circling back to make new runs. It was really great to see they were all up pounding on the fire. *** 14 Air tankers in southern Oregon, September 2020 The Medford Airtanker Base responds to wildfires in central and southern Oregon and Northern California. The airport base is the only place in Oregon where the U.S. Forest Services two DC-10s, considered very large tankers, can be staged and serviced. The wide-bodied planes alternate between the Medford base and bases in Moses Lake, Washington, and Sacramento, Larson said. The DC-10s had been in Medford, set to fly to work on the Slater fire on the California border, when fire officials enlisted them for the Almeda fire. Theyve been retrofitted, their passenger seats, overhead bins and other commercial equipment removed with external tanks added that carry loads of up to 9,400 gallons of retardant dropped through clamshell doors that open underneath. The DC-10s fly about 300 feet above ground. The large MD-87 air tankers can deliver about 3,000 gallons of fire retardant. Tankers dont usually drop retardant directly on the fire. Instead, they let it go in front of a fire, directing its course or slowing its advance, to give firefighters a chance to control or extinguish it. Retardant can also be released to protect homes and keep access roads open. Under ideal conditions, they can slow down the fire to the point that if there are ground-based firefighters, they can take advantage of the temporary slowdown, said Bill Gabbert, who has spent 33 years as a full-time wildland firefighter and is now managing editor of two websites, Wildfire Today and Fire Aviation. But wind can present challenges, blowing the retardant off target and carrying embers over retardant lines, he said. That was a problem fueling the Almeda fire, which ended up displacing an estimated 3,000 residents and destroyed an estimated 2,357 residential structures as it quickly roared from north Ashland through the cities of Talent and Phoenix and into the outskirts of Medford along Oregon 99 and Interstate 5. Without the air attack, it could have been worse, fire commanders say. **** Air tankers dropped fire retardant in and around Phoenix, Talent, Medford and Central Point in early September to try to slow the spread of the Almeda Drive fire. The first day, Hussey and his crews of about 100 Rogue Valley structural firefighters directed the tankers to drop retardant lines on the east side of Talent, the east and west sides of Phoenix, along the grassy hills of I-5 and along Medfords southern city limits. A smaller plane flew first to do a scouting or practice run, communicating with firefighters on the ground to identify where to make the best drops and how wide or thick the coverage should be. They looked for fields, orchards, roads or other unpopulated areas to tamp down fuel that could feed the fire. The live runs were next. The lead plane dropped smoke, signaling to the following tankers where to make the retardant drop, Hussey said. The flights continued from about 11:30 a.m. until dusk that Tuesday. The tankers also flew the next day, Wednesday, Sept. 9, dropping retardant in the south Medford area and then to the east and west of the Table Rock Road fire in Central Point. Over the two days, the tankers dropped more than 100,000 gallons of retardant, dumping two dozen loads. The first day, for example, the two DC-10s dropped a combined five loads, or 47,000 gallons of retardant. The two large air tankers, the DC-10 and MD-87, dropped a combined 13 loads, about another 39,000 gallons of retardant. The air tankers reload at the airport after each drop. The retardant they carry is mixed at the air tanker base. Retardant Drop near Medford Airport (09/09/2020). 4 pm PDT DC10 VLAT (Very Large Air Tanker) doing a retardant drop right here just west of us in Central Point. Please be safe everyone! Video: Courtesy Michael Stavish Posted by US National Weather Service Medford Oregon on Wednesday, September 9, 2020 Without the tanker attack, fire commanders said the wildfire could have moved further into Medford and to the west to threaten Jacksonville. It was really that aircraft that helped reduce the intensity of the fire spread that gave our firefighters a fighting chance on the ground, said Bob Horton, chief of Jackson County Fire District 3. Were grateful to have that base so close to our community, he said. For us, we dont see a lot of tanker drops in urban structural firefighting; but with a fire so overwhelming and moving with such intensity, it was paramount that those resources were there to slow that spread; so we could gain an offensive. The air resources are such a huge asset. A satellite image of the Almeda Drive Fire, taken the day after. The gray shows the areas destroyed by fire. The Table Rock Road fire in Central Point was creeping toward the airport, so if those tankers hadnt jumped on it, it could have been much more devastating, said Jerry Brienza, director of the Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport. The airport, which leases land for the air tanker base, is in contract negotiations now to expand the tanker base operations in Medford and lock the base in for a longer-term contract beyond the two-year agreement in place now, as theyve become an integral part of our community, Brienza said. James Shannon of Central Point picked up his shovel and had headed out that Wednesday to Phoenix with some friends to see if they could offer their help and put out hot spots. He was walking west across an I-5 overpass in Phoenix when he saw the red plume of retardant billowing from a large tanker flying low along the freeway. Were used to having them in town because of the local air base. Well see them fly by, but usually theyre headed out to heavily wooded areas, but not to Phoenix, Oregon, he said. "Its definitely an impressive sight,'' he added. "It was almost a relief seeing the tankers coming in. It was almost like, Were closer to being saved. " -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212 Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian Subscribe to Facebook page Elon Musk, Teslas boss recently indicated that the electric carmaker could enter India by 2021. Next year for sure," he said on Twitter in reply to a post with a photograph of a T-shirt with the message: India wants Tesla". He further added, Thanks for waiting." However, this isnt the first time Musk has announced his India plans. As Tesla has been growing its reach to countries in Asia, India has been on the radar of Tesla for long now. In 2018, Musk said on Twitter that Tesla could hopefully be entering India by next year, in 2019. This was followed by a statement issued by IIT Madras in 2019, which mentioned that Elon Musk had said that the companys entry to our country is probably going to happen in a years time. Earlier this year also, he had mentioned to enter India by next year. Having said that, Musk has time and again blamed Indias taxation system and difficult business model for delay in the entry in the past. While one can be hopeful that the current regimes push towards ease in doing business gives a sign of hope for Tesla, the recently announced initiative called Aatmanirbhar Bharat can prove to be disastrous on the other hand. Lets understand how much the Tesla Model 3 could cost in India by 2021, if they actually enter India. Tesla Model 3 is the cheapest and entry level electric car in the Teslas portfolio. Since all the Tesla cars are semi-autonomous and high on safety, the Model 3 was initially launched at a starting price upwards of $40,000. However, thanks to economies of scale, tone-down battery pack and better operational efficiencies, Tesla Model 3 now starts at $35,000 in the U.S, its home state. This model gets a 240 mile battery pack, rated as per the US driving cycle. Tesla will bring this model to India to keep the prices in check which will attract an high import duty and the problem starts here. The Indian govt currently levies 25% import tax on CBU electric vehicles. Given the rise of Chinese products in India, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a hike on basic customs duty on completely built units (CBUs) of electric vehicles to 40% from the existing 25%. Since its highly unlikely that Tesla Model 3 will be sold through CKD route and neither can they source domestic battery or components, it will be priced close to $50,000 in India after import duty, freight and carriage charges and other expenses. In Indian currency, this comes out be Rs 36 Lakh for a 390 km battery range. Then you have to pay all the taxes and registration amount. Even if you adjust the various subsidies provided by govt on EVs, Tesla Model 3 wouldnt cost less than Rs 40 Lakh in India, on road price. For comparison, the Hyundai Kona with a similar size and a battery range of 452 km costs Rs 23 Lakh (approx) in the country. And thats just the price of buying the vehicle, as the ownership cost is even lower with Hyundai Motors having a better service network. Also Watch: In many Asian countries, like South Korea and China, Tesla has become a status-symbol for wealthy who wants to highlight their love for green vehicles, a trend started by the Toyota Prius in the west. Just so you know, Toyota did launch Prius in India at around the same price tag of Rs 40 Lakh and failed miserably. But then, Tesla brings a certain brand image with itself, and has technology far superior than Hyundai Kona, Toyota Prius, or for that matter, almost 99% percent of cars available in India. They are also offering the Model 3 with various battery packs to suit your running and level 3 autonomous driving. The question is not if Tesla wants to enter India, as we know for sure that Elon Musk is eyeing the Indian market desperately for years now, the question now is, when will they enter India? The day before President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19, he flew to Minnesota on Air Force One with senior staff, as well as pool reporters, including VOAs White House bureau chief Steve Herman. The next day Herman traveled to Wilmington to prepare to cover a Joe Biden rally, the only reporter who attempted to switch between the Trump and Biden campaigns this week. He describes the experience following the presidents positive coronavirus test. At the White House on Wednesday morning, a member of the medical office swabbed my nose to collect a sample for the routine COVID-19 rapid test administered daily to all members of the protective pool of reporters covering the presidents activities. It was a brief and painless procedure. I had undergone it more than a dozen times in recent months always with the same negative result. That has also been the case for my colleagues on the White House beat, Patsy Widakuswara and Carolyn Presutti, with whom I alternate campaign coverage when it is VOAs turn in the rotation among radio networks. As the days designated radio pooler for the Minnesota round trip on Air Force One, I was responsible for ensuring that all the networks would have broadcast quality audio whenever the president spoke from the time we left Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to our post-midnight return on the same military tarmac. The presidents first stop in Minnesota, known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, was a massive multimillion-dollar estate on the shores of Lake Minnetonka. At a fundraiser at the home of wealthy Republican Party donor Martin Davis, during which the accompanying media waited outside in our vans, Trump mingled with an unannounced number of guests. Thus, we were not able to observe if the participants were wearing masks or engaged in social distancing. Duluth rally Such recommended precautions were certainly not seen at the presidents next stop in Duluth, where an airport rally was held. Thousands of enthusiastic supporters turned out crammed in bleachers, on the tarmac and in the hangar. Only about a fifth of the crowd wore any type of face covering. Trump spoke for 45 minutes. His normal rally remarks usually stretch beyond an hour. This, I noted at the time, was unusual. But it was chilly and windy on the north shore of Lake Superior on the last day of September. When we made the sprint back to the warm airplane, the group of reporters and photographers surmised the president did not want to spend any additional time exposed to such weather. Later we would learn from official sources and media reports that Trump was apparently already feeling unwell, that he fell asleep for part of the two-hour flight back to Maryland and an ill Hope Hicks, counselor to the president, had decided to isolate herself on the plane. She would test positive for the coronavirus the following morning, something the public did not know until Bloombergs Jennifer Jacobs broke the story late Thursday. Trump, during his travels Wednesday, did not make remarks before boarding or stepping off the plane and he did not come back to the press cabin at any time to speak to us. That was unusual but not unprecedented. We also had no contact with Hicks that day. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows did chat for about 10 minutes with the poolers on the plane during the flight home from Minnesota. He said on Friday that he had tested negative for COVID-19. Flight to New Jersey In a decision that is being criticized by health officials, journalists and Democrats, Trump, on Thursday, following Hicks diagnosis, flew to his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a round-table and fundraiser with supporters. Several White House aides who had been in close proximity to Hicks did not join the trip. Asked why the president went ahead with the journey, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters on Friday afternoon that it was deemed safe by White House operations. At that outdoor fundraiser, the president was kept more than 6 feet (2 meters) from a group of about 18 donors, who were not wearing masks, according to campaign sources. While the president was in New Jersey, I was on an Amtrak train to the state of Delaware to prepare to resume coverage of the Joe Biden campaign. Although we would not be departing with the Democratic Party candidate to Michigan until Friday, the campaign requires all pool reporters traveling with the candidate to take a COVID-19 test the prior day. This was done at a Wilmington hotel by a pair of technicians from a chain pharmacy, and the antigen test is similar to the one conducted at the White House. Quick result Unlike the procedure in the White House, where we are not informed of the results unless it is a positive, the reporters in Wilmington waited on the spot while their swabs are analyzed by the humming Abbott ID NOW machine, which, after about 15 minutes, spits out a piece of paper with the results. COVID-19: Negative. Procedural control valid, mine read. At that point, I assumed I was good to go and returned to my downtown hotel to rest for Friday morning, when we were scheduled to join the Biden motorcade near his residence and ride to the New Castle airport. When word came of Hicks positive test and her presence on the Air Force One flights the previous day, I notified the Biden campaign, which consulted with medical advisers, and it was decided that out an abundance of caution I stay back on Friday. It would be a few hours later, with a @realDonaldTrump tweet, that we learned one more passenger on Air Force One had tested positive for the coronavirus: the president himself. Minnesota became the center of the universe in connection with the death of George Floyd on May 25. The death of Mr. Floyd and the leftist lawlessness that permeates the Twin Cities combined to produce the sorriest year in the states history. Governor Walzs rule by edict since March 25 has compounded it. John and I have both noted former prosecutor George Parrys contrarian take on the death of Mr. Floyd in Who Killed George Floyd? and in Chauvin, Lane, Kueng, and Thao: The George Floyd Fall Guys at the American Spectator and also at his Knowledge Is Good site. In the prefatory note that accompanied the second column as posted at KIG, he wrote: Floyds fentanyl intoxication combined with his severe coronary artery disease, extreme agitation and other factors placed him at imminent risk of sudden death from cardiac arrhythmia. In many ways, this is an even more likely explanation for his death than an overdose. Either way, the police did not harm or kill him. In August, by the way, Governor Walz publicly declared for the umpteenth time that George Floyd was murdered in front of the world. Having assigned the prosecution of the officers to former Nation of Islam race hustler Keith Ellison, Walz has long since abandoned any concern for a fair trial and aggravated the tragedy with disgrace. Walz himself has done more than his share to contribute to the mob atmosphere that surrounds the case against the four officers. Mr. Parry has now cooperated in the production of the 24-minute documentary below on Floyds death. He explains: The documentary has been completed and a password-protected version is being circulated to many media outlets and notables in preparation for its release. Ultimately it will be accessible through a website that the producers are setting up. But, last night, a party unknown posted the documentary on YouTube. So far it has not disappeared down the YouTube memory hole for violating community standards or whatever other Orwellian reason the Google grandees may invent. The documentary runs 2[4] minutes and parts of it are hard to watch. So heed the warning to viewers in the documentary and proceed accordingly. If the video is removed from YouTube, check back at Knowledge Is Good for updated information. The documentary raises the question of fact: what killed George Floyd? We dont have all the evidence that will be introduced at trial. For the time being, the documentary may serve as a counterweight to the mob atmosphere enveloping the case. It should open a few minds to the possibility that the case is more complicated than it appeared the week of May 25. A judge has ordered a pair of corporations to pay more than $1.76 million in fines for their roles in an illegal campaign scheme involving 15 Republican candidates running for state legislative offices in 2010. The Sept. 17 default judgment in Lewis and Clark County District Court is likely the final chapter in a well-known political corruption case that spanned more than a decade, led to the largest-ever fine against a sitting politician in Montana, and was featured in the 2018 PBS documentary film Dark Money. District Judge James Reynolds ordered the third-party political group Western Tradition Partnership and Livingston-based Direct Mail and Communications to pay $881,955 in penalties for violating state campaign finance laws that prohibit corporations from contributing directly to campaigns. The judge levied an additional $881,955 fine against the companies for failing to report the illegal contributions. The judge also fined the two groups $500 each for not maintaining and producing records of their campaign activities. The judgment is the largest monetary penalty ever assessed for violation of Montanas campaign finance laws. However, the state is not likely to collect the money. Most of the defendants named in the lawsuit including Western Tradition Partnership, Direct Mail and Communications and Drury Lane Consulting no longer operate in Montana or have dissolved. (National Right to Work Committee and Montana Citizens for Right to Work were dismissed from the lawsuit due to a process-serving error, and Drury Lane Consulting formed after the 2010 election, so was not included in Reynolds ruling). The defendants did not file a response to the lawsuit and did not participate in any hearings, resulting in the default judgment. Jaime MacNaughton, the agency lawyer for the state Office of the Commissioner of Political Practices, which brought the suit, said the ruling shows that Montana holds both candidates and corporations that violate Montanas campaign finance laws accountable for their actions. Now that we know what these things look like and have experience with it, well be better prepared next time we see it, MacNaughton said. The wheels of justice do turn slowly. Im glad were at the end of this and can put it in the past and move on to the next chapter. MacNaughton worked alongside former Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl and Gene Jarussi, a special assistant attorney general assigned to the case, to bring complaints against the Republican candidates named in the years-long investigation. Thanks to the improbable discovery of several boxes of internal documents from Direct Mail and Communications, Motl and MacNaughton identified nine candidates from the 2010 election cycle who improperly benefited from and coordinated with WTP and Direct Mail. Six additional candidates involved in the scheme were later identified based on records obtained from witnesses who testified during a 2016 civil trial against former Senate Majority Leader Art Wittich, R-Bozeman. Wittich was among the Montana lawmakers whose illegal coordination with WTP and Direct Mail was revealed by internal company documents and records showing that he asked for, and received, a package of campaign services and contributions referred to as the works. After the five-day trial in April 2016, a jury determined Wittich did not pay fair market value for the services WTP and Direct Mail provided, a value the jurors estimated to be $19,599. In that lawsuit, the judge tripled the jurys damages, and Wittich was eventually forced to pay $68,232.58 after losing his appeal to the Montana Supreme Court in 2017. It was the largest fine ever levied in Montana against a lawmaker in a political corruption case. Reynolds relied on the 2016 jurys determination of the value of services WTP and Direct Mail provided to candidates when he issued his ruling last month. Reynolds multiplied the number of candidates determined to have received the contributions and services from WTP and Direct Mail 15 by $19,559. Reynolds then tripled those damages to arrive at $880,155. Motl, who left the Commissioner of Political Practices office in 2017, called Reynolds decision a fitting end to the long-running saga. Nothing will ever bring this to a close, but it is closed as best you can, Motl said. As long as there is politics, and as long as there are human beings in the world, it will be necessary to remain vigilant, because money corrupts. Motl said whether the state collects the fines is less relevant than the fact that the case came to a conclusion that reinforces Montanas campaign laws. I think that cultural statement is more important than any fine or any money, Motl said. It is a continuation of that statement: that we dont like illegal campaign activity going on in Montana. Love 10 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 A 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras and succumbed to her injuries in Delhis Safdarjung Hospital earlier this week. Her family members have claimed that the police cremated her forcefully in the dead of the night and they were not even allowed to bring the body home. The details of the gruesome incident have sent shockwaves across the country and triggered a massive outrage. Activists and opposition leaders have demanded the resignation of chief minister Yogi Adityanath over the handling of the case even as a series of rapes were reported from the state. Here are the latest developments in the Hathras case: * The administration has sealed the borders of the district. Police have set up barricades roughly 2km from the Bul Gargi on the main road, blocked off all access paths and deployed policemen even on the mud tracks and in the fields to ward off any outsiders from accessing the village. * Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure will remain in effect till October 31. * News agency PTI reported that a boy, who claimed to be a relative of the victim, alleged their familys phones have been confiscated and their outdoor movements confined. * My family members are being threatened. My uncle asked me to try to reach out to the media. My uncle was assaulted by DM sahib yesterday, after which he fell unconscious, PTI quoted the boy as saying. He made the comments while speaking to the media outside the village. According to the report, the boy came out of the village after walking through the farms. * A villager said on the condition of anonymity that apart from the streets, police are also camping outside the toilets of the victims house. The women of the house are finding it difficult to visit the toilet with policemen standing right outside, said the person, who emerged from the village on the pretext of meeting a doctor. * Adityanath has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the case of the alleged murder and gang-rape of the woman. On the basis of a preliminary inquiry report sent on Friday, the chief minister suspended the superintendent of police Vikrant Vir and four other policemen. * Several opposition leaders including, Trinamool Congress Derek OBrien, Congress Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have tried reaching the village but stopped and manhandled by the police. * On Friday, OBrien and others managed to enter the victims village but were unable to meet the family. When OBrien tried to reach the village along with other lawmakers, he was pushed to the ground by a team of the Uttar Pradesh police. * On Thursday, Gandhi siblings were briefly detained while they were on their way to the village. During the scuffle with police, Gandhi could be seen falling on the ground in videos. * West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will on Saturday lead a protest march in Kolkata against the Hathras gang-rape case. The rally will start at 4pm and the participants will walk from Birla Planetarium to Mahatma Gandhis statue in central Kolkata. The Mazda Foundation (USA) Inc. this week donated $50,000 to the Food Bank of North Alabama in an emergency gift to help meet growing demand for food amid economic struggles caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Mazda, together with Toyota, is building the $2.3 million Mazda Toyota manufacturing facility in Huntsville, said it is the second donation it has made to the food bank since March when the first COVID-19 cases were identified in Alabama. Altogether, Mazda has donated $94,000 to the Huntsville-based food bank during the pandemic, signifying its commitment to be a strong partner in the neighborhoods in which Mazda manufactures and sells its vehicles, according to the press release. The pandemic has created enormous need in communities across the country, Jeff Guyton, president of Mazda North American Operations and chairman of the Mazda Foundation (USA), Inc., said in the press release. Addressing a fundamental need like food security is a clear expression of the Mazda Foundations guiding principle that what matters most is one another. According to the press release, the award to the Food Bank of North Alabama is one of nine grant awards that the Mazda Foundation made this month to address food insecurity in six major metropolitan areas across the United States. In total, the grants will enable the awardees to serve an estimated 730,000 meals in the next 12 months. Mazda Toyota Manufacturing is committed to serving as a hometown company in our North Alabama Community. We appreciate the ongoing support of this commitment demonstrated by donations to important nonprofit partners such as the Food Bank of North Alabama by our parent companies, Mazda and Toyota, Masashi Aihara, president of Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, said in the press release. The Food Bank of North Alabama is very appreciative of this generous funding from the Mazda Foundation as we seek to respond to the growing number of people seeking food assistance, especially families who have never needed help before, Shirley Schofield, executive director of the Food Bank of North Alabama, said in the press release. With the news of President Trump testing positive for COVID-19, the public are now wondering what will happen if he falls seriously ill. Pence replacing Trump According to the CDC, seniors and those with weight issues are considered high risk, and President Trump falls into the category. If the 74-year-old president becomes seriously ill and requires hospitalization, the whole election process has been thrown into doubt. However, there is a possibility that Vice President Mike Pence would replace President Trump on the election ballot if the President becomes incapacitated from COVID-19. Also Read: Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany Criticizes Reporter for Repeated Interruptions According to the rules of the Republican National Committee, it is empowered to fill vacancies, which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise of the party's candidate for president and vice-president. The RNC can also use the national convention for the purpose of filling any such vacancies. All 168 members of the RNC would have to meet to vote on Trump's replacement. Under the rules of the RNC, three members from each state and three from six territories cast the same number of votes that they were entitled to cast the national convention. Vice President Mike Pence or another candidate could then replace President Trump on the ballot paper. President Trump could temporarily hand over power to his vice president should he become incapacitated while undergoing a medical procedure as treatment for the coronavirus. Under the Constitution's 25th Amendment, President Trump could declare in writing his inability to discharge his duties. Vice President Mike Pence would become acting president, although Trump would remain in office. He could regain his powers by declaring in writing that he is again ready to discharge him. If the vice-president is also unable to discharge his duties, the Constitution puts the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, next in line for the presidency. Trump's health President Trump testing positive for the virus is the most serious known public health scare encountered by any sitting American president in recent history, according to Newsweek. The presidential election is in six weeks, and this should be the time that he's on the campaign trail in a bid to close the gap between him and Democratic rival Joe Biden in the pills. Instead, he needs to be in quarantine for the next two weeks. The President will now be off the campaign trail, and he will remain in the White House for an unspecified amount of time. If he is sick for a prolonged period, then that casts doubt about whether he should still be on the ballot. President Trump may suffer a devastating impact on his political prospects as he tested positive for the virus after he has played down the impact of it. He is behind in the polls and was judge by the public to have lost the opening debate against Biden on September 29. The next debate is on October 15, the date comes just as the president will be ending his two weeks in isolation, which then raises the question if he will be ready by then. Related Article: US Pres. Donald Trump and FLOTUS Tested Positive for Coronavirus, Begin Quarantine in White House @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Home Just In Nepal has been a safe haven for Rohingyas, but it could open up a Pandoras box Two groups were quarrelling in the Rohingya refugee camp in Kapan of Kathmandu when we visited it on December 13, 2019. Some women were clashing with each other for a sack of rice. A few people were bleeding as there was also a fistfight. It was a fight between two groups under the same roof. And the reason: unequal distribution of rice provided by donors. On our second visit to the camp, a few men and women were sunbathing whereas children were playing outside their sheds. As soon as we advanced closer to them, they went inside, without uttering a word. Moving around in the camp, we met Jaafar Alam, who agreed to talk to us on the condition that we would not shoot his photo or video. Aalam was one of the first people to enter Nepal as a Rohingya refugee. According to Jaafar, inadequate food and shelter meant that the tension in the camp was rising day by day. We have to live in a cramped place, he said. There is no land to build a new hut. Jaafar said proper arrangements should be made for resettlement in Nepal and if that is not possible, an initiative should be taken to send the refugees to a third country. He added, Or, we should be given citizenship here. Rohingya refugees have repeatedly staged sit-ins in front of the Kathmandu office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) demanding refugee identity cards, allowances and employment. The Rohingyas, who were oppressed by the Myanmar government, came to Nepal through Bangladesh and India. Sahid al-Amin, who lives with Jaafar at the refugee camp at Ram Mandir, Kapan, is still afraid to return to his home in Myanmar. Sahid, who already brought his family and relatives to Nepal, said, Why would I want to die by going back home? Those who want to live come to Nepal. Rohingyas political connection with Nepal Jaafar Alam entered Nepal from Myanmar through India in 2012. At that time, three families with 11 members had entered. At present, the number of Rohingya refugees in Nepal has reached around 400. The camp has a mosque and a school which teaches Urdu, Arabic and Persian languages. The children also learned to read the Quran and to pray in the mosque. Activities of the Rohingyas in Kapan has increased since 2016. There are three Rohingya camps in Kapan, one at Lasuntar and two at Ram Mandir. Locals of nearby Hattigaunda area did not allow them to set up a camp. The Rohingyas who had settled in Panauti of Kavre have also returned to Kapan. Some refugees fled to Nepal via India from Bangladesh when the country took an initiative to repatriate Rohingyas to Myanmar and some are currently preparing to come to Nepal, according to Jaafar. He stated that those returning to Myanmar are at risk. Nepal is safe for us as India and Bangladesh are also chasing us back, labelling us terrorists. Some events indicate that Rohingyas got entry into Nepal due to political support. Samim Miya Ansari Samim Miya Ansari, the then General Secretary of Tarai-Madhes Democratic Party, joined the CPN-UML on May 27, 2008. About 200 Rohingyas were present when Ansari was inducted to the party by the then UML chairman KP Sharma Oli at the Karki Party Palace in Kathmandu. Along with many Nepali Muslims, Rohingyas also entered the party. Ansari, then chairman of the National Muslim Struggle Committee, is now the chairman of the National Muslim Commission, a constitutional body. On February 9, we had asked the six Rohingyas who had joined the UML about the reason for their involvement in the party, but they refused to speak. On the condition that we would not take photos or record voices and reveal their identity, one person said, We were told that shelter and security would be guaranteed as long as we live in Nepal. Another added, We are now receiving financial assistance, clothing and food aid. The third person said that they had been assured to get Nepali citizenship or to be sent to a third country. As he said, the Rohingyas are now demanding Nepali citizenship or a third country. While being in the National Muslim Struggle Committee, Samim Miya Ansari provided food and clothing to the Rohingyas. He had told contractors from the Muslim community to hire the Rohingya youths. Ansari says that all this assistance was provided only on a humanitarian basis. Even now, I collect donations to provide food and clothing, he said. Because we help and belong to the same community, they may have expected something from me, but I havent given any other assurances. I have not provided any assistance outside the law. They came without inviting me to the party induction programme. Suspicious activities A group of refugees from Lasuntar arrived at the Metropolitan Police Sector in Kapan in August 2019 with a complaint. The complaint said, Imran (name changed), who lives in our camp, has been raping and torturing his 13-year-old stepdaughter for a long time. He should be punished. After receiving the complaint, the then chief of the police post, Inspector Suraksha KC, proceeded with the case. However, the accused and the victim have not been found in the camp yet. KC said, Before this, there were complaints about domestic disputes also. We used to resolve the issues. Some members of the Rohingya group had lodged a verbal complaint at the Kapan police office alleging that Zubair Maulana was taking money to smuggle people to Nepal. Maulana has already brought more than 100 people since 2014, said a person from the Kapan camp. We had warned him that it had been difficult for us to stay in the camp because of his brokerage, he said, but he has not quit his job as a smuggler. He said Maulana had already been imprisoned for smuggling people from Bangladesh to India. He has smuggled a lot of people from India to Nepal. He has kept them in Terai districts including Parsa as he did not get land in Kathmandu. The family of Sabir Takre, who had recently been brought in by Maulana, was found in the Kapan camp. He said he was forced to leave the country after violence erupted again in Myanmar in 2012 and had crossed rivers and seas to reach Bangladesh in a month, staying there until 2016. When Bangladesh launched the campaign to repatriate Rohingyas in 2016, it became difficult for them to stay there. At the same time, he met Zubair Maulana, who took 20,000 Indian rupees to bring them to Uttar Pradesh in India via Satkhira and they started working in a meat processing plant. They had no documents when they were arrested by Indian police, who warned them to go elsewhere or they would be charged for being terrorists. It was 2018. He again came in contact with Zubair Maulana who took 45,000 Indian rupees to bring Takres family of five that includes his wife and three daughters to Kathmandu via Biratnagar and Jogbani. Jaafar Alam, who was translating Takres speech in Urdu, added, Maulana has rescued the people of our community by taking money, but now, there is a fear that it will be a problem for us to live here. Security challenges DIG Bishwa Raj Pokharel, the Metropolitan Police Office Chief, said that the police are monitoring activities of Rohingya refugees. Currently, there are only domestic disputes reported in the context of Rohingyas in Nepal. They have not done anything to affect the countrys security, he said, But, we are monitoring them as a national security challenge. Pokharel said that there is a risk of Rohingya refugees, most of whom are unemployed, getting involved in criminal activities. Rohingya study task force co-ordinator Krishna Bahadur Katuwal The Ministry of Home Affairs had formed a five-member task force on November 8, 2008, under the leadership of Krishna Bahadur Katuwal, the then Assistant Chief District Officer of Kathmandu, to study the Rohingya issue. The task force concluded that Rohingyas could be a long-term threat to Nepal. Katawal stated that giving shelter to Rohingya refugees would immediately pose three dangers. First, in the Rohingya-inhabited areas, the resources used by the local community could be depleted, and internal conflicts might occur. When people from different cultural backgrounds are in the same place, conflicts might arise. Second, various interest groups can use them, and they may be involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, murder, and robbery. Third, they can revolt if they have to go hungry without finding employment. As Katawal has analysed, there are signs of conflict with the locals. Budhanilakantha municipalitys ward 11 chairperson Raju Adhikari. Raju Adhikari, the chairperson of Budhanilakantha municipalitys ward 11 which includes the Ram Mandir area, said that locals have been coming to the ward office to complain about the activities of Rohingyas. He said that he is monitoring their activities as his lives close to the camp. Rohingyas cut and dry buffalo meat on the roof during festivals, said Gopal Karki, a local. The smell during such time is unbearable. Another local, Hari Neupane, said that quarrels occur between locals and the Rohingyas as their children have been involved in stealing fruits and vegetables from the locals houses. He said the problem was elevated by the growing number of Rohingyas and urged the administration to remove them. The ward office has asked the Rohingyas not to rent more land and not to extend the land rent period as there is a risk of exacerbation of the existing problems. The office has not even collected the tax of the existing tents stating them illegal. Indian media coverage Indias Zee News has reported that Rohingyas have paid a bribe of Rs 4,000 to Rs 50,000 per person to settle in Nepal. The news report claims that the Islamic Union of Nepal and other organisations are involved in bribery. Citing a confidential report from Indias home ministry, Zee News reported, At least 378 Rohingyas have moved to Nepal and some of them are in touch with real estate brokers to buy land in the land-locked Himalayan nation. Zee News has also claimed that a base camp of the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jais-e-Mohammad is being set up on the Indo-Nepal border. Jihad and ISI are similarly helping to manage the Rohingyas in Nepal and carrying out terrorist activities in India and Bangladesh. The Nepal Islamic Association has clarified that there is no truth in the report by Zee News. The association has also stated that there is no truth in anything other than Rohingyas coming to pray in mosques. Human smuggling and sex trafficking The US Department of States Traffic in Persons Report published in July 2020 states that human traffickers are transporting Rohingya girls from refugee camps in Bangladesh to Kathmandu for sex trafficking. The report states that Nepal has been developing not only as a source country for human trafficking but also as a destination in recent years. The report states that the entry of Rohingyas in Nepal adds to existing issues such as trafficking of Africans, who were promised to be taken to Italy, and leaving them stranded, and Chinese and Eastern European women being forcibly taken hostage in various dance bars. According to Dhundi Raj Neupane, the spokesperson of the Human Trafficking Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police, no incident has been reported on Rohingyas being involved in sex trafficking so far. Need for additional places A satellite view of the Rohingya refugee camps based near Ram Mandir area, in Kapan. The task force formed by the Ministry of Home Affairs has stated that there are 378 Rohingyas in Nepal. However, UNHCR states that there are 360 Rohingyas in Nepal, including 10 who have applied for asylum but are not registered. Task Force Coordinator Katuwal said that some Rohingyas who might have gone out of the valley for work may have been missed being listed. Rohingya leader Jaafar Alam said there are more than 400 Rohingyas in Nepal. Ward Chair Adhikari claimed that there are more than 500 Rohingyas in Budhanilakantha. There are 18-20 people in a single tent. Some have rented a room, he said. There are lots of new faces seen during the festivals and holidays. Suraksha KC, the then chief of the Kapan police post, said that Rohingyas are still entering the camp. Newcomers have been reported to the police station, she said, But, while only one is being reported, the persons whole family has been brought. A group of 48 people had gone to Sundarijal when there was not enough space for accommodation at Lasuntar of Kapan. There, they had rented five ropanis (over 2,500 square metres) of land belonging to Basu Bhandari, Janardan Bhandari and Bishnu Hari Phuyal for an annual payment of Rs 100,000. But, they stopped constructing huts after locals protested. The same group rented 10 ropanis of the land of Krishna Man Dangol in Tokha municipality for an annual payment of Rs 400,000. But, they saw the same fate after their camp was built; the locals protested and did not allow them to stay. Similarly, 34 members of 10 families had moved to Kushadevi in Panauti municipality of Kavrepalanchok district, where they had rented the land of a local Satya Ram Thapa but could only stay there for mere two months. Now, they have returned to Kapan. Katuwal, the then coordinator of the task force, said that the locals did not allow them to stay in the group in concerns that there could be negative activities in society. Meanwhile, 173 members of 45 families are living under 35 roofs on more than six ropanis (over 3,000 square metres) of land belonging to Janak Adhikari in Kapan. They pay 240,000 rupees annually. More bamboo huts are being built there. It can be assumed that more Rohingyas are coming, Katuwal said. Similarly, 104 members of 25 families live in 27 huts built on 3.5 ropanis (around 1,800 square metres) of the land of Hari Chandra Shrestha in Budhanilakantha. They have rented this land for five years for an annual fee of Rs 115,000. Kedar Khadkas 1.5 ropanis (around 750 square metres) of the land in Lasuntar was leased for three years to accommodate 48 Rohingyas from 11 families. But, the camps were demolished after three years. Jyoti KCs three ropanis (over 1,500 square metres) of land in Lasuntar has been used for 18 huts for 18 families that include 53 members at an annual cost of Rs 120,000 for the next two years. The Rohingyas have been raising land rent and food expenses from labour and financial aids from various organisations. Rudra Khadka of Lasuntar said that he had to face difficulties when removing the Rohingyas as he needed his land. I had waived the six-month rent on the land which they had leased for three years, he said. But, police interrogated me for removing them. I had to go to the District Administration Office and provide a formal explanation. The Rohingya Study Task Force, ward offices, and the police share the same fear that Rohingyas can spread across the country if their entry is not tightened. Why do Rohingyas come to Nepal? Rohingyas are not comfortable living in Bangladesh and India where they have been portrayed as terrorists. Nor are they prioritising repatriation to Myanmar as violence has not subsided. Those in Bangladesh find it easy to come to India, while those in India come to Nepal easily because of the open border. Those in Nepal tell their relatives that it is easy to stay here, which make them wish to come here too. Taking advantage of this vulnerability, the leaders take the money and bring them here in groups. The report of the Rohingya Study Task Force has blamed trafficking rackets run by the leaders for the increase in the number of Rohingyas in Nepal. According to Katuwal, some leaders, including Zubair Maulana, smuggle Rohingyas into Nepal from India and Bangladesh. When a family enters Nepal, a leader earns Rs 40,000 to Rs 45,000, says Katawal. After entering Nepal, everyone feels safe. What does Nepal need to do? Katawal said that no decisions have been taken as the information about the Rohingya in Nepal has just come to light. Nonetheless, the Ministry of Home Affairs can take some actions as the task force has already submitted its report. There are no official statistics on how and how many Rohingyas came to Nepal. Our study is also preliminary, he said. Our study concludes that if the arrival of Rohingyas is not stopped immediately and the people here are not managed properly, this problem will turn devastating in the future. The task force has suggested the Ministry could issue a notice to the Rohingyas to leave Nepal within a certain period, pointing out the possibility that this issue could be bigger than the Bhutanese refugee problem. The task force has also suggested keeping the Rohingyas in a certain place outside existing settlements if there is no immediate option to remove them from Nepal. Now, there is no alternative but to block the entry of new ones and return the existing ones by managing them. Ward Chair Adhikari said that he had requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to remove the Rohingyas as he saw the immediate impact on society and the country in the long run. But, he was replied that it was not the job of UNHCR to remove the refugees. The government of Nepal has not taken any steps to stop their arrival and manage those who are here, he said. If the Rohingyas do not leave, we will be forced to demolish their settlements. DIG Pokharel claimed that the border has been tightened to prevent the arrival of Rohingyas. There is no need to be scared right now as patrols and surveillance have been stepped up in Rohingya areas, he said. Existing Nepali laws Nepal is yet to ratify the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Neither has it formulated a national law in this regard. Tibetan and Bhutanese refugees, however, have been granted refugee status, on a humanitarian basis, in accordance with international standards established by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its articles. The Supreme Court had ordered the government to formulate a national refugee law. But, no such law has been made in 12 years. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had sent a letter to the UNHCR on January 27, 2005, stating that any foreign national seeking refuge and resettlement should be held accountable by the Government of Nepal under the Immigration Act, rules and regulations, and would be punishable for settlement without the permission of the Government of Nepal. The Ministry had requested again on March 11, 2007, that the refugee certificates be suspended issued by the UNHCR office unilaterally. According to the Immigration Act, 1992, foreign nationals are not allowed to enter Nepal without a visa and passport. According to immigration law, the Department of Immigration should keep a record of any foreign national living in Nepal. But the then director-general of the department, Ishwar Raj Poudel, said he had no information about the Rohingyas living in Nepal. Did the Rohingyas come by plane to be monitored by the immigration department? He said. Since they entered the country covertly, that jurisdiction falls under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Article 7 of the Immigration Act states that the responsibility to regulate, manage and control the entry, presence and departure of foreigners within Nepal is under the functions, duties and rights of the director-general. Article 2 of the Immigration Act clearly states that the Government of Nepal may prohibit the entry, presence or departure of any foreigner from Nepal if it deems to be detrimental to the national interest. Weak monitoring at the checkpoints The Rohingya refugee camps based near Ram Mandir area, in Kapan. The Rohingyas are a minority ethnic Muslim community of Rakhine state, Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country. The United Nations has called the Rohingyas the most persecuted minority in the world. Myanmar has denied citizenship to the Rohingyas since 1982. At present, more than one million Rohingyas have taken refuge in different countries. According to BBC, a 2007 rape scandal in Rakhine had sparked ethnic violence. Rohingyas were targeted in 2012 over the same incident. The United Nations has said Myanmar has committed genocide, but the government has claimed that they had only taken measures to control the violence. According to the United Nations, Rakhine Muslims were slaughtered and displaced. The families began to disintegrate and disappear. Those who saw their family members killed in front of their eyes went through psychological decadence, but no actions were taken to stop the violence, the result of which many Rohingyas left the country. It took a month for Rohingya leader Jaafar Alam of Kapan camp to enter Bangladesh from Myanmar. He worked there for 10 days and then entered India by handing over the money to a broker. After working in India for two and a half months, he was arrested by police. He was released within two days after bribing the police. Alam entered Nepal in 2012 in a group of 13 including members from his family and two other families. Jaafar found it calmer and safer in Nepal than in Bangladesh and India. Then, he started contacting his relatives. The arrivals of Rohingyas is still going on. Many have the experience of no or little interrogation at the border points of Nepal. UNHCR views As there is no refugee law in Nepal and Nepal has not even ratified the International Refugee Convention, the UNHCR has stated that it only keeps records of Rohingyas living here. It is the job of the state to issue or manage refugee certificates. We can only work in coordination with the government of Nepal, said a UNHRC official. The UN agency has provided aids for the health and education of Rohingya children. Since 2012, it is providing Rs 5,000 per family per month as assistance. But, the UNHCR has stated that the assistance has been halted due to the growing population of Rohingyas. Deepesh Das Shrestha, the media representative of the UNHCR, said Rohingyas are living in Nepal in accordance with international refugee law. He said, The UNHCR is ready to coordinate if the government of Nepal wants to discuss Rohingya management. This story was reported under the investigative reporting fellowship offered by the Media Foundation. Britain today recorded another 52 hospital deaths as the number of fatalities inside wards more than doubled in a week, preliminary figures show. Of these, 42 new deaths were reported in England, with a further four fatalities in Scotland, five in Wales and one in Northern Ireland. Close to half of England's hospital deaths were in the North West, where 1,603 people tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours despite localised Covid-19 restrictions. The preliminary total saw an increase of 126 per cent on the figure recorded last Saturday, when 23 people were confirmed to have died in hospital. Further details on deaths across all settings will be released by the Department of Health later today. All those who died in England were between 40 and 80 years old. Health officials in Scotland also today confirmed 764 further cases of Covid-19, as Public Health Wales reported another 576 infections - up from 462 announced a day earlier. In Northern Ireland, 726 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours. Britain's second wave of coronavirus showed signs of slowing down on Friday, as the number of new positive tests were just 1.4 per cent higher than last week. Another 6,968 cases were announced yesterday, only marginally higher than the 6,874 last Friday. This small rise comes as most days in September saw a week-on-week increase of more than 35 per cent. Friday's was the lowest weekly increase since August 25, suggesting last month's resurgence in cases has hit its peak. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also backed up signs that the outbreak is slowing and estimated there were 8,400 daily cases of the disease in England in the week ending September 24. This marks a 12.5 per cent fall from the 9,600 infections thought to have been occurring every day the week before. The ONS described its findings as 'limited evidence' transmission of the virus 'may be levelling off following steep increases during August and September'. The estimate is based on 300,000 tests sent to homes across the country over the past six weeks - they produced 400 positive swabs and mathematical modelling is used to apply the result to the whole population. The latest figures come as Government sources today revealed a Covid-19 vaccination could be just 'three months away' in Britain. The preliminary hospital death total saw an increase of 122 per cent on the figure recorded last Saturday, when 23 people were confirmed to have died in hospital. Pictured: Oxford Circus on Friday Close to half of England's hospital deaths were in the North West, where 1,603 people tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours despite localised Covid-19 restrictions. Pictured: London Every adult in the country could be vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as Easter as plans are put in place to train an army of careworkers to administer the jab. It coincides with Boris Johnson's hint last night that the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure a family of five can have both grandparents round for festive lunch. The Prime Minister stressed the Government would do 'everything we can to make sure Christmas for everybody is normal as possible'. Mr Johnson has often identified a vaccine as the key to being able to lift many of the restrictions imposed on the public since March, but has insisted 'we must never cut corners' or 'sacrifice safety to speed' in the search for one. It comes just days after it was claimed that Britain's rising coronavirus infection rate may actually speed up vaccine trials and move the world one step closer to eradicating the disease. But scientists are sceptical and say it could be much longer before full vaccination can be carried out, reported The Times. Earlier this week, a Royal Society report warned there would be significant challenges in distributing and producing the vaccine on such a mass scale. Nilay Shah, head of the department of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, and a co-author of the report, said: 'Even when the vaccine is available it doesn't mean within a month everybody is going to be vaccinated. Boris Johnson, pictured last night, has often identified a vaccine as the key to being able to lift many of the restrictions imposed on the public since March, but has insisted 'we must never cut corners' or 'sacrifice safety to speed' in the search for one 'We're talking about six months, nine months... a year. There's not a question of life suddenly returning to normal in March.' Oxford University has been running human trials on a vaccine since April and there are hopes it could be approved by regulators by Christmas. Care home residents and staff will be first to get a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of NHS staff and all over-80s Care home residents and staff will be the first to get a Covid-19 vaccine when one is approved, according to fresh government advice. Everyone over the age of 80 and NHS staff will be second in line, updated guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation states. The body, which consists of 20 top scientists, advises ministers on all vaccines. It admitted its guidance for any UK Covid-19 vaccination scheme is likely to change in the future. Matt Hancock previously pledged that Britons with underlying conditions would be near the front of the queue for any jab. But millions living with heart disease or other ailments that raise their risk of dying of Covid-19 won't be vaccinated until everyone over the age of 65 is inoculated, according to the new guidance. WHO WILL GET A COVID-19 JAB FIRST? Under the proposed ranking by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the vaccines will be rolled out in the following order: older adults' resident in a care home and care home workers all those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers all those 75 years of age and over all those 70 years of age and over all those 65 years of age and over high-risk adults under 65 years of age with underlying health woes moderate-risk adults under 65 years of age with underlying health woes all those 60 years of age and over all those 55 years of age and over all those 50 years of age and over rest of the population (priority to be determined) Advertisement Government sources involved in the much-anticipated vaccine said it would be less than six months before a full programme, excluding children, would be ready. Plans to speed up the process include the creation of drive-thru vaccination centres and rules allowing more staff to give the jabs. The armed forces could even be drafted in for extra help. 'We are looking at closer to six months and it is likely to be far shorter than that,' a government source said. To administer two doses of a vaccine to 53 million adults in the six-month time period would involve 600,000 jabs a day. Those who need the injections most are first on the list, meaning care home residents and staff will get it as soon as it's ready. Those aged over 80 and NHS staff are next, followed by all over 65s, younger adults at higher risk and people over 50. Some care home managers were asked for a list of eligible frontline staff last month. Around 100million doses of the Oxford vaccination, which is yet to be proved successful, have already been ordered by the Government. It is hoped scientists will know if it prevents at least 50 per cent of infections, the threshold for success, by the end of this year. Britain is currently bound by the European Medicines Agency until January, meaning it can't administer the drug even if approved by UK regulators. But Ministers have revealed plans to change the law to allow vaccinations to start sooner. The Department of Health said: 'We are confident we have adequate provision or transport, PPE and logistical expertise to deploy a Covid-19 vaccine across the country as quickly as possible.' Several challenges had been highlighted in the Royal Society report, including the need to inject people with RNA, a type of genetic material, in some of the most promising studies, even though an RNA vaccine has never been produced at a large scale. Questions also remain over supply chains, with some vaccines having to be kept at -80C while being transported. Furthermore, as much as 80 per cent of the population may have to be innoculated to achieve herd immunity, even if a vaccine proves to be 90 per cent effective in reducing transmission. Prof Shah added that some 20,000 people would need to be recruited by the NHS to deliver the drug and that field hospitals may have to be built for the mass vaccination programme. It comes after it was revealed New York-based company Codagenix plans to begin experiments of its vaccine in London by the end of the year. The jab will be of a type called a live attenuated vaccine, meaning people will be given a genetically-modified version of the coronavirus that is weaker than the real thing but still infectious. People enter Oxford Circus underground station in London after the 10pm curfew that pubs and restaurants are subject to in order to combat the rise in coronavirus cases in England Live attenuated vaccines such as the MMR jab work by stimulating the immune system in the same way that real Covid-19 would, but by relying on viruses unable to cause severe illness. Codagenix says its vaccine was successful after a single dose in animal trials and is designed to produce immunity against various parts of the coronavirus, rather than just the 'spike protein' on the outside that many others have focused on. This could mean it would still work even if the virus mutated. Using a live virus may enable medics to create a type of immunity that is similar to what the body would make naturally. Oxford University's front-runner vaccine candidate was supposed to be rolled out this autumn but trials came to a standstill when infection rates petered out over summer. Studies had to be moved abroad to the likes of Brazil, the US and South Africa - where coronavirus was still rife - to test if the jab can prevent infection. In order to prove beyond doubt a vaccine works, scientists need to inoculate tens of thousands of people then send them back into the community and wait for some to get infected. This has been a sticking point for the Oxford team because there was barely any Covid-19 transmission for months in the UK. But experts have told MailOnline the one 'silver lining' to Britain's climbing Covid-19 rates is that it could speed up this process. Gurugram, Oct 3 : A 36-year-old woman has alleged that she was repeatedly raped and threatened by a Gurugram police head constable. The woman has lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police against the head constable. A zero FIR in this regard has been filed at the Dwarka police station and has been sent to Gurugram Police. Gurugram Police has registered a case under section 376 and 506 of the IPC at the Sadar police station, the police said on Sunday. According to the police, the victim hails from Uttam Nagar in Delhi. She works in a private bank in Delhi. "She alleged in her police complaint that she came in contact with the Haryana police head constable who was identified as Sudhir, a resident of Rohtak, in 2017. A few days after their friendship Sudhir took her to a hotel in Sector-39 and raped her." Thereafter, the head constable raped her several times on multiple occasions and threatened her with dire consequences if she disclosed the matter to anyone, the woman stated in her police complaint. Sudhir, who is currently posted at the city police station in Gurugram, said that the allegations made by the woman are false and that he is ready for any investigation. "Delhi Police had filed a zero FIR. Based on that, a case has been registered and investigation started. Action will be taken based on the facts that come up during the investigation. The woman will be called for statement and questioned," Station House Officer, Sadar police station, Dinesh Yadav said. LANSING, MI -- Guillermina and her husband pushed their retirement further down the road. The choice wasnt an easy one, but it was necessary: either they dip into the retirement fund or struggle to feed, house, and pay bills for their family of five. Presentations to include follow-up MINDACT study data and evaluations on the use of MammaPrint to guide treatment decisions in lobular cancers and for screen-detected breast cancers versus interval-detected breast cancers IRVINE, California, Oct. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Agendia, Inc., a world leader in precision oncology for breast cancer, today announced the presentation of four studies at the 12th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-12). The data include a poster on further stratification of subtyping with BluePrint in breast cancer, as well as oral presentations that focus on the MINDACT trial, with a general trial update and in-depth analyses on screen- versus interval-detected breast cancers and the use of MammaPrint to evaluate lobular cancers. Following are the four data sets accepted to the EBCC-12, which can be found at www.conferences.eortc.org/ebcc12: Screen-detected breast cancers have different tumor biology and better prognosis compared to interval breast cancers (Presentation ORAL-011, 12:50-1:00PM CEST , 3 October) (Presentation ORAL-011, , 3 October) Clinical Utility of MammaPrint testing in Invasive Lobular Carcinoma: Results from the MINDACT phase III trial (Presentation ORAL-007, 1:50-2:00PM CEST , 2 October) (Presentation ORAL-007, , 2 October) Updated results of the MINDACT trial: 70-gene signature to guide de-escalation of chemotherapy in early breast cancer (Presentation ORAL-021, 1:00-1:10PM CEST , 3 October) (Presentation ORAL-021, , 3 October) BluePrint Molecular Subtyping Recognizes Single and Dual Subtype Tumors with Implications for Therapeutic Guidance (Abstract #518, Poster Session B, 2 October) Oral presentations for MammaPrint focused on sub-studies within the 9-year follow-up data for the ground-breaking MINDACT study. These data included: An evaluation of the association between tumor biology and survival by mode of detection, which found that while both screen-detected and interval breast cancers showed very good 8-year DMFI rates, in patients with MammaPrint High Risk tumors, there was a significant difference in DMFI between screen- and interval-detected cancers. The results suggest that combining MammaPrint and the cancer detection method may improve risk stratification of patients with early stage breast cancer. An analysis that showed that MammaPrint is a clinically useful test for patients diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma, the second most common histological subtype of breast cancer. In this evaluation, MammaPrint classified 16% of lobular tumors as genomically High Risk, for which more aggressive treatment would be recommended. In contrast, the assay classified 38% of this type of cancer as genomically Low Risk, for which the standard should be omission of chemotherapy even if the patient is clinically high risk. These data reinforce MammaPrint's ability to help facilitate treatment decisions based on the biology of a tumor. In addition, new data in a general MINDACT follow up was presented by Emiel Rutgers, M.D., Ph.D., FRCS, Chair and Professor in Surgical Oncology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. The analysis confirmed the clinical utility of MammaPrint, with the data shown at EBCC-12 confirming that a MammaPrint Low Risk score can guide de-escalation of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with clinically high risk breast cancer. Finally, an Agendia-led study found that a small proportion of tissue samples (about 2%), when evaluated by the molecular subtyping test BluePrint, will display a dual genomic subtype instead of the typical single subtype. This secondary or even tertiary subtype, in some cases, has specific genomic characteristics that may help physicians understand the deeper biology of these tumors and the possible implications for treatment. "These data are evidence of Agendia's continuing commitment to support research to further our knowledge of breast cancer, for optimal patient care," said William Audeh, M.D., M.S., Chief Medical Officer at Agendia. "We are proud to share these multi-faceted data with the researchers, physicians, and advocates who will attend EBCC-12 and apply this information to improve treatment outcomes for their patients." The variety of data accepted for inclusion at EBCC-12 underscore Agendia's commitment to the pursuit of research that will allow for breast cancer patients and their care teams to confidently make the most personalized treatment decisions. About MINDACT MammaPrint, the 70-gene risk of recurrence assay for patients with early-stage breast cancer, is supported by level 1A clinical evidence from MINDACT, a landmark trial sponsored by the EORTC (EORTC-10041/BIG3-04). The study found that clinically high-risk patients with a MammaPrint Low Risk result could safely de-escalate treatment and forgo chemotherapy. Long-term follow-up data from MINDACT, presented at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), confirmed and built upon the findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2016. The MINDACT trial enrolled 6,693 breast cancer patients. At the five-year follow-up mark, the trial showed that tumor analysis and reclassification by the MammaPrint 70-gene expression signature enabled a 46 percent reduction in the use of chemotherapy for clinically high-risk patients that were reclassified by the genetic assay to be genomically Low Risk. Nine-year follow-up data will be published in depth later this year, and further validate MINDACT as a positive de-escalation study for chemotherapy and continues to demonstrate MammaPrint's clinical utility when determining a breast cancer patient's need for chemotherapy. View trial information here. About Agendia Agendia is a precision oncology company headquartered in Irvine, California, committed to bringing early stage breast cancer patients and their physicians the information they need to make the best decisions for the full treatment journey. The company currently offers two commercially-available genomic profiling tests, supported by the highest levels of clinical and real world evidence that provide comprehensive genomic information that can be used to identify the most effective breast cancer treatment possible for each patient. MammaPrint, the 70-gene breast cancer recurrence assay, is the only FDA-cleared risk of recurrence test backed by peer-reviewed, prospective outcome data and inclusion in both national and international treatment guidelines. BluePrint, the 80-gene molecular subtyping assay, is the only commercially-available test that evaluates the underlying biology of a tumor to determine what is driving its growth. Together, MammaPrint and BluePrint provide a comprehensive genomic profile to help physicians make more informed decisions in the pre- and post-operative treatment settings. By developing evidence-based novel genomic tests and conducting groundbreaking research while building an arsenal of data that will help treat breast cancer, Agendia aims to improve patient outcomes and support the evolving clinical needs of breast cancer patients and their physicians every step of the way, from initial diagnosis to cancer-free. Agendia's assays can be ordered on core biopsies or surgical specimens with results in as little as 5-7 days to inform pre- and post-operative treatment decisions. For more information on our assays and our ongoing trials, please visit www.agendia.com. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1002892/Agendia_Logo.jpg Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister on Saturday gave orders for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in Hathras incident of torture and alleged gangrape of a 19 -year-old Dalit woman who later died in a Delhi hospital. The Chief Minister's Office said that has given orders for probe into the incident. The state government had earlier ordered a Special Investigation Team probe into the case. The government also gave directions to suspend SP, DSP, Inspector and some others officials based on the first report of SIT. Victim's brother had said earlier in the day that the family was not satisfied with the investigation. The orders for probe came on a day Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi visited the family of the victim in Hathras. The woman died earlier this week in Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. All the four accused in the incident have been arrested. All students around the world sit their final exams on the same date papers are double-marked externally and results sent back to the school before students receive a final score out of 45. This includes a mark out of seven for each of the six core subjects, added together for a possible 42 marks. The final three marks come from the additional components. In theory, every student could receive the highest mark of 45. The IB is marked against pre-determined criteria and every subject carries the same worth; there are no high or low scaling subjects. It's a departure from the HSC, where students' final marks are placed on a bell-curve and they are ultimately ranked against their peers. How does the final mark compare to the ATAR? The final IB score is still converted into an ATAR for the purpose of university admissions. This is where the diploma has courted controversy. While ATAR algorithms are calculated fresh each year and subject to scaling, IB conversion scores are available in advance. The Universities Admissions Centre has given each IB score an ATAR equivalent: 45 becomes 99.95, 44 becomes 99.75, and so on. Any score above 33 translates to an ATAR above 90, while the bottom IB score of 24 becomes a rank of 68.45. Critics say the system over-inflates IB scores and is unfair, because IB students can be awarded an unlimited number of high ATARs. According to UAC, about 2 per cent of IB students receive a perfect ATAR of 99.95, compared with just 0.1 per cent of HSC students. There are also 2000 different ranks available to differentiate students using the ATAR, compared to just 22 with the IB. Christyon Hayek, Isabel Binnekamp and Lindsay McNeil all received ATARs in the high 99s after studying the IB in 2019. Credit:Steven Siewert "The IB cohort is very small and select," a UAC spokesperson said. "The results we receive from the IB are very coarse which makes differentiating between students, which is what a rank is trying to do, very difficult." Changes to be introduced from 2022 attempt to remedy this by making the conversions more granular: students identified as having a high 45 will still receive 99.95, but weaker 45s will yield 99.90. From 42 down there will be three sub-divisions for each IB score. The new system will likely see 25 per cent of students increase their rank and 15 per cent receive a lower rank. Why do schools offer the IB? Antony Mayrhofer, who has worked with the IB for 30 years and co-ordinates its delivery at St Paul's Grammar School in western Sydney, believes the diploma's strong focus on critical and creative thinking, as well as conceptual understanding, are of greater value to students than content recall. "A lot of schools introduce [the IB] because of the pedagogy; it strongly develops critical thinking skills," he said. "Others are drawn to the philosophy, which is very idealistic. And sometimes it comes from experience principals move to a different school and want to introduce it." Loading Linda Emms, head of learning and teaching at MLC Sydney, said the IB was popular among students who wished to pursue overseas studies in the future, because it is recognised globally by universities. It also helps the school cater to international students who may have studied the IB overseas. But schools face operational challenges in running the IB, such as advanced timetabling required to run two programs at once as well as teacher training. Schools must be authorised by the global International Baccalaureate Organisation to offer the diploma. "Ensuring all of our staff are up to date on changes to the curriculum and training staff new to the IB program is a continuous cycle," Ms Emms said. Still, many private schools have chosen not to offer the IB. Jenny Allum, principal of SCEGGS Darlinghurst, said she thought the HSC was more comprehensive and courses were as high quality as the IB. PLC Sydney principal Paul Burgis said other international programs, such as Cambridge courses, allowed greater flexibility and could be tailored to student needs. "The IB expects schools to use its professional development program, and it is a unified, single system," he said. Which is the right fit for my student? Mr Mayrhofer said 96 per cent of Australian IB students go on to university, and that the diploma's emphasis on university preparation means it is not suitable for all students. He also thinks it comes down to whether students want a broad educational approach in their senior school studies, or if they would prefer to hone in on a topic or vocational area. "The IB Diploma is deliberately broad-based, whereas the HSC is much more flexible it can be broad or it can be narrow to suit a student who really wants to specialise," he says. Loading "The HSC also offers the chance to refine subject selection through adding extension subjects and being able to drop a subject you dont enjoy as much." Some students are attracted to IB subjects such as psychology and global politics, which are not available in the HSC. But deterrents include the requirement to study a foreign language. Others are driven by scaling. Students who are strong in the arts might prefer the IB because it treats those subjects the same as maths and science: a grade 7 in theatre or music is worth the same as a 7 in physics. The HSC, on the other hand, has historically tended to elevate students who perform well in extension mathematics, physics, chemistry and economics. The IB workload can also be a source of stress for students. Teachers say it requires a different pattern of study to the HSC; students need to be prepared to commit to being organised over a two-year campaign. Then there's the fail factor: whereas all students are awarded the HSC regardless of their marks, a student can fail to receive an IB diploma. Last year's pass rate was about 92 per cent. Students must score a minimum 24 points to receive the formal qualification and an ATAR equivalent. But they must also score at least grade 4 in each of their higher level subjects. They cannot score a single grade 1, nor the bottom mark in either the essay or theory of knowledge subject. If they fail to meet those requirements, students can sit the IB exams up to three times and still receive a record of their results. Will the IB become more widespread? The IB diploma was offered by 15 NSW private schools in 2015; now it's about 20. "We see new schools joining each year, or most years. The proportion of students taking it is growing as well," Mayrhofer says. St Paul's and MLC, which have offered the IB for decades, now have about half their cohort take the diploma. Loading But most IB schools are in affluent areas just two are west of Strathfield and two are south of Maroubra and it is still not available in NSW public schools. Part of that problem is the price tag, which was costed by the NSW Department of Education at about $300,000 per school each year. Mr Mayrhofer acknowledges there is a "feeling of exclusivity" around the course in NSW, although other Australian states are increasingly offering the IB in public schools. Queensland introduced the diploma to three selective and six comprehensive public schools in 2010. An internal NSW Department of Education paper from 2017 recommended offering the IB in government schools to give students equity of access with private schools. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Kyodo News) Washington, United States Sat, October 3, 2020 17:30 476 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48ea7ad 2 World Donald-Trump,COVID-19,remdesivir,Melania-Trump,Joe-Biden,patients,hospital,Washington Free US President Donald Trump is "doing very well" and has received antiviral remdesivir therapy after being hospitalized for contracting the novel coronavirus, his physician said Friday. Trump, 74, was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington "out of an abundance of caution," according to the White House, adding that he is expected to stay there for several days. Trump tweeted at night, "Going well, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!" Trump is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but medical specialists have elected to initiate treatment with remdesivir, according to an evening health update by the president's physician Sean Conley. "He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably," Conley said. The situation has evolved rapidly since Trump tweeted in the early hours of Friday that he and his wife Melania, 50, tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. The president's physician had initially said the two are "both well" and that "they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence." As of the afternoon, the doctor said Trump "remains fatigued but in good spirits" while his wife remains well with a mild cough and headache. The president also received a dose of an experimental antibody cocktail manufactured by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals as a "precautionary measure," the doctor said. Trump later left the White House and traveled to the military medical center by helicopter. He gave a thumbs-up and a short wave to reporters before boarding, but did not take questions. Concerns linger over the president's health condition, as his age and weight are seen among the risk factors for developing severe symptoms of COVID-19. Trump has faced criticism over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 7.3 million people and killed 208,000 in the United States, outstripping any other country. He has repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus, telling the public to stay calm because the virus would just "go away," while holding in-person campaign rallies in recent months to galvanize his support base. Trump has also been seen wearing a mask on only a handful of occasions. Trump's coronavirus diagnosis has upended his election strategy, with only a month to go before the Nov. 3 election. The incumbent has trailed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, 77, in national polls. Biden, who shared a debate stage with Trump on Tuesday, has said he tested negative for the virus. 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. Bishkek: Elections for 120-seat Kyrgyz Parliament 'Jogorku Kenesh' are scheduled for October 4, 2020. At least 16 political parties are in the fray this time whose candidates are to be chosen by 3.3 million voters. The election would be monitored by 24 long-term and 350 short-term observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan are held every five years. MPs are elected on the basis of party lists. To prevent absolute dominance of one party, there is provision that one political subject cannot win more than 60 per cent of 120 mandates in the Parliament. A party contesting the election has to receive a 7 per cent national vote threshold to get a seat assured in Parliament. In the current House, Birimdik Party leads with 28 MPs, followed by Mekenim Kyrgyzstan with 15 and Kyrgyzstan party with 14 MPs. 100 incumbent MPs are contesting the elections under different party banners. Latest trends indicate that the President-backed Birimdik Party is most likely to emerge as the single largest party and form the next government in coalition with Mekenim Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan Party. Yuman Nuru Party is expected to be an ally. Kyrgyzstan is susceptible to Chinese debt trap as China is the key business partner of Kyrgyzstan and also its largest creditor. Chinese debt constitutes 45 per cent of Kyrgyzstan's total foreign debt. Kyrgyzstan has been asking China for deferment. China's delay in considering Kyrgyzstans request is indicative of the former's tactic of mounting pressure in return for some major favour, which otherwise would have been difficult. The discontentment against China is growing within the country as the unemployment rate in the country stands at almost 20 per cent of the working population. The people are forced to rely on themselves amid speculations that the government is slowly becoming addicted to Chinese loans. China as always is more than forthcoming to provide further loans to cover the interest of existing loans. For all the concerns in recent years that Kyrgyzstan was falling into a Chinese debt trap, through the first half of 2020 Bishkek had been meeting their commitments to Beijing. Kyrgyzstan started to borrow large sums from China's Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) to finance infrastructure around 2010. Since 2016, annual Kyrgyz repayments to Eximbank have been almost equal to the amount it borrows, keeping debt to Eximbank at the same level. The Eximbank owns more than two-fifths of Kyrgyzstans nearly USD 4 billion foreign debt and has financed major transport and energy projects in the country. There are chances that extremist groups may exploit the growing public discontent especially youth towards a more radical Islam from the state-supported traditional Kyrgyz Islam. As per the Kyrgyz government data (May 2019),the number of people accused of terrorism or extremism has grown five times in the past 7 years. China has also made inroads into the country through State sponsored corruption targeting Kyrgyz officials. The China Road and Bridge Corporation that is building the Bishkek-Osh motorway inflated construction cost to defraud and siphon off money from Kyrgyz exchequer. Can you see any other face?: Priyanka Gandhi on Congress's CM candidate in Uttar Pradesh Hathras Protests: Priyanka Gandhi saves Congress worker during police lathicharge at DND India oi-Deepika S Lucknow, Oct 03: High drama prevailed at the Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND) flyway after the Uttar Pradesh cops resorted to mild lathi charge over hundreds of Congress workers, compelling party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to come out and help a party worker who was being baton charged by police personnel. On Saturday, five Congress leaders were allowed to visit Hathras to meet the family members of the victim. Despite the announcement, hundreds of Congress workers gathered at the DND sloganeering in favour of their leaders refused to leave the flyway and thus the UP Police resorted to lathi charge to disperse the mob. NGO seeks transfer of Hathras probe to CBI Priyanka Gandhi, in a dark blue kurta and wearing a face mask came out of her vehicle and rushed into the crowd to shield a party worker. She can be seen hopping a small yellow barricade and rushing to protect the party worker as cops with raised lathis surround her. There is no greater strength than a woman fighting for justice. #SatyagrahaForOurDaughters pic.twitter.com/WATQvJXvlv Congress (@INCIndia) October 3, 2020 On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the Uttar Pradesh police in Greater Noida and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the young woman. The Congress has alleged that the woman and her family have been "denied justice" and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in its attempt to "hide the truth" of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi''s Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police had forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". New Delhi: A delegation of Congress MPs led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras Saturday afternoon to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped, a senior party leader said. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be part of the delegation that will meet the family to hear their grievances and demand justice for them, sources said. "Congress MPs under the leadership of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras today afternoon to meet the grieving family of the 19-year old-daughter of Uttar Pradesh, who was brutally assaulted & murdered," Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal tweeted. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman. In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable to me. No Indian should accept this." Hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi said the UP government is "morally corrupt". "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test," she said in a tweet in Hindi. "This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family," she said. The party alleged that the woman and her family have been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government in their attempt to hide the truth of the heinous crime perpetrated on her. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". . Has the world ever needed a Nick Hornby book more than it does today? The British novelist who gave us High Fidelity and About a Boy is back with Just Like You, an endearing love story that defies convention. Set in London as Britons vote on whether to leave the European Union, the novel is a breezy read, grounded in just enough realism to make it all feel, well, real. Lucy is the main character, a 41-year-old divorced schoolteacher with two young sons. We meet her in 2016 standing in line at the butcher shop, reluctantly gossiping with a girlfriend. What are you looking for? In a man? asks her friend Emma. Hygiene, is Lucys sudden reply. Fast-forward about 5 minutes when Lucy first eyes a 22-year-old man named Joseph, as he deflects Emmas flirtatious comments while ordering meat. I could eat him up, Emma tells Lucy afterward. He didnt look like he was interested in being eaten up, replies Lucy. He doesnt know how Id cook him. Lucy wasnt sure this metaphor worked, Hornby writes. Knowing how you were going to be cooked hardly made the prospect of being devoured more enticing. And so it goes for pages and pages. Hornbys knack for dialogue and the crackling wit he gives his characters makes the chapters fly. Its not giving much away to say that Lucy and Joseph commence a relationship a relationship that shouldnt work but somehow mostly does. He begins as her babysitter, and then hes a babysitter with benefits, and then hes just all benefits. Its touching and lovely and all the things that honest relationships should be in this day and age. Or as Hornby deftly describes it from inside Josephs head: If youd asked him before what made him happy, he wouldnt really have understood the relevance of the question. Now he knew the answer: sleeping with Lucy, eating with Lucy, watching TV with Lucy. And maybe there was no future in it, but there was a present, and thats what life consists of. Its not all sunshine and rainbows, of course. Joseph is Black and Lucy is white, and that creates a degree of racial tension. Lucys neighbor calls the police when he sees Joseph knocking on her door late one night and not getting an answer. After the confrontation, Hornby writes some revealing dialogue, starting with Josephs voice: That wasnt such a big deal. Thats terrible, then. Because it should be. You dont want the police turning up when theres a guy skulking around outside your window at night? I would. Youre being flippant. Dont tell me what to feel. Im telling you not to write if off as nothing. He responds: If I dont write things like that off as nothing, Id drive myself mad. The novel is full of exchanges like that about race and Brexit, as these seemingly incompatible lovers figure out that maybe, just maybe, theres a place for their relationship in this modern world. Plans for a northeast Kachina Village subdivision are back and on their way toward final approval. The plans for a subdivision on 40 acres north of Tovar Trail, adjacent to Interstate 17, date back to 2008, but the subdivision was not developed and its approval expired in 2017. The latest version of the development, named Kachina Highlands, is broken into three neighborhoods for a total of 173 lots of single-family homes and duplexes. Following a virtual public hearing Wednesday night, the Coconino County Planning and Zoning Commission voted to recommend the approval of the proposed zone change and Subdivision Preliminary Plat to the board of supervisors. If approved, the zoning would change from residential single-family -- with a 6,000-square-foot minimum parcel size -- to planned community. The board of supervisors must also approve a final plat before development can begin. The property, a combination of five parcels, is located between I-17 and the Forest Highlands wastewater treatment area, just north of the homes on Tovar Trail. The proposed project includes creating an access road extending from Tovar Trail and an arched crossing over Upper Tovar Springs to leave a passageway for small wildlife. Houses will range from 1,350 to 3,000 square feet, and will each have two-car garages and driveways. Lots range from 3,200 to 9,474 square feet. Streets are private and include two roundabouts. The earlier plan for the subdivision, then named Kachina Village North, became too expensive to develop, according to the project manager. In the newest version, an additional 43 lots have been added, but open space has been increased from 17% to 31%. Casey Christensen, principal with Scottsdale-based developer Arcadia Capital Group, said the goal is to create a master plan that complements Kachina Village and also includes new amenities for buyers. Were excited about the plan. We think, ultimately, it will live better than the existing approval, Christensen said. More than 70 people tuned in to the virtual meeting Wednesday, including numerous Kachina Village residents who expressed concerns about the development during its public hearing. Shari Peralta, speaking on behalf of more than a dozen of her neighbors, asked the commission to delay the decision on a zone change to give more time for the developer to share needed information on the project. She cited concerns such as traffic, wildlife, water supply and safety evacuation plans. Theres just too many questions that are not answered, and we ask that you listen to us, Peralta said. We are the people who live here, we are the people of this neighborhood. People are obviously concerned. Please delay your zoning decision until things can be worked out. Initially, commissioners expressed the same concerns as the public -- especially traffic. According to a traffic study submitted with the proposal, increased traffic from the new subdivision could cause back-ups at the intersection of Tovar Trail and Kachina Boulevard, especially for those making a left turn. Commissioners also admitted they had difficulty determining if the subdivision would fit the existing character of Kachina Village, especially with its increased density from the previous plan. Areas have their own character and thats why people choose them, said Commissioner Mary Williams, who later voted against the zone change recommendation. Kachinas different even than Mountainaire, so when you come in as the last development in an area that is 80%, 90% already developed, the burden is a lot higher to fit into that development. After extensive discussion it seemed the commissioners were unlikely to push the plan through to the supervisors without modifying the conditions needed for approval, but the vote came down to a procedural clarification. County staff had pointed out that the developer submitted all the documentation needed to proceed to the next step in the process and that solutions for specific concerns like traffic could be finalized later. I recognize there is a traffic issue, but it is outside of the purview of this commission to solve that, said Tammy Ontiveros, chair of the commission, as she explained her change in perspective on the project. Everything that the applicant has been legally required to do at this point, regarding traffic, has been done. The further studies are going to be what directs the next step, how to make this a safe and comfortable move of traffic. She added that by sending the proposal to the supervisors, members of the public would have an additional chance to express their opinions on the project. Other commissioners similarly decided this proposal did address most of their concerns and was the best option for the parcel they described as sandwiched between I-17 and the wastewater treatment area. I honestly think this is the first time in over a decade where I have sat on this commission where I really dont know how this is going to come down, Ontiveros said prior to the vote. The recommendation for approval of the zone change passed, 4-2, while the Subdivision Preliminary Plat passed 5-1. Project manager Ian Braun, with Civil Design & Engineering, assured the group during the discussion that the development team would be able to address and satisfy the concerns brought up during the hearing. Kaitlin Olson can be reached at the office at kolson@azdailysun.com or by phone at (928) 556-2253. Love 10 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 6 Angry 44 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. President Donald Trump leaves the White House for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on Oct. 2, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Twitter, Facebook Say They Will Remove Posts Hoping for Trumps Death Twitter and Facebook said late Friday they would remove posts that wish or hope for President Donald Trumps death. Trump, 74, was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Thursday and traveled to a medical center in Maryland the following day for treatment, including remdesivir, an anti-viral drug. Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed. This does not automatically mean suspension, Twitter said in a statement in response to a post that said the platform would suspend people who tweet that they hope Trump dies. Posts wishing for Trumps death quickly piled up on Twitter following Trumps diagnosis. Zara Rahim, a former spokeswoman for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said in a tweet, It has been against my moral identity to tweet this for the past four years, but I hope he dies. Rahim worked in the Obama administration before being employed by Clintons campaign. Steve Cox, an independent candidate running for a House of Representatives seat representing Californias 39th District, also wrote that he hoped they both die. He later said he was referring to Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, not Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. Facebook spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois said the tech giant would also moderate death wishes or threats against Trump. To be clear, Facebook is removing death threats or content targeted directly at the president that wishes him death, including comments on his posts or his pagein addition to content tagging him, she said in a statement. Social media platforms are largely shielded from liability for what their users post under Section 230 of the Decency in Communications Act, which Republicans and Trumps administration are increasingly pushing to alter. The CEOs of Twitter and Facebook face subpoenas from a Senate panel in part because senators want to question them about their moderation practices. Slamming a Twitter user who described him as a product of nepotism, actor Abhishek Bachchan said that the person was ill-informed, immature and naive. The actor, in recent days, has had to fend off a new wave of online hate. On October 2, a Twitter user wrote to Abhishek, @juniorbachchan hey product of nepotism, if u r doing struggle then i wish god gives struggle like u to every individual. Me n my wife Sneha hv been doing youtube for a while but this different from ur big banner films also. Bcz i do it on my own nd dont ask my father to refer. The actor responded, You are ill informed, immature and naive. Stop believing incorrect and bogus narratives. Think! Please, for your wifes and familys sake. You are ill informed, immature and naive. Stop believing incorrect and bogus narratives. Think! Please, for your wifes and familys sake. Abhishek Bachchan (@juniorbachchan) October 2, 2020 Abhishek has been responding to several similar messages on social media this week, which range from accusing him of using his father, Amitabh Bachchan, to further his career, to having received an easy break in Bollywood because of the family he belongs to. Aapko nahi lagta ke aapko filmon mein kaam sirf Amitabh Bachchan ke bete hone ki vajah se milta hai (Dont you think you get work only because youre Amitabh Bachchans son)? one person asked Abhishek recently. The actor replied, Kaash jo aap keh rahe hote sach hota. Sochiye, kitna kaam milta mujhe. (I wish what youre saying was true. Imagine how much work Id get). When another person, also named Abhishek, said that Abhishek was given his first film, Refugee, only because he was a nepokid, the actor responded, Arey yaar, yeh saare duniya ke Abhishek mere peeche kyu padh gaye hain. Baksh do maharaj, chup chaap apna kaam kar raha hu (Oh my, why have all the Abhisheks of the world started attacking me. Have mercy, Im just trying to do my job). Also read: Abhishek Bachchan replies to troll who says you are still gonna be jobless after theatres reopen: That is in audiences hands Abhishek, who along with his father Amitabh, wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and daughter Aaradhya, recently recovered from the coronavirus, was last seen in Amazon Primes Breathe: Into the Shadows. The actor has several projects lined up, including The Big Bull, which will be released on Disney+ Hotstar, and Ludo, which is due out on Netflix. Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON OTTAWAElizabeth May isnt passing the torch. Shes passing the microphone. And one day she might take it back. The woman who was the face of the Green Party of Canada for the past 14 years is leaving the door open to returning one day as leader, just as members elect her successor in a vote that concludes on Saturday. You cant rule anything out, May told the Star this week, after she brought up how the former leader of the Greens in the United Kingdom got her job back after stepping down. And while its highly unlikely it would make sense for her to be leader again, May said she wouldnt close the door on anything, because the future is as we all know pretty darn uncertain. May also downplayed the importance of the leadership job in the Green Party organization and stressed that whoever wins the race wont have control of the party. The Green party is defined by the grassroots formation of policy, and there are no whipped votes in Parliament, she said. The leader has very little scope to set policy and wont be able to direct her and the two other Green MPs in the House of Commons. Youre the chief spokesperson, she said. Youre not the boss. Canadians will learn who is not the boss of the Green party on Saturday night, after a months-long contest that has seen a diverse cast of leadership candidates debate the direction of the movement following Mays long tenure in the top job. The eight names on the ballot include lawyers from Toronto and Montreal, an emergency room doctor from Yellowknife and an astrophysicist. Former Liberals are campaigning alongside eco-socialists, as well as one Ottawa-based contender who wants the party to woo fiscal conservatives. It makes for an eclectic mix that has showcased the broad base of the Green Party, said Paul Manly, who became the partys second-ever federal MP last year (the first was May, in 2011). Were going through changes and, you know, changes arent always easy. But Im going to miss having Elizabeth May as the leader and Im really looking forward to the next phase, he said. Were a big-tent party. Weve got people in the party who are former members of every other political party in the country, from Progressive Conservatives to NDP, Liberals and even some anarchists. Without polls to gauge support, observers can only look to fundraising numbers as a sign of whose campaign is trending toward victory. The front-runner on that score, as of Aug. 31, was Annamie Paul, a Toronto lawyer who wants to ban fracking, put a carbon tax on imported goods from countries with weaker emissions pricing, create a guaranteed livable income, and tackle systemic racism by among other things reducing police budgets and funding social services. Trailing Paul with the second-most donations is Dimitri Lascaris. A Montreal lawyer and one of the avowed eco-socialists in the race, Lascaris is campaigning on a pledge to unite the left under the Green banner, including through taxation policies such as a 100 per cent tax on wealth above $500 million that would prevent Canadians from becoming billionaires. The centre of Canadian politics is incredibly crowded right now. Youve got the Liberals and the NDP who are really playing to the centre, and youve got up until now the Green party playing the same game, said Quebec Green Leader Alex Tyrrell, who endorsed Lascaris in the campaign. With an outspoken, eco-socialist, activist platform, we could really rally the entire Canadian left behind us, he said. Others in the race, like former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister Glen Murray and B.C.-based David Merner, have stressed improvements to party operations and messaging to better raise money and maintain election readiness in ways that can carry on the trajectory of growth set under Mays leadership. Ontario Green Leader Mike Schreiner, who is the MPP for Guelph, said the next federal leaders main job will be to build on Mays legacy. That includes the solid foundation of electing three MPs in the last federal election, as the Green movement grew to include elected provincial representatives in Ontario, B.C., New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Weve done it by building a broad tent, inclusive party thats talking about bold, transformative change, but doing it in a very pragmatic way, said Schreiner. Thats what its going to take to grow the party and elect more Greens, but also deliver enduring change that we need to address the climate crisis and promote social justice and improve our democracy. Outside of policy debates, however, the contest has been ugly at times. Candidates including Paul who is Black and Jewish have spoken about being subjected to racist slurs. Montreals Dylan Perceval-Maxwell, was booted from the race after stating police should give $20 to racialized people they stop on the street a suggestion condemned by Haddad as super racist. Lascaris, meanwhile, was initially blocked from running by the party. Though the party wont discuss reasons for decisions on candidate eligibility, Global News reported Friday that Lascaris prompted denunciations from political leaders in 2018 when he questioned whether Jewish Liberal MPs were more loyal to apartheid Israel after they did not heed his call to denounce a video in which two women critical of a pro-Palestinian rally call for the death penalty on Canadian politicians. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Lascariss comment a vile anti-Semitic smear. Lascaris defended his words in a blog post, condemning anti-Semitism and arguing he shouldnt be defamed for defending the human rights of Palestinians. Some contenders have also criticized the party organization itself. In late September, Haddad was expelled then reinstated as a candidate after criticizing the B.C. Greens on social media. She accused the party establishment of trying to scupper her campaign. Then there was Glen Murray, the former Winnipeg mayor and Ontario Liberal cabinet minister, who blamed the party for shortchanging donations to his leadership campaign. Murray said his campaign is missing well over $12,000, and questioned the fairness of the campaign process. Schreiner said he hopes the episode with Murrays donations doesnt cast doubt on the outcome of the contest. Theres such a diverse group of strong candidates from across the country, and it would be a shame if there were any questions about the race, he said. Emily McMillan, the partys executive director from 2013 to 2019, said the next leader will need to get a seat in Parliament as soon as they can, or at least focus on Ottawa in the same way they would if they had a spot in the House. On that score, Paul would have the earliest chance if she wins the race, because shes currently running in a byelection in Toronto-Centre. But aside from that, McMillan said the leadership race is an opportunity to bring fresh excitement to the party after so many years with the same leader. My hope is with a refresh that there can be new excitement around what the Greens have to say, she said. While May said she could have stayed on as leader if she wanted, she agreed there is a need for a new public face for the party a realization she said occurred after she felt her presence at the leaders debate in the 2019 election didnt spark the reaction she expected. The party needs renewal. We need a new leader, we need someone who the media is interested in as something new, she said. Theyre kind of used to me by now, theyre kind of taking me for granted. Somebody new and fresh and can take this party farther than I can now. But that doesnt mean shes going anywhere. May said she will work with whoever wins the race to help them gain renown and win a seat but not in a hierarchy where the leaders the boss. A friend of mine said I should really figure out how to be the Queen Mother, she said with a laugh. With any luck, as long as my health holds out, and the voters of SaanichGulf Islands elect me, Ill be in Parliament at the end of the next election too. Read more about: Abrons 2019-2020 Visual Artist AIRspace residents Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Arisleyda Dilone, Alicia Mersy, and Charisse Pearlina Weston kick off an interactive exhibition presenting work developed during their residency period Saturday, October 3, 1-3 PM ET at the Abrons Amphitheater. DJ Ted Kamal is set up to accompany the opening activities at the amphitheater, where you can pick up a map for the self-guided tour of the exhibition. They write: Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.s photography will be presented outdoors on the exterior of Abrons Arts Center in partnership with the Photoville Festival 2020. His photographic works visualize moments of contemplation, self-possession, and intimacy. The ambiguous nature of the photographs is in favor of an expansive, incoherent, and timeless regard for what is pictured. Similar to how experiences are layered in memory, he considers how a singular moment may be recontextualized to glean something comprehensive, new, or unplanned for. On October 3rd at 7 PM ET, Arisleyda Dilone presents a work-in-progress excerpt from their forthcoming feature-length documentary, Y Este Cuerpo Tambien/This Body, Too, which chronicles the filmmakers journey as a queer intersex woman in a clan of Dominican-American women. The film considers the literal construction of womanhood and femininity within their own family in an effort to make space for complexity, collective healing, and personal growth. The screening will be followed by a discussion between Dilone and film curator Dessane Lopez Cassell. RSVP. Alicia Mersy presents photographs from her project NURSES on the windows of Henry Street Settlement Workforce Development Center at 178 Broome Street. NURSES is a documentary project about the daily lives of New York City nurses. By presenting these stories and images, NURSES gives homage to those who choose a career in care and aims to remind us of the universal importance of empathy and compassion in healing. In Abrons Arts Centers Main Gallery, Charisse Pearlina Weston presents her new series of work, nine physical poems, which incorporates colored glass into investigations of the fold as a spatial realm for/of Blackness. nine physical poems will be on-view from Monday Friday, 10 AM 5 PM. AIRspace Residents receive a monetary award for their participation in the program, as well as a private studio space for nine months at the Abrons facility, located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Throughout this residency cycle, remote studio visits are arranged with critics, curators, artists, and other arts-workers. The residency period culminates in a group exhibition. Jajpur: A fake currency racket running in Jaijpur district and other areas in Odisha was busted by police and four people were arrested. Further, police also seized fake currency notes with a face value of Rs 27.46 lakh from them. Getting a tip off, Kaliapani police conducted a raid in Kingola village on Saturday and apprehended one Pradeep Kumar Pradhan from his house and took him to Kaliapani police station. Police also seized Rs 8200 fake Indian currency notes of Rs 100 denomination from his possession. "Pradhan was trying to circulate the fake currency notes it in the local market, finding it to be fit place for use as the area is dominated by illiterate and innocent tribal people," said Inspector General (IG) of police, Central Range, Soumendra Priyadarshi. Police said during interrogation, Pradhan disclosed his aide's name as Chandramani Bal who was also circulating the fake currency notes. The house of Chandramani at Chhachina village was raided by the police who then arrested him. Further, cops also seized counterfeit notes of Rs 50,000 of various denominations from his possession which was for circulation in Mangalpur and Dasarathapur areas. During interrogation of the duo, police got vitali nformation on the fake currency circulation and conducted raids at different places in the state and arrested Rameswar Maharana alias Ramesh of Nuapada of Ganjam and seized Rs 26.16 lakh of counterfeit notes of 2000, 500 and 100 denominations. Police said while Ramesh and Pradeep used to circulate the notes, Chandramani was preparing these counterfeit notes. "This is a very big racket and more people are involved in this crime. We have only arrested four persons.Investigation is on to apprehend other accused who areinvolved in this racket, the IG pointed out. He, however, did not reveal the name of the fourthaccused arrested in this case. A case under various section of IPC has been registered in this connection. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Tech-enabled background verification service provider Helloverify has launched HelloV which will be an instant background verification service over WhatsApp. Here, companies as well as individuals can get background screening done over a few steps on WhatsApp. This is the first such service available in India. A typical background check takes between two to three weeks to be completed. With this service the report is present within a few minutes. Since background checks are mandatory at about 60-65 percent of companies in India, having an instant service would speed up the hiring process. Varun Mirchandani, CEO & Cofounder, Helloverify told Moneycontrol that the new service will make background verification quick and efficient. We have simplified 30-40 steps into three simple steps. The service is available in English and Hindi. The concerned person will have to share their identity details and based on an OTP for seeking consent to access this information, the checks are done, he added. To avail of this service, the individual/business has to enter the details over WhatsApp to a dedicated number and then share the identity card picture. Helloverify then scans the identity information and seeks consent to use the data to prepare the report. Once the consent is provided through a mobile-based OTP, the report is prepared. This process takes only one to two minutes. The report is prepared after accessing the database of the identity provider (regional transport office for driving licence, UIDAI for Aadhaar) to verify the information provided. Any past criminal records can also be found out through this process since firms like Helloverify have access to this information. Only background verification firms get access to criminal records and identity. Moving the process to WhatsApp cuts down the overall time taken to verify the information. Background verification, which was till recently used by a handful of companies is slowly becoming the norm. This not only includes the standard verification of basic information like address, education and past employer, but also other parameters like creditworthiness. Also Read: How employee onboarding is moving online during COVID-19 The pricing ranges between Rs 899-1,299 for the background verification services on WhatsApp. Once the payment is done and identity details are shared, the report is shared with the individual/company on WhatsApp. Moneycontrol reported earlier how the mandatory background screening of new employees across firms has moved online amid the coronavirus outbreak. But, due to the absence of a single reference point for sourcing all information, the process has been delayed across India Inc. As per Mirchandani, the service is targeted at both individuals and small businesses, and people can use this service to verify their tenants, employees, drivers, nannies, security guards, cooks or other domestic helps instantly. The service even checks for criminal records apart from identity and address checks. He added that e-commerce firms could also get quick checks done for the several thousand staff hired for the festive season using their service. When it comes to Hello V, Mirchandani said that four of the five key checks can be done within a few seconds. Criminal, identity, address and employment records are instant. For educational records there could be some delays considering that most universities are closed. Companies no longer have time to wait 1-3 weeks to get the background check done, he added. Going forward, he added that companies may directly hire new employees who can present such previously background verification reports they may have done on their own. It is about building the digital trust. Soon new hires can tell the prospective employees that they are already verified. Companies can then come onto platforms like us to just re-check these reports, he added. NEW DELHI (AP) - South Africa and India have asked the World Trade Organization to waive some provisions in the international agreements that regulate intellectual property rights, to speed up efforts to prevent, treat and contain the COVID-19 pandemic and make sure developing countries are not left behind. The countries argue, in a joint submission to the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights dated Friday, that without a rapid waiver of some existing safeguards for intellectual property rights, some countries - particularly developing ones that have been "disproportionately impacted" - would find it hard to access vaccines or medicines quickly. Activists have warned that a COVID-19 vaccine could be hoarded by rich countries in a race to inoculate their populations first. Some countries including Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. have ordered hundreds of millions of doses of potential vaccines even before clinical trials have shown they are effective. Poorer countries, whose economies have been shattered by the pandemic, are not in a position to place such bets. With the world surpassing 1 million confirmed COVID-19 deaths, urgency has grown. Leena Menghaney, who heads the access campaign in South Asia for international aid group Doctors Without Borders, called it "crucial that other member governments of the WTO support this, as we need to ensure that vaccines, drugs and other medical tools needed for COVID-19 can be scaled up by countries and their manufacturers without facing protracted negotiations for licenses." South Africa and India are seeking waivers to rules that relate to copyright, industrial designs, patents and the protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets, and they propose that the waiver be in place "until widespread vaccination is in place globally" and most of the world has developed immunity to the coronavirus. FILE - In this July 30, 2020 file photo, Kai Hu, a research associate transfers medium to cells, in the laboratory at Imperial College in London. Imperial College is working on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. South Africa and India on Friday Oct. 2, 2020, asked the World Trade Organization to waive some provisions in the international agreements that regulate intellectual property rights, to speed up efforts to prevent, treat and contain the COVID-19 pandemic and make sure developing countries are not left behind. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File) The countries say there are "significant concerns" about whether new treatments and vaccines being developed for COVID-19 would be made available promptly and affordably to meet the global demand. The letter says the existing flexibilities written into the rules might not be enough, and could result in legal difficulties for developing nations. Countries with a limited capacity to manufacture pharmaceuticals are particularly vulnerable, and this could make the process of importing and exporting medicines "cumbersome and lengthy," it says. "Internationally, there is an urgent call for global solidarity, and the unhindered global sharing of technology and know-how in order that rapid responses for the handling of COVID-19 can be put in place on a real time basis," the letter says. It asks that the council urgently approach the WTO's high-level decision-making body, the General Council. India's government and a spokeswoman for South Africas health ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. South Africa has been outspoken in the past about access to treatments, notably affordable drugs for HIV. Africas 54 countries have teamed up during the COVID-19 pandemic to pursue equitable access to any effective vaccine. An African Union communique in June said governments around the world should "remove all obstacles" to any vaccine's swift and equitable distribution, including by making all intellectual property and technologies immediately available. The communique specifically mentioned the Doha Declaration on public health by WTO members in 2001, which refers to the right to grant compulsory licenses - where a government can license the use of a patented invention without the consent of the patent-holder. The African communique, read out after a continental conference on the quest for COVID-19 vaccines, states an urgent need for countries to "make full use of legal measures ... to ensure monopolies do not stand in the way of access." It points out the "barriers" intellectual property rules have posed in the past to affordable vaccines in developing countries. Drug companies have said they need to protect their intellectual property to fund their expensive research. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has supported a COVID-19 technology access pool where IP and data can be shared voluntarily. ___ Anna reported from Johannesburg. ___ 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. The India Today Group is back with the sixth edition of the Safaigiri Awards. The annual event this year will honour COVID-19 Warriors who have been leading the fight against COVID-19 from the front. The platform will therefore be called India Today Safaigiri: Healthgiri Awards to honour the spirit of Corona Warriors and to felicitate the pioneering efforts of those who have significantly contributed during this pandemic. For the last few months since the outbreak of Covid-19, India is facing a big challenge. The entire nation is trying to fight the pandemic mainly due to the efforts of selfless warriors from various walks-of-life. These brave citizens have been fronting the battle to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Doctors and paramedics as the frontline are providing medical assistance despite their personal safety concerns. Administrations from the centre to local governments are inundated with the task of improving health infrastructure, ramping up testing and treatment facilities, maintaining law and order. A host of Indians are voluntarily contributing to this effort mainly by spreading awareness and highlighting the safety precautions and running relief measures. The India Today Group invites nominations from Individuals/Organisations who have appreciably contributed and brought about a significant change during this pandemic. The categories for this year are: Best State in Combating Covid-19 Best Celebrity Contribution in Spreading Awareness Best Far-Reaching Corporate Contribution for a Wider Social Impact Best Testing Facility Best NGO or other Entity that Extended Timely Help to Migrants Best Innovation for Covid -Related Activity in Times of the Pandemic Best Logistics Services Provider Best NGO or Other Entity Offering Healthcare Services Best Health Manager Nominations with all details can be sent to safaigiri@intoday.com or they can be filed on www.safaigiri.in under respective categories meeting the criteria requirements. The last date of filing nominations is 12th September 2020. This years esteemed jury for selecting and honouring the awardees will be: Exhausted family and friends in Wales spent 4.8 million extra hours caring for loved ones with dementia during lockdown This article is old - Published: Saturday, Oct 3rd, 2020 Family and friends of people living with dementia in Wales have put in 4.8 million extra caring hours since lockdown began, an Alzheimers Society Cymru investigation reveals. The shocking figure has been blamed on the double whammy of lockdown making dementia symptoms worse, and the chronically underfunded social care system leaving them nowhere else to turn. Across Wales, England and Northern Ireland the charity estimates family and friends have spent an extra 92 million hours caring for loved ones with dementia since 23 March. In its new report Worst hit: dementia during Coronavirus the charity reports the catastrophic impact coronavirus has had on the 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK, including around 48,000 in Wales. It reveals nearly 14,000 have died in England and Wales from the virus between March and June. Alzheimers Society warns the Government of the lessons around testing, PPE, and infection control that must be learnt to protect people with dementia from coronavirus this winter, and prevent further tragedy. The charity argues the tens of thousands of tragic deaths that occurred in care homes are a sobering illustration of the extent to which social care has been ignored, and starved of funding. The Welsh Governments Care Homes Action Plan has laid out a strategy for preventing the spread of coronavirus in care settings, but Alzheimers Society Cymru warns this does not go far enough, and relies on regular testing for care home staff and residents, which has been dogged by delays. The charity also continues to hear of significant problems, including care homes not having their tests collected and results taking too long to be returned. The plan also has not recognised the family carers on an equal footing with key workers, an omission which the charity says will risk further dangerous isolation for residents with dementia. The report reveals for the first time the painful experiences of families with dementia out in the community over the last six months, and urges the Government to fix the broken social care system they are propping up at huge personal sacrifice. Since the pandemic thousands of people with dementia have seen a devastating deterioration in symptoms due to lockdown causing social isolation, and health or social care service interruptions reported by 83% of the family carers the charity spoke to. Karen Beattie lives in Abergale, Conwy, with her husband Rob who has Alzheimers disease. She says lockdown has been a particularly testing time. As Robs condition progresses, she admits to being concerned about what the future holds, a feeling that the pandemic and inevitable isolation has only made worse. She said: We used to travel around and do Dementia Friends sessions and he was a different man. Now he doesnt get any break from the isolation. As a result, hes is a bit depressed. He ran away recently and I had to call the police. He is getting worse. Social services are involved now and our social worker is trying to get some support for me as Im not coping at all. Im not sleeping either. Were not socialising, so its really difficult. Im finding it hard to keep Rob upbeat. Alzheimers Society in Colwyn Bay have been a great help our dementia support worker calls every week and gives advice. Even so, Rob is deteriorating quickly in lockdown. Karens experience mirrors that of carers across the UK. 95 per cent of family carers the charity surveyed said extra caring hours had negatively impacted their physical or mental health, with 69 per cent of over 1,000 people the charity spoke to reporting feeling constantly exhausted, 64 per cent feeling anxious, 49 per cent feeling depressed, and 50 per cent developing problems sleeping. Half of those the charity spoke to spent more than 100 hours a week looking after or helping the person they care for since 23rd March. But even before lockdown, family and friends across the country were propping up the cash-starved social care system, with 40 per cent saying theyd put in over 100 hours a week prior to lockdown. Alzheimers Society Cymru is urging the Government to: Commit to long-term reform of the UKs creaking social care system so that it becomes available to all and free at the point of use, funded in the same way as the NHS, education and other public services Guarantee that where care was stopped due to coronavirus precautions (particularly domiciliary care), it will be reinstated when deemed safe, without the need for unnecessary further formal assessment Ensure that the Infection Control Fund remains in place until at least April 2021 and care providers should be able to use that fund Flexibly, including for infection control, technology and supporting visits. Recognise the key role that informal carers play in the lives of people living with dementia by: Allowing at least one informal carer per care home resident to be a designated key worker and have access to training, COVID-19 testing/vaccinations and PPE Ensuring carers assessments can be completed and respite care is available so that carers are able to take short breaks Develop a clear strategy to help people affected by dementia recover from the effects of the pandemic, including rehabilitation to Counteract effects on cognitive or physical functioning, support for mental and physical health, and speech and language therapy. The charity is also calling on the NHS and local authorities to set out how they will involve social care providers and care homes in winter pressure planning, ensuring that social care is on an equal footing with the NHS, to avoid a potential second spike and further deaths. Sue Phelps, Alzheimers Society Cymrus Country Director, said: The tens of thousands of deaths of people with dementia and the grieving families each one has left behind must make us pause. I know if social care had been on an equal footing with the NHS we would not have seen deaths on such a scale. And Im so angry that families and friends out in the community have been left to fend for themselves as the people they love with dementia have declined in front of their eyes. They have been fighting against the odds to give decent care to their loved ones. Our staff on the Alzheimers Society Cymru Dementia Connect support line speak to family carers every day who cant get time to see the GP, are working all hours and barely sleeping theyre completely burnt out. The Government must never abandon families with dementia again. Lessons must be learnt to prevent any further tragedy this winter. Coronavirus has laid bare the dire state of social care for all to see the lasting legacy from this crisis must be a universal social care system, free at the point of use, that provides quality care for every person with dementia who needs it. A large number of tourists have arrived in Mussoorie to spend the extended weekend and brought rare cheer to the tourist industry of the hill town that has been among the worst-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. The easing of the Covid-19-related restrictions on tourism activities has encouraged travellers. Hoteliers said they were expecting a further improvement in the arrivals after almost no business for six months. Sanjay Agarwal, the general secretary of Mussoorie Hotel Association, said the hoteliers have been facing immense hardships since March end when the Covid-19 lockdown was implemented. Now after the restrictions have been eased, we are getting bookings and queries from tourists for one week which is a good sign. Agarwal said all the hotels in Mussoorie have got about 80% bookings. All the hotels catering to the customers are strictly adhering to the Covid-19 guidelines. Sunita, a roadside roasted corn seller, said, We have been facing difficulties because of losses to livelihood during the lockdown. But now this return of tourists has given us hope. A bulk of the tourists have come from Delhi and the neighbouring areas. Shivani Madaan, a tourist from Greater Kailash in New Delhi, said, We have been stuck in our flats for four months. Hence we decided to visit Mussoorie for a welcome change for our kids. Another tourist, Ananda Das from Noida, said, We are happy to get out of our homes and find some freedom in the hills. But at the same time, we are also cautious amid the pandemic. Manoj Rawat, a local police officer, said at least 152 people have been fined for not using masks since Friday. Police are strictly ensuring adherence to the Covid-19 precautions amid smooth tourism activities. Rawat said additional police patrols have been deployed at major tourist spots to ensure smooth movement of the traffic in the town. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Chloe Sims and Pete Wicks are heading to couple's therapy in a bid to save their relationship after months of not speaking during coronavirus lockdown. In the upcoming episode of The Only Way Is Essex, the former best friends will hash out their differences with a councillor, after it was reported that they secretly dated before falling out earlier this year. Although things appear to be on the up between the duo, Pete, 31, recently told MailOnline he's 'not in the right headspace for a relationship', which could potentially devastate Chloe, 37. Hashing it out: Chloe Sims and Pete Wicks are heading to couple's therapy in a bid to save their relationship after months of not speaking during coronavirus lockdown While it has been suggested in recent reports that Chloe and Pete's friendship was taken to the next level and they were romantically linked, on Sunday the pair make a shocking admission about their relationship. During an emotional crunch talk in the previous episode Chloe told Pete: 'Every time I have a go at you I feel sad. Now I'm upset again.' While Pete reassured her: 'Please don't get upset.' Upset: In the upcoming episode of The Only Way Is Essex, the former best friends will hash out their differences with a councillor, after it was reported that they secretly dated before falling out earlier this year Chloe said: 'I feel like I'm doing this to you, sometimes you've got to be selfish Pete, I feel like right now I've got to be selfie because this is all too much for me.' 'This is the whole point, this is one of the things I need about you is that everyone else will allow me to go and do my thing, but I need someone to tell me, if I'm wrong I'm wrong.' 'If you think I wouldn't be there for you, you're wrong.' Talking time: Although things appear to be on the up between the duo, Pete, 31, recently told MailOnline he's 'not in the right headspace for a relationship', which could potentially devastate Chloe, 37 'You weren't though. You know me, we've been together so many times when I've had these fears and you know there would have been times where I was freaked out.' However Chloe could be set for more upset as Pete , told MailOnline 'I'm better off on my own' days after his secret romance with Chloe was revealed. In an exclusive interview, Pete, who hasn't dated on the show since his 2018 split from Shelby Tribble, 27, said: 'It's been a tough year for Chloe and me. For our friendship and everything else' Uh oh! Elsewhere on the episode, Amber Turner is left frustrated with boyfriend Dan Edgar after he discusses details of their relationship to Demi He said: 'Everyone is really confused by Chloe and me but things will be explained that will make better sense to everyone. 'It's been a confusing couple of years for our friendship. To be honest with you, I'm not in the right headspace for a relationship either. Elsewhere on the episode, Amber Turner is left frustrated with boyfriend Dan Edgar after he discusses details of their relationship to Demi. Awkward! Last week Demi was seen divulging to her sisters Chloe and Frankie that Dan had told her things have been rocky between the couple Sorry! During the upcoming episode surprises Amber with a gift to try and make amends after spilling the beans on their romance Party time: After cancelling their holiday to Spain, Matt organises Bobby a Spanish-themed party to celebrate his birthday Last week Demi was seen divulging to her sisters Chloe and Frankie that Dan had told her things have been rocky between the couple. She encouraged Amber to 'worry about her own relationship', rather than involving herself in her sister Frankie and her boyfriend Harry's. During the upcoming episode surprises Amber with a gift to try and make amends after spilling the beans on their romance. After cancelling their holiday to Spain, Matt organises Bobby a Spanish-themed party to celebrate his birthday. Elsewhere, sparks continue to fly between Ella and Tom as they continue getting to know one another. Cheers! Matt recently moved down to Essex to be with his boyfriend Bobby The mayor of Oregon City, Dan Holladay, is facing a recall vote after residents in the city easily gathered the signatures necessary to force a special election. Holladay can submit a statement of justification by Tuesday or resign to avoid the vote, a city spokeswoman said. Otherwise, ballots will be mailed to voters by Oct. 23 and are due no later than Nov. 10. If Holladay is voted out of office, a special election to select a new mayor would be held in March. Oregon City Commission President Rachel Lyles Smith would lead city meetings until January, when the commission is slated to select a new president. Holladay did not respond to an interview request from The Oregonian/OregonLive. The mayor has faced numerous controversies this year. In April, Oregon City commissioners castigated him for suggesting the city might violate Gov. Kate Browns stay-home order -- issued to stem the spread of the coronavirus -- and allow businesses to reopen in advance of any state move in that direction. In June, he came under fire for downplaying police brutality against Black people amid ongoing social justice protests. He was also criticized for a social media post asking how there could be protests, riots, looting and vandalism in Portland, but the state wouldnt sanction Fourth of July fireworks shows in some of Oregons smaller communities. Later that month, a group filed a petition that officially began the recall effort. His refusal to resign for the good of the city has prompted this nonpartisan grassroots campaign to lead the concerted efforts of those who believe in a better future for Oregon City, Adam Marl, manager of the recall campaign, said at the time. On Thursday, the group announced it had gathered more than 3,000 valid signatures, well above the 2,400 needed to qualify for a recall election. -- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale After meeting the Hathras victim's family, Congress leader Vadra Saturday listed their demands which included a judicial inquiry through the Supreme Court and suspension of the district magistrate. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and met the family and declared that they will fight for ensuring justice to the Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped. In a series of tweets, listed some of the demands and questions of the victim's family. "Questions of Hathras victim's family -- 1. A judicial probe be conducted through the Supreme Court. 2. Hathras DM be suspended and not given a big post. Why our daughter's body was burnt using petrol without our permission. "4. Why we are being repeatedly misled and threatened. 5. We brought 'flowers' from the funeral pyre, but how do we believe that this dead body is that of our daughter?" Priyanka Gandhi tweeted in Hindi. It is the right of this family to get answers to these questions and the UP government will have to give answers, the Congress general secretary in-charge UP said. After meeting the victim's family, Rahul Gandhi tweeted, "I met the Hathras victim's family and understood their pain. I assured them that we are standing with them in this difficult time and will provide all help in getting justice for them." "The UP government will not be able to act in an arbitrary way as the whole country is standing for ensuring justice to the daughter of the country," he said in the tweet in Hindi. While heading to Hathras, high drama unfolded in the capital. There was heavy police deployment on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with barricades on Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway and scores of policemen deployed. As swarms of Congress workers and others jostled with each other amid loud honking, slogans and Congress flags fluttering in the air, the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police finally allowed five people, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, to go to Hathras. Congress workers -- some who described what happened as "brutal repression" -- claimed police used batons to disperse the crowd. A video also did the rounds on social media in which Priyanka Gandhi was seen coming to the rescue of party workers coming in between them and baton-armed police. Several Congress leaders also slammed the UP government for showing disrespect to a woman and they tagged a photograph in which a policeman is purportedly seen grabbing Priyanka Gandhi's kurta. A video targeting the Congress also surfaced on social media in which people were purportedly heard laughing in the car as Priyanka Gandhi drove a silver Innova with Rahul Gandhi by her side and some people on the back seat. While several Congress MPs such as Shashi Tharoor, P L Punia, Partap Singh Bajwa, Deepender Hooda, as well as leaders like Jitin Prasada and Sushmita Dev reached the DND flyway, only a few proceeded beyond the border. Earlier in the day, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged that the Yogi Adityanath government was threatening the family of the Hathras victim and asserted that such behaviour was not acceptable to the country. Hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka Gandhi said the UP government is "morally corrupt". "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test," she said in a tweet in Hindi. "This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family," she said. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman. In a tweet in Hindi in the morning using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable to me. No Indian should accept this." He asserted that "no power in the world can stop me from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and share their pain". The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". (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.) YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Ethnic Armenian lawmaker of the Turkish parliament Garo Paylan says the Turkish authorities are openly conducting a war propaganda, calling it a great crime. Paylan issued a statement over the ongoing military operations unleashed by Azerbaijan with the support of Turkey against Armenia and Artsakh. The ongoing tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia due to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, unfortunately, is leading to war in recent days. Contrary to the calls of the whole world to stop the conflict and cease the fire, the Justice and Development Party the Nationalist Movement alliance has adopted an open militaristic behavior towards the tension existing between our neighbor countries Armenia and Azerbaijan. The leadership is openly conducting a war propaganda with its militaristic course, with open hostile statements against Armenia, instead of calling on the countries for ceasefire and negotiation, Paylan said. Paylan said the Turkish authorities are committing a crime by carrying out a war propaganda. He stated that the Peoples Democratic Party and its representatives have always supported peace. My friends and I have always supported peace in all spheres of politics, be it in internal or external politics, and have always opposed war, he said, adding that from the very first moment of the NK conflict he has made efforts to change Turkeys position towards war which will cause huge losses to the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples. The ethnic Armenian MP said the Turkish leadership with its military policy is taking the whole country and the whole region into darkness. Those who call for war will try to silence the ones who try to voice for peace. Whatever I and my friends do, we should continue calling for peace. Because war has no winner, and peace has no loser, he said. Garo Paylan also informed that some circles are trying to silence him. I know quite well what this statement means. Despite this reality, I will not retreat to take a responsibility for preventing wars, he said, calls on all individuals and organizations, who believe in peace, to raise their voice against war in order to protect peace. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan One of the last remaining candidates for Jenny Mikakos' vacant upper house seat has withdrawn from the race at the 11th hour, paving the way for Sheena Watt to become Victorian Labor's first female Indigenous MP. The preselection battle for the Northern Metro seat had turned increasingly bitter this week following the shock resignation of Ms Mikakos last Saturday, prompting Premier Daniel Andrews to intervene on Friday and call for his Socialist Left faction on the party to put forward an Aboriginal candidate. Sheena Watt, a Yorta Yorta woman, is set to become Labor's first Indigenous state MP. Credit: Prue Stewart, who works in the office of Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gabrielle Williams, on Saturday morning announced her decision to withdraw from the preselection process ahead of a meeting of members of the Socialist Left on Sunday. "I do so with the knowledge that my friend Sheena Watt will be preselected by the Socialist Left, and subject to the ratification by the ALP National Executive, will become Labor's first Aboriginal representative to enter the Victorian Parliament," Ms Stewart said. The sale of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese-owned company will be scrutinised by a parliamentary inquiry, with one Liberal senator saying the Morrison government's new foreign veto power legislation will lack credibility if it doesn't examine the controversial transaction. The Senate's foreign affairs and defence committee will next week (October 12 and 13) begin hearings into a bill that would allow the Commonwealth to tear up agreements that state governments, local councils and universities enter into with foreign governments. Landbridge Group took a 99-year lease on Darwin Port in 2015. Credit:Glenn Campbell Both Labor and Liberal senators on the committee want the inquiry to look at the Northern Territory's 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to Chinese-owned company Landbridge - a deal that has unsettled national security figures in the federal government since it was signed five years ago. Landbridge is a private company owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, who senior government sources said had close links to the Chinese Communist Party. Ten people have died from Covid-19 with Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn describing the increase as a significant escalation. The Department for Health has confirmed 613 new cases of the disease across the country, including 224 in Dublin, 58 in Donegal and 46 in Cork. Eight of the 10 deaths confirmed by the Department occurred prior to September 2020. 315 of those cases are men and 294 are women while 68pc are understood to be people under 45. 30pc have been confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed cases. 58 cases have been identified as community transmission There have also been 44 cases in Kildare, 31 in Limerick, 28 in Laois, 21 in Kerry, 19 in Galway, 17 in Clare, 13 in Meath, 12 in Louth, 12 in Monaghan, nine in Offaly, nine in Tipperary, nine in Wicklow, eight in Cavan, eight in Wexford, seven in Carlow, seven in Sligo, seven in Roscommon, six in Mayo , five in Kilkenny, five in Westmeath, with the remaining seven cases in three other counties. There is now a total of 37,668 confirmed cases in Ireland. The HSE has said it is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread. Dr Glynn said those aged over 70 and those who are medically vulnerable to Covid-19 should limit the number of people they meet. We need to work together once again to make a significant impact on the number of cases in the community, and ultimately to reduce the number of people getting sick, being admitted to hospital and critical care, he said. MUMBAI (dpa-AFX) - Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd and Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) announced that Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC will invest 55.12 billion rupees for a 1.22% stake in RRVL on a fully diluted basis. This investment values RRVL at a pre-money equity value of 4.285 trillion rupees. Separately, Reliance Industries and RRVL announced that global investment firm TPG will invest 18.38 billion rupees for a 0.41% equity stake in RRVL. This investment values will be the second investment by TPG in a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, following a 4,546.8 crore rupees investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year. Reliance Retail Limited, a subsidiary of RRVL, operates India's largest, fastest growing and most profitable retail business serving close to 640 million footfalls across its ~12,000 stores nationwide. Recently, Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company said it will invest 6,247.5 crore rupees into Reliance Retail Ventures for a 1.40 per cent stake. On September 30, RIL announced that co-investors of Silver Lake and General Atlantic will invest 1,875 crore rupees and 3,675 crore rupees respectively in RRVL. KKR & Co announced 5,550 crore rupees investment recently, while Silver Lake invested 7,500 crore rupees. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. The Odisha Assembly was adjourned several times on Saturday as members of the opposition Congress created ruckus in the well of the House over the alleged gang-rape in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras that has triggered a nationwide outrage. The issue was raised by Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Narasingha Mishra as the House assembled for the day at 10.30 am. The Congress MLAs shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, protesting against the incident. They also condemned the BJP-led government in UP for the misbehaviour towards Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Unable to run the House, Speaker S N Patro adjourned the proceeding thrice, first for 10 minutes at 10.58 am, then for 15 minutes and finally from around 11.30 am till 3 pm. The speaker invited CLP leader Mishra, Leader of opposition PK Naik, Parliamentary Affairs Minister B K Arukhaand Jajpur MLA PP Das for an all-party meeting in his chamber. During the protest, Congress members led by Taraprasad Bahinipati and Suresh Routray rushed to the well of the House and shouted slogans. As Bahinipati attempted to climb the speakers podium, the House was adjourned till 3 pm. Mishra termed the high-handedness of the UP Police as unfortunate. Opposition leader Naik of the BJP said that there is no point in disrupting the proceedings of the Odisha Assembly over an incident in Uttar Pradesh. He said similar incidents have also taken place during the Congress rule. Naiks statement was not audible enough due to the pandemonium in the House. The Congress MLAs protest in the House followed the partys agitation outside the Assembly for two days over the alleged manhandling of the Gandhis. Outside the Assembly, BJD MLA and former minister Snehangini Chhuria said that her party strongly condemns the Hathras incident. The police and the administration are functioning under the direction of the government there, she said, adding that the BJD demands justice for the Dalit woman and her family. The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the DelhisSafdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out as per the wishes of the family. Police stepped up their guard Saturday to prevent conservative activists from holding illegal rallies in central Seoul amid concerns about the spread of COVID-19. Several conservative groups planned rallies on the Oct.3 National Foundation Day to protest the liberal government's policies despite the administrations strong warnings amid a resurgence in the coronavirus pandemic. Officers said they set up inspection points in 90 locations connecting to central Seoul and were checking vehicles entering the area Police buses were parked in lines on the main streets linking Gwanghwamun and City Hall in central Seoul; while subway trains were not stopping at nearby stations. Police also set up fences in Gwanghwamun Square where outdoor rallies are often held. Some conservative groups are known to have plans to push for a press conference or one-person rallies in the public plaza. Two separate groups plan to hold drive-thru rallies in southern Seoul as a local court approved such demonstrations involving less than 10 cars under strict anti-infection measures. The government has issued warnings against illegal anti-government rallies planned by some conservative groups on concerns that the mass gatherings could hamper the country's efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Thousands of people, led by conservative groups, held a massive rally Aug. 15, the country's Liberation Day, in central Seoul. The protests have been partly blamed for the resurgence in COVID-19 since mid-August, with cases tied to the rallies reaching more than 600. The country's daily infections spiked to triple-digit figures for more than a month from Aug. 14, until they slowed down on the back of tougher virus prevention measures. The Seoul city government has banned all rallies of 10 or more people and designated parts of the city center as no-assembly zones. It also banned rallies in the form of car parades. Under the Level 2 social distancing rules imposed on a nationwide level, outdoor gatherings of 100 or more people are prohibited and indoor meetings of 50 or more are also banned. (Yonhap) In the face of these attacks, Chinas government has sought to portray the country as part of the solution to the pandemic, not just the viruss origin. Beijing pledged $30 million to the World Health Organization in April after Trump halted U.S. funding to the U.N. agency. China also declared it will share its vaccine with the developing world. The outlook for the aviation industry has deteriorated again due to rising coronavirus infections and renewed travel restrictions, Airbus chief operating officer Michael Schoellhorn was quoted as saying on Saturday. With air travel at a fraction of normal levels due to restrictions and travellers fears related to the pandemic, airlines have slowed deliveries of new aircraft. Airbus has said it needs to shed 15,000 posts worldwide. In an interview with the Handelsblatt business daily, Schoellhorn said the situation in early autumn was worse than the company had expected in the summer, adding that the planned 15,000 job cuts would be the minimum. As some Airbus factories were already underutilized before the pandemic, labour unions now fear that the management could decide to shut down entire locations. At least for Germany, Schoellhorn ruled out such a move. In terms of substance, I do not see any German locations at risk at the moment, he said. Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said last month the planemaker would do its best to cut costs without resorting to compulsory redundancies, but it could not guarantee they wont happen. In a letter to staff in September, Faury warned that Airbus may have to carry out compulsory layoffs after air travel failed to recover from the pandemic as quickly as anticipated. Search Keywords: Short link: On Thursday, the management of Amazon quietly revealed in a blog post that 19,816 employees in the US, including warehouse and Whole Foods workers, have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Amazon workers protest unsafe working conditions in Staten Island, New York, on March 30, 2020 [Credit: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews] This revelation follows months during which the management evaded, ignored and refused to meet demands by rank-and-file workers for the release of this information. In a statement on April 23, the World Socialist Web Sites International Amazon Workers Voice urged workers to form rank-and-file committees to demand the release of infection statistics at Amazon as a question of basic safety, pointing out that the company systematically refuses to provide information to workers as to the number of cases of workers who have gotten sick. In the intervening months, workers who demanded this information were variously told that management did not track the information at all, that management could not answer workers questions because of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) or other laws, and that management was supposedly concerned for workers privacy. Workers were told that the total number of infections was not particularly useful, but that Amazons safety precautions in the warehouses were working and paying off. In May, Amazon senior vice president of global operations Dave Clark claimeddespite working for a company that tracks every second of every workers day in a warehousethat he did not know the total number of infections. In an interview on CBSs 60 Minutes, Clark also said, I don't have the number right on me at this moment because its not a particularly useful number. In May, a dozen state attorneys general demanded that Amazon disclose the total number of infections, but Amazon refused to make that information public. While hiding the true number of infections, Amazon claimed that its countermeasures to the virus were working in the warehouses. Amazon spokesperson Lisa Levandowski told CNN Business in May that our hard work around social distancing is paying off, implying that workers were safe from infection. Now that it suits the company to release the information on its own terms and at the time of its choosing, it turns out that all of the excuses that workers were given were lies. With management refusing to disclose basic data necessary for employees safety, workers attempted to gather the data themselves on social media, with one count reaching 2,000 cases. Former Amazon worker Jana Jumpp, who was interviewed in June on the World Socialist Web Site regarding her efforts to compile these statistics, acknowledged at the time that the available information was just the tip of the iceberg. Releasing the data on Thursday in the form of a blog post, Amazon pretended that workers demands had nothing to do with the release of the information, absurdly posturing as an advocate of transparency and urging other companies to release similar data. Wide availability of data would allow us to benchmark our progress and share best practices across businesses and industries, the company stated. Amazon has benefited spectacularly from its decision to keep workers at their posts during the pandemic. While competitors floundered and Amazon expanded its dominance over significant sections of the global logistics infrastructure, the companys market capitalization rose from approximately $920 billion at the start of the year to $1.6 trillion as of Friday. This amounts to $34 million for each worker who got sick. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the worlds richest man, saw his wealth climb to over $200 billion in September, an increase of approximately $87 billion since the start of the year. This translates to approximately $4.35 million for each worker who got sick. Amazon accompanied the release of the total number of cases with tables purporting to show the rate of infection among Amazon workers being less than the state averages, congratulating itself on keeping workers safe. This is nonsense worthy of a Trump press conference, since it is obvious that working in a warehouse alongside hundreds of other workers represents an increased risk of infection over staying at home. It is a dubious calculation in any case, under conditions where systematic testing is not being conducted. In the case of Minnesota, Amazons own statistics show the average rate of infection among Amazon workers was approximately 32 out of every thousand workers, far higher than the state average of 19. While management has released the total number of infections, it is far from the total amount of data that workers need in order to make informed decisions about the danger of going to work and the adequacy of safety precautions in their workplaces. In the context of a deadly pandemic, there is absolutely no legitimate reason why up-to-the-minute information should not be instantly accessible to all workers in any given workplace regarding suspected and positive cases, reported symptoms, pending tests, and preemptive quarantines. Indeed, workers need this information in order to take measures to ensure that their workspace is safe. The only reason to suppress this information is to blunt workers opposition, to lull workers into a false sense of security, and to keep the profits flowing during the pandemic. Shameful that they are just now releasing this, Jana Jumpp told the International Amazon Workers Voice on Friday. I would love to know more specifics. How many cases at each facility? How many people were quarantined for close contact? Who is administering tests at the facilities? She continued, I feel like this story is just getting started. Im not shocked by the numbers, an Amazon worker in Baltimore told the International Amazon Workers Voice, responding to the news, because in a sense I always knew that the numbers were being buried, kind of like the presidents been doing. Business as usual, everythings fine. So here we are. I have been saying and asking for many, many weeks about contact tracing. If someone in my work area is gone because they got COVID-19, I would expect that we would be contacted so that we could get tested, he continued, referring to his own warehouse. Not once have I been contacted by anyone letting me know, even though I later found out that a coworker I was working closely with had contracted the virus. Is this contact tracing thing even working? Amazon has made no formal acknowledgment of the number of workers who have died from the virus, but NBC News has counted 10 worker deaths to date, according to a report published Wednesday. Terrified of workers opposition and reeling from the swarm of walkouts in April and May, Amazon management has brought on board veteran agents from the repressive apparatus of the state to oversee its efforts to anticipate and suppress workers resistance. The company has also been exposed engaging in systematic violations of workers privacy, spying on them on social media as well as in internal listservs. The attitude of management to workers safety during the pandemic is only a continuation of Amazons abominable safety record in the preceding years. In both 2018 and 2019, Amazon was included on The Dirty Dozen list maintained by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), which described Amazon as a company that put workers and communities at risk due to unsafe practices. In 2019, there were 14,000 serious injuries at Amazon, according to a report published Tuesday by the Center for Investigative Reporting. This amounts to the incredible figure of eight serious injuries for every 100 workers every year, or double the already atrocious industry average. This is consistent with data obtained by the International Amazon Workers Voice, which counted 567 serious injuries at one warehouse in Texas over a two-year period, including Amazon whistleblower Shannon Allen, who became homeless after her injury and began sleeping in the company parking lot. Amazon workers jobs have only become more unsafe during the pandemic, as the dangerousness of the work is now compounded by the risk of contracting the deadly virus. The revelation that tens of thousands of workers at Amazon have already been sickened will only increase workers exasperation with the murderous back-to-work and re-opening policies being implemented around the world. For help setting up a rank-and-file safety committee at your own site, contact the World Socialist Web Sites International Amazon Workers Voice. India and China are working to keep an uneasy truce in place, focusing on maintaining stability along their tense borders, but analysts warned of many uncertainties, given that China has previously sprung surprises and shifted goalposts. Both countries are looking to schedule a new round of talks between senior military commanders that would focus on disengaging troops and de-escalating tensions that have been running high since May. As agreed in the last senior commanders meeting (on 21 September), the two sides are now working to schedule the next (7th) round of the meeting so that both sides can work towards early and complete disengagement of the troops along the LAC (Line of Actual Control) in accordance with the existing bilateral agreement and protocols, and fully restore peace and tranquillity," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava told reporters at a weekly press conference on Thursday. He was referring to the talks in Moldo on the Chinese side of the LAC, which ended last week with the two sides agreeing to have more rounds of talks as issues (involved) are complex." Strengthening ground-level communications between the militaries to avoid misunderstandings and misjudgments, a stop to sending more troops to the frontline, and avoiding actions complicating the situation were some of the points of concurrence at the 21 September meeting. The commander level talks were an outcome of a meeting on 10 September between the foreign ministers of India and China in Moscow. That paved the way for a temporary truce that is still holding, though the tens of thousands of soldiers are ranged against each other backed up by tanks, missiles and air support. At some points, the troops are less than a kilometre apart. According to analysts, it was difficult to predict how the situation would unfold in the coming days. When the India-China tensions started in May, there were doubts that this was because of India building infrastructure in Ladakh," said Srikanth Kondapalli, professor of Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. There was a buildup of troops. There were intrusions, we had a violent clash (on 15 June in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed) in Galwan valley. Then the focus changed to disengagement and de-escalation," he said. This week, China said it adhered to a 1959 claim line and did not recognize the LAC or the union territory of Ladakh. However, in a speech on Wednesday to mark the 71st National Day of China, the Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong seemed to strike a conciliatory note, saying that theChina-India relations go far beyond the bilateral scope and have great significance to the region and the world at large." Whenever the situation gets difficult, it is all the more important to ensure the stability of the overall relationship and preserve mutual trust," Sun said, adding that expanding convergence and cooperation is the key." Given all these conflicting signals, New Delhi needs to wait and see how the talks with Beijing move forward and if the outcomes are implemented on the ground, Kondapalli said. Given the approaching winter, if a disengagement plan cannot be worked out soon, troops of both countries will be staying deployed on the mountains in Ladakh, he added. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. UP CM Yogi Adityanath likely to contest from Ayodhya UP Election 2022: BJP announces first list of candidates, Yogi Adityanath to contest from Gorakhpur UP polls 2022: Yogi Adityanath the 2nd CM to contest assembly elections from Gorakhpur With Yogi to fight from Gorakhpur Urban seat, Akhilesh offers SP ticket to BJP MLA UP Elections Opinion Poll: What percentange of people want BJP's Yogi Adityanath to return as CM? Yogi Adityanath orders CBI probe into Hathras gang-rape and murder case India oi-Deepika S Lucknow, Oct 03: Amid massive outcry, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the case of brutal gang-rape and death of a Dalit woman in Hathras last month. The development comes within hours of Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police H C Awasthi meeting the victim''s family at her home. CCTV cameras, 60 cops to ensure security of Hathras family: Police "Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered that a probe should be done by the CBI into the complete Hathras case," the chief minister''s office tweeted. Reacting to the announcement, the family members of the victim said they want a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry. The announcement of the probe came even as pressure mounted on the state government, with the Congress, TMC, and several other political parties and social groups seeking the chief minister's resignation and calling for justice. Yogi on Friday suspended Hathras SP Vikrant Vir and four other policemen over the gangrape-murder case of the Dalit woman. The official said the action has been taken on the basis of a preliminary inquiry report of the SIT. Besides Vikrant Vir, the other suspended policemen are Circle Officer Ramshabd, Inspector Dinesh Kumar Verma, Sub-Inspector Jagveer Singh and Head Constable Mahesh Pal, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said. Shamli SP Vineet Jaiswal has been transferred to Hathras, he said. Another senior official said the SIT constituted by the chief minister to probe into the case of alleged murder and gangrape submitted its first report on Friday. NGO seeks transfer of Hathras probe to CBI The official said besides the suspended policemen, all those connected with the case will have to undergo narco and polygraph tests. The chief minister had constituted the SIT on Wednesday. The 19-year old survivor died at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday. She had suffered multiple fractures, paralysis in a brutal attack on September 14 in Boolgarhi village in Hathras district. The European Council of European Union (EU) heads of state met in Brussels for two days, Thursday and Friday, to discuss the blocs foreign and economic policy. From left, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Estonia's Prime Minister Juri Ratas and Latvia's Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins participate in a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, Friday, Oct. 2, 2020. (Aris Oikonomou, Pool via AP) The meeting came amid an unprecedented international political crisis. After the premature ending of lockdown policies this spring, the COVID-19 pandemic is again infecting hundreds of thousands weekly in Europe. In the US, President Donald Trump has vowed to disregard the November presidential elections and try to maintain himself in power in an illegal post-election coup. Meanwhile, the August elections in Belarus remain disputed, and war broke out this week between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, threatening military escalation in this explosive region. The summit confirmed that the EU is no alternative to the disintegration of American democracy. While maintaining a deafening silence on the US election crisis, the EU heads of state signaled they would continue their murderous herd immunity policies and advanced an aggressive foreign policy targeting Turkey, Russia and China. A communique on the first days talks published at midnight Friday focused on foreign policy and a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan both supported the Azeri offensive to take the Nagorno-Karabakh area from Armenia and aggressively pressed his claims on oil and gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean against Greece. While Greece and Turkey nearly went to war this summer, the Armenian-Azeri war also poses the danger of a clash between the two powers main respective regional backers, Russia and Turkey. The EU declared its full solidarity with Greece and Cyprus in the Mediterranean dispute, and that it welcomes recent attempts to negotiate a delimitation of Greek and Turkish maritime claims. It opted for a carrot-and stick approach. The EU announced it would launch a positive political EU-Turkey agenda with a specific emphasis on the modernization of the Customs Union and trade facilitation, people-to-people contacts, high-level dialogues and continued cooperation on migration issues in line with the EUs anti-immigrant policy. This reactionary agenda of offering Turkish firms more access to EU markets while ordering Ankara to block Middle Eastern refugees from traveling to Europe, however, depends on Turkish compliance with EU policy on the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus. The EU demanded in exchange substantial negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Turkish abandonment of unilateral actions in the Mediterranean. Turkey has opened talks with Greece on that issue, and with Russia in an apparent attempt to broker a peace deal in the Caucasus. In exchange for threatening Turkey with sanctions, the EU obtained an agreement by Cyprus to drop its objections to imposing sanctions on Belarus. The EU has backed opposition politicians who claimed President Aleksandr Lukashenko stole the elections, and it now has imposed sanctions on 40 Lukashenko regime officials. Incoherently, it did not impose sanctions on Lukashenko himself, however, as it tries to keep its options open for political operations inside the former Soviet Union. In the dubious and as yet unresolved matter of the apparent poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, the EU called it a serious breach of international law. They demanded that Russian authorities ensure an impartial international investigation and to bring those responsible to justice. While pursuing sanctions against Lukashenko for allegedly stealing the Belarusian elections, the EU said nothing about Trumps threats to steal the US elections. Remarkably, its communique made no mention either of the United States or of the major EU powers NATO military alliance with the United States. It is more or less apparent that this reflects growing US-EU tensions, concern that a political breakdown in Washington could trigger further wars internationally and unspoken fear of an explosive reaction among workers both in America and Europe to Trumps planned coup. With Washington mounting a military build-up in the Pacific and imposing trade tariffs to halt Chinas economic rise, the EU also demanded investment deals to ensure EU access to profits in China and criticized Chinas human rights situation. However, the difference in tone from that of US policy towards China was unmistakable. The EU asked China to assume greater responsibility in dealing with global challenges and for coherent efforts to intensify EU-China diplomatic ties. It scheduled a March 2021 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The EU, as usual, couched its military and financial ambitions in rhetoric on multilateralism and developing strategic autonomy from Washington, echoing French President Emmanuel Macrons remarks last month to the UN. The world cannot just be about China-US rivalry, Macron said, but there will be no miracle cure to the disintegration of the contemporary order. He added that all the fault lines from before the pandemicthe great powers clash for hegemony, the undermining or manipulation of multilateralism, the trampling of international lawhave only accelerated and gone deeper. Calling for more EU cooperation and strategic autonomy, such as in the joint French-German neo-colonial occupation of Mali, Macron said: Multilateralism is not just an act of faith, it is an operational necessity. The European Union, often predicted to be divided and impotent, has thanks to this crisis made a historic step towards unity, sovereignty and solidarity. The EU is however a reactionary bloc led by the major European powers, asserting their imperialist interests overseas and financing their profits and overseas wars at workers expense. In particular, as in the United States, the European ruling class consciously pursues a policy of herd immunity on COVID-19. Following the premature lifting of lockdowns imposed earlier this year, the drive by EU governments to reopen schools and workplaces has already paved the way for a resurgence of the virus threatening the lives of millions. In Europe there are now 2,384,762 active cases with numbers exploding across the continent. Yesterday France reported 12,148 infections and 136 deaths. The situation is similarly catastrophic in Spain with 3,722 infections and 113 deaths and Britain (6,968/66). Also the numbers in Eastern Europe are exploding with daily record infections and deaths in Poland (2,292/27), Czech Republic (1,762/21)), Romania (2,343/53), Ukraine (4,633/68) and Russia (9,412/186). In Germany 2,832 were counted yesterdayone of the highest rates since April. The EU summit once again underscored that there will be no serious coordinated efforts taken to contain the disease. On the contrary: In her press statement at the end of the summit President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen made clear that the deadly back-to-work campaign is a key component of the EUs strategy to position itself as an industrial and foreign policy power pursuing its imperialist interests against its international rivals. With regards to industry, she explained, the priority is to join forces in key strategic areas and ensure our industry can compete on a global scale. As you know, we presented our new Industry Strategy in March, to ensure industry can lead the twin green and digital transition. Europe clearly needs to up its game, von der Leyen stressed, effectively laying out a trade war strategy to outdo competitors. We are working at full speed on legislative proposals on foreign subsidies from third countries. We know that these foreign subsidies from third countries can significantly distort the functioning of our Single Market, and disadvantage EU market operators. The WSWS has characterized the pandemic as a trigger event, which accelerated the already far advanced social, economic, and geopolitical crises of world capitalism. In her remarks von der Leyen left no doubt that the EUs industrial and foreign policy offensive will be accompanied by a new round of austerity measures only intensifying the social devastation and impoverishment of workers across the continent. First of all, we are carrying out a comprehensive review on how to adapt EU competition rules. We need to make them fit for purpose in a globalized and digital world, she insisted. What this means is clear: the trillions of euros handed over to the banks and big corporations must be squeezed out of the working class again. The pandemic has also intensified the preparations of the imperialist powers for war. The Trump administration has not only accused China of being responsible for the pandemic, but the US ruling class is making ever more aggressive preparations for military conflict with Russia and China. The European powers led by Germany and France are also exploiting the crisis to press ahead with their great power plansagainst Russia and China, but also against the United States. A common theme that emerges when talking to food-industry observers about the ongoing pandemic is that while Canadas agriculture and food systems are highly efficient and productive, they lack resilience. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/10/2020 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A common theme that emerges when talking to food-industry observers about the ongoing pandemic is that while Canadas agriculture and food systems are highly efficient and productive, they lack resilience. Six months into a pandemic that shows no signs of being over anytime soon, cracks that were virtually invisible before are now becoming impossible to ignore. For example, before the pandemic hit, the industrys labour shortages were an industry insider discussion that was barely on the publics radar. Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, said the industrys chronic labour problems make the name of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program a misnomer. "In the 1960s, Canada embarked on what was then a stop-gap measure to address a short-term labour shortage, which was to allow temporary foreign workers into our country," he said as part of an interview series recorded for Canadas Digital Farm Show. "Sixty years later we are structurally dependent on that and they are not great jobs," he said. "So its not really surprising that emerges as a weakness now." Canadians access to home-grown vegetables and fruits as well as to imported supplies from places such as California depends highly on economically disadvantaged people forced to leave their home countries to fill jobs North Americans wont do. As the pandemic unfolded it became clear that their employers were woefully unprepared to keep them safe. Fraser said hyper-concentration in the meat-packing industry is another vulnerability that has emerged. When COVID-19 outbreaks shuttered plants, it quickly created supply chain disruptions and shortages exposing the "brittleness versus the efficiency of the just-in-time, just-enough delivery system." He noted some industry leaders have suggested moving to a "just-in-case" delivery system "where we create a food system to be prepared just-in-case bad stuff happens." That said, food security is for the most part in Canada a question of affordability rather than supply. "Its important to remember that there are two Canadas coming out of this," said JoAnn McArthur, president of Nourish Food Marketing. Some have seen their discretionary incomes increase because they still have jobs and their opportunities to spend money are reduced. "Then youve got the other Canadians who are using food banks who are largely in the hospitality sector who are just trying to make rent." Canada at least has a publicly funded social safety net and community-supported food banks to support those who need access to food. Thats not the case in poorer countries where pandemic-induced poverty has doubled the number of hungry people on the planet. The effects will be long-lasting. "That 1,000 days from conception to your second birthday is critical to your cognitive development," Fraser said. "A couple of years of bad food insecurity can actually set an entire generation back. This is a desperately serious situation that we as a global society face," he said. Primary producers, with the exception of hog and horticulture producers, actually survived the early stages of the pandemic remarkably unscathed. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. However, theres a long winter ahead that wont be broken up by holidays someplace warm or trips to the city to attend conferences and trade shows. "Farming at its core is a bit of a solitary activity but the farming community is hugely social," said Len Kahn, head of Kahntact Marketing. "The most compelling reason farmers go to trade shows is social. So I think mental health has taken a hit, and its an unseen hit." Kahn also said times like these heighten awareness of connectivity issues on another front. Whereas the pandemic has accelerated use of online services in urban Canada, rural Canada remains woefully underserved, which limits farmers access to some of the emerging marketing and business opportunities. None of these issues are easily resolved and most will involve significant investment. But not addressing them may prove more expensive in the long run. "Were in for a century of disruption. Whether it is climate change, or whether its one angry tweet away from closing borders we know we need to be more resilient as a system," Fraser said. Laura Rance is vice-president of content for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com Madhya Pradesh High Courts Gwalior bench on Saturday allowed the registration of FIRs against any political rally comprising more than a 100 people to ensure social distancing amid Covid-19. By-elections for 28 assembly constituencies will be held in MP on November 3. The bench, comprising Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Rajiv Kumar Srivastava, made the decision keeping in mind the ongoing coronavirus pandemic after Advocate Ashish Pratap filed a plea in the matter. If coming across a violation by any political party, any person can take photos as proof and file an FIR at the nearby police station. The Election Commission, after recently announcing the dates for 2020 Bihar Elections, had stressed on following Covid-19 norms amid political campaigning and voting. The general guidelines issued by EC entail wearing masks, ensuring social distancing and and utilising large halls for voting with the provision of hand sanitisers and soap. For the distribution and collection of election material", the Election Commission has directed the use of large halls/spaces. As far as practicable, it should be organised in decentralised manner," the guidelines read. As the state gears up for the by-polls, former Chief Minister Kamal Nath previously said these were not just general elections, but would determine the future of the state. In August, the senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in MP said he has been working to strengthen his party in the last four months and the fight was not with the BJPs achievements, but its organisation. MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had wrested power from Congresss Kamal Nath who resigned as Chief Minister in March earlier in the year following a breakdown of the government ensuing from an internal rebellion. A Las Vegas womans dying wish came true when she was able to marry her boyfriend in the hospital. Too sick to leave her hospital bed, 33-year-old leukemia patient Alysia told the hospital staff of her dream to marry her boyfriend before she died. Despite current pandemic restrictions, the staff promptly made her wish come true. Doctors and nurses brought Alysia a wedding dress and a bouquet of flowers and took photos as the couple said their vows. A chaplain performed the in-hospital wedding and later presented the couple with a marriage license. Alysia had been fiercely battling leukemia in the hospital for over a month, according to Fox News. Initially, the wedding had been scheduled for August 6th but was moved up to the 5th due to Alysias worsening condition. Under the glare of hospital lights overhead, Alysia and her betrothed, Daniel, kissed and exchanged whispered I love yous. We have a saying, Kelli Wray, assistant chief nursing officer at Southern Hills Hospital Medical Center, told Newsweek. Care like family. With each patient we think, what would we do for our family? Thats what we did here. According to Newsweek, Southern Hills is not currently allowing visitors due to the pandemic. However, because Alysia was considered near-end-of-life, hospital policy allowed Daniel to enter and be with his beloved. Due to virus containment restrictions, Alysia also had not been able to see her three children, aged 5, 10, and 13, since she was admitted to the hospital in July. One hour after the wedding, Alysias condition took a turn for the worse. Still fighting for her life, she was airlifted to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, where she waited for a bone marrow transplant that would save her life. Desperate to follow her to Salt Lake, Daniel started a GoFundMe to help cover rent, food, utilities, travel expenses, and Alysias hospital bill. Not only is Alysia on a fixed income, but Daniel was also laid off due to the pandemic, making it even more difficult for him to travel to be nearby. She didnt even get to hug [our] children before she went to the hospital, Daniel wrote on the GoFundMe page. Our plan was to get married and become a family, build a life together. On the page, he also shared how they met, saying the young mother of three made him a better person. We brought balance to each others lives that we didnt know that we deserved, he added. In a recent update, Daniel reported that Alysias turn for the worse was caused by a near-fatal bout of pneumonia. The condition led to heart failure and was the reason she was airlifted to Salt Lake City. Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City (Screenshot/Google Maps) However, Daniel shared that Alysia made it through her near miss with death and is currently about to begin her third round of chemotherapy. The first treatment almost killed her, he wrote, but this new treatment is less aggressive. According to the update, the new treatment consists of a delicate cocktail of chemotherapy and medication that Alysias doctors have prescribed. The combination seems to be working. My wife is improving, the update reads. Its going to be a very long road ahead. But I couldnt be happier with her progress. She is such a warrior for her children and I. We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc At the moment, the energy news out of China is a deluge of reports and think pieces about the government's recently unveiled an extremely ambitious plan to become carbon neutral by 2060 - very big news from the nation that is responsible for a quarter of the worlds total greenhouse gas emissions. Beijings lofty rhetoric is backed up by the nations assertive investment and development of large-scale solar energy projects and what will soon be the worlds largest nuclear fleet. But at the same time that China is talking about getting its carbon footprint down to nothing, the nation is also returning to coal at a breakneck pace. Problematically for the countrys climate goals, its coal-fired power fleet is still quite young, and China is still adding capacity and has hundreds of more coal-fired plants that are already in the planning phase. In fact, China has already added 11.4 gigawatts of coal power capacity just in the first half of 2020, which accounts for more than half of the coal capacity added in the entire world in the same six months. Despite the climate-friendly rhetoric, in the short term, China is still moving full steam ahead on coal, reports Quartz. its post-COVID stimulus spending on fossil fuels is three times larger than its spending on clean energy, including nearly $25 billion on coal power plants and even more on mining and processing. So what has prompted this return to coal and the overall energy ambivalence exhibited by China today? According to a report this week from Reuters The Wider Image, the nations pivot back to coal is fuelled by energy security and economic fears. China is plagued by diverging interests, and while Beijing is pushing for cleaner and greener energy, there is still a lot of support for fossil fuels. "New coal plants are a way for provinces to support other industries like coal mining and heavy industry," Christine Shearer, coal program director at GEM, told Reuters. "You have a lot of entrenched coal interests in China and the central government has not reined them in, despite Beijing's strong support for clean energy." Related: Oil Falls As Trump Tests Positive For COVID-19 Ultimately, in China, the economy remains the top priority. Coal is an established and trusted industry in China, and there is a large degree of hesitance to rock the boat. "Beijing is reluctant to do anything that might slow economic growth, which is why you see the central government slapping the provinces on the wrist for all the newly permitted plants ... but not actually doing anything about them," Shearer went on to say. These effects are only compounded by escalating geopolitical tensions in the region, which also serve to push people back toward the kind of energy industry they already know so well. Amid growing geopolitical tensions, power projects fueled by domestic coal could also become more attractive because the government is keen to improve self-sufficiency and ease its dependence on foreign energy supplies, writes Reuters. So far, Chinas appetite for energy has uniformly outstripped its production capacity. The worlds second-largest economy is already the worlds single-biggest oil importer and is a net importer of coal as well, despite its sizable domestic coal reserves. Adding to the nations anxiety about energy security and self-sufficiency is the history of crippling power shortages that rocked the country in 2011. Building on this experience, it is also a priority for local authorities to have a significant reserve of fossil fuels in case the rapidly changing energy landscape hits any snags. If China has any hope of meeting its climate goals, or of reaching their expected peak emissions target in 2030, it will have to crack down on coal, regardless of the potential drawbacks. To do so, there will have to be a sea change in the nations attitude toward coal, and a more concerted effort to leave it behind and to enforce the policy thats already in place to do so. Ultimately, the world has no chance of hitting global greenhouse gas emissions targets and avoiding catastrophic climate change unless China can quit coal, and quit it now. By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 21:01:38|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close A woman of Oromo ethnic group takes part in a celebration of the Irreecha festival in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, Oct. 3, 2020. The Irreecha festival is an annual thanksgiving event celebrated by ethnic Oromos in Ethiopia to mark the end of the rainy season and the start of spring. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde) ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Hiwot Tesfaye, a diaspora-based Ethiopian, is excited to celebrate Irreecha festival, an annual thanksgiving event celebrated by millions of Ethiopians annually, for the first time in her home country. "In past years, I have celebrated the Irreecha festival in the U.S. where I currently reside. However, it feels much better celebrating the beautiful festival in my home country with friends," Tesfaye told Xinhua. "Today's Irreecha festival ceremony was beautiful. I hope in future editions it will see the participation of many more people," said Tesfaye. The Irreecha festival is an annual thanksgiving event celebrated by ethnic Oromos to mark the end of the rainy season and the start of spring. Oromos make up Ethiopia's single largest ethnic group, accounting for about 35 percent of the east African country's 107 million plus population. The Ethiopian government imposed a 5,000 participants limitation to the number of participants allowed for the Saturday Irreecha ceremony held in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to prevent the possible spread of COVID-19 disease. Ethiopia has confirmed a total of 76,988 COVID-19 cases and 1,205 COVID-19 related deaths as of Saturday morning. While Irreecha was originally celebrated exclusively by ethnic Oromos in recent years, a growing number of non-Oromo Ethiopians are also celebrating the popular festival. One such participant is Kutaye Tusa, an ethnic Konso from southern Ethiopia who came nearly 1,000 kilometers away from his homeland to celebrate the festival in Addis Ababa. "This is my first time attending the Irreecha festival. I'm attending the festival to show the solidarity between the brotherly Konso and Oromo people," Tusa told Xinhua. "I came here not to celebrate my neighbor's festival, but rather a festival my people consider as their own," he further said. Tusa said with Ethiopia currently facing the grave challenge of COVID-19 and the political and economic downturn caused by the pandemic, the festival offers a break from pressing current challenges. "Irreecha festival symbolizes unity, love, brotherhood, forgiveness and reconciliation," said Tusa. We're celebrating Irreeccha 2020, while dealing with the nationwide challenge of COVID-19 and protecting ourselves from exposure to the disease," Tusa told Xinhua. While the still increasing COVID-19 cases across Ethiopia has meant Irreeccha this year is being celebrated with a limited number of people congregating, Tusa is already hoping to attend a much brighter festival next year. "I'm already looking forward to celebrating Irreeccha 2021. I hope by the time Irreeccha 2021 comes around, we will be celebrating it with the health threat from COVID-19 overcome," Tusa told Xinhua. Earlier on Saturday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, himself an ethnic Oromo, released a statement expressing best wishes for Irreeccha festival attendees. "Taking a lesson from yesterday, let's stand united for a better tomorrow," Ahmed said. Enditem Laurence Fox has revealed he was phoned by a group of actors who threatened his career on loudspeaker as they told him to 'change his tune' over Black Lives Matter. The 42-year-old actor, best known for playing Detective Sergeant James Hathaway in Lewis, has previously said that he would not take the knee to show solidarity with BLM protesters as it has 'master-servant' connotations. Fox, who caused a furore when he appeared on Question Time last January, said he would only kneel 'to propose, before god or before the queen' but stressed that others should be 'free to do what they want'. In an interview with the Telegraph yesterday, Fox said he received a 'very threatening' phone call from a former colleague for his refusal to change his position towards the BLM movement. In an interview yesterday, Fox said he received a 'very threatening' phone call from a former colleague for his refusal to change his position towards the BLM movement 'I had a very threatening phone call from one [actor] who I'd worked with for six months,' he told the Telegraph. 'When he phoned me, I heard him put it on loudspeaker and go "Shh!" so I knew there was a table of people there. 'I was warned several times that, unless I changed my tune, it would have an effect on my career. 'And then I was warned formally that it was certain to have a devastating effect on my career.' He said that the phone call did nothing but to 'empower' him. In June this year the actor confronted the reality that he may never find acting work again without 'expressing the "correct" opinion'. He said it was a 'cause of sadness' at the possible loss of his career and the 'bleak view of my prospects' came after his appearance on Question Time in January. Laurence Fox attends the Walpole British Luxury Awards 2019 at The Dorchester on November 18, 2019 in London, England During the show, he accused Rachel Boyle, an academic at Edge Hill University, of racism after she called him 'a white privileged male'. He criticised the ethnicity lecturer's charges of racism amid claims that Meghan Markle was being hounded out of Britain on account of her skin colour. However, speaking to the Telegraph yesterday, Fox said the reaction after his appearance galvanised him to fight back against the 'very, very angry minority of people who feel that they have absolutely every right to not be offended and therefore can control the language we use'. He went on to reiterate his unwillingness to 'bend the knee' to show support for the BLM movement, saying that he would never vote Labour while party leader Keir Starmer is at the helm because he did so. He said that taking the knee is not a gesture of solidarity, but one of subservience. Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner kneel for George Floyd. Laurence Fox, a former Labour supporter, said he would never vote for the party because Mr Starmer took the knee Laurence Fox and his past controversies January 16, 2020: Fox was involved in a heated debate with the academic and ethnicity lecturer Rachel Boyle after she called him 'a white privileged male' on BBC's Question Time. The 41-year-old accused Ms Boyle, an academic at Edge Hill University on Merseyside, of 'being racist' after she called him 'a white privileged male' for denying the Duchess of Sussex was hounded from Britain for being mixed-race. As the row continued the following day he quoted Martin Luther King's 1963 'I have a dream' speech about living in a nation where children 'will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character'. He said: 'This is the position I took last night and I live by in life. If you can improve on it, I'm all ears. Or you can keep screeching ''Racist!'' at me and I can carry on having a jolly good giggle at your expense. The tide is turning'. January 17, 2020: The actor later went on to reveal that he does not date women under the age of 35 because they are 'too woke' and many of them are 'absolutely bonkers' during an interview with the Delingpod podcast. During the podcast , Fox said that he called off a relationship with a former partner because she praised a Gillette advert which highlighted 'toxic masculinity.' January 23, 2020: Fox apologised for his comments about the inclusion of a Sikh soldier in the First World War film 1917 by Sir Sam Mendes. The actor had initially referred to 'the oddness in the casting' of a Sikh soldier and was met by widespread criticism by historians who confirmed that Sikhs had served in the British Army. Fox later tweeted: 'Fellow humans who are Sikhs, I am as moved by the sacrifices your relatives made as I am by the loss of all those who die in war, whatever creed or colour. 'Please accept my apology for being clumsy in the way I expressed myself.' June 18, 2020: In a piece for the Spectator, Fox, questioned if Meghan Markle stepped down as a working royal because she did not get the 'limelight' Advertisement Six days ago, Fox announced he is launching a new political party to fight the 'culture wars' named Reclaim, and he has already raised more than 5million. The actor has received substantial sums from former Tory donors and hopes to stand dozens of candidates across the UK. The star says he wants to provide a movement for people who are 'tired of being told that we represent the very thing we have, in history, stood together against'. It comes as Nigel Farage has also threatened to launch an anti-lockdown party after criticising Boris Johnson's draconian measures to curb the rise in coronavirus cases. Among Fox's aims in his new party are reforming the BBC and celebrating Britain's contribution to the world, according to The Telegraph. The party is provisionally called Reclaim and has a website named LaurenceFoxParty. He hopes to launch the party next month and the name is subject to the Electoral Commission's approval. His website states: 'Over many years it has become clear that our politicians have lost touch with the people they represent and govern. Moreover, our public institutions now work to an agenda beyond their main purpose. 'Our modern United Kingdom was born out of the respectful inclusion of so many individual voices. It is steeped in the innate values of families and communities, diverse in the truest sense but united in the want and need to call this island home. 'The people of the United Kingdom are tired of being told that we represent the very thing we have, in history, stood together against. 'We are all privileged to be the custodians of our shared heritage. We can reclaim a respectful nation where all are included and none are ashamed to have somewhere to call home.' He added: 'I have been so encouraged by the support I have received by those wishing to add their voices to this reclamation of our values. 'Our country is now in desperate need of a new political movement which promises to make our future a shared endeavour, not a divisive one. This is now my endeavour.' Fox, who has been a fierce critic of the BBC, sparked controversy when he said suggestions of 'racism' over how the Duchess of Sussex was treated in some quarters was 'boring'. He also hit out at black and working class actors for complaining about the industry once they have 'five million quid in the bank'. A Westminster source said the new party is a version of UKIP for the culture wars and believes it could attract hundreds of thousands of unhappy Conservative voters. Sources close to Fox said the party does not see itself as strictly left or right wing but will be a broad church. Reclaim so far has three objectives, which include protecting free speech, reforming publicly funded institutions, and preserving and celebrating Britain's cultural history. Planning has been underway for the last two months and backers include former Tory donor Jeremy Hosking. Staff are already being recruited for the party after Fox was launched into the political arena after his performance on Question Time in January. Green Party activists have been told not to use 'big words' when trying to appeal to rural voters because they may not understand what they mean. Senator Roisin Garvey said party members needed to "choose their words", adding that she learned this from working with Travellers. Ms Garvey made the remarks at the party's National Convention during a debate on the "anti-Green narrative" in rural areas that leaves the party struggling to win votes outside the big cities. The Clare-based senator said of rural voters: "We don't have to give them statistics on carbon this and climate that and use big vocabulary... "We really have to choose our words. I suppose I learned this from working with Travellers for a few years. "If you start engaging with people and you're using - even the word 'sustainable' or 'biodiversity' - this is vocabulary that's new stuff and we shouldn't assume that people understand what they are. "Let's talk about the flowers, talk about the cattle. Talk about the robin, the sparrow. "I think colloquialism is important and I think simple vocabulary includes everybody." Ms Garvey also advised party members to "wear the Clare jersey, go to the hurling matches, get to know your local priest". Meanwhile, Ms Garvey said people were "freaking out" about carbon tax but said the proceeds of any increase in the Budget would be used to pay farmers for biodiversity and protect people at risk of fuel poverty by retrofitting homes for energy efficiency. She said: "It's not this big evil tax that's going to crush you for ever more... We're looking at retrofitting houses and reducing the cost of heating your home. "So if you have to spend two and a half cent a litre more when you're driving your car - it's not the end of the world." Scheduled to be held at Hall 1 of the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) from September 24 to 26, the TIE 2020 was jointly curated by the following 10 government bodies: the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOWH), the Ministry of Labor, the Council of Agriculture, the National Development Council, the Environmental Protection Administration, and Academia Sinica. With "Resilient Taiwan, Smarter Future" as the overarching concept, the event organizers had built three thematic pavilions: Pioneering Inventions, Future Technologies, and Sustainable Development. More than 1,000 products, concepts, and patented technologies was on display during the three-day trade show. Exhibitions, keynote presentations, and seminars was live-streamed for international audience. Guided thematic tours of the exhibitions took place both physically and online. Other parts of the event such as intellectual property (IP) consultations and one-on-one meetings with suppliers was also remotely accessible via the Internet. The TIE has been demonstrating the R&D strength of Taiwan's private enterprises, government agencies, academic institutions, and research entities. Taking advantage of its position in the region and its local capability for innovation, Taiwan is pursuing a New Southbound Policy and deepening its ties with the US, Europe, and Japan. The long-term goal is to turn the island to an international IP hub and promote home-grown technologies. The Pioneering Inventions pavilion heralded the arrival of Hyper Digitization The Pioneering Inventions pavilion displayed 105 technological solutions that could be adopted by industries within the next five years. The pavilion was divided into four subsections: hyper-automation, the Internet of Everything, physical-virtual integration, and new healthcare technologies. The solutions shown here were presented in a way that highlights their respective roles in the fields of national defense, disaster prevention, future mobility, and epidemic response. Additionally, the pavilion featured immersive exhibitions on service robots, interactive VR experience, smart gym, etc. The Sustainability Development pavilion offered an exploration of humanity's future In keeping with the principle of the 4Rs, the exhibitions at the Sustainability Development pavilion showed technologies that may be used to build green homes in the next 20 years. This year's TIE wants to present a technological ecology that helps realize a circular economy. To that end, exhibitions here reflected the following four topics that will increasingly affect our lives in the future: modern agriculture, green energy technologies, circular economy, and workplace safety. Furthermore, TIE had invited members of the European agricultural sector to share their technologies and professional experience at the Sustainable Development pavilion. They also attend seminars to discuss joint marketing initiatives and strategic cooperation. The Future Technologies pavilion opened a new horizon in R&D Technological advances have a major influence on how we live in the future and can shape the world in ways that we have never imagined. Hence, the Future Technologies pavilion showed R&D results that could set the directions of the technology sectors in the next 3-10 years. In curating this pavilion, the MOST amassed considerable resources and invited Academic Sinica, the MOE, and MOHW to assist in its efforts. Exhibits were centered on precision healthcare, optoelectronics, new materials, AI, and AIoT, emphasizing Taiwan's advantages in the development of leading-edge technologies and their innovative applications. As part of the COVID-19 response, many of the displays here were made viewable online. The International Section breaked new grounds for the expo The pandemic has led to the cancellation and postponement of trade shows around the world, but this is not the case for TIE 2020. The event gathered 69 exhibitors from 18 countries, including Corning, Cisco, Microsoft, Logitech, Siemens, Nissan, and National Science and Technology Development Agency. These international exhibitors displayed 123 technological solutions related to information security, Industry 4.0, robotics, biotechnology, energy, and agriculture. IPBC Taiwan 2020 The Industry Development Bureau under the MOEA and the Industrial Technology Research Institute have joined forces with IAM (Intellectual Asset Management) to hold a virtual forum IPBC Taiwan in the morning of September 25. This forum was themed with the value of intangible assets and technology transfers. Hitachi, Uber, and MediaTek are among the global IP leaders joined the online discussions and shared their strategies. The forum was broadcasted within the venue of the TIE 2020, on the main stage in Area C of TWTC Hall 1 and could be followed through live stream. Taiwan Innotech Expo 2020 Date: September 24-26, 2020 Location: Taipei Word Trade Center Hall 1 Website: https://tie.twtm.com.tw/ Executive Unit (Organizer): Industrial Technology Research Institute [Industrial Development Bureau, AD] SOURCE: Industrial Technology Research Institute SOURCE Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is in Rohtang to inaugurate the Atal Tunnel, on Saturday said that the tunnel will act as a lifeline not just for a big part of Himachal Pradesh but also for Ladakh. "Atal Tunnel, apart from a big region in Himachal Pradesh, will also become a lifeline for the new union territory Ladakh. With this, Leh-Ladakh, and this big region of Himachal Pradesh will always stay connected with the other parts of the country, and will quickly move forward on the path to progress," the Prime Minister said. The PM thanked and saluted all jawans, engineers, labourers who had risked their lives to ensure the completion of the tunnel. "Atal Tunnel will give new strength to India`s border infrastructure. It is an example of world-class border connectivity," he said. Terming it as a historic day, the Prime Minister claimed that along with the fulfilment of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee`s dreams, the wait of crores of Himachal residents have also come true. Live TV "This tunnel will reduce the distance between Manali and Kelong by three to four hours. My brothers and sisters from the hills can understand the meaning of this," he said. "The strategically important Daulat Beg Oldi airstrip in Ladakh remained closed for 40-45 years. I don`t want to go into details as to what was the helplessness and the pressure behind it. Much has been written and told about it, but it is true that the Air Force was able to start the airstrip because of its own interests, there was no political will in it," he said. The inauguration ceremony was attended by Himachal Chief Minister Jairam Thakur, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Minister of State (MoS) Anurag Thakur, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and Army Chief General MM Naravane. Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai has announced a major campaign in partnership with the Emirates Foundation to hire nearly 1,000 Saudi nationals for the mega event, which will kick off on October 1 next year and run untill March 31, 2022. The initiative aims to attract the Saudi nationals to the pavilion activities at the mega event and offer them this one-of-a-kind opportunity to represent their country in the regions inaugural World Expo. The pavilion, which expects to draw millions of visitors from all over the world, will exhibit the treasures and wonders of Saudi Arabia. In serving as a window on the countrys past and present, the pavilion aims to offer glimpses of the transformation that has already started taking shape, said a top official. "The volunteers will serve as cultural ambassadors for the kingdom. Through this unique initiative, we aim to showcase the countrys talented Saudi citizens to the world," remarked Dr Fahad bin Abdullah Al Yabis, the Commissioner-General and Project Director for the Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. The pavilion offers Saudi nationals above 18 years - both men and women - a chance to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They can aim to make a difference, meet people, be part of a community, learn new skills and have fun while doing it all, he noted. "With its focus on the youth, who are the agents of change, the initiative will significantly advance our efforts to tell the story of a transformational Kingdom," stated Dr Al Yabis. Welcoming the initiative, Ahmed Talib Al Shamsi, acting CEO of Emirates Foundation, said: "Emirates Foundation is pleased to partner with the KSA Pavilion to drive this worthwhile initiative that seeks to activate volunteering, a vital sector for any thriving economy." "At the Foundation, building youth capacities and supporting young people in discovering and developing their talents and skills with a focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, empowerment, and volunteering is integral to our mission. To do so for an event as momentous as Expo 2020 Dubai is particularly rewarding," he noted. Thurya Al Badran, Head of Visitor Services and Head of the Volunteering Program at the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, said: "The volunteers are the best envoys to unveil the kingdoms compelling narrative to the world in the most efficient and impactful manner. This experience will provide them with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to represent their country in the regions inaugural World Expo." The Project Director for the Saudi Arabia Pavilion has called upon interested candidates to sign up to be part of history in the making at www.ksaexpo2020dubai.com/joinus or www.volunteers.ae. Shortlisted applicants will undergo a research-based selection process, including personal data validation, a pre-assessment interview and a skills assessment. On advancing to the next stage, the candidates will receive intensive training for specific positions based on their skills, honing their capabilities.-TradeArabia News Service Cal Cunningham, the Democratic challenger locked in a competitive race with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., acknowledged exchanging intimate texts with a woman who is not his wife. The candidate apologized in a Friday night statement released by his campaign but said he would remain in the race, one of the most closely-watched contests in the country as Democrats fight to retake control of the Senate. "I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry," Cunningham said in the statement. "The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do. I ask that my family's privacy be respected in this personal matter." The revelation threatens to upend a race in which North Carolinians already have been casting absentee ballots since early September. Further roiling the contest, Tillis revealed Friday he has tested positive for the coronavirus, part of a wave of infections sweeping Republican leadership, including President Trump and two other GOP senators. In the texts, first reported by NationalFile.com and confirmed as authentic by Cunningham's campaign, the married father of two discusses setting up a rendezvous with Arlene Guzman Todd, a public relations strategist who is also married. "Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now," Cunningham writes in one. In another, Todd texts Cunningham, "Pick a day, city, make up an excuse for the fam, ditch a staffer, starch your white shirt, and be ready to kiss a lot." There are no dates on the messages, but in one, Cunningham texts he is "nervous about the next 100 days," which, if it referred to the election, would place it in late July. Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said more information could be coming. "These are very troubling allegations and Cal needs to be transparent with the voters of North Carolina," Hunt said. "We know there's more to this story. Cal knows there's more to this story, and he needs to come clean with voters so they can make the appropriate judgment about whether he's fit for office." The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee indicated it is standing behind him. "North Carolinians are supporting Cal because he will protect health care coverage for preexisting conditions, fight to bring down the costs of prescription drugs, and help our country recover from this crisis," DSCC spokesperson Lauren Passalacqua said in a statement. "We are confident that he will bring the same courage and determination to the Senate as he has while serving our country in uniform." Cunningham, a former state lawmaker and Army veteran, announced last week he had raised an eye-popping $28.3 million in campaign funds in the third quarter. Recent polls have shown him with a single-digit lead against Tillis, who is running for a second term. "I remain grateful and humbled by the ongoing support that North Carolinians have extended in this campaign, and in the remaining weeks before this election I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state," Cunningham said in his statement. He is not the first politician to suffer an embarrassing leak of personal communications. Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) resigned from office when he was revealed to be sending lewd texts to a 15-year-old girl, behavior that landed him in federal prison for 18 months. Last year, Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.) resigned after the launch of an ethics inquiry into allegations of an affair with her legislative director that her then-husband first made on Facebook. Nash joined CarMax in 1997 as auction manager after holding a variety of accounting roles at consumer electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. He was promoted as CarMaxs senior vice president of human resources and administrative services in 2011 before his appointment the following year to executive vice president, overseeing human resources, information technology, procurement, loss prevention, employee health and safety as well as construction and facilities. He has a vision and people seem onboard with that vision, an employee wrote about Nash as part of the confidential survey. I dont think he has a big ego. He comes across as a humble and generous leader. Another employee wrote: He is very approachable and truly cares about the people that work for the company in all areas and locations. He is a good combination of innovative as well as measured to ensure we are doing the right thing the right way. Large company: Alberto Schiavon, a native of Italy, has been CEO of Elephant Insurance Services LLC, an insurance company based in Henrico County, since November 2017. In the early '60s, one could afford to pay medical providers what was billed that is, medical providers were required to bill what their customers could afford, like all others in the economy. Catastrophe insurance was available for major illnesses at a reasonable price. This was the proper use of insurance. Then, suddenly, catastrophe insurance was no longer available. This occurred because insurance companies discovered the more lucrative employer-paid plans. Still, the premiums were relatively low, which is to say affordable. Enter Lyndon Baines Johnson and Medicare, and Social Security benefits. Social Security was set up by Franklin Roosevelt to provide welfare for those who, through no fault of their own, were no longer able to work. Since Medicare was available to all, Lyndon made Social Security benefits available to all, from a welfare program to a retirement program. This upset both medical care and retirement. Folks who turned 65 were quite happy with their private health insurance, but Lyndon mandated coverage under Medicare. Folks who set aside money for retirement were now required to set aside money to finance a Ponzi scheme. Problems: First, medical providers do all they can to avoid Medicare patients. Reason: Medicare pays less for care than the care costs. Because costs accelerated when providers were able to charge exorbitant fees. After all, customers were now insurance companies who had incentive, or ability, to control costs. Insurance companies responded by increasing premiums. Second, most hospitals, and medical providers who associate with a hospital, must provide care for free to those not covered by insurance. Many found this loophole and declined to buy health insurance. Third, now what to do about said uninsured, those who decline to buy health insurance or those with pre-existing conditions? The latter was a pretense. Those with pre-existing conditions could still be insured, just not for the pre-existing condition, at least for a year a feature that seemed a reasonable response to those who decline to purchase insurance until they have a heart attack. The solution: Under the ACA, both populations were guaranteed coverage hence the further escalation of health insurance premium costs to as much as $20,000 per year. So we are now faced with the following scenarios: 1. Bert's employer pays $20,000 annually on his behalf for medical insurance. Bert is angry. He says he would rather health insurance premiums were $10,000, or $5,000, and he could put the difference in his pocket. Additionally, taxpayers pay at least 20% of the $20,000. Reason: The employee is not required to report the corresponding $20,000 as income. 2. Bert earns $300,000 per year, yet he receives Social Security benefits of $30,000 per year, and because he is married, his combined benefits with his wife increase to $45,000. The current solution: Increase the annual deficit. Not sustainable, we are told. Who cares? we respond; after all the federal government has been operating with annual deficits for over 200 years. It occurs to me that there is another solution: In 2003, my wife and I were on our way road-tripping to Alaska for my 50th class reunion. At Watson Lake, Canada, Sharon said she couldn't go farther shortness of breath. So we went to the hospital. When we entered the emergency room, they looked at her, and two people rushed out with a wheelchair and rushed her back for triage. A doctor soon appeared and diagnosed her with strep pneumonia and put her on IVs and oxygen. Then I was directed to billing and gave them my credit card information. Over the next week, we went in each morning, and they would put her on IV and oxygen. The doctor said we could opt for hospitalization, but we opted for the former. It was interesting there was a waiting area, and we would sit with other incoming patients. One guy came in with a cut on his arm. Another came in and claimed a pain in his shoulder, needed pain meds. And we all sat and visited. After a week, the doctor said it would be safe to return home for further care. The hospital billed $200. The doctor billed $95. I don't know the particulars of Canada's system other than that. But my conclusion was that for situations like Sharon's, universal care works. But for situations like the heart surgery ultimately done in Oklahoma, my understanding is that universal care does not cover such. The same applies to research, as is done in our country's hospitals and research facilities. So maybe there is room in our country for a two-level care system. Routine care under a universal care system and major medical under an insurance-based system. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 3) The public should not fear taking a swab test, the Department of Health said Saturday in the wake of reports that a patient in the US suffered a brain fluid leak after the nasal procedure. The government is ensuring na safe po ang pagsagawa ng mga specimen collections dito sa ating bansa (that the conduct of specimen collections in our country is safe), Health Spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online media briefing. Sana po huwag mabahala ang ating mga kababayan (Were hoping the public will not worry), she said. The health undersecretary was asked to respond to an October 1 article published by the US-based JAMA OtolaryngologyHead & Neck Surgery, an international peer-reviewed medical journal. It discusses the case of a woman with pre-existing encephalocele, a rare skull disorder. She underwent nasal swab testing for COVID-19 and was later diagnosed with cerebrospinal fluid leak. Doctors believe it is the first case of such complication from a nasal test. There should be alternative methods to nasal screening in patients with known skull base defects or other related conditions, the article read. Vergeire said strict protocols are being followed in the country to avoid any problem during coronavirus testing. Only trained and skilled workers and licensed facilities can administer the test, using the proper procedure and materials. Even those who are doing remote collection binabantayan po natin yan, nagmo-monitor po tayo, nag-o-on-the-spot check (we monitor and conduct on-the-spot checks), Vergeire said. The Department of Health on Friday also released to the media the current specimen collection policies, which mandate the use of the approved kits and implementation of infection control guidelines during the testing. Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see EMIS Group plc (LON:EMIS) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. You will need to purchase shares before the 8th of October to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 5th of November. EMIS Group's upcoming dividend is UK0.16 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of UK0.32 per share to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, EMIS Group stock has a trailing yield of around 3.0% on the current share price of 10.54. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to investigate whether EMIS Group can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow. View our latest analysis for EMIS Group Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. EMIS Group paid out more than half (74%) of its earnings last year, which is a regular payout ratio for most companies. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. Dividends consumed 52% of the company's free cash flow last year, which is within a normal range for most dividend-paying organisations. It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Stocks in companies that generate sustainable earnings growth often make the best dividend prospects, as it is easier to lift the dividend when earnings are rising. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. With that in mind, we're encouraged by the steady growth at EMIS Group, with earnings per share up 3.8% on average over the last five years. Earnings growth has been slim and the company is paying out more than half of its earnings. While there is some room to both increase the payout ratio and reinvest in the business, generally the higher a payout ratio goes, the lower a company's prospects for future growth. Story continues The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. EMIS Group has delivered an average of 11% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past 10 years of dividend payments. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders. To Sum It Up Should investors buy EMIS Group for the upcoming dividend? Earnings per share growth has been unremarkable, and while the company is paying out a majority of its earnings and cash flow in the form of dividends, the dividend payments don't appear excessive. While it does have some good things going for it, we're a bit ambivalent and it would take more to convince us of EMIS Group's dividend merits. Curious what other investors think of EMIS Group? See what analysts are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow. A common investment mistake is buying the first interesting stock you see. Here you can find a list of promising dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Heres a look at the most significant criminal-justice stories from around the borough this week: GRASMERE DAD CHARGED IN SHOTGUN DEATH OF SON The 34-year-old was shot in the abdomen at a home located at 34 Beverly Road around 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, according to an NYPD spokesman. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk) A 68-year-old man is being treated in a psychiatric ward following the fatal shotgun shooting of his son at the family home in Grasmere on Sunday afternoon, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. Joseph Smith, of Beverly Road, has been charged with murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the death of his 34-year-old son who bears the same name, according to a statement from the NYPD. Investigators believe that a dispute of an unknown nature occurred and then a shotgun was discharged inside the home, the source said. Click here for the story. CONFLICTING STATEMENTS OF DEFENDANT IN TEACHER-SLAY From left: Michael Cammarata, Jeanine Cammarata and Ayisha Egea. Ayisha Egea changed her story several times when detectives questioned her about the disappearance of her boyfriend Michael Cammaratas estranged wife, a justice recently wrote. But what never varied in Egeas accounts was her attempts to exculpate and distance herself from any role in Jeanine Cammaratas vanishing and death last year, Justice Mario F. Mattei wrote in recently denying Egeas motion to suppress those statements. The victims charred remains were found in a plastic bin inside an Arden Heights storage unit on April 4, 2019, prosecutors said. Click here for the story. NYPD SEARCHING FOR VEHICLE IN PAINTBALL DRIVE-BY INCIDENTS The NYPD is seeking the publics assistance in locating a vehicle and its occupants in connection with a series of three separate drive-by incidents in which unwitting bystanders were struck by paintballs within a 20-minute span. The first incident occurred on Friday, Sept. 25, at 9:40 p.m., when a 37-year-old man was walking on Lander Avenue, near Graham Avenue, and was struck by several paintball pellets fired from a moving car. The car is described as a gray sedan, according to a written statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. Click here for the story. COPS: FAILED ATM HEIST PRECEDED CHASE, MULTI-VEHICLE CRASH Witnesses at the scene of a car crash Sunday afternoon in West Brighton recounted what appeared to be plainclothes officers chasing a suspect on foot. (Submitted) Moments prior to a multi-vehicle crash and foot pursuit by NYPD officers in a commercial section of West Brighton on Sunday afternoon, police said the suspect attempted to steal an ATM machine from a local bank. Police arrested William Hickman, 25, of Taylor Street in West Brighton, on charges that include fourth-degree grand larceny, reckless endangerment, leaving the scene of an accident and obstructing governmental administration, a spokeswoman for the NYPD said Monday. Click here for more details. ROBBERY AT BAGEL SHOP IN GREENRIDGE Police are looking into a report of a robbery at a bagel store on Arthur Kill Road in Greenridge on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel) Police are investigating a reported robbery early on Tuesday at a bagel shop in Greenridge. The robbery was called into 911 at 3:36 a.m. for a bagel shop at 1307 Arthur Kill Road, according to the NYPD. The suspect was armed with a screwdriver and the initial description was that officers were looking for a Black male, possibly in his 30s, wearing a black jacket and gray boots, the police spokesman said. Click here for more details. NANNY PLAYED DEAD AS BURGLAR WENT THROUGH HOME Police responded at about 3:30 a.m. Monday to a report of a burglary on Fine Boulevard in Todt Hill. (Google Maps) As a masked burglar rummaged with a flashlight through a third-floor bedroom of a Todt Hill home early Monday morning, a live-in nanny laid silent in her bed in fear of provoking the intruder. At first she thought it was one of us looking for something... then [she] started to put the pieces together of what was happening, said the mother of the family, who also was home at the time, along with her husband and two small children. She stayed there playing dead for a good 10 minutes. Click here for the story. 4 MEN ALLEGEDLY NABBED WITH GUN IN MARINERS HARBOR CAR STOP Four men were caught with a gun in Mariners Harbor during a car stop last Friday night, police allege. Cops saw a 20-year-old man driving a gray 2007 Audi A4 sedan without a license plate, according to police. Officers conducted a car stop in the vicinity of Grandview Avenue and Continental Place at about 10:40 p.m. Officers found a loaded, Raven Arms .25-caliber pistol inside the passenger compartment of the Audi, the complaint alleges. Click here for the full story. COPS: 2 MEN STABBED, BEATEN BY GROUP ON PORT RICHMOND AVE. Four Port Richmond men ganged up on two acquaintances, punching and stabbing their victims on the street in their community, police allege. The suspects, acting together, did attempt to cause serious physical injury to the victims by attacking them with a knife and closed fists, according to the complaint. One of the male victims suffered puncture wounds to his chest, left arm, left oblique, lower back and buttocks and a bruised spleen, the complaint states. Click here for the story. Incubating ideas: Agility Summit showcases innovative solutions to naval challenges ARLINGTON, Va.--A mobile app allowing Sailors and Marines to collaborate with leadership to solve problems. A Wikipedia-style platform for the entire Navy--which can be shared in a Cloud environment and serve as a repository of institutional knowledge. Streamlining the use of Microsoft SharePoint and Teams to reduce unnecessary meetings. An online portal where videos outlining best practices and procedures can be placed--lessening the risk of knowledge loss through retirements or re-assignment. Four teams from the U.S. Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School and Navy Information Operations Command Texas pitched these ideas virtually during an educational challenge at last week's Naval Agility Summit--held Sept. 21-25 in Alexandria, Virginia. The event--which people attended virtually and physically--was hosted by the NavalX Agility Cell (also known as NavalX) and supported by multiple partners, including the Office of Naval Research (ONR). "Ideas like yours will change the Navy and Marine Corps for the better," said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Lorin C. Selby. "This shows that the best solutions to problems come from those on the deck plates. "We at the leadership level want you to keep pushing forward," Selby continued. "We'll remove barriers, but we need your ideas." The Hon. James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, echoed this sentiment: "We're all inspired by your zeal and enthusiasm. We're committed to creating an environment where you can bring about change and refine the art of the possible." The purpose of the educational challenge was to foster innovative solutions to pressing naval problems. The competing teams--selected from a pool of applicants--presented to a panel of judges that included Selby; Geurts; Joan Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation; and Vice Adm. Lisa Franchetti, deputy chief of naval operations for Warfighting Development. The Naval Academy team pitching the mobile app won the challenge. The app provides a platform for warfighters to share work-related issues and solicit solutions and suggestions. The team will receive follow-on support and access to requirement holders, end users and subject matter experts at warfare centers and naval labs to develop their idea. Afterward, team members will present the prototype or proof of concept to naval leaders and stakeholders. The educational challenge was just one facet of the week-long Agility Summit. The summit was designed to build partnerships in the Department of the Navy (DoN) on matters of innovation, acquisition and transition--to share best practices and discuss problems facing the fleet. It highlighted innovation success stories from throughout the Naval Research and Development Establishment, through presentations and workshops. Discussion topics included technology transfer, transition, contracting and program management. "It is imperative that the Department of the Navy finds ways to better access and transition emerging technologies into programs," said NavalX Director Capt. Frank Futcher. "The Naval Agility Summit served as a platform to attack that challenge by bringing together diverse organizations, people and experts to highlight proven methods to transition new technologies with speed and urgency. This will help us assure relevancy and lethality in the future war fight." NavalX is designed to enable collaboration; accelerate the pace of discovery, learning and experimentation; and foster the naval workforce's capacity for innovation and agility. It is developing valuable tools for solving problems and translating ideas into actionable solutions. This helps naval organizations like ONR to better serve warfighter needs by connecting individuals promoting innovative ideas with experts who can experiment with those ideas, invest in them or help turn them into something tangible for the Navy and Marine Corps. Learn more about NavalX and this year's Naval Agility Summit at https:/ / www. secnav. navy. mil/ agility/ Pages/ agilitysummit2020. aspx . ### This story has been published on: 2020-10-03. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Vietnam stands out as the only ASEAN economy to achieve potential growth in 2020 and rebound to a 8.1 percent growth rate in 2021, HSBC said in a recent report. In the report titled Asia Economics: It's About Stamina, HSBC affirmed that despite many significant challenges, Vietnam's economy rose 1.8 percent in the first half of 2020. The government's efforts to contain COVID-19 significantly contributed to the countrys economic achievement. However, the resurgence of the pandemic in late July impeded Vietnam's initial goal to bounce back early compared to other countries. With its success in suppressing the new outbreak, Vietnam is put in the top position among the ASEAN economies in terms of potential growth in 2020, HSBC said. This year Vietnam's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to reach 2.6 percent, which is slightly lower than the previous forecast of 3 percent. HSBC believes that Vietnam will benefit from the technology-led recovery and stable foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow in the year to come. Therefore, the Southeast Asian nation still has a positive outlook with expected economic growth of 8.1 percent next year, compared to the previous projection of 8.5 percent. Vietnams growth rate this year is still quietly skyrocketing and will stand out as the fastest-growing economy in the region by 2021," HSBC added. HSBC is one of the worlds largest banking and financial service organizations. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! HATHRAS: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday (October 3) visited Hathras and met family members of the 19-year-old girl who was gangraped and brutally tortured by four men; and said the party will continue its fight for justice to India's daughter. "I met the afflicted family in Hathras and understood their pain. I assured them that we stand with them at this difficult time and will help them in getting justice. The UP government will not be able to do anything arbitrary as it wants, because now the whole nation is standing united demanding justice for the daughter of the country, Rahul Gandhi tweeted in Hindi, after meeting the gang-rape victim's kin. Priyanka Gandhi, who hugged the inconsolable victim's mother, said the family couldn't see their daughter for the one last time after her death in a Delhi hospital and that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath should understand his responsibility. She along with Rahul Gandhi, also demanded the removal of the District Magistrate in the case. The two leaders reached Hathras in the evening after the UP administration conveyed that a group of five persons can meet the victim`s family. Earlier, Priyanka Gandhi drove the vehicle towards DND flyway where a massive police force deployment and barricading were put in place to stop the Congress cavalcade from visiting Hathras. Several Congress workers had assembled at the DND in support of their leaders after which a scuffle broke out between police and workers during which the cops had to resort to mild lathicharge to disperse the crowd. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday announced a CBI probe into the Hathras gang-rape, murder, an incident which has triggered a nationwide protest. Cleveland City Schools has been awarded a District Grant from Rotary International in the amount of $5,800 to support the Raider Reader Program. The Noonday Rotary Club of Cleveland will match that grant bringing the total to $11,600 for the Raider Reader Program. The Raider Reader Program is entering its third year and its main goal is to get books into the hands of their students. Due to the club's support, the Raider Reader Program will provide every first and second grade student in the district a book to take home and keep before each of the extended breaks (fall, Thanksgiving, winter, spring and summer). Students will receive fiction and non-fiction books that align with the Tennessee Academic Standards. Members of the Noonday Rotary Club and Cleveland City Schools Administrative staff will serve as guest readers for the students. Each reader will start reading the book to the class, then give each student the book to take home to finish the story. The program encourages families and students to read together by allowing the students to add books to their at home library. Carolyn Ingram, a Cleveland City Schools board member and a member of the Noonday Rotary Club, said, This program is one of the best things that we have done to promote literacy in our schools. I am thrilled to be a part of it." D onald Trump has tweeted to say his coronavirus treatment is "going well, I think" after being taken to a military hospital amid reports he is having "trouble breathing". The US president announced his Covid-19 diagnosis in a tweet in the early hours of Friday, following a positive test from one of his closest aides. Less than 24 hours later, the White House said he would travel by helicopter to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre and would spend a few days there. After he was taken to hospital, CNN quoted an advisor as saying there is "reason for concern" as the president had "trouble breathing" after testing positive. The source said the situation "is serious", adding that Mr Trump was "very tired, very fatigued". But in a tweet on Saturday morning, Mr Trump said: "Going welI, I think! Thank you to all. LOVE!!!" It comes after his doctor said the president is being treated with an experimental drug aimed at supplying antibodies to help fight his Covid-19 infection. Mr Trump is receiving a two-antibody combination drug that is currently in late-stage studies from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. It is given as a one-time treatment through an IV. Donald Trump - In pictures 1 /112 Donald Trump - In pictures President Donald Trump takes the oath of office as his wife Melania Trump holds the bible and his son Barron Trump looks on, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC Getty Images Acceptance speech Republican president-elect Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to the crowd during his acceptance speech at his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of 9 November 2016 in New York Getty Images Little Trump Donald Trump pictured when he was 4 years old Donald J Trump/Instagram The Trump Princess Donald Trump waves to reporters in 1988 with his first wife Ivana as they board their yacht 'The Trump Princess' in New York AP Donald Trump stands next to one of his three Sikorsky helicopters at New York Port Authority's West 30 Street Heliport in 1988 Out on the town Trump and his first wife Ivana arrive at a social engagement in New York in December 1989 AFP/Getty Images Surviving at the top Trump followed up his successful book The Art of the Deal with Surviving At The Top in 1990 Random House Meeting the King of Pop With Michael Jackson in 1990 FilmMagic Taking a break with Miss Universe contestants Donald Trump meets Miss Universe contestants during a break in rehearsals in the Imperial Ballroom at Atlantis, Paradise Island, Bahamas in 1990 Miss Universe Organization via AP Genie of the lamp Donald Trump stands next to a genie lamp in 1990 as the lights of his Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort mark its grand opening in Atlantic City AP Marla's wedding day Donald and Marla Trump at their wedding in 1993 AP Donald Trump with daughter Ivanka at a Harley Davidson Cafe Event, New York City on 9 October 1993 Rex Features New arival Marla and Donald Trump leave St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida with their newborn baby girl, Tiffany on 14 October 1993 AP Behind the lens Donald Trump takes a picture of Bridget Marks in 1993 after interviewing her for Playboy magazine's 40th anniversary playmate in New York AFP/Getty Images Top Trump New York real estate giant Donald Trump poses in his Trump Tower office on a giant letter "T" on 08 May 1996 AFP/Getty Images New love interest Donald Trump and Melania arrive for VH1's Divas Live concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City on 13 April 1999 Getty Images Toasting in the New Year Donald Trump and Melania toast the new year during Trump's gala bash in 2000 The Sun-Sentinel/AP Wax work A wax replica of Donald Trump stands ready to be put on display at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, New York City in 2000 Madame Tussaud's/Getty Images Rebuild call Donald Trump talks in 2005 to reporters where he presented a proposal that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center be rebuilt in New York Reuters Cracking prformance Amy Poehler, Tracy Morgan, Donald Trump, Seth Myers, Maya Rudolph perform on Saturday Night Live in 2002 Rex Features 'How To Get Rich' Donald Trump poses with a copy of his new book 'How To Get Rich' during a book signing on 24 March 2004 at Barnes and Noble in Lincoln Center in New York Getty Images Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka (left) and girlfriend Melania Knauss (right) attend the "Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century" Costume Institute benefit gala on April 26, 2004 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City Getty Images Fired up figure Donald Trump poses with the new Donald Trump 12-inch talking doll 29 September 2004 at the Toys "R" Us store in New York City Getty Images Olympic flame Donald Trump carries the Olympic flame during Day 15 of the Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay on 19 June 19, 2004 in New York Getty Images Donald Trump on The Celebrity Apprentice (2005) Rex Features Anyone for golf? Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at the Old Course in St Andrews where he was meeting with the media to answer questions regarding Trump International Golf Links on 28 April 2005 in St Andrews, Scotland Getty Images Hollywod star Donald Trump, billionaire developer and producer of NBC's "The Apprentice," with his wife, Melania, and their son, Barron, pose for a photo after he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles in 2007 AP In the Highlands U.S. property mogul Donald Trump gestures during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland on 27 May 2010 Reuters Donald Trump plays a round of golf after the opening of the The Trump International Golf Links Course in Scotland in 2012 Getty Images Family time Donald Trump, Barron Trump and Melania Trump attends Trump Invitational Grand Prix Mar-a-Lago Club at The Mar-a-Largo Club on 04 January 2015 in Palm Beach, Florida Getty Images Officially in the running U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump poses with his family after formally announcing his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York on 16 June 2015 Reuters Love, life and laughter Donald Trump sits with his wife Melania Trump while appearing at an NBC Town Hall at the Today Show on 21 April 2016 in New York City. Getty Images Thumbs up Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on 21 July 2016, in Cleveland, AFP/Getty Images Don't cry for me ... Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds babies at a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado on 29 July 2016 Reuters Donald Trump eating KFC on his private jet in August 2016 Is this really the Oval Office? Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump views a replica of the Oval Office on a tour of the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 30 September 2016 Reuters Women for Trump Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump kisses a "Women for Trump" placard during a rally at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Lakeland, Florida on 12 October 2016 AFP/Getty Images In debate Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speak during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, America on 09 October 2016 AP Love your country The future is orange: Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump hugs a U.S. flag on 24 October 2016 Reuters U.S. President-elect U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at his election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S. on 09 November 2016 Reuters 60 Minutes Donald Trump and wife Melania being interviewed on 13 November 2016 by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes 60 Minutes/CBS At The Whiie House US President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump meet in the Oval Office of the White House on 10 November 2016 EPA Kiss-story Republican president-elect Donald Trump embraces his wife Melania Trump during his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of 09 November 2016 in New York Getty Images Person of the Year U.S. President-elect Donald Trump poses on the cover of Time Magazine after being named its person of the year, in a picture provided by the publication in New York on 7 December 2016 Time Magazine Meeting Kanye U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and musician Kanye West pose for media at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York on 13 December 2016 Reuters First Press Conference President-elect Donald Trump stands with his son Eric Trump (left) daughter Ivanka and son Donald Trump Jr. (right) on 11 January 2017 Reuters US President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington,Virginia 19 on January 2017 AFP/Getty Images Big shoes to fill: US President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive to attend an inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on 19 January 2017 AFP/Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive for a VIP reception and dinner with donors in Washington on 19 January 2017 AP British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump walk along The Colonnade of the West Wing at The White House on January 27, 2017 in Washington, DC Getty Images Pope Francis walks along with US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump during a private audience at the Vatican in May 2017 AFP/Getty Images US President Donald Trump inspects border wall prototypes in March 2018 AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump walk to a joint news conference at Chequers in July 2018 Reuters US President Donald Trump takes the hand of Prime Minister Theresa May as they enter Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire in July 2018 PA A six-meter high cartoon baby blimp of US President Donald Trump is set to fly as a protest against his visit July 2018 AP Activists inflate a giant balloon depicting US President Donald Trump as an orange baby during a demonstration against Trump's visit to the UK in Parliament Square, London July 2018 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump with The Queen in July 2018 AP German Chancellor Angela Merkel deliberates with US president Donald Trump on the sidelines of the official agenda on the second day of the G7 summit on June 9, 2018 in Charlevoix, Canada Getty Images President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island in Singapore on 12 June 2018 Evan Vucci/AP U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018 Reuters US President Donald Trump meets with rapper Kanye West in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on 18th October 2018 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian posed for a photograph together at the White House meeting Donald Trump/Twitter A White House staff member reaches for the microphone held by CNN's Jim Acosta as he questions U.S. President Donald Trump during a news conference in November 2018 Reuters President Donald Trump looks over tables of fast food for the the college football playoff champion Clemson Tigers in the State Dining Room of the White House in January 2019 Reuters US President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un following a meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 27, 2019 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump (left) with Nigel Farage when they met met face-to-face on 2nd March 2019 PA/White House President Donald Trump smiles at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, after signing a proclamation in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House in Washington, Monday, March 25, 2019 AP US President Donald Trump (L) First Lady Melania Trump (C) and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe' Akie Abe (R) watch a sumo battle during the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo on May 26, 2019 AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump gestures after receiving a prayer at McLean Bible Church on 2nd June 2019 AP US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump make their way to board Air Force One on 2nd June 2019 AFP/Getty Images Donald and Melania Trump arrive at Stansted Airport on 3rd June 2019 AP President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are pictured ahead a meeting in Helsinki on July 16, 2018 AFP/Getty Images Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg watches as Donald Trump enters the United Nations to speak with reporters on September 23, 2019 Reuters Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during a welcoming ceremony at the NATO leaders summit in Watford on December 4, 2019 Reuters President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Milwauke AP US president Donald Trump delivers a speech at the Congres center during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 21, 2020 AFP via Getty Images US President Donald Trump speaks during the first presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio AFP via Getty Images A car with US President Trump drives past supporters in a motorcade outside of Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland AFP via Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump works in the Presidential Suite while receiving treatment after testing positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland via Reuters U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a phone call with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley October 4, 2020, in his conference room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Not shown in the photo also in the room on the call is Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Reuters Donald Trump walks out of hospital after receiving treatment for Covid-19 AP Mr Trump boards Marine One to return to the White House after receiving treatment for coronavirus AP Donald Trump stands on the Truman Balcony after returning to the White House from hospital Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump removes his mask upon return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 05, 2020 in Washington Getty Images Mr Trumps physician, Dr Sean Conley, said the drug was being given as a precautionary measure, and that the president was also taking zinc, vitamin D, an antacid called famotidine, melatonin and aspirin. None of those have been proven to be effective against Covid-19. He apparently is not receiving hydroxychloroquine, a drug he widely promoted that has been shown in many studies to be ineffective for preventing or treating Covid-19. The US has been left reeling by the unfolding events surrounding Mr Trumps health troubles, with the presidential election only four weeks away. First lady Melania Trump has also tested positive and has a mild cough and headache, according to the doctor, but the remainder of the first family, including son Barron, who lives at the White House, have tested negative. The presidents re-election campaign said all events featuring Mr Trump and members of his family would either be postponed or go online, but that vice-president Mike Pence would resume campaigning as he had tested negative. Mr Trumps Covid-19 diagnosis is the latest among world leaders, with Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier also falling ill. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who himself was admitted to intensive care after contracting coronavirus during the first wave of UK infections in spring, expressed his best wishes to Mr and Mrs Trump, saying he was sure that they will both stage a very strong recovery. On the morning of September 30, when the entire nations attention was focused on the judgment in the 28-year-old Babri Mosque demolition case, Prime Minister Narendra Modis attention was drawn towards another issue at hand the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras. Mounting protests from Delhi to Hathras and Lucknow, and in response to it a highly insensitive approach of the UP Police and administration, had probably forced the prime minister to intervene and call up Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Following the phone call, Adityanath marched forward to douse the flames of anger. First he ordered a SIT probe in the case and later spoke to the family of the deceased girl. The government also increased the compensation amount to 25 lakh from the initially sanctioned 10 lakh and promised a government job and a house for the family. The family may have come forward to express faith in the chief minister following these announcements, but the temper on ground, especially among the Dalits, continues to run high. And the biggest reason for anger is the administrations move of hurriedly cremating the dead body, denying the victims family an opportunity to conduct the last rights as per their traditions. Amid all this, the big question that remains is: why was the Prime Minister forced to intervene in the matter? Is the Hathras incident just another example of the poor law and order in the state and proof of rising crimes against women, or does it have a larger political dimension? Has the BJPs top brass been left a bit concerned about a possible breach in its Dalit vote bank and laboriously built Hindutva consolidation? After recent reports of seeping Brahmin discontent under the Yogi rule in Uttar Pradesh, can the Hathras incident mark the dangerous drifting away of the Dalits, or at least a section of them, from the BJP? The answer lies in the complex caste realities of Indias most populous and politically important state. The Caste Dynamics, Valmikis in West UP With 403 Vidhan Sabha seats and 80 Lok Sabha constituencies, Uttar Pradesh has a sizable Dalit population. The state has also been the cradle of caste-based identity politics. From Dalit resurgence to backward caste politics, all have found a strong manifestation in UP. Experts believe that Dalits constitute around 22 per cent of the total population. They are further divided into various sub castes, the most significant of them being the Jatavs, Pasis, Sonkars, Dhobi, Koieri and Valmikis. Valmikis, in particular, dominate the demography in West UP. From Gaziabad to Saharanpur, Merrut, Muzzafarnagar, Bagpat, Aligarh, Hathras to Amroha and Moradabad, Valmikis have a sizable presence across 25 districts of the region. Politically speaking, while Jatavs have been a strong pillar of support for the BSP, Valmikis, just like Pasis in Central UP and Awadh region, had shifted towards the BJP over the past one decade. From 2014 general elections to 2017 assembly polls and then in 2019, Valmikis in west UP had strongly been by the BJPs side. This long association with the BJP is now under threat following the Hathras rape and murder case, in which the victim belonged to the Valmiki community. First the rape by the accused who hail from the upper caste Thakur community and then polices alleged attempt to shield them, followed by administrations insensitive move of cremating the body at midnight in gross violation of the communitys tradition, has all come together to become a major political challenge for the saffron party. Is BJPS Loss Congresss Gain? For the Congress, which has been steadily trying to build a base and strengthen its party in Uttar Pradesh, Hathras incident came as a big occasion to intervene. The newfound organisational strength was reflected in the strong protests launched by the party from Delhi to Hathras and across districts of the state. Leaders of the Congresss SC/ST front were continuously spotted along with the family of the rape victim. Pradeep Narwal, the AICC in charge of UP Congresss SC-ST Wing, denies bringing politics in the matter. He says, As a political party, it is our responsibility to raise peoples issues. The Yogi government has been acting with vendetta against the poor and marginalised. People have decided to teach BJP a lesson in the 2022 assembly polls. Congress leaders might deny, but they surely hope to reach out to the Dalits, especially the Valmikis, who till the mid-eighties had been with the party, before shifting towards the BSP and then to the BJP. Trying to gain the lost ground in UP, Congress has been since long trying to build a base among Dalits and the Brahmin upper caste. The party leaders believe that if a section of Dalits and Brahmins could be brought back to the party fold, minorities, too, will be drawn back, thus giving it a strong vote base in the state. Mayawatis Occasional Lashing Out, Party Missing in Action Even as Hathras continued to witness strong protests for more than 48 hours and Congress seemed to have taken an edge, the BSP party that emerged out of a Dalit resurgence seemed to take a back seat. While Congress and Bheem Army workers emerged on roads from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh, BSP was missing from protests and agitation. Party chief Mayawati, whose angst towards the incident was limited to a couple of tweets, throughout the two weeks, from the day of the Gang rape to the girls death on September 29, came forward with a strong response through a media reaction on October 1. Launching a scathing attack against Yogi Adityanath, she said, Yogi has failed to maintain the law and order. He should either resign or else BJP should remove him from the CMs post and send him back to the Gorakhpur Math. There were twin concerns behind Mayawatis late response. One, about a possible inroad of the Congress party in the Dalit vote bank, and second, countering the increasing perception about BSP being soft towards the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh. How successful Maywati will prove to be in her purpose is not clear. The reality being her vote base had been seriously compromise over the past few years. For the government which had been battling the allegations of caste-based discrimination, especially that of the Brahmins, Hathras gang rape and its handling by the police had further complicated the situation. How the BJP and RSSs top brass will move to salvage the situation remains to be seen. She's long been known for her chic style choices. And Kelly Brook's latest outfit still looked effortless despite the blustery conditions as she strolled out of Heart FM on Saturday. The model, 40, battled the wet weather in an oversized black raincoat and taupe boots as she left along with fellow Heart DJ Mark Wright. Looking good: Kelly Brook, 40, still looked effortlessly stylish in an oversized black raincoat as she left Heart FM on Saturday Kelly beamed as she exited Global Studios in London's Leicester Square, as she covered up her casual ensemble with a black zip-up raincoat. She teamed the outfit with light-washed boyfriend jeans and taupe crocodile skin ankle boots. Joining Kelly outside Heart was fellow presenter Mark Wright, who cut a casual figure as he headed into the capital. Stylish: The model battled the wet weather in an oversized black raincoat as she left Global Studios Dynamic duo: Kelly was joined by fellow Heart DJ Mark Wright as they headed out after hosting their radio shows The former TOWIE star had enjoyed a romantic weekend break in London with wife Michelle Keegan at the Corinthia Hotel, which he shared with fans on Instagram Stories. Kelly, who was spotted with her long-term beau Jeremy Parisi on Monday, previously opened up about intimacy in their relationship. In July, Kelly claimed that sex gets better with age and said her long-term love is a big fan of her curves. Jovial: Mark cut a casual figure as he headed back to the hotel he's been staying in with wife Michelle Keegan Speaking on Vicky Pattison's The Secret To... podcast, she said: 'My boyfriend is 35 and he is Italian, so, you know, he likes a nice large curvy woman so that's always a good thing! I think your sex life gets better as you get older! 'You get confident! You are not so hung up on stuff. You know what you enjoy. You know what you like, so you are not as scared to tell them. 'When you're young you don't tell them. They are like 'is that nice?' or whatever and you're like 'yeah!' When you're older you are gonna make sure you get what you want!' The pair have been together for nearly five years, having started dating in 2015. The names of the 20 Indian soldiers killed in the brutal Galwan Valley skirmish in eastern Ladakh on June 15 have been inscribed on a war memorial in eastern Ladakh, officials said on Saturday. Colonel B Santosh Babu, the commanding officer of 16 Bihar, was among the 20 soldiers killed in the seven-hour deadly conflict near Patrolling Point 14 in Galwan Valley, where outnumbered Indian troops inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The names of all battle casualties are inscribed on the National War Memorial, the officials said. Beijing has not disclosed the number of fatalities it suffered in the Galwan Valley clash but according to Indias assessment, the PLA suffered twice as many casualties. Also read: Seventh round of India-China military talks on border row likely next week Apart from 16 Bihar, soldiers from 3 Punjab, 3 Medium Regiment and 81 Field Regiment were involved in the clash. The Indian soldiers confronted the Chinese troops, who refused to remove their installations and vacate the area, triggering a violent clash that involved more than 600 rival soldiers at its peak. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ramnaresh_2000 BHPian Join Date: May 2017 Location: Hyderabad Posts: 678 Thanked: 2,102 Times View My Garage Re: Banks, NBFCs deal another blow to Indias battered auto industry with stricter lending I am actually happy that they are going to tighten the loans process. The reason behind my comments is below, this was prior to CIBIL score era I freshly landed back from UK and in search of jobs in Hyderabad I stayed with a friend in a rented room which had a small slum area near it The houses were typical slum houses, just a shed on footpath with no bathrooms or anything I used to use my 6 years old Pulsar 150 to roam around and I noticed something odd Each slum house had a brand new bike parked outside, some had Yamaha R15 and few had brand new Pulsars I had no clue how they were able to manage such bikes and live in a slum, I should admit I was a bit jealous and curious at the same time After discussion with my friend who works in bank recovery department I came to know harsh truth Sales people tie up with bank officials and issue bike loans to anyone and everyone They just pay down payment and take the bike home They never pay any EMI's As the documents are fake, the loan recovery agents never find the actual house or owner They lodge a police complaint and the police track down the vehicle The whole process takes 12-18 months The purchaser just hands over the vehicle and claims innocence As they are very poor people, the bank doesn't proceed with civil case as it is waste of time and money for bank as well Bank recovers remaining money by auctioning the bike This is a huge loss for banks, waste of money, man power time etc. Greedy sales people are the only one gained in this process. This all stopped after launching CIBIL score, all defaulters are blacklisted and will never get a loan from bank (unless and until they manage to change their identity and documents like in Hollywood movies). Even if they manage to get a loan, it will be at a very high interest rate. We Indians exploit every system and process. We are to blame and we suffer during such pandemic periods. No matter what rules, policies, laws government makes, we find a loop hole and exploit it to the fullest. Banks neither rewards honest people who never misses EMI's. They just push more and more products to such people like ULIP's, FD's, Personal Loans, Upgrade bank account to "Gold" account and charge amount yearly etc. Instead banks can reward by providing them with better interest rates. I never missed my Car EMI from last 3.5 years and when I reached out to my bank to enquire about used car loans interest rate they quoted me 14%, another bank which had tie up with dealer quoted me 11.25% on used car loan based on my CIBIL score. This seriously infuriated me further. My 2 centsI am actually happy that they are going to tighten the loans process. The reason behind my comments is below, this was prior to CIBIL score eraThis is a huge loss for banks, waste of money, man power time etc. Greedy sales people are the only one gained in this process. This all stopped after launching CIBIL score, all defaulters are blacklisted and will never get a loan from bank (unless and until they manage to change their identity and documents like in Hollywood movies). Even if they manage to get a loan, it will be at a very high interest rate.We Indians exploit every system and process. We are to blame and we suffer during such pandemic periods. No matter what rules, policies, laws government makes, we find a loop hole and exploit it to the fullest.Banks neither rewards honest people who never misses EMI's. They just push more and more products to such people like ULIP's, FD's, Personal Loans, Upgrade bank account to "Gold" account and charge amount yearly etc.Instead banks can reward by providing them with better interest rates. I never missed my Car EMI from last 3.5 years and when I reached out to my bank to enquire about used car loans interest rate they quoted me 14%, another bank which had tie up with dealer quoted me 11.25% on used car loan based on my CIBIL score. This seriously infuriated me further. - In a video shared by his friend Asmali, Lolani was filled with gratitude after Kenyans came to his rescue - The former NTV reporter looked really happy and could not stop talking about how people have helped him rise again - He sent special thanks to three people who widely shared his condition online and requested people to do something for the journalist who has been taking care of his 89-year-old ailing mom PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed Former NTV Swahili reporter Lolani Kalu is overwhelmed by the love he received from Kenyans after crying out for help. Lolani Kalu thanked all Kenyans who came to his aid. Photo: Lolani Kalu. Source: Twitter In a video shared on social media by Ahmed Mohamed (ASMALi), the journalist sincerely thanked all those who made it possible for him to rise again. "I would like to give my thanks first to Allah and all my fans who stood with me and especially my three friends who shared this issue on social media, " he said. After sharing the short video, netizens took to Asmali's comment section to thank him for bringing the issue of Lolani to light. @UdgoonSiyad wrote: "Mashallah. God bless you all. I have a soft heart and this brought tears to my eyes. May Allah bless and bring happiness your way Hibiscus anyone who puts a smile on another one face is indeed blessed by Allah." A tweep identified as @AliIdow5 said that Asmali and his counterparts did a good job. "Plant trees under whose shade you do not plan to sit." Brother Asmali and your friends have done a great, noble work. May Allah (SW) bless you all abundantly," wrote @AliIdow5. Lolani was loved by many and reports of life having beaten him down after he was retrenched from Nation Media Group in December 2017 shocked many of his fans who wondered what happened to him. Speaking to TUKO.co.ke recently, the man who will always be remembered as a musician, actor, comedian and Swahili poet narrated how he had a fair share of life's different flavours. Despite the ups and downs of life, Lolani had not lost hope and the journalist who is nursing his 89-year-old ailing mother was determined to get back on track. However, the veteran journalist had his hands tied due to a lack of equipment to actualize his dream of bringing his flooding ideas back to his audience. He made a passionate appeal for support to re-establish his business - a community-based initiative in Kilifi county where he nurtures young talents in acting, scriptwriting and music. I only need two things. A good video camera and a computer. The creativity is still there and all I need is equipment to work and to help the young people here in my village, said Lolani. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme - https://www.patreon.com/tuko My father-in-law won't let me bury my wife of 16 years or see my two children- Victor Odonda Tuko TV Source: TUKO.co.ke In an attempt to curb stubble burning amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Punjab government has ordered legal action against its employees if farm fires are spotted on the land they have rented out to someone else for cultivation. The move comes after it was found that in the previous years many government employees had leased out their land in their native villages but failed to sensitise the cultivators not to burn the crop residue. In every far fire incident, the name of the landowner is being mentioned specifically in the report this time. Action will be taken against the farmer in case of violation as per the law. But if the land belongs to a government employee, it will be mentioned in their annual confidential report (ACR) besides lodging an FIR against them, said Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) executive engineer Kuldeep Singh. The government is taking initiatives amid the pandemic as stubble burning is harmful to health and inhaling bad air can aggravate the complications among people, particularly the elderly and those with comorbidities. Nodal officers have been appointed in each village and different government departments were roped in the drive to prevent stubble burning. The nodal officer is responsible for ensuring that stubble is not burnt in that village. But if someone burns stubble, the nodal officer will compile a report and send it to the patwari who will forward it to the cluster officer for imposing a fine, Singh said. The deputy superintendent of police (DSP) concerned will take legal action on basis of the report. District agriculture officer (Jalandhar) Naresh Gulati said awareness camps are being organised in the villages to sensitise farmers to not burn stubble and motivate them to use machines to dispose the crop residue in the fields. Meanwhile, the PPCB has detected eight stubble burning cases in Jalandhar and 12 in Kapurthala so far. In the last year, Jalandhar district had recorded 1550 and in Kapurthala over 1200 cases of stubble burning in the last session. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Zoho Corporation has launched Zoho Workplace, a single software platform that brings together collaboration, productivity, and communications tools and integrates them into other business processes. Centered around a full-featured business mail and cloud office suite, Zoho Workplace includes nine tightly mingled applications, built on a common data model and unified through common search and AI across one dashboard, allowing customers to solve business problems quickly and collaboratively. "The nature of work has undeniably changed, and Workplace has grown to meet that change," said Hyther Nizam, Zoho President MEA. "Businesses are not looking to solve a collaboration problem, they are looking to solve a custom invoicing problem or sales enablement problem or support problem. Collaboration platforms need to facilitate better business outcomes, not just improve productivity. Workplace, through pre-built integrations with powerful business apps and context and continuity across applications, devices, and departments, stands alone in having the vision and functionality to meet the broad business needs of today." According to a recent study conducted jointly by Zoho and Beagle Research: "54 per cent of enterprise-level employees (businesses with over 500 employees) found the applications they work with not intuitive and difficult to integrate." Additionally, "40 per cent of the largest enterprise employees surveyed (businesses with over 4,000 employees) said their work can be chaotic, working with multiple technology platforms to do their job accordingly." The study shows that businesses want unified solutions that streamline complex processes like data migration, content creation, contextual collaboration and communication, and search. Existing solutions lack the comprehension and integration to satisfy this need. As a result, Zoho Workplace has seen rapid adoption in the last quarter, now supporting two million organisations, with 15 million users located across 150 plus countries. More than 25 per cent of new Zoho Workplace customers have made the decision to switch over from G Suite and Microsoft. The new capabilities of Zoho Workplace include contextual communication, mainly business mail so users can make audio or video calls from within the app, edit document attachments in Zoho Writer, meet online with contacts, and access all email accounts from within Zoho Mail. The mail includes a comprehensive control panel with eDiscovery, Backup and Recovery. The app comes with mix 'n' match plans, flexible storage, and an extensive Integration platform, as well as S/MIME certificates, MFA, email rules, unusual login alerts, and custom spam controls. This also features Cliq (messaging) so that users can check in or check out and set custom statuses, collaborate with external stakeholders, connect with teams via group audio or video calls, and view message-read status. Cliq comes with module-level configuration and customisation, role-based permissions and integration with EMM providers, as well as user-based availability reports. The Zoho Meeting (conferencing) will allow users to schedule recurring or one-off meetings and set multiple email reminders from web and mobile devices. Now supporting 16 languages, Meeting is integrated with Zoho Projects, Bookings, CRM, and others. Zoho Connect (social intranet) integrates with human resource information systems, including Zoho People. Users can moderate content and modules with fine-grained permissions and user policies and custom domain and SAML-based SSO. Zoho Show (collaborative presenting) is integrated with Atlassian, Unsplash, and Humaans, and features an organization-wide slide library and data linking, allowing users to connect live data to slides. Zoho Sheet (spreadsheet) will give users access to the latest functions for lookup and match and can visualize historic data with race charts, create drop-downs with predefined values, and link cell ranges using IMPORTRANGE. This enables users to track changes while collaborating, gain insights, maintain clean data, convert images to spreadsheets, and bring contextual data from both Zoho and non-Zoho applications. Zoho WorkDrive (cloud document management) now features unified search and TrueSync, which allows users to access files without worrying about hard drive space. WorkDrive is equipped with a comprehensive admin panel, customer reports to monitor team activity, and is integrated with Zoho Directory. Zoho Writer (word processing) will help users convert documents to fillable forms, restrict comment visibility, gather document engagement insights, and enable a powerful AI-based writing assistant. Writer features template-driven automation and APIs, form-driven automation, and automatic signature and approvals. Zoho ShowTime (online training) supports branding and white-labeling. Users can set roles and privileges for their training team and gather training insights. Pricing of Zoho Workplace starts at $3 per user per month for the standard version and $6 for the professional version. Zoho Workplace ensures a level of confidentiality that no other vendors in the industry can guarantee. Zoho does not allow any third-party trackers to monitor usage behaviour and never sells any data to ad-based companies. Because Zoho owns and has built its entire technology stack, the company is able to offer the most secure experience to its 50 million users without any compromise on data privacy. Zoho Workplace users have the assurance that their data is confidential and protected, and only users themselves maintain ownership of that data. --Tradearabia News Service Photo: (Photo : Pexels) A man from Alabama mows lawns of veterans, elderly, and even single mothers. He provides services for these people for free. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, he also had the urge to give more to the community. That is why he also decided to provide free food to the families whom he gives his free lawn mowing services. The man from Alabama, Rodney Smith Jr., has also inspired a lot of kids from different parts of the United States. He founded Raising Men Lawn Care Service. READ ALSO: Viral Videos: Dad and Daughter Duo Share Recreation of a Restaurant, Theater, Ice Cream Place, and More Mowing lawns of the elderly, veterans, and single mothers Long before the coronavirus pandemic, Smith Jr. already saw the need of certain individuals in taking care of their lawns. This task may seem like a simple one for other families. However, for the elderly, veterans, and single mothers, it could ba task that will take up so much time. That is why he decided to lend an extra hand to these people by taking aff lawn mowing in their task list. READ ALSO: Abandoned Dog Needs a New Family After "Dad Lost Job from COVID" Helping during the coronavirus pandemic Now that it is not only the lawn mowing that becomes a major problem to the elderly, veterans, and single mothers, Smith Jr. decided to extend help to families who would need some supply of food. So, aside from law mowing the man from Alabama also drops off free food the households where he offers his free services. Smith Jr. is coordinating with local charities in delivering the free foods. Aside from these, he also uses the donations he receives from lawn mowing to buy and provide supplies to families who most need help. He said in an interview, "I'm just mowing and doing what I love to do best: helping others." READ ALSO: Dad Looks for the Honest Stranger Who Returned His Wallet Through the Mailbox The 50-yard challenge At the beginning of the man from Alabama's cause, he encourages the youth to take part in serving the community. The program of the Raising Men Lawn Care Service is that they invite kids who would take part in the 50-yeard challenge. A kid is tasked to mow 50 lawns for free. On the 50th lawn, the kid is given a brand new mower and a leaf blower. Since the beginning of the Raising Men Lawn Care Service, 700 kids have participated, and more than 15,000 lawns have been mowed. READ ALSO: Hero Father Wrestled with a Stranger Who Attempted to Kidnap His Son The cascading events of 2020 have been unrelenting, at times unbelievable, at times almost unbearable. No one could have written the script of a year that has killed so many Americans, disrupted so many lives and, with the election now just a month away, left the country so politically divided and emotionally drained. That was as of Thursday morning. Then came the report early Friday that President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. And then came the live images early Friday evening of the president, suffering from the symptoms of covid-19, being ferried by helicopter from the White House lawn to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The day's events brought a new element of uncertainty and concern to a nation already on edge. Many people have sent good wishes for a swift recovery for the president, the first lady and for others in their orbit who also have been or may be infected - just as people hope and pray for anyone who contracts a virus that has infected more than 7 million Americans and killed more than 200,000. The president's illness is a reminder to those who doubted that the virus is real, it is not contained and respects no person's station, even those like Trump, who believe they are in a protective bubble. The president is in superb medical hands this weekend, but even with the best of outcomes, this episode, piled on top of everything else that has occurred this year, adds to the strain of a nation that never seems to have a minute to turn away from misery or controversy or both, never has a chance to collect its breath, never has a week or a day to fully enjoy life as it existed when the year began. Events - some of them once-in-decades or once-in-a-century occurrences - now play out all in unison. There is no respite. If one ebbs another flows. People talk about an October surprise in presidential campaign years. The year has been a series of October surprises, some titanic in scope, others smaller but disruptive in their own way. The biggest include the pandemic, the collapse of the economy and now a recovery that has left the worst off the farthest behind. They include a racial reckoning for the country, with protesters demanding justice after more shootings and killings of unarmed Black people by police. Just two weeks ago, it was a shock of a different kind - the death of a revered justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her passing has triggered a rancorous political and cultural struggle over the vacancy she left behind. If all this weren't enough, changes in the world's climate have manifested themselves in intense wildfires in the West, bringing death and property destruction and drifting smoke that temporarily obscured the sun in cities as far away as the East Coast, or that have produced a full alphabet-and-more of named hurricanes and tropical storms, which are drowning the Southeast with massive amounts of rainfall. For the president, there have been a series of personal and political October surprises that began to arrive even before the actual turn of the calendar this past week. None was on the scale of the biggest events that have shaped the political year, but to a beleaguered president, they have amounted to seismic eruptions - like one "Access Hollywood" after another after another - that have repeatedly thrown him on the defensive. They include a devastating portrait of the president in the new book by his niece Mary Trump, a report in the Atlantic quoting anonymous sources as saying Trump called war dead and wounded soldiers"suckers" and "losers," and revelations in Bob Woodward's new book in which Trump admits he deliberately played down the risks of the virus. At the beginning of last week, it was a bombshell report by the New York Times about Trump's years of tax avoidance. On Tuesday night in Cleveland, it was self-inflicted damage from a belligerent debate performance against Democratic nominee Joe Biden that left even some of his supporters alarmed. As the president hectored Biden over the course of the 98-minute debate, members of his family sat in the front rows, refusing to wear masks even after being encouraged to do so by officials at the Cleveland Clinic and in violation of the rules for attendance. Now, the president, who has flaunted medical guidelines and belittled Biden for wearing a mask and taking other precautions, has been hospitalized, dramatically altering the near-term trajectory of the campaign. Trump's condition throws into question the second presidential debate scheduled for Oct. 15 and perhaps the third on Oct. 22. The president's illness also raises questions about when, if ever, he will be able to resume the big rallies he craves for energy and adulation, events routinely populated by thousands of people, mostly without masks. The overriding question, however, is whether the president's illness will affect his and the administration's posture toward containing the spread of the virus as the country heads into the winter flu season amid warnings of more cases and deaths. The president's hospitalization is a clarifying moment for all, but especially for him. Whether it will be cause for recalibration awaits his return to good health. For months, he has tried to claim that the pandemic will soon be history. If, after what he is going through, he continues to deny the reality of the pandemic, he could further alienate the majority of the country who fear they or a family member could contract covid-19 and who already distrust his word on the topic. But to admit that what his own scientists have been saying is correct would require something uncharacteristic in this president: an acknowledgment that he had been wrong for months. Whatever path is chosen, there is now no escaping the issue he has least wanted the election to be about. He has tried to make the campaign about many things in hopes of distracting voters from what they see all around them. Now he is guaranteed that the final weeks of the campaign will see the pandemic front and center, along with his willful dismissal of it. Nothing to date has been able to jolt the campaign out of the track it has been on for months, with Biden leading and Trump struggling - not the pandemic, not the economy, not the protests or Trump's message of law and order, not the revelations about taxes or his private knowledge of the virus vs. his public statements. In Tuesday's debate, the president again declined to pledge to accept the outcome of the election if it goes against him. Instead, he escalated his attacks on mail-in ballots, showed that he is prepared to question the legitimacy of a Biden victory and, most worrisome, called on his supporters to be prepared to challenge the votes at polling places and sites where ballots are counted. The end of the election threatens to be an explosive moment. Trump's illness adds yet another wild card to this mix. Will he generate sympathy for what he is going through, or be punished for what he has not done to protect himself and the country? The coming days will bring one more gut check for an electorate largely locked in and ready to vote. The outcome will provide a capstone to what has been America's annus horribilis. A letter signed by 1,513 Rhodes College alums challenges Amy Coney Barrett's nomination in a letter, arguing that her record does not reflect the values of the school she and the alums attended. "We believe both her record and the process that has produced her nomination are diametrically opposed to the values of truth, loyalty, and service that we learned at Rhodes," the letter said. The alumni also argued in the letter that Barrett might vote to gut or "seriously curtail" Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that said abortions are constitutionally supported. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court. OLIVIER DOULIERY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images More than 1,500 alums of Rhodes College said in a letter that they're "firmly and passionately opposed" to the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, according to the Associated Press. Related: Barrett discussed flipping balance of power' in SCOTUS Barrett, President Donald Trump's pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1994. The letter argues that Barrett does not represent the liberal arts school's values. "We believe both her record and the process that has produced her nomination are diametrically opposed to the values of truth, loyalty, and service that we learned at Rhodes," the letter said. The letter also criticizes representatives at Rhodes who have praised Barrett after Rhodes President Marjorie Hass said in a statement that Barrett's career has been marked by "professional distinction and achievement," the AP reported. The nomination is proving to be contentious as lawmakers on both sides find themselves split. Republicans are largely eager to confirm Barrett while Democrats are calling for the next Supreme Court justice to be decided by the person elected president in November. The letter was particularly concerned with Barrett's record surrounding abortion. The 1,513 Rhodes alums who signed the letter argued that Barrett might vote to gut or "seriously curtail" Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that said abortions are constitutionally supported, the AP reported. At least twice as an appellate judge, Barrett sided with opinions leaning away from abortion rights, according to the AP. Story continues Back in 2006, Barrett signed off on a two-page print ad that called for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. The ad referred to the landmark decision as "barbaric" and called it a "raw exercise of judicial power," the Guardian reported. Barrett, if nominated, would give the Supreme Court a 6-3 conservative majority, shifting the court's ideological balance more to the right. The letter also accuses Barrett of avoiding questions pertaining to her view on LGBT groups and other marginalized communities. "Amy Coney Barrett has repeatedly shaded the truth about her own views and past associations," the letter said, adding that she "has demonstrated a judicial philosophy and record that fails to serve and protect the vulnerable in our society, including immigrants, those in the criminal justice system, and individuals reliant on the Affordable Care Act." The Senate Judiciary Committee on Saturday affirmed that it's prepared to hold hearings on Barrett's nomination to the bench on October 12. Read the original article on Business Insider In 1981, the United States and Iran signed an accord paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months, and A war memorial has been built at the unit level near the KM-120 post on the strategic road Durbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie, Ladakh. It has been built in honour of the 20 Indian soldiers who lost their lives in action against the Chinese in the Galwan clash. A memorial has been built for the 20 Indian soldiers who lost their lives in action against the Chinese Army in the Galwan Valley after evicting them from an observation post near the Y-junction area there under Operation Snow Leopard, according to sources. The memorial has been built at the unit level near the KM-120 post on the strategic road Durbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie, Ladakh. The memorial has names of 20 soldiers and the details of the June 15 operation. As per the operational details put out on the memorial wall, On June 15, 2020 at Galwan Valley, Col B Santosh Babu Commanding Officer, 16 Bihar led the Quick Reaction Force of 16 Bihar and attached troops tasked to evict the PLA OP from Gen AY Nala and move further to Patrolling Point 14. The column successfully evicted the PLA OP from Y Nala and reached PP 14 where a fierce skirmish broke out between the IA and PLA troops. Col B Santosh Babu led from the front and his troops fought gallantly in a hand to hand combat, causing heavy casualties to the PLA. In the ensuing fight twenty Gallants of Galwan achieved martyrdom, it says. Also Read: PM Modi hails Atal tunnel as new lifeline for Ladakh Also Read: Hathras horror: After a failed attempt, Rahul and Priyanka led Congress delegation to visit victims family today India and China have been engaged in a standoff since April-May over the transgressions by the Chinese Army in multiple areas including the Finger area, Galwan valley, Hot springs, and Kongrung Nala. The situation worsened after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in violent clashes with Chinese troops in the Galwan valley in June. Also Read: UP CM Yogi Adityanath suspends SP, DSP over Hathras incident The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 reported in Limerick since February has passed 1,000 after the highest daily total since April was notified to the Department of Health. According to the National Public Health Emergency Team, 31 new confirmed cases of the disease have been reported in Limerick this Saturday. Prior to today, the previous four highest daily totals in Limerick were all reported in April (April 26, 61 cases; April 16, 39 cases, April 15, 36 cases and April 9, 36 cases). According to the Covid-19 Data Hub, 19 cases of Covid-19 were reported in Limerick yesterday, six cases on Thursday, 12 on Wednesday, nine on Tuesday, six on Monday, six on Sunday and three last Saturday. Nationally, ten deaths and 613 additional confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been notified to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Ireland to 37,668. Of the latest cases, 224 are in Dublin, 58 in Donegal, 46 in Cork, 44 in Kildare, 31 in Limerick, 28 in Laois, 21 in Kerry, 19 in Galway, 17 in Clare, 13 in Meath, 12 in Louth, 12 in Monaghan, nine in Offaly, nine in Tipperary, nine in Wicklow, eight in Cavan, eight in Wexford, seven in Carlow, seven in Sligo, seven in Roscommon, six in Mayo, five in Kilkenny, five in Westmeath, with the remaining seven cases in three counties. More than two thirds (68%) are under 45 years of age and 30% are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case. 58 cases have been identified as community transmission. Commenting on the latest figures, Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health urged those aged over 70 to exercise caution. "The numbers being reported today and over the past week represent a significant escalation in the profile of Covid-19 in Ireland. For those aged 70 and over and those who are medically vulnerable to Covid-19, it is strongly recommended that you should limit the number of people you meet to a very small core group of family members, carers or friends, for short periods of time, while remaining physically distant," he said. "We need to work together once again to make a significant impact on the number of cases in the community, and ultimately to reduce the number of people getting sick, being admitted to hospital and critical care, while protecting non-Covid healthcare services. I urge people in every county to follow the public health advice to stop the further spread of Covid-19, he added. The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government on October 2 recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the alleged gangrape and death of the 19-year-old woman at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh. The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Safdarjung hospital in Delhi where she breathed her last. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the middle of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". Earlier, on October 2, The Hathras Superintendent of Police (SP), Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), and the station inspector were suspended by the UP government. The three policemen were reportedly suspended over allegations of mismanagement of the incident. The UP Chief Minister's Office has also ordered that narco polygraph tests of SP and DSP be conducted, ANI reported. Commuters wearing protective masks are seen onboard an MRT train in Singapore. (PHOTO: Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images) SINGAPORE The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed six new COVID-19 cases the lowest daily case number since the end of the circuit-breaker period as of Saturday (3 October) noon, taking Singapores total case count to 57,800. The last time Singapore reported as low as six daily new cases was on 10 March, before the circuit-breaker period in April and May. There is one case a Singaporean in the community. There are four imported cases, who had all been placed on Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in Singapore. The sole community case a 44-year-old man is currently unlinked. Case 57947 was detected under our enhanced community testing to test all individuals aged 13 and above who are diagnosed with acute respiratory infection (ARI) at first presentation to a doctor, the MOH said. Among the four imported cases, one (Case 57946) is a Singaporean who returned to Singapore from India on 21 September. and two (Cases 57943 and 57944) are work permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from Indonesia on 21 September. The remaining case (Case 57945) a two-month-old boy whose parent is a Singapore permanent resident is a short-term visit pass holder who arrived from Indonesia on 25 September. All of them had been placed on a 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and were tested while serving their SHN at dedicated facilities. Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from an average of fewer than one case per day in the week before, to an average of one case in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of fewer than one case per day in the past two weeks. 99% of total cases have recovered With 28 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Saturday, 57,562 cases or 99.6 per cent of the total have fully recovered from the infection. Most of the 46 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit. Story continues A total of 165 patients with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive are isolated and cared for at community facilities. Apart from 27 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease. Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore More Singapore stories: Doctor accused of taking advantage of female patients wins defamatory suit against woman in appeal Taxi driver and motorist found liable for injury caused to passenger in Clementi crash COVID-19: 12 charged with safe distancing breaches at Lazarus Island Opposition politician Lim Tean arrested for CBT and unlawful stalking A charter plane bringing hundreds of Chinese students to study in Northern Ireland has landed in Belfast. The Qatar Airways flight arrived at Belfast International Airport from Beijing on Saturday afternoon with 400 students on board. Queens University chartered the 777 Boeing direct flight to ensure the safety of their new and returning Chinese students in the midst of the pandemic. All of the students who travelled on the flight were tested for Covid-19 before their departure. A spokeswoman for the university said they were required to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test, taken no more than five days before the departure in order to board the flight. Upon arrival, students were transported directly via private transport to Queens accommodation and placed in safe and secure quarantine accommodation, she said. It is the second charter flight organised by the university in recent weeks. Some 370 new and returning students arrived in Belfast on September 19 from Beijing in time for the start of the academic year beginning on September 21. With international travel badly impacted by the pandemic, and with many people wary of transiting through major airports, the university said it decided to charter a dedicated, direct flight from China to provide reassurance to both students and families and to help reduce anxiety levels for those making the trip. The university subsidised the cost of the flight so that students did not have to pay more than the cost of a normal commercial flight. The students arrival comes as some students are isolating in Queens University accommodation after a Covid-19 outbreak. The university said last week that a small number of students had tested positive for the virus at one accommodation site. Boris Becker's daughter Anna Ermakova was proudly displaying her physique in a colourful patchwork bikini as she enjoyed a sunny break in Monaco. The model. 20. opted for the skimpy teal two-piece with a mixture of paisley prints as she jumped into the pool for a swim. Anna is Boris' daughter from a one night stand with model Angela Ermakova, when they met at the upscale London restaurant Nobu in 1999. Summertime: Boris Becker's daughter Anna Ermakova was proudly displaying her physique in a colourful patchwork bikini as she enjoyed a sunny break in Monaco Anna showcased her svelte physique in a revealing teal blue bikini top that featured a collection of fun paisley prints, She teamed the top with matching bottoms as she headed to the pool for a swim. Anna let her red curled tresses hand loosely around her shoulders as she dried herself following the swim, before heading back to her sunbed. Looking good: The model opted for the skimpy teal two-piece with a mixture of vintage prints as she jumped into the pool for a swim Gorgeous: Anna showcased her svelte physique in a revealing teal blue bikini top that featured a collection of fun paisley prints Getting some lengths in: Anna cooled off during the warm weather by swimming in the luxurious pool Anna was famously conceived during a one night stand between model mum Angela and Boris. While it was initially claimed that the impromptu encounter occurred in the popular eatery's broom cupboard, Boris later stated that it took place in a stairwell. The resulting publicity then contributed to the breakdown of Becker's first marriage to German beauty Barbara Feltus. The athlete has two children from his marriage to Barbara, Noah, 22, and Elias, 18, as well as Anna. Beauty: Anna let her red curled tresses hand loosely around her shoulders as she headed to the pool to cool off Famous family: Anna is Boris' daughter from a one night stand with model Angela Ermakova, when they met at the upscale London restaurant Nobu in 1999 Cheeky: While it was initially claimed that the impromptu encounter occurred in the popular eatery's broom cupboard, Boris later stated that it took place in a stairwell He also has ten-year-old son, Amadeus, from his last marriage to estranged wife Lilly - whom he married in 2009 before splitting in 2018. Boris obtained joint custody of Anna from her mother after a battle in 2007, but now says everything is fine between the pair. In 2015 the athlete opened up about Anna and her mother in his autobiography, Boris Becker's Wimbledon, revealing he still harbours regrets about the situation because it ruined his marriage and made life difficult for his daughter. Drama: The resulting publicity then contributed to the breakdown of Becker's first marriage to German beauty Barbara Feltus All is well: Boris obtained joint custody of Anna from her mother after a battle in 2007, but now says everything is fine between the pair Upsetting: In 2015 the athlete opened up about Anna and her mother in his autobiography, Boris Becker's Wimbledon, revealing he still harbours regrets about the situation Hard: He wrote: 'I was embarrassed and very sad about how it happened, and about the way it broke up my family' He wrote: 'I was embarrassed and very sad about how it happened, and about the way it broke up my family. It left Anna's mother and me having to set about being parents without any relationship of our own to fall back on.' He added: 'I'm now at a place with her and her mother that's very comfortable, peaceful and family-like. 'I don't see Anna as much as I'd like, but her mother and I are working on becoming a normal separated family, which hasn't been easy considering our starting point.' 'Peaceful': He added: 'I'm now at a place with her and her mother that's very comfortable, peaceful and family-like' The fresh newsletter for the International Community in Hungary - described by readers as a "Great read each week" - is now available for your review via the link below. You can see the new edition of our E-Magazine here: Xpatloop.com/newsletters/2020/1-october.html 1000's of readers already got it in their inbox - if you didn't then don't miss out by joining in using the Newsletter box on the right side of this page. 1. In focus are a great variety of free-time events coming up this month: E.g. National Restaurant Week / 'CAFe Budapest' Contemporary Arts Festival. 'Outdoor Beer Days' @ Margaret Island / Oldtimer Car Show & Sausage Fest. 2. There's a curated selection of News, Information & Inspiration: E.g. Hungary Extends Tight Border Restrictions Until End Of October. 3. Plus you can see a range of Calendar highlights, and New Movies in Budapest. E.g. Comedy & Magic Show / Exiles Rugby Rookie Day / Sunrise Exercise Challenge. PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account. Former chairman of Hanoi Nguyen Duc Chung will continue being in detention for appropriating documents containing state secrets even though he already asked for bail to treat his cancer, according to the Ministry of Public Security. Police and medical staff will take care of his health in prison, Major To An Xo, spokesperson of the ministry, said at a regular press meeting of the government in Hanoi on Friday. Chung applied for bail to treat his cancer after having been arrested for his involvement in three cases, including the theft of state secrets, Xo added. Appropriating documents containing state secrets is a serious crime so we will not change our [detention methods applied to Chung] for the time being, the spokesperson underscored. Chungs health is normal in new conditions, he added. Police investigation is underway into the former chairmans wrongdoings. At the Hanoi Peoples Councils 16th session on September 25, delegates agreed to dismiss Chung from his position as chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee. Hanoi's deputy Party chief Chu Ngoc Anh, who is also Minister of Science and Technology, was elected as Chungs replacement at the same session. On August 11, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed a decision to suspend Chung from work for 90 days over his responsibility in the three scandals. Chung was arrested on August 28, facing allegations of stealing state secrets and being investigated for his responsibility in relation to the so-called Nhat Cuong case, referring to a technology firm and mobile phone vendor in Hanoi, and another case involving violations of regulations on the management and use of state assets in the capital city. Chung was born in northern Hai Duong Province on August 3, 1967. He was named chairman of the Peoples Committee of Hanoi on December 4, 2015 after more than a decade of rising through the ranks at the municipal Department of Police, of which he was apppointed director in September 2012. He was elected as deputy secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee in November 2015. The all-powerful Politburo has suspended him from this title. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! - MP Ngunjiri Wambugu said Ruto should read the Bible to understand the origin of the dynasty rule - The Nyeri Town legislator rubbished the hustler verses dynasty political narrative which has been advanced by Ruto and team - The dynasty wing led by ex-president Daniel Moi, Uhuru and NASA leader Raila Odinga is determined to scuttle DP's dreams PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed Deputy President William Ruto's hustler verses dynasty narrative eliciting mixed reactions from his admirers and haters alike. The narrative, so well coined, is Ruto's political tactic to challenge the country's presidency and hope to change the political landscape with he claimed is controlled by the bourgeoisie. MP Ngunjiri Wambugu noted dynasty rule was created by God. Photo: Ngunjiri Wambugu. Source: Facebook Dynasty rule is biblical One of his fierce critics Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu took a swipe at him rubbishing his anti-dynasty campaigns. According to Wambugu, Ruto needed to read and understand the Bible, which he noted was the origin of the dynasty rule as ordained and created by God. "I want to advise William Ruto to read the Bible. The God of the Bible is a God who built dynasties. In a war against dynasties you can be sure God will be on their side. So unless Ruto worships a different god, hapa hana bahati," he advised. The term "hustler" in Kenyan context, was coined by political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi, who had opined that Ruto will be made president by the hustler nation (the poor). William Ruto at a church function. He has been urged to read the Bible. Photo: William Samoei Ruto. Source: Facebook Realistic chance However, other political pundits argue that Ruto has a realistic chance of succeeding President Uhuru Kenyatta, but he will have to face the well-oiled dynasty axis. The dynasty wing led by ex-president Daniel Moi, Uhuru and NASA leader Raila Odinga are determined to scuttle presidential dreams of Ruto, a self-styled billionaire hustler. " DP William Ruto is the first son of a peasant father to have a realistic chance to become Kenya's President in 2022. The three royal dynasties of Kenyatta, Odinga and Moi seem united in handshakes to remind Ruto that they are unprepared for rabble becoming King,"lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi said in 2018. Raila denies dynasty However, Raila challenged Kenyans to look beyond their fathers and judge him and Uhuru just like they would any struggling person daily trying to achieve their dreams. The Opposition chief denied he and Uhuru ever inherited any support base from their fathers; ex-president Jomo Kenyatta and vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. There is no dynasty, because the people struggle all on their own.You cannot now say Uhuru is a part of a dynasty. Jomo Kenyatta was just a pauper before he fought to be where he got. I am not part of any dynasty either. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was just a pauper, you could say he was a hustler, he told mourners in 2019 at the requiem mass of Jane Kiano, ex-Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organisation chairperson. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme. This is me coming to you with a heavy heart. My friends left after I got cancer - Esther Nyambura/TUKO TV. Source: TUKO.co.ke The Moravia Central School District will alter schedules later in the month to increase student/teacher interactions. The changes will take effect Oct. 19, according to an announcement posted on the district website. On that date, in-person morning sessions for elementary students will end 15 minutes later than usual, at 10:30 a.m., while afternoon sessions will begin 15 minutes earlier than usual, at noon. At the middle-high school, learning for all students will become synchronous, meaning students will be receiving instruction at the same, whether in-person or online. The structure for the days when students attend in-person classes and when they learn online is not changing. Under Moravia's school reopening plan, UPK to fifth-grade students are in school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with one group attending in-person classes in the morning and another going in-person during the afternoon. All students learn remotely on Wednesdays regardless of grade. For the middle-high school, students were split into two groups, with one at school in person Mondays and Thursdays and learning remotely Tuesdays and Fridays, while the other group would be at school Tuesdays and Fridays and get remote instruction on Mondays and Thursdays. "On their remote days, they will now be expected to follow their current bell schedule, log in and attend their classes virtually from home," the announcement said. The district said the Oct. 19 changes would further the goal of maximizing interaction between teachers and students amid the COVID-19 limitations. "From the moment the district was allowed to reopen, we have remained committed to the goal of balancing safety and academic programming," the news release said. "The feedback that we heard from you during the months from March to June, when our students were remote only, was that there was a need to increase student engagement and teacher interactions in a more structured format. In our effort to dramatically increase student participation, engagement, and achievement for the 2020-2021 school year, we are continuously analyzing and reassessing our instructional model." The announcement also included a link to a parent survey for gathering additional feedback. "We know these moves will further our objective to increase student-teacher interactions," the district said. "This path to increase student engagement is not void of hurdles that we will need to creatively problem solve." Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 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. Lucknow : Sounding confident of storming back to power in Uttar Pradesh, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said his party alone would form the next government in the state as the SP-Congress alliance would bite the dust. If SP was confident about winning the polls, then why did it go for an alliance (with Congress)? The SP went for an alliance because its leaders had anticipated defeat and a whitewash in the polls, he said at an event organised by a news channel in Lucknow. He said, UP topped the crime charts in the last five years, while it was at the bottom for all development indicators. There were 16 murders and 23 rapes daily, nearly 200 riots took place and there were 2,87,000 heinous crimes in the state. Akhilesh Yadav has given tickets to most of the MLAs and ministers to duck anti-incumbency trend. In most of the constituencies where I went, I found a strong undercurrent of anti-incumbency. They saw the writing on the wall, and thats why they went in for an alliance. But despite the alliance, they are bound to lose, he said. Shah said the SP-Congress alliance has been forged only to fool the voters. Also read: Two good-looking princes involved in corruption are now out to mislead people of UP: Amit Shah in Mathura rally In the first and second phases of polling, the two parties are locked in friendly contests in 12 seats, like Lucknow Central. The people of UP are politically aware and they can see through this game, he said. Shah denied the charge levelled by SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav that he engineered a quarrel in the family. Mulayam had alleged that his cousin Ramgopal Yadav had met the BJP chief at least four times. I want to make it clear that I have never met Ramgopalji. I have nothing to do with their family wrangling. Why should we break the SP? he posed. Asked why his party gave tickets to relatives of senior leaders, Shah replied, Giving tickets to sons of leaders who toil on their own is not dynastic politics. By dynastic politics, I mean, only son Akhilesh can succeed Mulayam Singh as chief minister. Dynastic politics means Farooq Abdullahs son Omar Abdullah can become the CM. Nobody in the Congress, except those from Gandhi-Nehru dynasty, had the capability to head the party since 1967. After Nehru came Indira Gandhi, who tried to bring in Sanjay Gandhi, but he died, and she brought Rajiv Gandhi. After Rajivs death, Rahul had to wait because he was not of age. Manmohan Singh was made PM in between, but what sort of PM he was, everybody knows, Shah said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Foreign Ministry has issued a statement over the recent developments in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone. Armenpress presents the MFAs statement: In contempt of the persistent calls of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries and the entire international community on the immediate cessation of hostilities, Azerbaijan and Turkey jointly continue large-scale hostilities with the aim of resolving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict by military means. To this end, Azerbaijan has put forward its entire military capacities, reinforced by Turkish military assistance, which includes also foreign terrorists fighters transferred from other conflict zones in the Middle East. The civilian settlements and civilian population on the entire territory of Artsakh are being subjected to systematic and massive attacks, resulting in human casualties and destruction. These actions aim at depriving the people of Artsakh of their historical homeland by perpetrating mass atrocities. The Republic of Armenia, as the guarantor of the security of the people of Artsakh, will take all the necessary means and steps to prevent those mass atrocities. The military-political leadership of Azerbaijan will pay a high price for committing such grave crimes against the Armenians of Artsakh, for importing terrorists to the region and for undermining the regional security. Have Sheriff Offices in North Carolina, possibly even Beaufort County's Sheriff Office, become too political in the discharging of their sworn constitutional duties? No, the sheriff is a constitutional officer. Yes, the Sheriff Office, on strong occasion, often reverts back to political patronage in the dispensation of their sworn constitutional duties. Telangana has sought complete control over the operation of Srisailam Dam on the Krishna river to prevent Andhra Pradesh from constructing illegal projects without the Centres permission. K Chandrasekhar Rao, the Telangana chief minister, wrote a letter to Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Friday in this regard. In the 14-page letter, Rao accused the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) constituted for water sharing between the two states of being biased against Telangana and favouring Andhra Pradesh. He said Andhra Pradesh is going ahead with the expansion of the capacity Pothireddypadu head regulator on the Srisailam reservoir to draw 80,000 cusecs of water from the Krishna river to Pennar basin. Rao the regulator was originally meant for drawing only 1,500 cusecs to supply drinking water to Chennai. Andhra Pradesh has finalised tenders for the construction of the Rayalseema Lift Irrigation Scheme to lift 3 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water daily from the Srisailam Reservoir and transport it to the Pennar and adjoining basins. Though the matter was brought to the notice of KRMB in February itself, it has failed to take any action to stop these illegal projects. The KRMB has also failed to install a telemetry system to measure the largescale illegal withdrawal of water by AP [Andhra Pradesh] from Pothireddypadu regulator. Instead, the board gave instructions to Telangana to stop the release of water from Srisailam Left Bank Power House of Telangana, said Rao. He cited the arrangements and said the responsibility to operate the Nagarjunasagar Project was given to Telangana and Srisailam Project to Andhra Pradesh. Because of the failure of KRMB, Andhra Pradesh has taken advantage of this arrangement to illegally draw huge quantities of water from Pothireddypadu. He said the operation and control of the Srisailam Project should also be given to Telangana to stop Andhra Pradesh from going ahead with its plans of expanding the capacity of its projects. If Andhra Pradesh is allowed to go ahead with their nefarious and illegitimate expansion plans now, there will be no water available to meet the requirements for existing projects in Telangana including the drinking water needs of the capital city Hyderabad. Rao said Telangana was waiting to know its legitimate share of river waters even after six years of its formation. He asked the Centre to address the issue in a time-bound manner. Rao called Andhra Pradeshs objections to the projects being constructed on the Godavari river like Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme as a complete farce. He said all these projects were contemplated, designed, and grounded before Telanganas creation in 2014. The present government has only re-designed some of the projects to augment irrigation potential well within the riparian rights of Telangana. The Centre has called a meeting of representatives of the two sates on October 6 to resolve their water disputes. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON After reunification, the East lost a generation of young people fleeing soaring unemployment to seek jobs and a future in the West after 94 percent of state-owned companies in the region were sold or shuttered. Since then, living standards have gradually been catching up with the West, but differences remain. A full-time employee in the states of the former East Germany, where economic output lags the West by 70 percent, earns 15 percent less on average for the same job as a Western counterpart, according to government figures. None of Germanys publicly traded companies have their headquarters in the East, and the region trails in investment in research, development, machines and factories. The population drain stopped in 2013 and has recently begun to show signs of reversing. But the region lost 1.3 million people in the first decades after reunification, a shortfall that will take years to recover from if ever. Young families remain scarce, meaning there are fewer people paying taxes or having children. Compounding the problem is a widespread hostility to foreigners in the former East, making it less attractive to asylum-seekers, but also other immigrants looking for work who may have skills that are in demand. Only 8.2 percent of the people living in the former East are minorities, or have an immigrant background, government figures show. In recent years, there has been a spate of racist attacks, like an assault on a synagogue and kebab shop in Halle last year, and anti-immigrant riots in Chemnitz in 2018. Demographic development is the Achilles heel of East Germany, said Klaus-Heiner Rohl, an economist with the German Economic Institute. To attract more people to the region, the federal government has created thousands of public-service jobs, and is offering incentives to lure entrepreneurs and start-ups like Heyfair, Mr. Hellmundts company. Jaipur, Oct 3 : The BJP Rajasthan unit would hold a 'Halla Bol' campaign across the state on October 5 to protest against what it said were increasing atrocities against women and minors in the desert state. State BJP President Satish Poonia said on Saturday that Rajasthan ranked first in the country in rape cases, as per National Crime Records Bureau and second in terms of crime. "This is quite unfortunate for our state, which has now become a place for Dalit women's exploitation too. Looking at these numbers, we have requested the Governor to intervene in the matter." Poonia called all party leaders to protest at district headquarters in large numbers to wipe tears from victims' eyes. "At a time when the number of women victims is increasing in the state, the Ashok Gehlot government is not lending an ear to their cries. Therefore, on Sunday, the state BJP will start a Twitter campaign too with a hashtag crime capital Rajasthan," the BJP leader added. "Criminals have remained unchecked. It is not a political allegation but NCRB statistics that claim the same," he said. By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: The Covid-19 death toll in the State Capital touched 100 as four more persons succumbed to the infection in the last 24 hours. More than half of these deaths have been reported in the last one month. Around 55 deaths have been reported between September 3 and October 2. Health department officials said four persons succumbed to the infection in the city in the last 24 hours. An 82-year-old man and a 75-year-old man were among the deceased. The two other persons were in the age group between 40 and 45 years. All the patients had comorbidities, they said. The Capital city continues to report more than 300 cases since the last few weeks. The infection count of the city increased to 22,547 after 312 more individuals tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday. Of the new cases, 254 were related to local transmission while the remaining 58 linked to quarantine. Patia reported highest number 22 local contact cases. Besides, 13 cases were reported from Nayapalli and 10 cases from Jharpada. Nine cases were reported from Chandrasekharpur and seven each reported from Bapuji Nagar and Sailashree Vihar. While cases of transmission from unknown sources in non-slum areas continues to pose challenge for the civic body, maintaining vigil on those not following Covid-19 guidelines in home isolation is also turning into a headache for the authorities. Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials said gradual decline in active cases, however, has helped the civic body in dealing with the situation in an effective way. Around 329 persons infected with the virus recovered on the day bringing the active cases to 3,514, they said and added that more than 18,900 Covid patients have recovered in the city so far, they said. Recovery rate crosses 85 per cent in Odisha Bhubaneswar: With 4,048 Covid patients recovering from the disease on Friday, the number of recovery surpassed new infections for the fifth consecutive day. As many as 3,600 new cases were detected from 30 districts in last 24 hours. The recovery has been encouraging as the new infections went down following reduced tests. While 4,380 patients, the second single day highest, were discharged on Thursday against the new cases of 3,615, 4,219 cases had recovered on September 30 against 3,443 new infections. Of the 3,600 new cases, 2,109 were in quarantine and 1,491 local cases. Sixteen more patients, including six from Khurda and three from Nayagarh succumbed to the disease taking the death toll to 928. In May 1967, San Fernando Valley State College Professor Richard Abcarian, 38, spoke on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento to protest then-Gov. Ronald Reagan's proposed education budget cuts. Reagan surprised the protesters by coming out to the steps to speak. (Courtesy of the Abcarian family) On May 3, 1977, the Los Angeles Times published a story out of Washington. Raising a Child, said the headline, Costs a Typical Family $64,000. My father copied this story and mailed it to his four children. To my dear Children and Debtors, he wrote, Please submit forthwith a tentative schedule of repayment for this debt. Since it is, as you can see, a large one, it will be to your advantage to begin repayment as quickly as possible. Love, R. Abcarian, your Father and Creditor. Two days later, an envelope landed in his mailbox. Inside was a check, signed by my younger sister, Sara, for $64,000. She was 18 and had inherited his wicked sense of humor. I found that old news clip, along with Saras uncashed check, in one of my fathers drawers last week, as I began the bittersweet task of sorting through his things. My father, Richard Abcarian, known to all his friends as Dick, died of a stroke on Sept. 21 at age 91. (For the record, it was not easy being a Dick these past few decades. I just want to be the old Dick I used to be, he recently told a home health nurse as he bemoaned the cognitive changes that robbed him of the ability to fully enjoy his cherished L.A. Times. She stifled a laugh.) The son of working-class Armenian immigrants, my father grew up in Fresno. His father was a barber and failed grape farmer; his mother packed dried figs. Their three sons all earned advanced degrees at public universities and generally lived the American dream, or as my father would sometimes say, quoting "Zorba the Greek," "wife, children, house, everything the full catastrophe." My father taught American literature at Cal State Northridge, arriving from Berkeley in 1959, when it was still called San Fernando Valley State College. He was handsome, charismatic and the very embodiment of a conservative Republicans nightmare radical left-wing college professor. He once told me hed rather live in Castros Cuba than under the regime of George W. Bush. (Was he trying to get under my skin? Im still not sure.) Story continues A political creature who despised academic airs, he was a leader in the effort to win collective bargaining for Cal State professors. In May 1967, three months before he carted the entire family off to France for a Fulbright Scholarship teaching year (noted in The Times!), he stood on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento, in a cap and gown, to protest Republican Gov. Ronald Reagans proposed education cuts, which hed described to a Times reporter as dangerous and irresponsible. To his surprise, the new governor came out to placate the angry crowd of educators. A photographer captured the moment, my father at the microphone, the affable Reagan ready to charm an uncharmable crowd. Those cuts, by the way, marked the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of free higher education in California. Despite its suburban location, the Northridge campus was among the most politically volatile in California during the late 60s and early 70s. In 1969, students, faculty and administrators reached a groundbreaking agreement to recruit more Black and brown students and teachers and to create an Africana studies department. My father loved his students, and they loved him back. Among his cherished possessions is a framed copy of a handwritten Professor Profile Evaluations dated June 1970. Fifty English department professors were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with comments by students. My dad was the only one to receive the top score. He was, as you can imagine, a very cool guy. He played the trumpet in high school, and again, much later, as a member of the Culver City Senior Centers big band. He loved rock and roll especially Pink Floyd and probably went to more concerts than I did. He smoked pot and never tired of recounting how, in the bathroom of a Rolling Stones concert at the Forum in the 80s, a young man turned to him and said, Would you like a hit of my joint, sir? My father created one of the earliest courses on Black literature, and published an anthology of literary criticism about Richard Wrights Native Son. For a time, he and my late mother were testers for the San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council, posing as would-be renters to help ferret out housing discrimination. My father, Richard Abcarian, 91, raising a fist in front of our Venice Beach garage, under a BLM banner. (Robin Abcarian / Los Angeles Times) He was in a constant state of incandescent rage over the never-ending police killings of Black people, and last summer asked me to read Wrights 1938 short story, Big Boy Leaves Home. It is a gutting tale of four Black teenagers who, on an idyllic day in rural Mississippi, strip off their clothes and swim naked in a creek. A white woman encounters them, screams, and a white man shows up with a rifle. His political outrage could be exhausting, especially if you already agreed with him. Many times, I asked him to stop yelling at me, and he'd pause, puzzled, and say, "I'm not yelling at you, I'm yelling at them." In 1971, my dad and his best friend and office mate, the late Marvin Klotz, teamed up to create an anthology of literature that could be used in colleges around the country. Like so many great ideas, it came to them during a poker game. Was Scotch involved? Probably. The result, Literature: The Human Experience is one of the most enduring college textbooks of the modern era. Hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold. And all these years later, its 13th edition is still in print an extremely rare accomplishment for a college textbook, said John Sullivan, senior program manager for readers and literature at MacMillan, the parent company of the books publisher, Bedford/St. Martins. The royalties paid for at least six college tuitions, house remodelings, trips to Europe and more. About eight years ago, my father and I both went through divorces, his second, my only. He invited me to rent the apartment above his garage in Venice Beach until I figured out my next step. I never left, and when my sister Saras young granddaughter moved in with me nearly two years ago, we became the oddest trio of roommates. I did not understand the depth of connection this 10-year-old girl had to her great-grandfather until a few days after he died. At bedtime, she began to weep as she told me how much she missed her Papa Dick. I just dont know how I can go on living without him, she said through tears. I knew exactly how she felt. @AbcarianLAT This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. New Delhi, Oct 3 : The forensic department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in its report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has "hinted" that the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was suicide and not murder, sources said on Saturday. The AIIMS forensic panel under Dr. Sudhir Gupta was formed at the request of the CBI in August to assist in giving medico-legal opinion in connection with the death of the late actor. According to AIIMS sources, the forensic team in its report has hinted the death of Sushant as suicide, thus rejecting the claims of 'poisoning' and 'strangling' made by the actor's family and their lawyer. The doctors of the AIIMS refused to share further details as the matter is sub judice. The remarks came after the AIIMS forensic body submitted its report to the federal agency earlier this week, where it also hinted that his death was not a case of organic poisoning. However, CBI sources remained tight lipped on the issue and maintained that the agency is probing all the angles, and no angle has been ruled out yet. On September 28, CBI spokesperson in a statement said that the agency is conducting a professional investigation into the death of Sushant in which all aspects are being looked at and no aspect has been ruled out as of date. Sushant was found dead on June 14 in the Mont Blanc Apartment in Bandra in Mumbai. His family members raised suspicion of Sushant having been murdered. The CBI registered a case on August 6 on the notification of the Centre after the Bihar government recommended for a federal agency probe on the complaint of the late actor's father K.K. Singh. The CBI team reached Mumbai on August 20, a day after the Supreme Court gave its nod for the federal agency probe. The CBI recorded the statements of several people in the case and also visited his flat, Cooper hospital and Waterstone resort. The CBI grilled Sushant's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik, father Indrajit, Sushant's house manager Samuel Miranda, flatmate Siddharth Pithani, personal staff -- Neeraj Singh, Dipesh Sawant and Keshav Bachne. Besides the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) are probing the money laundering charge and drugs angle respectively. NCB has also arrested Rhea, Showik, Miranda, Sawant in connection with the drug case. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed New Delhi: Ahead of assembly polls in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, the India-Nepal border in the adjoining areas would be closed from February 12 to 14. During a joint meeting of representatives of administrations and security officials from both the countries it was decided to close the border areas and beef up the security vigilance during the period. However, an agreement has been made to allow the citizens of third countries to cross the Nepal-India border based on their documents, said Superintendent of Police Prakash Bahadur Chand of District Police Office, Kanchanpur. SP Chand said the highly-essential vehicles would be allowed to ply only from the legal entry points. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. RJD chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav is expected to make public the seat-sharing deal in the presence of leaders of the coalition. However, sources say that Congress and JMM are unhappy with the pact Bihar's opposition Grand Alliance has hammered a seat-sharing deal for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state and a formal announcement on the allotment of seats among the partners is expected to be made on Saturday evening, sources said. The seat-sharing exercise gained pace after RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's emissary Bhola Yadav returned to Patna from Ranchi on Thursday with his message on the distribution of seats among different partners, they said. "Seat-sharing has been finalised and an announcement will be made in all likelihood today evening," RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari told PTI. Apart from the RJD, which is spearheading the opposition coalition, the Congress, Left parties CPI-ML, CPI and the CPM, the Vikasheel Insan Party (VIP) and Jharkhand's ruling party JMM will unitedly fight the Bihar elections scheduled in October-November. The Congress has been offered 58-60 seats, CPI-ML 13-15, CPI and CPM altogether 8-10, Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahni's VIP 8-10 and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha two, while the remaining seats in the 243-strong assembly will be contested by Lalu Prasad's party, sources said. RJD chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav is expected to make public the seat-sharing deal at a press conference in the presence of leaders of the coalition, they said. Sources in Congress, however, said they are not happy with the seat-sharing pact and no senior leader of the party is expected at the presser. Congress general secretary and Bihar in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil has returned to Delhi on Friday night. The party's state unit chief Madan Mohan Jha and CLP leader Sadanand Singh are also expected to reach the national capital by evening. Sources in the Congress said the grand old party is not happy with the distribution of the seats because besides being offered a lesser number of seats, it is being given constituencies where the party has never won. The CPI-ML, which has three MLAs in the assembly and had earlier issued a list of 30 seats for the first phase of polling on 28 October without waiting for a formal announcement, has reached an understanding after a meeting of its top leader Deepankar Bhattacharya with Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday night and confirmed it will be a part of the Mahagathbandhan, sources said. "Our party leader will be present at the press conference where the seat-sharing will be formally announced," CPI-ML secretary Kunal told PTI. No leader of the JMM is expected to be present at the press meet. "We will comment only after a formal announcement of seats is made in the Grand Alliance," JMM national general secretary and spokesperson Vinod Pandey told The Uttar Pradesh government is considering the creation of a new and permanent regulatory body to ensure that at least one member of each family in urban and semi-urban areas gets a guaranteed employment much like in villages where every family gets 100 days work a year under the MNREGS, a government spokesman said on Saturday. The proposed employment commission will be a statutory body with the deputy chief minister as its chairman apart from having an executive head to be known as the employment commissioner who will be an official of the rank of the chief secretary. Various training and self-employment schemes and programme currently being run by different government departments will come under the new body. Also read: Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka allowed to visit Hathras gang-rape victims family The employment commissioner, who will coordinate with the departments concerned, will have the power to issue directions with regard to employment and skill development training to any government department, private institute, industry and company, said the spokesman. The proposed commission, according to the spokesman, will keep a keen watch on employment opportunities to be available in the state and ensure transparency in recruitment. The commission will help the youth get a loan under various schemes from banks after arranging training for them as required by the industry, he said. The commission will get job fairs organized for overseas jobs in coordination with the concerning embassies and high commissions of other countries. The Yogi Adityanath government had set up a temporary commission for the purpose of mapping skills of over 30 lakh migrants that had returned from various states amid the Covid-19 lockdown and help them get work as per their skill and suitability. The agriculture production commissioner (APC) and the industrial and infrastructure development commissioner (IIDC) jointly head this commission. But desired results are not available since both the officers have totally different areas of work, the spokesman said, adding, This is why the government is considering setting up a statutory permanent employment commission. Insurance fraud seems like it might be an easy thing to do. Insurance companies are often so huge, one wonders how they might not even notic... The Government said the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Ordinance does not apply to Taiwan. The Security Bureau made the statement today in response to media enquiries. It pointed out that the Government last year proposed to amend the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Ordinance to address this legal loophole. In response to the communitys reaction, the Government withdrew the proposed amendments and therefore there is currently no law that allows the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to handle legal assistance matters with Taiwan. The bureau stressed that the Government cannot violate the law by providing evidence on Chan Tong-kais case to Taiwan, adding it is also irresponsible for a lawmaker to make misleading remarks that make people think that the Government can do so. Regarding reports quoting that Taiwan has established a so-called single window liaison point with Hong Kong, the Government pointed out that this is merely a unilateral description adopted by Taiwan. Taiwan had provided Hong Kong Police with contact information that Chan could use to contact them. Police have already relayed the information to Chan. Police have not jointly established any so-called single window liaison point with Taiwan and this does not involve any assistance on evidence. The bureau urged Taiwan to genuinely follow the basic rule of law and actively facilitate Chans surrender to Taiwan. The Government will provide feasible arrangements to assist him in going to Taiwan in accordance with the law, it added. Mumbai: A Mumbai Special Court on Saturday sent former executive of Dharma Productions Kshitij Ravi Prasad -- who was arrested in connection with the drugs probe in Bollywood -- to judicial custody till October 6. Prasad was arrested on September 26 by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) during the ongoing probe into the drug case as part of the investigations into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. His earlier judicial custody ended on Saturday and he was produced before the Special NDPS Court, which extended his custody till next Tuesday. The NCB had claimed that Prasad was in touch with several drug suppliers and traders, and used the drugs for self-consumption, following which he was arrested. Prasad is the 20th person to be nabbed till date by the NCB in the high-profile case, including Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty -- the only woman among the accused -- besides her brother Showik, and 18 others, including drug peddlers, suppliers, aides of the late actor Sushant, etc. The NCB has also recovered certain quantities of different types of drugs and cash from the accused as it attempts to unravel the drugs nexus in Bollywood since the past nearly two months. Hamilton councils use of its ethics watchdog against a volunteer advisory committee member stands to make people think twice about participating in civic affairs, says a municipal governance expert. Andrew Sancton also says councils complaint about the LGBTQ advisory committee chair through the integrity commissioner strays from the tools intended purpose. I think the idea of a council collectively going after a member, in this case a chair, of an advisory committee just makes no sense at all, however you interpret the legislation, said Sancton, a political scientist at Western in London, Ont., who in 2017 wrote a paper called Accountability Officers and Integrity in Canadian Municipal Government. Integrity commissioners became mandatory for Ontario municipalities last year but their function has roots in provincial legislative changes passed in 2006. Members of the public can file a complaint with the integrity commissioner if they believe an elected official has violated city councils code of conduct. But Sancton questions why a city council would use the office to target a member of an advisory committee. Its not the legislature of Ontario. Its not the Hamilton city council. Its a bunch of people who have no power to decide anything. Sancton notes integrity commissioners were meant to serve as a neutral third party that investigated complaints and made recommendations. This was all supposed to happen without the need for going to court, which is expensive and time-consuming, and of course, my concern about the integrity commissioners is they have become expensive and time-consuming as well. Between August 2018 and September 2020, the city paid Principles Integrity, which also provides advice to council on issues such as conflict of interest, $87,055.39 for its services. In a report discussed Wednesday, the firm concluded Cameron Kroetsch broke the code of conduct governing his volunteer position through a radio interview and social media post. In the May 2019 interview with CHML host Bill Kelly, he criticized the city for its latest appointee to the police services board in light of the bodys lack of diversity and its handling of a longtime IT staffer with white supremacist ties. Kroetsch inappropriately used his position as chair in improperly and publicly criticizing and disparaging council decisions, Principles Integrity stated in the report. Another overstep, according to the report, was Kroetschs Twitter post that included a version of an advisory committee motion referring to the police board and staff positions, which the clerk had advised be redacted. Kroetsch has rejected the reports findings and, along with others, characterized councils complaint as an attempt to silence critics, notably members of marginalized communities. On Wednesday, rather than remove him from the committee, council opted to issue Kroetsch a formal reprimand for posting the unredacted motion, deeming it a privacy breach. Kroetschs Twitter post didnt include the name of police board member Fred Bennink and then-IT staffer Marc Lemire, who eventually left the city amid an uproar over ties to white supremacists. But it included a version of the committees motion that referred to a former auxiliary police officer recently appointed to the citizen seat of the police board and a well-known figure in the Canadian extremist white supremacist movement employed at the city. On Wednesday, Mayor Fred Eisenberger said council wasnt trying to muzzle critics but argued Kroetsch had broken with protocols, especially on privacy and against the clerks advice. That couldnt go without a formal reprimand, the mayor said. I suspect that if we embolden Mr. Kroetsch, we also embolden lots of other folks that are part of advisory committees to push the envelope ... , Eisenberger said. Later on Twitter, in response to a critic online, Coun. Terry Whitehead asked whether the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, a local agency, fell under the integrity commission, just asking. He added the city is just beginning to understand that the commissioner has the ability to investigate beyond council, adding it would be prudent to determine if (HCCI) fall under (the) expanded role. In an interview, Whitehead boiled his critics down to a leftist Marxist group on social media, adding anyone that has a public face ... and is being paid by the City of Hamilton should have some accountability. Sancton said a city integrity commissioner wouldnt have jurisdiction over outside agencies and private citizens at all. Whitehead was recently the subject of an integrity complaint over a July email to a member of the public in which he equated clusters of tents pitched by homeless people with s--t, urine, needles. On Thursday, the Mountain councillor said he hadnt heard from Principles Integrity about the complaint, but called it illegitimate. How do you think we feel every time a citizen wants to take us to the integrity commissioner for stupidity, for hurting their feelings? Coun. Sam Merulla said a recent complaint against him by the employee of a fitness equipment business in Kitchener had been dismissed. Merulla, whod already rejected publicly the allegation that he threatened the woman during a dispute over the phone as false, said the complaint was deemed outside of the commissioners jurisdiction. The veteran east-end councillor has complained about keyboard morons on social media having an outsized influence on civic matters. Last month, Principles Integrity noted in a report it handled 15 inquiries between July 2018 and the end of August 2020. Of those, 14 were resolved without the need for a formal report, which means either the complainant and respondent reached a resolution, the issue was beyond the commissioners jurisdiction, or other bodies dealt with the matter. No details were offered. Councils complaint about Kroetsch was the one that resulted in a formal report that led to councils formal reprimand. Afghanistans top peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah is expected to visit India on October 6 as part of an outreach to key countries in the region for support for the negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, people familiar with developments said on Saturday. Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation in Afghanistan, will travel to India after a three-day visit to Pakistan that concluded on Wednesday. This is his first visit to India after the formation of a new government in Kabul following last years troubled election. The people cited above said on condition of anonymity that Abdullah is expected to meet the top Indian leadership to seek support for the intra-Afghan negotiations currently underway at Doha in Qatar. India had sent an official delegation to Doha to attend the event marking the launch of negotiations and the event was also addressed by external affairs minister S Jaishankar. In his speech, Jaishankar said that any new dispensation which emerges from the intra-Afghan dialogue process must ensure that the soil of Afghanistan is never used for anti-India activities. Senior Afghan leader Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum had visited India on September 25 and held talks on the peace process with Jaishankar, who told him New Delhi remains committed to Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled negotiations. During his interaction with the Pakistani media in Islamabad, Abdullah said both Pakistan and Afghanistan are on the same page on the issues of reducing violence and showing flexibility in the negotiations underway in Doha. These views should be emphasised in messages communicated to Taliban, he said. India, the regions largest provider of development aid to Afghanistan, has expressed concern at a recent spike in violence by the Taliban and terror attacks on minorities such as Sikhs. It has said that the intra-Afghan negotiations must ensure the interests of minorities, women and vulnerable sections of society and reduce violence across Afghanistan and its neighbourhood. Since 2001, India has undertaken projects worth $3 billion in Afghanistan, including $1 billion pledged in 2016 under the new development partnership scheme for five years. Schapelle Corby has opened up about the horrifying moment she received a phone call threatening to send her back to jail three years after she returned to Australia. The convicted drug smuggler, 43, spoke out about the moment that left her 'shaken up for days' ahead of a television debut in reality show SAS Australia. Answering a phone call to her Brisbane home in July, Corby initially had no idea it was a scam. She says the man on the other end claimed to be from the tax office and told her if she didn't pay her outstanding taxes he would send someone to take her to local courthouse. 'For 15 minutes my heart was breaking. I couldn't calm down. I was so, so scared,' Corby told Stellar. After being sentenced to 20 years in a Bali prison in 2005 for trying to smuggle 4.2kg of cannabis into the tourist hotspot in her boogie board bag, Corby (pictured) was released on parole in 2014 and eventually deported to Australia in 2017. However, one slip up from the anonymous caller tipped off the former Gold Coast beauty therapy student to the hoax. The man told her if she didn't pay the money she could go to jail for six years and that he was sure she wouldn't want that because he had pulled up her file and could tell she was a law-abiding citizen with no criminal history. A shocked Corby bluntly told him of her past which put a swift end to the attempted scheme. Despite catching the conman out on his scam, Corby said call still left her rattled for days afterwards. Pictured: Schapelle Corby shares a rare photo with boyfriend Ben Panangian Corby has shied away from media attention since returning to the country, moving in with her mother in Brisbane and making resin clocks which she sells online Her reaction is just one reminder, she says, that even though she has led a quiet, comfortable life in her home country for the past three years, the nine years she spent in Bali's infamous Kerobokan prison have left a lasting mark. This, she revealed, is the reason she decided to join Seven's new reality show SAS Australia, which puts contestants through grueling physical and mental challenges. 'I knew I was strong physically, but I've suffered severe catatonic mental illness. There's always this little thought in the back of my head that I could lose my mind again,' Corby said. Having created her 'safe bubble' since returning to the country, Corby explained that she viewed competing on the show as the ultimate test of whether she was cured of her mental illness. That bubble includes her dog 'Princess' - the recipient of her motherly instincts. Corby explained that the years she spent in prison along with her Indonesian boyfriend, not likely to be granted an Australian visa because of a criminal history has resulted in no children - which does play on her mind. 'I don't put too much emphasis on thinking about what I've lost. If it's possible for me to have a child, OK, but I'm not going to dwell too much because there's nothing I can change about that. But I could be still young enough.' She has shied away from media attention since returning to the country, moving in with her mother in Brisbane and making resin clocks which she sells online - an admittedly symbolic hobby. She does have a small circle of girlfriends with whom she socialises, not to mention an Instagram following of more than 164,000 followers. Prison, she acknowledges however, has left her without the initiative to make plans along with a sense of agoraphobia - a residual effect from waiting out the days between meals and exercise breaks in her cell. Australian Schapelle Corby is escorted by Indonesian Police into a Denpasar courtroom to hear the prosecutor's sentence demands on April 21, 2005 She also acknowledges she is lucky to have had a family who supported her, saying her sister Mercedes put her life on hold to tirelessly campaign for her release and that she doubts she would have survived without her. In a blunt admission she said she did not think she would see her 40th birthday during those dark days in prison where her mind would switch between fantasizing about escaping on a rope dropped by a helicopter and suicidal thoughts. The helicopter fantasy, it turns out, prevailed though not quite in the way she imagined. In one scene from SAS Australia the contestants, including Corby, are dropped from a helicopter into freezing water and told to swim to shore. One of a number of extreme stunts the contestants go through on the show with Corby saying her fellow participants were a highlight for her and that she hoped they will keep in touch. Former Biggest Loser trainer Shannon Ponton she mentions specifically as having selflessly helped during one moment where she was struggling to carry her military backpack while jogging up a hill. Other contestents include former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen along with Australian rugby player and former Bachelor star Nick Cummins. SAS Australia premieres on Monday night. New Delhi: After over 70 days, the bodies of three people of Rajouri who were killed in an encounter in Amshipora on July 18 were exhumed and handed over to the families in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday (October 2, 2020) night. Officials said the bodies were exhumed at around 10 pm and handed over to the families in the morning around 6 am. The families later carried the bodies to Rajouri via Mughal road where they were buried in their native villages. A social activist Guftar Ahmad Choudhry who was accompanying the families said, "Bodies were exhumed by them (police) in the morning today around 6 am and handed over to us. We are now taking them back to their native places." Meanwhile, the families now demand punishment to those who killed their kin. "We have the bodies, now we want justice. Those who have killed them should be hanged," said one of the bereaved family members. The move came after the DNA samples of parents matched with the slain trio. Earlier, the Inspector General of Police Kashmir Vijay Kumar said, "Since DNA samples matched with the family, three dead bodies will be exhumed and handed over to families after due process of law." Police have also started the investigation of the case on other fronts and the Jammu Kashmir Police has also arrested two persons in said case. Both have been sent on eight days of judicial remand. The Indian Army is also investigating the case that has said in a statement, "Competent disciplinary authority has directed to initiate disciplinary proceedings under the Army Act against those found prima-facie answerable." Although, there has been no action initiated against any army personnel to date. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 18:50:08|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close -- Taierzhuang in east China's Shandong Province is an ancient brick-walled town sitting on the banks of the Grand Canal. The popular tourist destination is not only famous for its beauty blending southern and northern China, but also a decisive battle during World War II. -- The reconstruction of Taierzhuang has not only brought the ancient town back in time, but has also improved the residents' livelihoods. -- Taierzhuang tells us a tale of both past military victory and modern rejuvenation. JINAN, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ma Zhiying, the 80-year-old owner of a traditional pastry shop in Taierzhuang, eastern China's Shandong Province, breathed a sigh of relief during the National Day holiday. Roughly 43,900 visitors thronged the 2-square-km ancient town on Thursday, the first day of the eight-day holiday. "It's not as good as in previous years due to the epidemic," Ma said. "But Taierzhuang is back on its feet, and I've seen far, far worse. After all, the magnificent Taierzhuang ancient town came from the debris of war." Tourists visit the ancient town of Taierzhuang in east China's Shandong Province, Aug. 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei) THE BATTLE Most visitors to Taierzhuang are attracted not only by its beauty -- urban ponds, canal-lined streets, architectural styles and temples inherited from the past -- but by the history of its significance during the Second World War. By 1938, the Chinese military had suffered huge losses to the Japanese invaders, an ally of Nazi Germany, following the falls of Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing. But the resolve to resist the aggression showed no signs of weakening, and Taierzhuang spoke clearer than anywhere else. The Chinese military braved the Japanese invaders with far inferior weapons and a resolution to sacrifice Taierzhuang to dislodge the aggressor. The Battle of Taierzhuang, as it was later known, was the first major Japanese defeat since the beginning of the war, which broke the myth of the Japanese military's invincibility, and resulted in an incalculable benefit to Chinese morale. Photo taken on Aug. 19, 2020 shows a former street battle site of the Battle of Taierzhuang in east China's Shandong Province. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei) "To the names of small towns famous as turning points in history -- Waterloo, Gettysburg, Verdun -- add still another. It is Taierzhuang, an ancient brick-walled settlement on the banks of China's Grand Canal," American magazine Life wrote at the time, alongside photos taken by Hungarian-American war photographer Robert Capa. "It greatly encouraged confidence throughout China and the world in the determination of China and the Chinese people to fight and their ability to win," wrote Israel Epstein, then war correspondent with the United Press International who once visited Taierzhuang. But the town itself was burnt to the ground. Li Jingshan, 86, recalled that when he returned home after the battle, the water would run red when it rained heavily. "There was simply so much blood below the earth." THE REVITALIZATION Taierzhuang gradually came back to life. Zaozhuang City, in which Taierzhuang sits, announced a full-scale revitalization of the town in 2008, the year that marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Taierzhuang. As a port city on the banks of ancient China's most important canal, Taierzhuang used to be a booming town with a rich history and culture. Local authorities in the 21st century went to great lengths to revitalize the town. Photo taken on Aug. 18, 2020 shows the gate of Taierzhuang ancient town and a map of the ancient town in east China's Shandong Province. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei) Wu Zhigang, who is in charge of the town's planning, said that urban planners spent three years poring over 30 local chronicles, talking to every resident over the age of 80, and consulting 130 history books, 380 old pictures, and 1,279 novels from the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911). Shang Dianzhen, an 86-year-old resident, said he had recounted every address and route in town, the names of residents he could recall, and what types of shops there had been. "It was the right call to rebuild Taierzhuang in its old image to let everyone see it regain its past glory," Shang said. THE REJUVENATION With ancient city walls, worn bluestone streets, deep alleys, murmuring water, well-preserved wharves and revetments, the shadows of towers and stone bridges, Taierzhuang is now the perfect place to take a stroll. People can imagine the fierce battle it saw over eight decades ago and look back on its former prosperity. Yet the reconstruction did not bring Taierzhuang back in time completely -- one key aim was to improve residents' livelihoods in the process. The upper part of the combo photo taken by Guo Xulei on Aug. 17, 2020 shows an aerial view of Taierzhuang ancient town in east China's Shandong Province. The lower part of combo file photo shows the debris of war in the ancient town after the Battle of Taierzhuang in 1938. (Xinhua) "Gone are the days when we were helpless during hard times," said 95-year-old Cheng Du, who, like many women of her generation, does not have a given name, using instead her maiden name and husband's surname. "Generation after generation, my family lived in Taierzhuang, a place torn up by war. In wartime, I used to think that it was good enough if we could survive. Now, I also expect that my business goes well," said Ma Zhiying. "With tourists coming from across the country and the help of the internet, we're selling our pastries all over the country." (Reporting by Yu Xiaozhong, Wang Yang, Shao Luwen, Wu Feizuo, Wang Zichen, Sun Wenji; Video reporter: Xu Zeyu, Wu Feizuo, Zhao Xiaoyu, Shao Luwen, Wang Yang; Video editor: Zhu Cong) Advertisement Patients who were told by their GPs to get a Covid test 'have been turned away at testing sites' even when there is enough capacity due to lab processing problems. Up to 200 people a day were refused a test at a centre in Stoke after Whitehall officials limited the number they could administer. Officials there said even people who were referred by their family doctor were told they could not be tested when the quota had been reached. Meanwhile some sites are working at just a fifth of their capacity as testing laboratories struggle to process the results. It comes as more people than ever are having to wait three days or more to find out if they have coronavirus after an in-person test in England. Patients who were told by their GPs to get a Covid test (pictured in Leeds) 'have been turned away at testing sites' even when there is enough capacity due to lab processing problems Some sites (pictured, Burnley) are working at just a fifth of their capacity as laboratories struggle to process the results More people than ever are having to wait three days or more to find out if they have coronavirus after an in-person test in England (pictured, the Burnley testing site) NHS Test and Trace data on Thursday showed members of the public taking swab tests at drive-through sites or pop-up local and mobile centres face growing waits. The Stoke site saw swathes of people being turned away because only a few who did not book online could be tested. One member of staff told the Times: 'Sometimes when we get to that threshold ie the maximum even if they came with that GP letter, we couldn't let them in.' 'Lighthouse lab' delays opening for a month A super-lab expected to process 50,000 tests a day has had to delay opening. The site at Charnwood near Loughborough, which is one of the 'Lighthouse laboratories', will not open for at least another month. The labs are at the focus of the government's plans to ramp up testing and processing the results. The Department of Health and Social Care had bragged in a press release last month the lab would be open 'by the end of September'. But the site has no workers and those interviewed were told they will not be needed until at least the last week of October, according to the Times. Meanwhile another Lighthouse lab in Newport is also yet to open after being earmarked for August but likely to only open this month. Public Health Wales pointed the finger at recruitment problems and not enough tests to check the lab's processing works. A Department of Health spokesman said: 'NHS Test and Trace is providing tests at an unprecedented scale 240,000 a day on average over the last week more than all major countries in Europe with more testing per head of population. 'We are expanding testing capacity rapidly with new Lighthouse laboratories in Newport, Newcastle, Bracknell and Charnwood as we drive towards our target of 500,000 a day by the end of October.' Advertisement Another said if a family came with a sick child 'you really should say ''well I appreciate that I can see he's not particularly well, have you tried booking a test on the internet''?' They added even if the person claimed to have been trying for a test for three days they should be turned away. The Stoke site was performing 500 tests a day a one point, but are now following a quota. On one day last week just 100 people were tested by 5pm, with 260 the following day. Whitehall's cap at testing sites - which started last month - appears to be reflected across the system as many people also reported being turned away from sites. Peter Seely from Kidderminster told MailOnline: 'Went to Kidderminster last Wednesday or our allotted test, tried to get a test as an a couple but were told no tests were available, put myself in as a key worker and got a test next day. 'When we arrived there were eight lanes and 30 staff at a guess, we were the only people there to get a test, not one other person, no one, staff were just sitting in the unspoken chatting.' Liz Martin from London tweeted: 'Tests are unavailable and people are being turned away. I couldn't get one recently even as a key worker.' Barking and Dagenham Council posted: 'We've been told covid testing sites in B&D are really busy with only a few walk in slots available daily. 'Don't get stuck in a queue or waste your time walking down there, only to be turned away - you're best to book online or call 119.' Another account wrote: 'I've had at least 4 different people tell me the same story where someone they know has gone to a testing centre, given their details and then is turned away because it's ''too busy''. 'One week later, they all get a letter saying they're positive for Covid. No swab was ever taken.' Canary Wharf counsellor Andrew Wood added: 'Serious problems at Watney COVID testing centre I observed a number of people being turned away as had not booked in advance I asked the nice security guard how many he had to turn away (30 per cent he said). 'He said and GPs were telling people incorrectly that they could just turn up and be tested. 'He was telling them to go online Somebody has to put up a poster reminding people how to book including calling 119 outside to help him and give the security guard a proper mask (security guards have one of the highest infection rates in the country).' Mike Stripling from the East Midlands commented: 'Felt the full frustration of the covid testing facilities today. 10 people with full Poe doing SFA. my wife booked app this am for 3.30 got there after 1.5 hours of traffic to be turned away. Pathetic!' Another man from Brighton posted: 'People being turned away from the mobile testing centre in Brighton - they had a QR code for the nearest test centre they could get in ABERDEEN! Staff couldn't help though...and had to tell them to go back to the online booking system.' The cap on testing capacity is reportedly being used to relieve pressure on the floundering Lighthouse labs. One of the network's new sites in Charnwood, Leicestershire, has delayed opening by a month. It was due to open at the end of September but will not be functioning until at least later this month. But when the site - run by US firm PerkinElmer for the UK government - opens it will process 50,000 tests a day. Meanwhile another Lighthouse in Newport missed its August opening date and will not be running until November. In a bid to ramp up the number of tests being processed, the government has now said it will work with universities and smaller private laboratories. But it has renewed doubts the Prime Minister's target of 500,000 tests a day by the end of October can be reached. NHS Test and Trace data shows 1.7million tests were processed in the week up to September 23, which rose from 1.6million the week before. The five Lighthouse labs and NHS sites are expected to be able to process 1.8million. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care told MailOnline: 'These claims do not reflect the huge amount work underway in a system that we have built from scratch into the largest diagnostics network in British history. 'New booking slots are made available daily for those who need them and we are rightly targeting testing capacity at the areas that need it most, including those where there is an outbreak, and prioritising at-risk groups. 'NHS Test and Trace is continually increasing capacity, with the ability to now process over 320,000 tests a day, but we have seen a significant demand for tests including from people who do not have symptoms. 'We recently announced new facilities and technology to process results even faster, expanding UK testing capacity to 500,000-a-day by the end of October.' Despite this more people than ever are having to wait three days to get their test results back. Of the 155,000 people who used local test sites between September 17 and 23, 5.3 per cent of them had to wait more than 72 hours to find out their result. This was up from just 1.8 per cent a week earlier. The same trend was seen in regional drive-through sites and at mobile testing units, with those three locations now accounting for the majority of public tests. Other parts of the system saw improvements during the same time, however, with result return times falling among people getting tested in care homes and at home. And the proportion of people getting their results within 24 hours after an 'in-person test' rose, too, from 28.2 per cent to 38.1 per cent. Statistics show that the number of people testing positive for the disease hit a new high in the penultimate week of September, with 31,373 confirmed cases up 61 per cent from 19,488 people a week earlier. The testing system has come under immense pressure in recent weeks as cases of Covid-19 have surged across the country and soaring numbers of sick Britons are demanding swabs. The Department of Health on Thursday confirmed one in every eight people in England have now had a Covid-19 test a total of 7.1million people. Officials blamed some of the pressure on people ordering tests when they were not technically eligible. But statistics show the numbers of people catching the disease every day have more than tripled since the start of September. Test and Trace statistics show 5.3 per cent of people attending regional drive-through test sites (4,845 out of 91,185) waited 72 hours or more for their result after the test. This was up from 1.7 per cent a week earlier. The three-day limit is the cut-off for when officials stop measuring how long a result has taken each test is put into a 24 hours; 24-48 hours; or 72+ hours category. Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised earlier this year that all tests would have their results returned within 24 hours but the target has slipped out of reach. At mobile testing units, which are set up in areas with concerning infection rates, 6.5 per cent of people (7,852 out of 120,064) waited for three days or longer. But the proportion of people waiting over three days has shrunk for satellite tests which are mostly done in care homes and for home kits. For satellite test centres the 72-hour wait fell from 72.2 per cent to 41.6 per cent in the middle of September. And for home test kits it dropped from 55.2 per cent to 19.8 per cent. The number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England soared by 61 per cent in the week ending September 23, up to more than 31,000 from 19,000 the week before The average amount of time taken to receive a result for a coronavirus test after taking it is falling now after rising over the summer Combined, those two categories made up more than half of swab tests but more than 400,000 were satellite tests that generally aren't available to the public. In more promising news the Test & Trace data showed there has been a rise in the proportion of people who have an 'in-person' test getting their result within 24 hours. Some 38.1 per cent of people who were tested for Covid-19 in England in the week ending September 23 at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit a so-called 'in-person' test received their result within this time-frame. This was up from 28.2 per cent in the previous week and follows weeks of problems with people accessing tests. The best performance since the programme began was in the week ending July 1, when 94.3 per cent of in-person test results were returned in 24 hours. But in the most recent week just 2.9 per cent of people in England who used a home test kit for Covid-19 received their result within 24 hours, up slightly from 1.8 per cent in the previous week. Some 30.4 per cent of people received the result of a home test within 48 hours, up from 11.3 per cent in the previous week. Thursday's data also showed that 71.6 per cent of close contacts of people who tested positive for Covid-19 were reached through the Test and Trace system. This is down from 76.3 per cent in the previous week, but above the 69.9% for the week to September 2, which is the lowest weekly figure to date. For cases handled by local health protection teams, 97.6 per cent of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate, whereas the figure was 64.3 per cent for cases handled either online or by call centres. Dubai, Oct 3 : England all-rounder Ben Stokes is set to join Rajasthan Royals after missing the initial couple of weeks of the ongoing Indian Premier League edition in order to be with his family in Christchurch. On Saturday, Royals posted a picture of Stokes en route to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on their official Twitter handle. Earlier, Stokes had posted images of him with his family on Instagram with the caption: 'goodbyes never get easier'. The 29-year-old will have to undergo six days of quarantine on arrival in the UAE as per the Covid-19 protocols for IPL 2020. In August, Stokes had pulled out of the Pakistan Test series midway in order to be with his family in New Zealand after his father was diagnosed with cancer. After featuring in the first Test against Pakistan earlier this month, Stokes had left for New Zealand to be with his family. Stokes' arrival in the UAE will be a big boost for the Royals as it would add more strength to their batting unit, which is currently heavily dependent on Sanju Samson and Steve Smith. The likes of Jos Buttler and Robin Uthappa have not been able to perform for the Royals so far. While Uthappa has scored just 16 runs in the three innings he has played for the Royals, Buttler has scored 25 runs in the two innings he has played so far in the tournament. Stokes has so far played 34 IPL matches for the Royals across three seasons, in which he has scored 635 runs and scalped 26 wickets. Latest updates on IPL 2020 -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Voucher systems or discount schemes can be targeted at hard-hit sectors to provide some short-term momentum. And every dollar spent hits the economy, she adds, pointing to Britain's Eat Out to Help Out scheme and tourism vouchers made available by the Tasmanian and Northern Territory governments. Danielle Wood: for vouchers and tax cuts. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Eslake wants the revenue which would be lost in a pull-forward of tax cuts to instead be spent on a program of vouchers which expire by a certain date. The great advantage of [vouchers] versus bringing forward tax cuts is that you guarantee the money will be spent. It will be spent when it is most helpful for it to be spent; and it will be spent in areas most in need of stimulus or in ways that are most likely to result in increased employment. Bringing forward tax cuts doesnt do any of that. Eslake has thought it all through. The vouchers could be spent on any areas still affected by government restrictions, like tourism and the arts. Or areas that help people get back to work, such childcare or training. Or on essential bills like electricity, water and gas. They could be distributed by the Tax Office to taxpayers and through Centrelink to non-taxpayers. Also arguing against tax cuts in this budget is Miranda Stewart, a fellow of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Australian National University's Crawford School of Public Policy. "There is little evidence that they will stimulate greater economic activity or consumption," says Stewart. However, supporting the case for tax cuts is Deloitte Access Economics Chris Richardson, along with PricewaterhouseCoopers chief economist Jeremy Thorpe and UNSW economist Gigi Foster. JobSeeker and infrastructure While divided on many things, the six economists are unanimous on two fronts: the need for greater infrastructure spending although they differ on the format and the need to permanently increase the rate of JobSeeker, currently scheduled to return to its old rate of $565 per fortnight come January. Stewart is against any more one-off cash payments to households, such as the $750 coronavirus payment to pensioners. As a general rule, Id like to see our transfer/welfare system returning to a more normal systemic approach, she says. None of the economists supported an immediate extension to the JobKeeper scheme, currently set to expire on March 28 although several said the option of extending should be kept open as required in the event of further lockdowns. Deloitte Access Economics director Chris Richardson. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen According to Stewart: We should be moving towards JobSeeker as our main way of supporting those who are out of work, have lost jobs or reduced income due to the pandemic and lockdowns. It does not need to be as high as it was in July this year [boosted by a $550-per-fortnight supplement] but that inevitably means that it needs to be at a higher, liveable rate. And couples should be subject to individual income tests for JobSeeker, says Stewart, so that a high-income partner does not render a person ineligible for support. The work test should also be relaxed, so that the jobless can pick up more hours of casual or part-time work without being kicked off the payment. Wood says JobSeeker should be permanently increased by at least $200 a fortnight for singles and rent assistance boosted 40 per cent; Foster wants the bulk of the $550 coronavirus supplement retained; and Eslake wants it set at 80 per cent of the age pension. As for infrastructure spending, all six economists unanimously agree more spending is necessary. PWCs Thorpe wants smart roads investments to fit out roads and vehicles with the smart tags and meters needed to implement a system of road-user charging. Richardson wants similar forward thinking on congestion charging, along with smaller works projects in the bush. Eslake wants more money for repair, maintenance and upgrade of existing infrastructure, even though that provides fewer opportunities for politicians to cut ribbons or unveil plaques with their own names on them. Social housing and childcare Wood, Foster and Richardson all back more spending on social housing. Wood also suggests a program of sustainability retrofits of public buildings and cautions against simply plucking large projects from the existing transport wish-lists: COVID will almost certainly lead to long-term changes to patterns of work and travel as well as lower population growth, so the existing pipeline of city-shaping transport infrastructure projects may no longer stack up." Unprompted, four of the six economists nominate childcare as an area where more government resources should be targeted in this budget. Foster says the best way for the government to create jobs both in the short and long term would be to introduce universal childcare: This would be a great source of employment, including in the regions, plus has huge benefits for young working families, distressed parents and of course future Australian productivity, as the period from 0 to 5 years of age is arguably the most important in human development. Childcare is a sector which all six economists agree needs additional attention in the budget. Credit:Glenn Hunt Getting back to business As for stimulating business investment and activity, the economists are mixed on the best approach. Thorpe supports a further reduction in the company tax rate for small businesses, currently at 26 per cent. We need to shift from taxing people and business to taxing consumption, he says. However boosting overall consumer confidence is the crucial missing ingredient to getting business to invest, he adds: Incentives are good and necessary at the margin, but confidence that the market will be there is the key. As for Stewart: Id prefer a general tax cut for business to 25 per cent. Miranda Stewart: proposed a 25 per cent general tax cut for business. Credit:Vince Caligiuri Wood says the current instant asset write-off scheme for business could be extended or eligibility broadened for accelerated depreciation. But she too adds that confidence is key: Priority needs to be boosting demand ... certainly these are much bigger barriers to investment than tax in the current environment. Eslake proposes a cut in company tax for all new businesses to say, 15 per cent for the first five years. This would be far more effective in creating jobs and innovation than tax cuts targeted at small businesses, he says. Richardson agrees the tax burden on business needs to fall, but says this can be achieved through a business investment allowance rather than a cut to the headline corporate rate. Foster is against cutting company tax: Thirty per cent compares favourably with the corporate tax rates in many other countries. Plus large companies will spend resources to find ways to evade tax, meaning fiddling at the margin is unlikely to make a meaningful impact. Foster's bold idea is for a HECS-style loans scheme for small businesses to encourage risk-taking and investment. Such loans could be repaid once revenues hit a threshold: Such a scheme would take the downside risk burden onto the shoulders of government, and thereby reduce the negative impact of the uncertainty of the present environment on business appetite for investment. If the economists agree on one main thing, its the need for the government to step in and step in big to support the economy with extra spending. Says Foster: Lets not worry too much about the debt levels per se. Lets worry instead about getting the expenditure programs right to transition Australia back into full employment and a healthy, productive private sector. We will continue to deal with Chinese PLA in firm, resolute manner: Army chief India's desire for peace is born out of strength, should not mistaken otherwise: Army Chief Naravane Won't let any attempt to change status quo along India's border to succeed: Army chief Army Chief Naravane and Foreign Secretary Shringla to travel to Myanmar today India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Oct 03: Chief of Army Staff General M M Naravane and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla will travel to Myanmar on a two-day visit beginning Sunday with an aim to further expand ties in a range of areas including connectivity, defence and security. Announcing the visit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said it will provide an opportunity to take stock of the existing bilateral ties and strengthen cooperation in areas of mutual interest. It will be Gen Naravane''s first visit to any foreign country after he took charge as the Chief of Army Staff on December 31 last year. The visit by Gen Naravane and Shringla assumes significance as it comes in the midst of the Indian Army''s bitter border standoff with the Chinese military in eastern Ladakh as well restrictions on foreign visits due to the coronavirus pandemic. Gen Naravane and Shringla are scheduled to meet top military and political brass of Myanmar including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Would have sacked Army chief had I not been informed about Kargil: Imran Khan Myanmar is one of India''s strategic neighbours and shares a 1,640-km-long border with a number of northeastern states including militancy-hit Nagaland and Manipur. "During their visit, the delegation will call on the State Counsellor of Myanmar, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing," the MEA said in a statement. The visit is taking place four days after the two countries carried out a detailed review of their ties in a wide range of areas at a virtual meeting held under the framework of India-Myanmar foreign office consultations. In the meeting, Shringla said India and Myanmar are working towards operationalising the Sittwe Port by the first quarter of next year and that the tendering process for 69 bridges proposed under the ambitious India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway will begin soon. Sittwe Port is part of the Kaladan multi-modal transit transport project which is being viewed as India''s gateway to Southeast Asia. The port will connect India's landlocked northeastern region with the Bay of Bengal through Mizoram. In his remarks, Shringla also said that Myanmar's handing over of 22 Indian insurgents has been deeply appreciated by India and sends a strong message of "deterrence to inimical elements on both sides." People familiar with the scheduled visit by two top officials to Myanmar said deepening bilateral defence and security cooperation and enhancing connectivity will be two priority areas. In its statement, the MEA said India attaches high priority to its relationship with Myanmar in accordance with its "Neighbourhood First'' and ''Act East'' policies. "In recent times, both sides have strengthened their cooperation in several areas, including connectivity and trade, development projects, energy, capacity building, defence and security and culture and people to people links," the MEA said. India has been concerned over some militant groups from the North-East region taking shelter in Myanmar. The country has been assuring India that it would not allow any insurgent group to use its territory against India. In June, 2015 the Indian Army had carried out an operation in areas near the Indo-Myanmar against the NSCN (K) militants, days after the ultras had killed 18 Army men in Manipur. The two countries have significantly ramped up defence and security cooperation in the last few years including in the maritime security sphere. India has been assisting Myanmar in developing border areas under an agreement inked in 2012 that provided for granting USD 5 million each year over a period of five years. This MoU has already been extended till 2022. India''s development cooperation in Myanmar is estimated at USD 1.4 billion. The two countries are also expanding partnership in the area of energy cooperation. With investments of over USD 1.2 billion, Myanmar has the highest Indian investment in any country in South Asia, a source said. Recently, India approved an investment of over USD 120 million in the Shwe Oil and Gas project. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, October 3, 2020, 23:55 [IST] Angry over Google's "unfair practices", dozens of Indian Technology startups are looking for ways to challenge the US tech giant, including by lodging complaints with the government and courts, Reuters has reported. The news agency said entrepreneurs held two video conferences this week to discuss the matter. "It's definitely going to be a bitter fight," Reuters quoted Dinesh Agarwal, CEO of e-commerce firm IndiaMART. "Google will lose this battle. It's just a matter of time." According to the report, executives have discussed forming a new startup association aimed chiefly at lodging protests with the government and courts against the US tech giant. Some startups in the country say Google exerts excessive control over the types of apps and other services they can offer, since nearly 99 percent of the smartphones in India run on Googles Android mobile operating system. Also Watch | Business Insight: Why Google's new revenue-sharing policy is turning into a raging issue Google, however, denies the allegation. The development comes after Google removed the leading Indian payments app, Paytm, from its Play Store over alleged policy violations. Though the app returned to Play Store in a few hours, the move drew a sharp rebuke from founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Sharma called Google the Big daddy over a video call on September 29, according to an attendee cited by Reuters. If we together dont do anything, then history will not be kind to us. We have to control our digital destiny, the news agency quoted Sharma as saying. Earlier in the week, Google made matters worse by enforcing a 30 percent commission on in-app payments. Over two dozen executives slammed the decision over a call on October 2 and considered filing anti-trust complaints against Google. Sports technology firm Dream Sports, backed by US hedge fund Tiger Global, social media company ShareChat and digital payments firm PhonePe said to have participated in the call. A senior tech official told the news agency that the conflict is counterproductive to what Google has been doing. Its a reputation issue. Its in the interest of Google to resolve this issue, he said. Officials from both sides gathered at a recent meeting discussing the development of the 10-year cooperation strategy for 2021-2030 and the five-year cooperation agreement for 2021-2025 between the Vietnam-Laos Cooperation Committee and the Laos-Vietnam Cooperation Committee, which took place at Lao Bao - Densavan Border Gates between Vietnams central province of Quang Tri and Savannakhet Province, Laos, from September 29 to October 1. At the conference, the two sides discussed the Vietnam-Laos cooperation strategy for the 2021-2030 period and the five-year cooperation plan for the 2021-2025 period towards mutual agreement before submitting them to the governments of the two countries for consideration and passing at the upcoming Intergovernmental Committee Conference on bilateral cooperation between the Government of Vietnam and the Government of Laos, scheduled to take place at the end of 2020. The delegates also discussed the implementation of the 10-year cooperation strategy between the two countries for the 2011-2020 period and the five-year cooperation agreement for the 2016-2020 period. In an interview with Nhan Dan Newspaper correspondents in Laos on October 2, Lao Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment cum Vice Chairman of the Laos-Vietnam Cooperation Committee Khamphoi Keokinnaly affirmed that, through the conference, the two sides have gained better understanding on a number issues and agreed to continue to discuss some specific matters in the next meeting, in order to get the best results before submitting to the higher levels. The Lao official said that through the conference, many problems have been resolved. Both sides came to an agreement and are continuing to prepare documents for the next meeting. The results achieved through the conference are positive, serving well in the comprehensive cooperation between Laos and Vietnam, he said. Due to the complicated developments of the COVID-19 epidemic, the two sides strictly implemented measures to prevent and control the pandemic in accordance with the regulations of the two countries, choosing the national border gates of Lao Bao and Densavan as the location for the meeting. At the meeting, the two committees praised the results of the bilateral cooperation in recent years and planned to continue hold the next meetings and working sessions to adjust and complete the content of the cooperation documents ahead of the 43rd Intergovernmental Committee on bilateral cooperation between the Government of Vietnam and the Government of Laos. 1. AIIMS Report Reportedly Rules Out Theories Of Sushant Singh Rajput's Murder, Calls It A Suicide Sushant Singh Rajput / Agencies "Sushant death is a case of suicide. Murder completely ruled out," the doctor was quoted as saying by India Today. 2. 'Don't Think Of It As Privilege', Anushka Sharma Pens A Powerful Note For Parents On Raising Boys Twitter "The only privilege is that one has the opportunity to raise a boy in a way that he respects a girl. Thats your DUTY as a parent to society. So, dont think of it as a PRIVILEGE. 3. Sayani Gupta Calls Out Shah Rukh Khan For His Silence On Hathras And Balrampur Rape Cases Indiatimes She said this in the wake of the growing outrage over the Hathras and Balrampur rape cases. "Don't just shut your ears and eyes and mouths," she wrote and appealed him to speak up "for our Dalit brothers and sisters". 4. 11 Years Of 'Wake Up Sid': A Tribute To Sid and Aisha Who Taught Us Some Important Life Lessons Indiatimes The movie taught us so many life lessons - it taught us to enjoy simple things in life; it showed us that one shouldn't give in to parental pressure without discovering or chasing our dreams, and that it's never too late to follow your passion among other things. 5. Family Of Late Filmmaker SD Narang Faces Financial Crunch, Asha Parekh & Others Extend Help .gstatic.com After his death, it reportedly became difficult for the family to manage finances. While they would earlier live in a plush bungalow Juhu scheme, they were then forced to live in a small rented apartment in a nearby building. The Directorate-General for Security and Safety of the European Parliament (DG SAFE) are assisting MEP Luke Ming Flanagan with a police investigation into the unauthorised use of his Twitter account which took place from a location in Belgium. MEP Flanagan outlined that a parliamentary assistant of his, along with an appointed investigator from DG SAFE.met with the Belgian Police on Wednesday morning. The Roscommon native said, "I have now established that my Twitter account had been logged into on a third party app called Tweetcaster. This app allowed an individual to tweet from my account using an old password. "This app was used twice to access my Twitter account from Belgium on September 28. The same day that an unauthorised tweet was posted and then deleted from my account. "At the time the tweet was posted and then deleted I was in Ireland and have been since March of this year due to Covid 19 restrictions. "The police have been provided with the Belgian IP address associated with the use of my account on the Tweetcaster app on that day. "They are now working with me to establish the exact location and identity of the individual who has carried out this malicious act of vandalism on my good name." Hyderabad, Oct 3 : The daily Covid-19 count in Telangana dropped below 2,000 on Saturday while the recovery rate crossed 85 per cent. The state reported 1,718 new cases, taking the tally to 1,97,327. This is the first time in several weeks that the cases have dropped below 2,000 on weekdays. Every weekend the state reports less than 2,000 cases due to fewer tests. More recoveries were recorded than the new positive cases during the last 24 hours. As many as 2,002 recovered from the infection, taking the total number of recoveries so far to 1,67,846. The state's recovery rate improved to 85.05 per cent against the national average of 83.8 per cent. Eight more succumbed to the virus during the last 24 hours, pushing the death toll to 1,153. The fatality rate stands at 0.58 per cent against the national average of 1.6 per cent. Officials said the percentage of death due to Covid-19 was 44.96 while the remaining 55.04 had co-morbidities. The state now has 28,328 active cases including 23,224, who are in home/institutional isolation. Of the fresh cases, 285 were recorded in Greater Hyderabad. For the sixth day in a week, the daily count dropped to below 300 in the state capital. Rangareddy district recorded second highest number of cases at 129 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (115), Karimnagar (105), Nalgonda (103), Khammam (79), Siddipet (76) and Suryapet (60). During the last 24 hours, 49,084 tests were conducted. With this the cumulative numbers have gone up to 31,53,626. Seventeen government-run laboratories, 44 private laboratories and 1,076 Rapid Antigen test centres are conducting the tests. According to a media bulletin from the office of the director of public health and family welfare, out of 49,084 samples tested during the last 24 hours, 21,597 were primary and 5,890 were secondary. Samples tested per million population ratio improved further to 84,729. The daily testing target for the state is 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day. Out of 1,97,327 total positive cases so far, 70 per cent (1,38,129) were asymptomatic while the remaining 30 per cent (59,198) were symptomatic. The data also shows that 64.13 per cent of those tested positive are in the age group of 21-50 years while 22.76 are above 51 years of age. Those below 20 years are 13.13 per cent. Officials said 64.28 per cent of those tested positive were male while the remaining 38.72 per cent were female. Officials said only 25 per cent of the beds in government-run Covid hospitals are occupied. A total of 62 government hospitals have 8,868 beds, of which 6,703 are vacant. A total of 231 private hospitals treating Covid patients have 9,267 beds, of which 6,328 are vacant. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Movie Review: Ka Pae Ranasingam a gut wrenching social drama Ka Pae Ranasingam: Movie Review Rating: 3.5/5 Language: Tamil Cast: Vijay Sethupathi Aishwarya Rajesh Director: P. Virumaandi Producer: Kotapadi J. Rajesh Writers: P. Virumaandi, Shanmugam Muthusamy (Dialogues) Music: Ghibran Production Company: KJR Studios, Distributor: Zee Studios, Zee Plex, ZEE5 Cinematographer: N. K. Ekambaram Editor: T. Sivanadeeswaran When the final shot of the movie comes into focus and zooms out to cover the big screen, the declaration at the beginning of the film - that it is based on true events heartbreakingly swims into the mind. Kudos to the cinematographer N. K. Ekambaram. Ka Pae Ranasingam was released on 2 October 2020 on Zee Plex a new pay per view platform and also released in cinemas as well as a few drive-in theatres with the lead actors tweeting about it. If you have any doubts on how to watch our movie #KaPaeRanasingam, please tweet your doubt with hashtag #HowToWatchRanasingam @ZeeplexOfficial & WE will try & answer your questions asap. Thank you for encouraging & supporting us in this new attempt!https://t.co/UKuy1teUvU pic.twitter.com/aYnZjDUJn6 VijaySethupathi (@VijaySethuOffl) October 1, 2020 Ka/Pae Ranasingam FIRST SHOW begins at 12 noon tomorrow Bookings open on all DTH platforms There will be one show every three hours. You can book & watch during your convenient time! https://t.co/4VQMPrRjnj ZEE5 bookings will open at 10 AM tomorrow! Book your tickets pic.twitter.com/J0sFEZfb0e aishwarya rajessh (@aishu_dil) October 1, 2020 This female-centric movie is totally owned by the brilliant Aishwarya Rajesh as was intended when it began production on a shoestring budget. If it was casting Vijay Sethupathi that increased not only the scale but also the length of the film, I do hope that it pays returns in more people watching it due to the actors huge fan following. Ka Pae Ranasingam is short form for Kanavan Peyar Ranasingam or husbands name Ranasingam - which is often the identity of a woman. It is therefore another charming point that Vijay Sethupathis Ranasingam makes by tattooing his Manayvee Peyar or wifes name on his hand. Ka Pae Ranasingam is short form for Kanavan Peyar Ranasingam or husbands name Ranasingam. Photo Courtesy: Zee Studios He makes the first point when he literally goes down on his knees to allow Aishwarya Rajeshs Ariyanachi to garland him at their wedding. This in reaction to a relative who advises him never to bend his head before his wife in deference to her. The well-read, strong-willed and broad-minded Ranasingam is a ground-water detector, leader, activist and do-gooder who is widely liked by all in his village of Ramanathapuram, which was where the film was shot for around 45 days. The sharp-witted Ariyanaachi falls for him despite herself, with their light-hearted verbal duels in a delightful Tamil dialect turning into their courtship. Ranasingam and Ariyanachi marry in a secretive midnight wedding ceremony which takes place minus any pomp, noise or even photographs. Photo Courtesy: Zee Studios Section 144 is levied on their village, unfairly so, and resistance leader Ranasingam suggests a secret midnight wedding ceremony which takes place minus any pomp, noise or even photographs. The repercussions of this, the bureaucratic mire that is our system, the haplessness of the poor snared in red-tapism, the legal pathway full of potholes that havent been filled in decades and one womans lonely fight against this relentless tide is what the rest of the movie is about. And there is no ray of hope, leave alone answers, anywhere in the farthest horizon. Were excited to bring you one of the most anticipated #Tamil film of the year, #KaPaeRanasingam. Releasing in 5 Indian languages & in over 150 countries, the film will be premiering directly in your home!@ZeeStudiosInt #PremiumVideoOnDemand #StaySafe #StayEntertained pic.twitter.com/UNwHVmSiIO Zee Studios Int'l (@ZeeStudiosInt) September 14, 2020 Ration card doesnt apply outside the state, and no one knows what Aadhaar card is useful for, an officer states matter of factly. This as well as several other home truths that are brought to the fore - some sharp feminist ones at that - makes me want to laud the dialogue writer. The film is very long, with seating time inside the theater coming close to three and a half hours in these times when cinemas are just opening post the pandemic. Editor T. Sivanadeeswaran should be pulled up for this. Some unbelievable fight scenes and even the songs (one of them is quite good) could have been cut to shorten the duration - they actually do no favour to Vijay Sethupathis image. In earlier decades Ka Pae Ranasingam would have been classified as an art film due to the raw, believable and almost real-time slowness in scenes. Supporting actors, an amenable baby who is toted by all and sundry on a journey from Ramanathapuram to Chennai to Delhi and even a Prime Minister Modi look-alike are well cast. There are some incongruencies, especially the one showing the Sardar Sarovar dam of Gujarat in Delhi, but those can be forgiven. What could have been just a statistic or a report in a remote corner of a local newspaper has been made personal and brought home to the viewer through this movie. Imagining 28,000 such stories is gut-wrenching. Statistics quoted that every four years close to 28,000 families become bereft, due to industrial accidents in the Middle East alone. How many of them get closure is a question left unanswered. A Perth couple who faced the death penalty after Iranian authorities charged them with espionage have spoken out about their three-month ordeal in a Tehran prison. Australian, Mark Firkin, and British-Australian Jolie King, had been travelling around the world in their LandCruiser and vlogging their adventures when they were arrested at gunpoint in July 2019 for flying a drone while camping at a military precinct. Perth couple Mark Firkin and Jolie King speak out on their three-month ordeal facing the death penalty inside an Iranian prison. They were held in the notorious Evin Prison used to house Iran's political prisoners for almost three months. Mr Firkin said the couple were woken at midnight by police who didn't speak English and didn't understand when they tried to explain they were merely tourists. Q&A turns its attention to the Federal Budget. Next weeks budget will be unlike any other. Our gross debt has now soared past a record-breaking $800 billion, and somehow the Government must support the economy and plan a recovery amidst a pandemic still throwing up unknowns. Its one of the most important budgets in our history, similar to finding a way out of war and back to peace time. So how will the Government meet the challenge? How long will financial support remain in place? What is the plan to get Australia working again? Naomi Simson, Founder, RedBalloon Jane Hume, Assistant Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation Jim Chalmers, Shadow Treasurer Jane Halton, Health expert and former head of Australias Finance Department Nicki Hutley, Economist, Deloitte Access Economics 9.35pm AEDT Monday October 3 on ABC SANTIAGO Security forces in Chiles capital, Santiago, were accused of misconduct Friday after a video emerged showing a teenage boy falling from a bridge into a river during clashes with the police. Video of the fall into the shallow river went viral in the country, which almost exactly a year ago was rocked by huge protests that left 31 dead along with thousands injured and jailed, and extensively damaged subway stations and buildings. The countrys childrens ombudsman said on Twitter late on Friday that it was planning to file a complaint of attempted homicide over the video, which it said showed police officers throwing the teenager into the bed of the Mapocho river. The teenager was admitted to a care center. Prosecutors say they plan to investigate the matter. In a video the police released on Twitter on Saturday, Lieut. Col. Rodrigo Soto denied that officers had held the boy by his feet or that he had been propelled into the river by a police water cannon as witnesses on social media have invented. Vijja (39), a resident of Mankeli in Bijapur district, was a DVC member and in-charge of Gangaloor area committee of CPI (Maoist). Bhopal: A senior Maoist leader was shot dead in a fratricidal killing in Chhattisgarhs south Bastar district of Bijapur, intelligence wing of Chhattisgarh police reported on Friday. This was the first of its kind development in the three-decade-long history of Leftwing extremism in Bastar division, comprising districts of Kanker, Kondagaon, Bijapur, Sukma, Dantewada, Narayanpur and Bastar, a senior police officer posted in Bastar told this newspaper. "DVC member of the Gangaloor area committee of CPI (Maoist) Vijja Modiyam alias Badru was killed by some Naxal cadres in Chitawar jungle in Bijapur district on Thursday. The killing followed a rift between the slain Maoist and Gangaloor area committee secretary Dinesh Modiyam over the recent murders of civilians in Bijapur district by Naxals," the intelligence reports accessed by this newspaper read. According to the reports, Maoists later handed over the slain rebels body to his family. His last rights were performed in his village of Mankeli in the district. "This is a very important development in the background of recent killings of civilians in the south Bastar region. We are compiling more details on the incident," Bastar range inspector general of police P Sunderraj told this newspaper on Friday. Ten civilians were killed by Maoists in Bijapur district in the last one month after accusing them of spying for police. Vijja (39), a resident of Mankeli in Bijapur district, was a DVC member and in-charge of Gangaloor area committee of CPI (Maoist). Gangaloor area committee is one of the most active formations of Maoists in south Bastar. He carried a reward of Rs 8 lakh on his head. As many as 18 cases of murder, attack on security personnel and extortions were pending against him in different police stations in Bastar region. John was having some trouble in class. The seventh-grader had been diagnosed with ADHD and a language disorder that makes processing verbal and nonverbal cues a challenge. Despite extra support he received through his Individualized Education Plan for students with disabilities, John often felt overwhelmed by the chaos of his middle school classroom. "He just gets distracted," said his mother, Alex, who spoke on the condition that her last name be withheld to protect her son's privacy. "That's his biggest issue." And then, suddenly, John was no longer in class. Like millions of other American schoolchildren, he was pushed into remote learning from home when the coronavirus pandemic hit this spring. But something surprising happened. John did better learning remotely than he had in person, the opposite of the experience of most students. He even received a certificate from his school, in a suburb of Boston, for excellence in remote learning, something given to only a handful of students. "He misses friends, obviously, but at the same time, I can tell that there was a huge change in his stress levels, and he was able to concentrate on his schoolwork," said Alex. "He enjoyed learning again. Before, school was kind of tedious for him." Remote learning has been a struggle for teachers and is expected to set back the learning gains of a generation of students. It has been particularly hard on children of color, kids from families who are financially insecure, and those without access to computers and technology at home. But a small number of students have done unexpectedly well. In some cases, those students struggled with distractions in the classroom during in-person learning. In others, they had social challenges at school: They were anxious, easily drawn into conflicts with other students, or embarrassed to engage in front of their peers. "The challenge of in-classroom [learning] can be the social interaction. And for some kids, that's actually really hard," said Lynette Guastaferro, chief executive officer of Teaching Matters, a nonprofit that focuses on increasing teacher effectiveness. Some educators are wondering how the experiences of kids who have done better during remote learning can be applied to improve in-person learning in the future. Takeaways might include having more social and emotional check-ins with students, increased inclusion of students with disabilities in general education class activities, wider use of technology, and accommodating unconventional techniques that individual students have found helpful. "I know it's a pandemic. I know it's hellacious out there, I know it's hard. I'm not saying it's not all those things," said Lauren Katzman, executive director of the Urban Collaborative, a national network of more than 100 school districts focused on improving outcomes for students with disabilities. "I am saying there are opportunities that we're not thinking about clearly, and I want us to." For John, the freedom to work at his own pace and manage his own time, along with a few incentives, played key roles in his success. When Alex allowed him to play video games on weekdays (not allowed before the pandemic), he started to get more involved in planning his schoolwork for the week, and frontloaded assignments so that he could take off Fridays, and sometimes even part of the day on Thursdays. "He just kind of did that on his own, and saw the value of not procrastinating, like he normally would," said Alex. Listening to music while he did his schoolwork was also important. "He often said, 'I wish I could do this in school; I bet I could do so much better, and I could concentrate better,' " said Alex. Allowing students such as John to listen to music in a classroom is a simple accommodation a school could make in order for a student to learn better, according to Katzman. "It doesn't cost anybody any money," she said. "You don't need any expertise in how to manage that. It's a simple thing." She and other experts say some special education students, in particular, could benefit from schools taking lessons from distance learning back into the classroom. For years, special education advocates have pushed to integrate more students with disabilities into general learning classrooms. Not all school districts have embraced this objective. But with remote learning, some schools have made an effort to hold general education activities that include kids with disabilities to build a sense of community, Katzman said. For example, a student with a disability might be included in a Zoom morning circle with general education kids, when in the past they would have spent that time in a special ed class with a smaller group. "In some of my conversations with some district leaders across the country, they feel like it's gotten better for some kids because there's more inclusive practices, and they don't want to go back," said Katzman. For some kids, online learning has also removed the social barriers that kept them from excelling. Michael Allara, who teaches physics and chemistry at Fern Creek High School in Louisville, has seen this aspect of remote learning in action. Last school year, one of his students hesitated to ask questions in class; Allara surmised she was afraid of looking foolish in front of her peers. She was struggling so much with the material that she was at risk of failing the course, a requisite for graduation. That changed during remote learning. When she could interact with Allara remotely, the student became much more engaged. She emailed and texted him with questions, and they spoke on the phone. She passed the class, and graduated from high school in May. "These students online were much more willing to speak their voice," said Allara. Sarah Ott, executive director of special education for the San Diego Unified School District, has noticed a similar trend among students who were very shy or anxious during in-person learning. Online these kids were able to ask questions of their teachers privately or enter digital "breakout rooms" with staff, in which they could get one-on-one instruction apart from other students. "Kids with anxiety, some of them didn't come to school, and then they just didn't learn," said Ott, who now envisions a future with more options for those students. Dalton McKittrick, 12, has benefited from some of the technology of remote learning. He has low vision and is learning Braille. He also uses bilateral cochlear implants to hear and struggles to separate speech from the background noise of a busy classroom. Like John, he has an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP. Dalton said that it's been helpful to see his teachers directly in front of him on a computer screen during remote learning instead of across the room during in-person learning. On Google Meets in the spring, he attended digital breakout rooms with other students, separate from the "main room," which could be noisy. Additional breaks throughout the day, which allow him to step away from his computer for a few minutes, have also been welcome. He said teachers have scheduled social check-ins with him more often than they did during in-person learning, and seem more invested in his emotional well-being. "It kind of felt good just having your teachers care for you more, because they don't want you to get sick, and they want you to get good grades and all that," said Dalton. Guastaferro, of Teaching Matters, has seen how important small group check-ins with students can be. One teacher she works with started a "mood meter" with her third-grade students during remote learning. Kids could identify how they were feeling by picking from an array of faces that ranged in expression from excited and happy to neutral or sad and discuss their choice with their teacher. Having conversations about how students were feeling allowed the teacher to connect with them on a deeper level, and prompted those students to be more engaged during lessons. For many educators, the forced pivot to remote learning has resulted in considering new ways districts can more closely tailor education to meet individual students' needs once the pandemic is over. "What we learned from being online is that we, as the public school system, could also offer flexible options," said Ott of the San Diego school district. "Kids don't have to be in a seat to learn. . . . We can offer different options for kids, and not just go back to this one track that we were in." - - - This report is a product of The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. New Delhi: Pakistan has been rocked by slogans in support of Yazid. The Muslim ulamas protested after the incident in India. They have expressed great displeasure and lodged strong objections against shouting slogans in support of The Yazid. The Muslim religious leaders protested and traveled from the three-idol building to the Pakistani embassy, though the police administration prevented them from proceeding. Ulemas says that the slogans of Yazid Zindabad are being raised in Pak. The people who are performing said that they demand the government of India to close the Pakistani embassy in Delhi, as everyone who supports the people is a terrorist. It cannot be a Muslim who obeys the yazid. According to Muslim religious leaders, Yazid had attacked Kaaba, murdered Imam Hussain and committed several offences. He was wicked and vicious and used to do non-Islamic work under his rule. The Maoists have said that shouting slogans in support of Pakistan is tarnishing the image of Muslim society. According to the Shia Muslim cleric Kalbe Jawad, who is involved in the demonstration, all the terrorists who are all over the world are going to obey all the people, and the slogan of ' Yazi Zindabad ' proves that the Government of Pakistan is encouraging terrorism. This Pakistani government should be declared a terrorist regime internationally. Also Read: Hearing in Kashi Vishwanath case to be held on October 6 Birthday Special: Soha Ali Khan has won hearts in Bengali films also, know some unheard tales Kangana is telling her truth and it shouldnt be trivialised: Prasoon Joshi Karnataka: Police cite investigation on the death of Navy captain A 27-year-old Australian makeup artist with nine years of industry experience has launched a beauty business selling two scented sprays and a base towel to clean makeup brushes in one minute or less. Karla Roccuzzo, from Melbourne, launched her brand With Karla last week on Thursday September 24 and the $56.95 bundle package containing both products sold out in less than 72 hours. The business aims to educate customers on why cleaning makeup brushes is essential to minimise breakouts and avoid damaging the skin, while providing the perfect solution. 'Bacteria thrives off living in residue from old creams and liquids like foundation so cleaning your brushes after every use is so important to make sure the skin isn't damaged,' Karla told FEMAIL. To use the products, customers simply spray the perfume-like Brush Defence over the brush and rub onto the Base Towel for one minute to remove all traces of old makeup and kill 99.9 per cent of bacteria. This new way to clean makeup brushes is the first of its kind in Australia and Karla said selling out in such a short amount of time was 'crazy' and 'surreal'. Scroll down for video A 27-year-old Australian makeup artist (pictured) with nine years of industry experience has launched a beauty business selling two scented sprays and a base towel to clean makeup brushes in only one minute Karla Roccuzzo , from Melbourne, launched her brand With Karla last week on Thursday September 24 and the $56.95 bundle package containing both products sold out in less than 72 hours Karla has always had a passion for makeup and beauty, and the business idea originally sparked five years ago in 2015 when she was working in retail makeup. 'I couldn't quite work out why brush cleaning was always pushed to the side and not spoken about, so I began formulating my own products,' she said. 'I started to add oils into the formula because I thought scents like lavender would be quite calming and also soften the brush heads. 'Because I was using the formula every day, I've been able to keep my brushes for nine years,' she said. Karla said a single makeup brush should last a minimum of five years, but she's previously worked with clients who were buying makeup brushes every few months and always experienced breakouts. To use the products, customers simply spray the perfume-like Brush Defence over the brush and rub into the Base Towel for one minute to remove all traces of old makeup and kill 99.9 per cent of bacteria It wasn't until mid-2019 that Karla started officially designing the With Karla products and brand. 'I wanted to take my time with how the products worked, looked and smelt,' she said. The $37.95 Brush Defence 100mL bottle is made from glass and is the perfect shape and size that fits comfortably in the hand. There are two scents available, lavender and strawberries and cream, but both do the same job. The products are made with oil to not only provide a lovely scent but to also soften the brush head and maintain its condition. Compared to washing the brushes with shampoo or soap, which can damage the brush and take longer for it to dry, the Brush Defence spray works instantly. The reusable Base Towel with Benefits is priced at $19.95 and is made with delicate fibres to provide a thorough clean. It wasn't until mid-2019 that Karla started officially designing the With Karla products Compared to washing the brushes with shampoo or soap, which can damage the brush and take longer for it to dry, the Brush Defence spray works instantly WHY CLEANING YOUR MAKEUP BRUSHES IS SO IMPORTANT Bacteria growth - bacteria can grow inside the brushes if residue from makeup and foundation remains on the brushes for long periods of time Spotty application - using a dirty makeup brush can create an uneven or spotty application on the skin Damages brushes - build-up on your makeup brushes can cause the fibres to break and the bristles to weaken, making it even harder to apply your makeup properly Skin irritation - the eventual damage caused to your brushes can start to harden the bristles and change their form, which can cause skin irritation Breakouts and clogged pores - dirty makeup tools introduce bacteria into your products and onto the skin, which can cause breakouts to occur Infection - in addition to breakout-causing germs, your brushes can pick up some dangerous bacteria like E.coli as well as various fungi Wasted money - if the brushes aren't cared for properly, this means the user will need to spend more money buying new brushes more frequently Makeup brushes should be cleaned after every use or at least once a week Source: thehealthy.com Advertisement Karla said more than anything she primarily wants to help educate others on how to clean makeup brushes and why this is should be an essential step in your makeup routine. 'The products aim to protect your skin health, extend the life of your brushes and save you money on expensive skincare products to minimise breakouts,' she said. 'It's also ideal for those who don't know how to clean makeup brushes properly or have never cleaned the brushes before.' Karla said more than anything she primarily wants to help educate others on how to clean makeup brushes and why this is should be an essential step in your makeup routine Customers who have already purchased the products have praised the brand on social media and sent Karla before and after image Customers who have already purchased both products have praised the brand on social media and sent Karla before and after images of their makeup brushes. 'I'm so in love with this product! Tell me will you restock? I want to gift it for Xmas to all my besties,' one woman said. When asked what other beauty tips she would recommend to customers, Karla said to always focus on skincare when experiencing breakouts and consider how you're cleaning your makeup brushes. 'Taking care of your skin is the most important part because your makeup is only going to look as good as your skin feels,' she said. 'It's not about covering up the problem if pimples or acne occur, but instead getting to the source of it.' Karla said the makeup tools will perform better if they are clean and if the skin is free from clogged pores and breakouts. Customers can purchase the With Karla beauty products from the business website and the bundle packages will be restocked. Atal tunnel will give new strength to India's border infrastructure: PM Modi India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P New Delhi, Oct 03: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the much awaited Atal Tunnel, which will cut down the distance between Leh and Manali by 46km and the travel time by four to five hours, in Himachal Pradesh's Rohtang. Atal Tunnel, named after former prime minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee, reduces the road distance by 46km between Manali and Leh and the travel time by about four to five hours. The tunnel has been built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 metres from the mean sea level. "Atal tunnel will give new strength to India's border infrastructure. It is an example of world-class border connectivity. There have been demands to improve border infrastructure but for a long time, such projects either couldn't get out of planning stage or got stuck midway," PM Modi said. Earlier, speaking to reporters, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jairam Thakur said, "We have made all preparations and we are waiting for the Prime Minister. It's a moment of joy for the people of Himachal Pradesh. This is a historical moment." Rajnath reaches Himachal to review Atal Tunnel's inaugural program Smriti Irani calls Rahul Gandhi's Hathras visit politics | OneIndia News "The tunnel holds great significance in the light of the situation with neighbouring countries and added that it is not only significant from a national security point of view but also be very helpful for the commute of the people," Thakur added. "Around 200 people will be present at the event. Prime Minister is sending out a message that how close Himachal is to his heart. He is appearing physically for a development project. We wanted a huge inauguration event. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only a small event is being organised. The tunnel will also send a strong message for a border security point of view," he added. On Friday, defence minister Rajnath Singh visited the Atal Tunnel along with Thakur and reviewed the preparations for the inaugural function of Atal Tunnel. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-02 23:29:22|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close People walk out of a duty-free store in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, Aug. 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng) BEIJING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- China's southern island province of Hainan recorded a surge in spending on duty-free shopping by visitors since the implementation of a new duty-free policy on July 1, according to the General Administration of Customs. Hainan recorded 8.61 billion yuan (about 1.26 billion U.S. dollars) of duty-free spending by visitors from July 1 to September 30, a surge of 227.5 percent year on year, the administration said. During the period, about 1.29 million tourists visited the island, up 62 percent year on year. Cosmetics, watches and jewelry were the most popular merchandise, accounting for 73.3 percent of the total sales revenue. Starting from July 1, Hainan has increased its annual tax-free shopping quota from 30,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan per person. The range of duty-free goods has expanded from 38 categories to 45, with some electronic products and wines newly added to the duty-free list. China released a master plan in early June on building Hainan into a globally influential free-trade port. The number of hacking attempts on South Korea's defense intelligence system has risen rapidly over the past five years, prompting the defense ministry to beef up efforts to fend off cyberattacks, officials said Saturday. The defense intelligence system refers to equipment and software that deal with national security-related information it is connected to both the military intranet and internet networks. A total of 8,700 hacking attempts on the system were detected as of end-August this year, with the figure for all of 2019 coming to 9,121, according to the data compiled by the defense ministry. The ministry detected 3,150 hacking attempts in 2016, which grew to 3,986 in 2017 and further to 5,444 in 2018, the data showed. A majority of the IP addresses used for the recent attacks were traced to China and the United States, but it is hard to detect where those attacks actually originated from as hackers often use proxy addresses, according to ministry officials. In 2016, classified military documents were stolen after the military's intranet was hacked, for which North Korea was believed to be responsible. "No sensitive military information has since been compromised. We've been working on the establishment of a multilayered protection system," a ministry official said. With a goal to better cope with growing cybersecurity threats, the defense ministry earmarked around 250 billion won (US$213.6 million) in 2018 for a five-year comprehensive plan to develop technology and train manpower for cyberwarfare. The ministry also plans to commission a research project on ways to better ensure the security and stability of the national defense intelligence system, according to the official. (Yonhap) Just a few weeks ago, Ronnie Long walked out of prison for the first time in 44 years. Now he waits for Gov. Roy Cooper to pardon him so he can receive the limited compensation offered by North Carolina and the security that comes with it after living decades of his life behind bars for a crime he didnt commit. Last week, we observed International Wrongful Conviction Day in North Carolina and across the world. Each year, hundreds of people like Long are exonerated for crimes they did not commit. North Carolina was once on the path toward becoming a world leader in redressing the causes of wrongful convictions. Today, we lag far behind. Long was released from prison after many years of litigation, despite evidence of his innocence surfacing over a decade ago. The state put up a fight that prevented that evidence from securing his release. It wasnt until the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower courts ruling in the case and the judges described the injustices including forensic evidence of innocence that was buried for decades that the state relinquished. 90 Day Fiance 's Tania and Syngin Argue About His Drinking in Happily Ever After Sneak Peek 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After's Tania and Syngin Argue About His Drinking 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After's Tania and Syngin Argue About His Drinking Things don't appear to be quite so Happily Ever After between 90 Day Fiance's Tania and Syngin. In PEOPLE's exclusive sneak peek at Sunday's episode, part two of the virtual tell-all reunion, the 30-year-old newlyweds get into an argument about Syngin's drinking. Joining the couple on video chat are Syngin's former roommates, Andrew and James, who called in from South Africa. On a prior trip to his home country, Syngin and Tania met up with his pals for drinks, and they all talked about their issues. While they didn't feel Syngin had a drinking problem, they did think the couple shouldn't be together. On the virtual call, the roommates both deny that Syngin has an issue with alcohol. "No, and I'll tell you three reasons," Andrew says in the clip, courtesy of TLC. "Syngin, are you working?" "Yes," says Syngin. "Do you have any employment issues because of your drinking?" Andrew asks. "No," says Syngin, before Tania interrupts to point out that he "just started" a recent position. Her comment launches the couple into an argument about his drinking, with Syngin attempting to defend himself. RELATED: The Sweetest 90 Day Fiance Family Photos TLC 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After?'s Tania and Syngin "He couldn't get a work permit because of his drinking!" Tania claims. "What the f--- are you talking about?" Syngin asks. "You couldn't get the work visa because of your drinking, because they called your last job," she says. "Because I got drunk at a bar two years ago? You make it sound crazy! I got drunk at a bar two years ago in South Africa and they called my..." he says, adding, "We are allowed to take shots ... and there was somebody being very rude." Story continues As Tania attempts to speak over him, Syngin presses three times: "Can I talk?" RELATED: 90 Day Fiance's Elizabeth and Andrei's 'Over-the-Top' Moldova Wedding Surprises Her Family On the most recent season of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After?, Syngin and Tania, who is from Connecticut, decided to move into a place of their own after living in her mom's shed. Along with the stress of moving came the need to pay rent. The pressure was on Syngin to get a job, as Tania was unable to work following her car accident. Meanwhile, Syngin was missing his friends and family back in South Africa, where his brother was sick. During a return trip home, Syngin and Tania constantly fought and questioned if their marriage would survive. 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? airs Sundays (8 p.m. ET) on TLC. The impromptu briefing angered Democrats. Mr. Ratcliffe had promised to brief on the sources, but some congressional officials were surprised by the hasty meeting. They suggested that the scheduling reflected the need to brief Mr. Graham before congressional testimony by the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey on Wednesday. Democrats called the releases one of the starkest examples of politicization of the intelligence agencies under Mr. Trump. While Mr. Ratcliffe a former congressman from Texas with little intelligence experience promised during his Senate confirmation hearing to be nonpartisan, since taking the job he has highlighted Chinese election interference over what career officials say is a greater threat from Russia and made other declassifications similarly beneficial to the president. Ratcliffe is abusing his position exactly as I feared he would, and the abuse is accelerating as we near the election, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said in a statement. The letter on Tuesday was the first time Mr. Ratcliffe had released material dismissed by other officials as unverified rumor. He initially embraced that assessment, saying that the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication. The intelligence agencies have stopped short of definitively assessing the material as disinformation. But in a statement hours after the release of the letter, Mr. Ratcliffe appeared to caveat his own warning. To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the intelligence community, he said. Ill be briefing Congress on the sensitive sources and methods by which it was obtained in the coming days. The snippets of information that he released included an intelligence report sent to Mr. Comey on Sept. 7, 2016, and handwritten notes by the C.I.A. director at the time, John O. Brennan, that said he had briefed President Barack Obama on the information. MBABANE This is a crisis! The above phrase best describes the present scenario that saw Liquor City Director Sotiris Lazarou taking a decision to close down his five local liquor-supplying outlets due to the continuation of the ban on alcohol sales by government. The director indicated that he was losing approximately E81 000 per month due to rental fees accumulated over the past seven months since the start of the partial lockdown measures effected by government. As it is, about 32 employees will lose jobs due to the closing down of the business. In total, E567 000 has been paid as rental fees during the period of the ongoing ban on the manufacturing, sale and distribution of alcohol in the country. Losing I have five local outlets. Three of these are in Manzini (one next to Fitness Zone, another next to Khuba Traders and the other next to Shambrock). There is one in Matsapha situated at the Big Tree Complex and one in Mbabane located at Carters Mall. Since this lockdown started, I have been losing money on rentals, hence my decision to close down the business. I am getting nothing, so if a business doesnt make money, what is the use of continuing and being operational when running at a loss, lamented the director. Asked if there were possibilities of reopening the shops once the ban was lifted, Lazarou said it would be a difficult task, considering that funds were limited. He said if government acted swiftly and saved the liquor industry by allowing them to be operational again, he would have to make his calculations on the number of shops he would reopen, considering his state of financial affairs. Impacted He said the ban had impacted immensely on his business and employees. Its a fact; every business involved in the sale of alcohol in the country is broke and contemplating closing down as we speak. This is an inevitable scenario to everyone, hence I decided to close my business and see how the atmosphere unfolds. Even if government can open the industry, I will have to open a few; and it is a really difficult situation, he said. Intervene Giving his opinion, an economist, Thembinkosi Dube, said government should intervene to circumvent the closing down of more businesses in the alcohol industry if its vision was to turn around the socio-economic status of the country. Its a complicated issue as the effects of COVID-19 are felt harshly now, more especially by such businesses. Its unfortunate that more people will lose jobs and the economic slump, due to less tax collection, will continue. Cushion There is a need for government to regulate the rental fees as well, especially in this era of the pandemic to cushion the financial status of businesses as paying rent yet nothing is coming in, is termed as operating at a loss, he quipped. Meanwhile, Thamsanqa Hlatshwako, the Secretary General of the Swaziland National Liquor Association, said there were more businesses in the industry that will be closing shop due to the present ban on alcohol sales. Hlatshwako said even if government could relax the ban, a majority of them will not be reopening due to financial constraints. He said the effect of the ban was massive. To fuel the matter, government has resorted not to compensate the businesses in this industry. How do you expect us to pay rent, staff and tax if nothing is generated? Hurting This is governments doing and it is hurting to note that those who were employed in the industry will fail to provide for their families, hence an increase in crime is inevitable, Hlatshwako said. He also noted the complacency of government in controlling the sale of alcohol in the black market. He said it would take 10 years to revive the industry considering that more businesses would be closed. The most to be affected are the Swazis (emaSwati) who dont own premises but are renting. Those who will survive are those who opted for the black market as they continue to strive, elaborated Hlatshwako. RICHMOND A week after his own positive test for COVID-19, Gov. Ralph Northam says he feels fine and has no symptoms. On Friday, the governor was among many Virginia state officials wishing President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump well after hearing they had tested positive, and urging Virginians to take the coronavirus seriously. Northam, Virginia first lady Pam Northam and four legislators are among the thousands of Virginians who have tested positive for COVID-19 this year. In May, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., announced that he and his wife, former Virginia first lady Anne Holton, had tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus. Northam tweeted a photo of himself speaking on his cellphone and noted that he has been working with legislators to finalize the states amended budget. The Senate formally backed its own spending plan on Friday, setting up negotiations with the House. Northam said in the tweet: A week after our positive test results, I have no symptoms and feel fine @FirstLadyVA has mild symptoms, but is feeling better each day. We are grateful for your ongoing prayers and support. Virginians, lets stay vigilant and follow the guidelines to keep our communities safe. Trump held a rally Sept. 25 at Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport, hours after Northam announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 likely due to exposure to a sick staffer at the Executive Mansion. Trump does not appear to have come into close contact with Virginia figures who attended the rally, including Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, who is challenging Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th. Freitas addressed the crowd before the president arrived and never came within 50 feet of Trump, according to his campaign. The Virginia Department of Health reported Friday that the statewide total for COVID-19 cases is 149,687, an increase of 966 from the 148,721 reported Thursday. There are 3,250 COVID-19 deaths in Virginia 3,037 confirmed and 213 probable. Thats up 22 from the 3,228 reported Thursday. Also Friday, the health department appealed to college students across Virginia for help stopping community spread on campuses. It urged students: If you are sick with COVID-19, please stay home and reach out to those you have had close contact with. Let them know you are sick. Kaine said in a statement Friday: I wish the President and First Lady a speedy recovery. Having had COVID-19, let me stress: all need to take this seriously. Please follow CDC guidelines of mask wearing, hand washing, and social distancing. Northam said in a tweet earlier Friday: Pam and I are sending our best wishes to the President and First Lady, and to the more than 46,000 Americans and 450 Virginians also diagnosed with #COVID19 yesterday. This virus is very real and very serious. Lets continue to take care of each other by doing the right things. Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, who is preparing a run for governor, tweeted: Both the Governor and the President recently tested positive for COVID-19. Julie and I, of course, offer our prayers to both families and wish them nothing but a speedy recovery. On Twitter Rep. Elaine Luria, D-2nd, called out people who joked about the presidents test result. I have seen some people making light (or worse!) of the Presidents diagnosis. Stop. The health of the President is a National Security issue and all Americans should wish for a speedy recovery. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., tweeted: Wishing the President and the First Lady a speedy recovery from COVID-19. This is another reminder to us all to take this virus seriously. GOP U.S. Senate nominee Daniel Gade tweeted: Our familys thoughts and prayers are with the President and First Lady and all other Americans afflicted with this terrible disease. Richmond Times-Dispatch staff writer Mel Leonor contributed to this story. A move to introduce cashless poker machines across NSW has been welcomed by anti-gambling advocates, despite concerns that gamblers using a pre-loaded card could lose the sense they were forking out "real" money. The state government is proposing reforms that would require poker machine gamblers to register and pre-load money to a government-issued card, which would operate in a similar way to the cashless Opal cards for the public transport network. The Berejiklian government will introduce a gambling card for poker machines. Credit:Virginia Star The card would be linked to the state's exclusion register to prevent it from being used by thousands of self-excluded gamblers. The state's clubs were surprised by the proposal on Saturday. However, the Alliance for Gambling Reform's chief advocate, Tim Costello, said the scheme indicated the NSW government "seems to have finally recognised the immense damage poker machines do in the state". Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 20:46:36|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TBILISI, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Georgia on Saturday decided to suspend the issuance of permits for transiting military cargo through its territory to Armenia and Azerbaijan due to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts. According to a statement released by the National Security Council of Georgia on Saturday, the transition of military cargo through the country to Armenia and Azerbaijan, both by land and air, has been temporarily suspended by the Georgian side. However, civilian cargo can still transit through Georgia as usual, including to Azerbaijan and Armenia, the statement said. It also called on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group Co-Chairs and international community to take all necessary measures to stop the violence and resume dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Grigol Liluashvili, head of the State Security Service, denied that some Syrian militants were moving from Turkey to Azerbaijan via Georgia, according to local media. A new round of clashes broke out on Sept. 27 in the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988. Peace talks have been held since 1994, when a ceasefire was reached, but there have been occasional minor clashes along the borders. Enditem Bray-based artist Tony Gunning is celebrating a river that has been in his blood since birth in his latest exhibition. 'Liffey Portraits: From Source to Sea' is open now and will remain on show until October 11 at Signal Arts Centre. During his life, Tony has lived in Wicklow, Kildare and Dublin - the three counties the Liffey passes through on its 80-mile journey to the sea. He has lived in close proximity to the river's flowing waters and also spent 25 years working in an office overlooking it. The locations portrayed in the exhibition reflect Tony's personal connection with the river but will resonate with anyone who has come in contact with it. Tony has been a professional artist for 25 years with 14 solo shows to his credit. He has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin and the Royal Ulster Academy in Belfast, amongst others. He won the curators award at EV+A in 2007 and won the Bank of Ireland Emerging Artist Award in the same year. His work is in many public and private collections including the Waterford Municipal Collection and the Bank of Ireland Collection. Signal Arts Centre is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch) and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Benny Mawel (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura Sat, October 3, 2020 17:43 476 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48ead5f 1 National ShootingIncidents,shooting,Papua,shooting-incident,Papua-Police,riot,CPNS,Keerom Free Three men from Waris district in Keerom regency, Papua, have reportedly been shot with rubber bullets as police attempted to disperse a mass gathering protesting civil servant (CPNS) recruitment results on Thursday. One of the protesters, Karel Maunda, claimed the police had not fired warning shots. We are disappointed because the police directly fired [into the crowd] and hit three Papuans, he told The Jakarta Post on Friday. Papua Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Ahmad Mustafa Kamal confirmed that Obet Swo, Robert May and Alan Swo had been hit with rubber bullets fired by police who were trying to disperse the crowd. He added that the protestors had damaged the Keerom regents office and set the Keerom Manpower Agency building on fire. Obet and Robert are currently being treated at Bhayangkara Hospital in Jayapura while Alan is being held at the Keerom Police headquarters. Read also: Papuans doubtful over govt team to probe shootings The police have named three out of four detainees suspects for alleged destruction of property and arson, Ahmad said without elaborating on their identities. Around 250 people protested the results of a 2018 selection test for civil servant candidates on Thursday afternoon. They allegedly went to the regents office and started to throw rocks at the building. A joint security team then fired warning shots and tear gas, Ahmad said. The mass then continued their protest at the Keerom Manpower Agency and Village Empowerment Body, where they allegedly started several fires. Ahmad said security personnel was able to calm the protest after engaging in a dialogue with local figures. The situation was under control but officers are still standing guard, he added. Naomi Kwambre, daughter of tribal chief Hubertus Kwambre, explained that protestors had thought that the CPNS test results did not comply with a regulation that ensures 80 percent of civil servant positions would go to Papuans. "The people who have gathered for the announcement spontaneously threw things at the regents office, said Naomi. The protesters occupied the area until 8 p.m. local time and blocked a road near the regents office. (aly) German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas reportedly said that there is no way around sanctions against Russia if the involvement of Kremlin behind the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gets established. In an interview to German news portal t-online, Maas was asked about Germanys benign response to the suspected poisoning of Navalny with chemical agent Novichok even after German, French and Swedish laboratories confirmed it. "Germany has referred the case to the distinguished International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] for investigation. If the results of the German, Swedish, and French laboratories are confirmed, there will be a clear response from the EU. I am sure of that," Maas said. German health authorities had confirmed the poisoning of Navalny with a nerve agent from the Novichok group, citing toxicological test results. Later, specialist laboratories in France and Sweden also confirmed the poisoning with the Soviet-style nerve agent Novichok. During the interview, Maas was asked what measures would Germany take if Russian authorities get implicated in the poison attack. "We as EU member states will decide that together. I am convinced that there will be no way around sanctions," he said. Read: Navalny Recounts Poisoning Experience; Says 'felt No Pain, Could Sense This Was The End' Read: Kremlin Accuses Navalny Of Working With CIA; Putin's Critic To Sue Govt Spokesperson Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had demanded a swift explanation from Russia on the attempted assassination of Navalny using a nerve agent. Speaking at the annual gathering of UN General Assembly, Macron warned Moscow of consequences if it fails to provide swift and flawless explanation on the poison attack. We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons in Europe, Russia or Syria, the French President told the UNGA meet, urging Russia to shed full light on the incident. Russia dismissed allegations The Kremlin has dismissed the allegations and accused Navalny of working with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a foreign intelligence service of the US, soon after Navalny held Putin responsible for the suspected poisoning. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that specialists of the CIA are working with Navalny as the Russian leader continues with his recovery process in Germany. Read: US Senators Request Trump To Initiate Probe Into Kremlin Critic Navalny's Poisoning Read: Navalny 'grateful' To German Chancellor Angela Merkel For Visiting Him At Hospital (With ANI inputs) This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1500 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why were doing this fundraiser, what weve accomplished in the last year, and our current goal, more original reporting. Yves here. Given how Trump having contracted Covid has invalidated most assumptions about where the election is going, publishing a voter view on Trump before he got sick may seem to be hopelessly out of date. However, I think this article still has merit because it challenges assumptions about Trump voters, starting with the subhead: I voted for Barack Obama twice, then reluctantly for Trump. This time Im more convinced hes the right choice. Heres why. Readers will no doubt also notice that this voters view of what facts are differ in marked ways from orthodox Democratic party views. It is hard to sway people on what they see as matters of fact, at least in formats like ads or sloganeering. By Craig D. Originally published at openDemocracy South Carolina in 2006. He was the anonymous John in a story I wrote about discrimination against LGBT people in the US army and wider American society that year. We reconnected after Donald Trumps victory in 2016. The result of that conversation is here. Craig graciously and respectfully engaged with all the comments that his support for Donald Trump provoked. We spoke again last week. The 2020 election is a bit of a joke. Four years ago, I voted for Donald Trump because I thought he was the least bad option. This time round, I feel differently. At first, I felt pretty good about Joe Biden. I voted for Barack Obama twice and thought his former vice president was one of the stronger Democrat contenders. But as time has worn on, Ive lost faith in him. When we got the news of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, I seriously considered changing my vote to the Democrats, or not voting at all. In the days after the news, I really questioned how I could sit right with my actions. But as things stand now, Donald Trump will be getting my vote. As an out gay man and officer with 15 years of service in the US army, I find the identity politics the Democrats are pushing to be offensive. This time round, the biggest issue on the ballot for me is race and a distant second is Joe Bidens mental capacity. President Trumps first term in office has clearly had its ups and downs. I really wish someone would take away his Twitter account. And I dont even know what to say about the first presidential debate. It was an absolute disaster on both sides. If this is how they are going to be this year, theres no point in having the other two as scheduled. That said, I feel Trumps actions as president are net-positive. Prior to the pandemic, the economy was doing great, and there havent been any surprises regarding the big issues to me in 2016. The right to self-defense is intact, we have a stronger middle class, we have made some (albeit minor) progress with the immigration issues, and the boogeyman hasnt nullified my same-sex marriage. Black Lives Matter (To Everyone Except Black Lives Matter) As a white male in the age of identity politics, I am not allowed to say anything on the subject of race, but Im going to say it anyway. There are several prominent Black conservatives who cite some of the same things I have to say here, and the point is no less valid because of the colour of my skin. To start with, my parents did not pay for my first car, college, or give me any money to get started in life. When I was floundering just after high school and didnt have anywhere to live, my parents told me to figure it out because my decisions had led me to where I was and they were not responsible for my actions. My white privilege didnt knock on the door and hand me a pile of cash, a degree, a car, and solve all of my problems. I was on my own, and I joined the army to make something of myself instead of blaming the world for my problems. When the Black Lives Matter movement first gained national attention during the Obama administration, my initial thoughts were of support for the movement, though I questioned their name. Of course, Black lives matter! Why wouldnt they? Are they implying other lives dont matter, or that their lives matter more, or that they dont think their lives currently matter? Upon further research I learned the movement was about equality for all, and about making sure Black lives have the same value as anyone else. This is a message I can absolutely stand behind. There is just one problem. The Black Lives Matter movement decided to focus solely on Black men killed by police, later expanding to include the anecdotal example of a Black man killed by white men (who were appropriately charged with murder). Whether or not the shots officers fired were justified did not matter. Whether or not the deceased was a career criminal actively threatening the police with a deadly weapon at the time of the shooting did not matter. The only logical conclusion would be that the police are killing so many Black men that this should be the top priority. The problem is the statistics dont support this narrative. There are so many other things killing African Americans many of which are linked to poverty. According to the Center for Disease Control, over 500,000 Black people per year die from heart disease. Obesity further compounds the problem for 56% of Black women and 37% of Black men. This equates to over 20 million Black people who are clinically obese. Diabetes is another leading cause of death among the Black population with almost 15,000 deaths annually. Suicide claims almost 3,000 Black lives and homicide claims just shy of 10,000. Why are the only Black lives that matter to Black Lives Matter the hundreds killed by police each year? I am especially confused because the vast majority seem to have been actively belligerent, resisting arrest, and/or outright attacking the officers at the time of their death. I dont believe in systemic racism as a concept. But I do believe we urgently need to end the war on drugs. Its one of the greatest failures of our country, taking too many fathers away from their kids. And we really need criminal justice reform. The stigma of going to jail no jobs or prospects when you get out destroys millions of lives. If we fixed these issues, we could help millions of families struggling. In the US, researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between single-parent households and downward income mobility. Its a vicious cycle: dad in jail, mom trying to raise kids on their own, unable to put enough food on the table, the kids get in trouble with police, and so it goes. We see the same problems in white communities in poor, rural areas like West Virginia. They are not unique to the Black community. But they are disproportionately affecting the Black community. These are real problems. But the Democrats are all about systemic racism and the ghost in the machine which is keeping Black people down. Theyve run Black communities into the ground over time with the mass incarceration of Black men under the guise of the war on drugs, glorified the skyrocketing Black single-motherhood rate, pushed abortions as a contraceptive, and replaced personal responsibility with welfare programs. As long as the Black community is poor and dependent on the system for financial support, the Democrats know they can buy the Black vote with more social programs. There are no easy solutions to the problems facing the Black community today, but allowing Democrats to continue destroying their community while blaming President Trump for problems that existed long before he was president, and issues that President Obama did very little to address, is insanity. The insanity and hypocrisy have reached the point where Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris publicly told an alleged rapist she is proud of him. What did he do to earn her pride and respect? Simply be Black and be shot by the police. Never mind the fact that he is currently facing charges of sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend. He has been accused by a police union of violently resisting arrest and ignoring orders to drop a knife I would expect the officers to shoot me too. I believe that race has very little to do with why police shoot someone. The insanity goes further because the majority of the shootings Black Lives Matter are protesting occur in Democrat-run cities, in Democrat-run states, with Black governors, mayors and police chiefs and the Democrats have held control of these places for more than 40 years. Explain to me how President Trump or the Republican party is responsible for these problems? We Must Get Through COVID-19 Without Further Economic Ddamage The United States COVID-19 response has been far more political than substantive. I was in South Korea when the pandemic started, and I was impressed with the swift action the South Korean government took to get things under control. The United States on the other hand, has been nothing but a partisan battle between Democrats and Republicans over who takes the threat more seriously, while in reality, very few take it seriously. We started with President Trump halting traffic from China, to which Democrats called him racist and said he was overreacting. Democrats criticised him for taking too much action, only to turn around and claim he wasnt taking enough action. The pandemic is unprecedented for the United States in modern times. Other countries have dealt with SARS, the Avian Flu, Swine Flu and others, and so it was much easier for the general public in their countries to respond appropriately. The citizens of the United States responded like spoiled children. It still amazes me that people refuse to take simple precautions like wear a mask and wash their hands. Not to mention mass protests where thousands of people are standing immediately next to each other in large groups with few people wearing masks. They dont even realise their hypocrisy is staring them in the face. I dont know what the Trump Administration could have done differently. Many people believe the constitution prevents a mask mandate. Former Vice President Biden has even admitted this recently. I believe the administration did their best to maintain some semblance of order, minimize the economic impact, and take the legal actions they could in order to keep the population safe. No Dog in the Fight on Healthcare Healthcare was a big issue for me in the last election, and this time it really isnt on my radar. I know President Trump still wants to change Obamacare, which I agree was a disaster, though I am not sure how much he will really be able to change at this point. Getting any changes through Congress will be a challenge. While I dont support Obamacare, I also dont support Trumpcare. Both are band-aids on a horribly broken healthcare system. The solution to skyrocketing prices isnt to change who foots the bill, it is to reduce the prices through transparent pricing and open-market competition. If consumers are able to ask how much a procedure costs, they can shop around for the best price, thereby driving down prices as we have seen for example with laser eye surgery. In the end, no one on either side of the aisle has put forth a plan that I can stand behind, so I really dont have a dog in the fight this time around. A Conservative Supreme Court Does Worry Me I am voting absentee in this election due to my military service outside of my state of residence. The election commission emailed my ballot to me a few days before Justice Ginsburg passed away. Id printed it and started filling it out, but it was still laying on the kitchen table when I received an alert on my phone with the news that she had passed. I was watching TV with my husband and paused the show. My immediate thought was this is not good, and I might need to reprint my ballot. I love the United States because we do have a peaceful transfer of power between two different ideological points every four to eight years. A conservative Supreme Court threatens that balance. It means they could just overturn or overrule every idea coming out of the left, and I dont think their ideas are all bad. Throughout history, when one political party or person gets too much power, they dont make good decisions. To have a conservative majority on the court for the rest of my life could affect something that I care about deeply in the future. I dont even know what that is yet. That said, there is definitely precedent for a sitting president to make a nomination in an election year, and even stronger precedent for a confirmation to take place when the presidents party also controls the Senate. I would have loved to see a more moderate nominee, but President Trump is going to nominate someone who will satisfy his base. Unfortunately, this has left us with Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Amy Coney Barrett has many people scared, but I dont count myself among them. The media is attempting to paint her as a diehard conservative who wants to rip up the Constitution, but I believe that couldnt be further from the truth. Judge Barrett clearly has conservative morals, but based on the things her colleagues and students at the University of Notre Dame said about her, she keeps them out of her legal analysis. Some of her philosophies as a constitutional originalist align with my belief in a smaller federal government. I feel the federal government is far too quick to pass sweeping legislation and create monstrosities of federal agencies dedicated to taking care of things we should leave to the states. From healthcare and student loans, to the Veterans Administration and the Transportation Security Administration, there are so many dollars wasted with completely ineffectual programs and unnecessary bureaucracy. Many people are vocal opponents of changing Roe v. Wade, and are scared this may be a possibility with a conservative majority on the court. While I personally believe we should limit abortions to cases of rape, incest, or medical necessity, I do not support changing Roe v. Wade. I believe the constitution protects womens right to make that decision for themselves. But I dont believe that Planned Parenthood should get federal funding. I dont think this is a good use of taxpayer dollars and would much rather see an increase in education and personal responsibility, alongside reduced-cost or free contraceptives for lower-income households. I do believe the Senate will confirm Judge Barret before November, so in a way it will be a moot point. However, I am concerned for the consequences should Democrats win the election and take back the Senate. I do not support packing the court, though I would entertain the idea of balancing the court. I think a much better solution would be term limits. I fully support the Democrats plan to introduce legislation enacting 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, even if it takes an amendment to the Constitution. I hope while they are at it, they introduce term limits for congressmen and senators as well. President Trumps taxes President Trumps taxes are a complete non-issue for me. We dont know the validity of the claim from the New York Times, and I have no faith in the media in the United States. They have time and again proven they do not care about honest reporting and I dont pay much attention to anything they report. To my knowledge, the accusation is not that he did anything illegal or unjustified, but rather an emotional smear campaign designed to make him look unrelatable and elitist. I care far more about the politicians who became multi-millionaires as a result of their public service than I do about someone who made a bunch of money and then took political office. When I wrote four years ago, Hillary Clintons pay-for-play and complete disregard for securing classified material were key issues to me. It seems the pay-for-play scheme must simply be part of the Democrats playbook now, as Joe Biden clearly has some explaining to do with regards to his sons dealings in the Ukraine, not to mention his financial ties to Russia and China. The Democrats are very quick to scream Russian collusion when it has to do with President Trump, but they turn a completely blind eye to Joe Biden. Those in glass houses The Harris Administration It seems Former Vice President Biden cant remember what his goal is for this election. For example, referring to his administration as the Harris-Biden administration, as if he were running for Vice President again. His inability to maintain coherent thought is scary. His team have been hiding him from the public as much as possible, and when he takes questions from the crowd, they are preselected questions and the Biden team direct the citizens asking them to only ask what is on the card. There are days when he gets up and speaks and its the old Joe Biden, and other days where hes completely incoherent. Quite possibly, I would have voted for the old Joe Biden, but I believe he is legitimately experiencing health issues in a way Trump is not. Yes, Trump definitely does not think before he speaks that was blatantly apparent well before the election. He blindly shares things on Twitter without thinking about them. But, looking at his policy action, I dont think hes done a terrible job. Weve definitely had better presidents, for sure, but for me its hard to tell what a Biden Administration would look like. The only messaging the campaign is releasing is either criticisms of President Trumps COVID response, support for BLM, or blaming Republicans for the sins of the Democratic Party. As a Person, Trump Is Disgusting Im exhausted when it comes to sexual assault in politics. Its become so weaponised, you dont know who to believe. Because it now affects nearly everyone at the top, its almost become a non-issue which is unbelievably sad and disgusting. I feel bad for the women and potentially men who are truly victims. I dont think well ever hear them or that theyll ever get justice, because its impossible to tell whats real and what isnt. As a person, Trump is disgusting. There are enough accusations out there that there has to be some level of truth to some of them. These women are going out on the line to make these allegations, it cant just be the Democrats rounding people up to say things. But I believe theres a problem with Biden too in this regard, so we actually dont have an option to vote for someone who isnt tainted by this. Its so sad. I Think Trump Will Respect the Result I dont think there is any risk of Trump trying to retain power illegitimately. My father disagrees with me, but I dont see a scenario where that plays out that way. So many people would rise up. That would be a complete burning of the constitution. I do think the result is likely to be close, and could come down to the Supreme Court. I wouldnt look on that as an illegitimate win; thats how the constitution says it should work. I do have concerns about the integrity of the vote itself, though. Im pro-absentee ballots, but clearly the US postal service isnt equipped for a mass mail-in system. Its 2020, how do we not have a better online system in place? I do think its possible to make the vote workable, if we prioritise letting high-risk groups and those in COVID-19 hotspots vote by mail. But I dont have any confidence that this will be done in a sensible way. No One in Washington Is Sensible I may be voting Republican this time, but I dont mind if Trump wins and Republicans lose control of the Senate. I despise Mitch McConnell (the Republican Senate majority leader). Hes been in politics so long hes completely blind and insulated from reality. So is Nancy Pelosi (Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives). They are both career politicians whose only thought in any situation is whats best for my party right now the normal rules of law and morality are out the window. If Trump loses and the Supreme Court post hasnt been confirmed, McConnell would absolutely install a judge in the lame duck session before the new President is installed. It would be disgusting, but I wouldnt put anything past him. In that scenario, I would definitely support balancing the court creating one extra space but not packing it with lots of new posts. That would be sensible, but I dont think anyone in Washington is sensible. My Vote Once again, there were no excellent choices. Id have liked to see General Wesley Clark run, perhaps. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were too far left for me to get behind. Bernies policies may work in his home state, but I dont see them working across the US. California has tried some of his policies and its bankrupt. Free healthcare for all and universal basic income are just not affordable on a large scale. And even though Im more conservative, I would have never supported Michael Bloomberg. For me, hes up there with George Soros. I want nothing to do with those men. They have thrived off the backs of the poor. Last time, I wrote about the decision between two bad candidates. This time around, I dont think there are two bad candidates. President Trump is an average candidate for re-election, and could easily lose the election to a realistic challenger. I dont believe Former Vice President Biden is a realistic challenger because he cant remember what office he wants, where he is, or his goals. I also cannot get behind any candidate who would allow the racist vitriol of Black Lives Matter to continue. Freedom of speech doesnt grant anyone the right to block roads, burn businesses, tear down monuments, and attack people who support a different political candidate. I would have loved to have a realistic candidate from the Democratic Party, but once again they put forth someone who is simply too extreme for me to get behind. The Democrats desire to win votes outweighs any sense of decency or justice. My sincere hope for 2024 is that the Democrats stop focusing on vilifying conservatives, and instead look for a better candidate with a platform of progress, rather than a platform of hate. On Saturday, 126 new confirmed coronavirus cases were confirmed in the Wyoming Department of Healths daily update. The department announced 25 new probable cases. Eighty-five new confirmed recoveries were announced. Nine new probable recoveries were announced. There are now 5,415 confirmed cases, 950 probable cases, 4,309 confirmed recoveries and 774 probable recoveries in Wyoming. Fifty-three Wyomingites have died after contracting COVID-19. In Natrona County, 546 confirmed cases and 103 probable cases have been recorded. Thats an increase of 12 cases over Friday. Probable cases are defined by officials as close contacts of lab-confirmed cases with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. A patient is considered fully recovered when there is resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and there is improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g. cough, shortness of breath) for 72 hours AND at least 7 days have passed since symptoms first appeared, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. Cases plateaued in Wyoming in late spring before beginning a spike in mid-June. That surge brought about an increase in the rate of reported coronavirus patients not yet seen here since the pandemic began. As a result, state health officials decided against their plans to eliminate almost all coronavirus restrictions. State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist has extended the current restrictions through the end of the month. Cases tapered off somewhat in August but appear to be increasing again. While Gov. Mark Gordon has said he is not considering a statewide face mask requirement, he has urged the states residents to wear them. The symptoms of COVID-19 include cough, fever and shortness of breath. Symptoms appear within two weeks. Health officials recommend self-isolating for two weeks if you have contact with a person who has the illness. Press Release October 3, 2020 Gatchalian urges safe school opening; donates back-to-school essentials As classes for the school year 2020-2021 get underway, Senator Win Gatchalian raises concerns on the safety and welfare of educators nationwide as they distribute self-learning modules. The senator reiterates that teachers and school personnel should be assured that all of their school needs are addressed since they are crucial in the roll-out of the Basic Education-Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP). A back-to-school list should now include face masks and face shields, according to Gatchalian. He, however, is quick to point out that investing in safety gears and protective equipment for a long period of time could be costly to teachers. "Kailangan nating tulungan ang mga guro na protektahan ang kanilang mga sarili laban sa COVID-19. Mayroon sa kanila ang naglabas na mula sa sarili nilang bulsa para may maipambili lang ng gagamitin para sa distance learning, pati pambili ng face masks at alcohol. Huwag nating hayaang madagdagan pa ang gastusin nila," said Gatchalian. The lawmaker is donating 3.5 million face masks and 600 thousand face shields to various schools in the National Capital Region, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, and Laguna. More than 150 thousand (155,536) public school teachers, school and assistant school principals, public school district supervisors, school division superintendents, and assistant school division superintendents will benefit from the donation. The donation kicks off today at the Valenzuela School of Mathematics and Science with Senator Gatchalian personally turning over face masks and face shields to the school's teachers and principals. "Isa lamang ito sa mga eskwelahan na bibisitahin natin para mamigay ng face masks at face shields. Kailangang masiguro natin na ligtas ang mga guro, punong-guro, pati na ibang kawani ng paaralan sa pagbubukas ng klase sa Lunes," said Gatchalian. Education officials earlier said that the agency's 2020 budget does not cover COVID-19 medication, treatment, or hospitalization of teachers and non-teaching staff. "Dahil hindi naman sakop ang mga guro sa pondo ng ahensiya para sa mga gastusing may kinalaman sa COVID-19, mas mainam na makaiwas sila sa posibleng pagkahawa sa virus kaya malaking bagay ang face masks at face shields para hindi rin makahawa sa mga estudyanteng tatanggap ng mga learning modules, " said Gatchalian. The DepEd has earlier said that regional offices and school division offices should have established health and safety protocols ahead of the October 5 school opening in order to distribute the modules without endangering teachers and students. "By stocking up on face coverings, we're hoping that teachers and school heads can protect themselves and their students from the coronavirus disease," he said. # # # Gatchalian hinimok ang ligtas na pagbubukas ng klase; namigay ng 'back-to-school essentials' Nagpaalala si Senador Win Gatchalian na dapat tiyakin ang kaligtasan ng mga guro ngayong nalalapit na ang pauskan, lalo na't tuloy tuloy ang kanilang pag-iikot kasunod ng pamimigay ng self-learning modules. Ayon sa senador, malaking bahagi ang mga guro sa pagpapatupad ng Basic Education-Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP) kaya importante na nabibigyan sila ng kanilang mga pangangailangan sa gitna ng pandemya. Kasama na daw ngayon sa tinatawag na 'back-to-school essentials' ang face masks at face shields. Pero nangangahulugan ito aniya na madadagdagan din ang gastusin ng mga guro. "Kailangan nating tulungan ang mga guro na protektahan ang kanilang mga sarili laban sa COVID-19. Mayroon sa kanila ang naglabas na mula sa sarili nilang bulsa para may maipambili lang ng gagamitin para sa distance learning, pati pambili ng face masks at alcohol. Huwag nating hayaang madagdagan pa ang gastusin nila," ayon kay Gatchalian. Dahil dito mamimigay ng 3.5 milyong face masks at 600 thousand na face shields si Gatchalian sa iban't ibang mga paaralan sa National Capital Region, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, at Laguna. Higit 150 thousand (155,536) na public school teachers, school and assistant school principals, public school district supervisors, school division superintendents, at assistant school division superintendents ang mabibiyayaan ng naturang donasyon. Magsisimulang mag-ikot ang senador ngayong araw sa Valenzuela School of Mathematics and Science para personal na mamigay ng face masks at face shields sa mga guro at punong guro. "Isa lamang ito sa mga eskwelahan na bibisitahin natin para mamigay ng face masks at face shields. Kailangang masiguro natin na ligtas ang mga guro, punong-guro, pati na ibang kawani ng paaralan sa pagbubukas ng klase sa Lunes," said Gatchalian. Samanatala, nauna nang sinabi ng mga opisyal ng Department of Education o DepEd na hindi kasama sa 2020 budget ng ahensiya ang pagpapagamot o pagpapaospital ng mga guro at iba pang kawani ng paarlan na may kinalaman sa COVID-19. "Dahil hindi naman sakop ang mga guro sa pondo ng ahensiya para sa mga gastusing may kinalaman sa COVID-19, mas mainam na makaiwas sila sa posibleng pagkahawa sa virus kaya malaking bagay ang face masks at face shields para hindi rin makahawa sa mga estudyanteng tatanggap ng mga learning modules, " dagdag ni Gatchalian. - Magufuli, nicknamed the bulldozer, revealed his wishes during a campaign rally in Zanzibar where he joked he had seen very beautiful women from the region - The head of state is seeking a second term in office and is campaigning on a platform of empowering poor people (hustlers) at the grassroots level - In June at another rally, Magufuli amused citizens in his country after he advised men in Kisarawe district to "wake up" and marry Diamond's ex flame Jokate Mwegelo PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed Tough talking Tanzanian President John Magufuli left his audience in stitches on Saturday, October 3, after hinting he will marry a second wife once he retires from his work as the head of state. Tanzanian President John Magufuli gestures during a public rally. Photo: John Magufuli. Source: Facebook The 60-year-old nicknamed the bulldozer revealed his wishes during a campaign rally in Zanzibar where he joked he had seen very beautiful women from the region and as such he plans to seduce one of them. Magufuli who is seeking his second term in office and campaigning on a platform of empowering hustlers said he had learnt from former Tanzanian president Ali Hassan Mwinyi that his secret to having a long life is being a polygamous man. "You know Mzee (Mwinyi) who has clocked 96 told me that the secret to a long life is having two women. I only have one but when I finish my job as the president, I will look forward to getting a new second lady to marry from Zanzibar...Nimeona mambo mazuri huku ( I have seen good things here) ," Magufuli said amid laughter. In June at another rally, Magufuli amused citizens in his country after he advised men in Kisarawe district to "wake up" and marry Jokate Mwegelo, one of the most beautiful government officials in the country. Speaking while launching a water project in Kisarawe, the witty president wondered why men from the Zaramo community were afraid to approach the district commissioner who is a former media personality. "The district commissioner here (referring to Mwegelo) had done an excellent job. What surprises me is that at her age she it yet to get a man and get married yet she is very beautiful. Men here are just looking at her but afraid to approach her," said Magufuli. Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.kes Patreon programme - https://www.patreon.com/tuko My father-in-law won't let me bury my wife of 16 years or see my two children- Victor Odonda Tuko TV Source: TUKO.co.ke Hundreds of health workers took to the streets across Chile last Saturday to demand an improvement in working conditions and salaries as COVID-19 cases continued to surge dangerously in regional centres across the country. These actions are part of a number of struggles erupting across Latin America by health professionals opposing deadly working conditions created by cost-cutting measures that have been laid bare by the pandemic. Argentine nurses in October 1 strike (Credit: Arton) Senior nursing technicians in September initiated rolling demonstrations demanding professional recognition and salary increases. The first demonstration, at Plaza Dignidad in the Chilean capital, Santiago, on September 5, drew a few hundred workers and was followed by protests at various hospitals in the Central Valley communes of Coquimbo, Ovalle and Rancagua. The ultra-right government of billionaire President Sebastian Pinera responded to the protests by unleashing paramilitary Carabinero police to violently repress the nursing technicians, including with the use of water cannon, tear gas and multiple arrests. At first we were seen as heroes and now we are treated as criminals. We have police everywhere. In reality, there is no longer any democracy in Chile, Nelly Gallardo, a nurse technician told Ruptly news. I think that we are practically in a dictatorship because of Mr. Pinera, because we do not have the right to freedom of expression, which is this. If we mobilize, immediately they are going to repress us with gases, with tear gas bombs. The state repression has not intimidated workers, but on the contrary, fuelled militancy. A larger demonstration was held September 25. Similarly, in neighboring Argentina, nurses held a national strike October 1 in response to a brutal police crackdown against an earlier protest organized outside the Buenos Aires legislature. Their key demands are adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and legal recognition as professional staff. In particular, they want an end to substandard incomes that force many nurses to seek employment at more than one facility, which, due to the pandemic, has resulted in massive contagion among health professionals. Nurses want entry salaries to increase from a derisory monthly income of 39,000 pesos (US$512) to 80,000 pesos (US$1,050). A nurse related on the Facebook page Enfermero/as de todo el mundo: Buenos Aires nurses live under the poverty line and sustain the dignity of our families with double and triple employment, increasing the exposure and risk to our health and that of our families. Working conditions are deplorable, we are not given work clothes, changing rooms or adequate social distancing from highly communicable diseases. Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and Chile are among the 12 worst-hit nations. Health professionals in Latin Americaa region which accounts for 600 million people and has reported 8.5 million COVID-19 cases and nearly 320,000 deathsentered the fight against the global pandemic last March without protective equipment, adequate personnel, facilities or resources to deal with the avalanche of cases. In addition, they have been insufficiently remunerated and, as a consequence, have disproportionately contracted the disease. According to Amnesty International, of the 7,000 health professionals in the world who have died after contracting the virus, more than a third are from the Americas. In Argentina alone more than 140,000 health professionals have been infected and 140 have died from the novel coronavirus. In Chile, reckless state inaction has resulted in 20,000 health professionals being infected and at least 27 deaths, although there is no official tally. Due to the ongoing outbreaks, hospitals are running at close to capacity and bordering on collapse, while health staff are close to the breaking point. Carlos Schulmeyer, from the National Federation of Health Workers at Melipilla Hospital, told news website Nodal: Staff are absolutely worn out with 24-, 36- and even 48-hour shifts. This is because there werent enough professionals, as colleagues were falling ill. Only two months ago, the new Chilean Health Minister, Enrique Paris, introduced his five-stage Step-by-Step plan to reopen schools, remove quarantines and lockdowns and reignite economic activity. With much fanfare, the southern region of Magallanes was one of the first to reopen on July 19, at stage three. At that point, daily cases in the area did not surpass 10. But no sooner had it reopened than infection rates began to rise. By August 16, Magallanes was registering up to 70 daily cases. By September 20 it had jumped to more than 200 cases per day and is today experiencing the most COVID-19 incidences per capita in the country. This has not stopped the government continuing its homicidal agenda of reopening the economy. While the Magallanes region described above has only 151,000 inhabitants, equivalent to 1 percent of the Chilean population, Minister Paris has also placed 192 communesincluding in the densely populated Metropolitan Region of Santiagoin stage three of the Step-by-Step plan. Schools in select Santiago communes commenced face-to-face teaching this week in a push to browbeat the population back to work. This will only fuel the combativeness of the working class, whose families have been burdened with the consequences of a capitalist-made crisis. All of the social tensions that came to the surface in October 2019 have only been exacerbated due to the reckless and criminal response of the government to the coronavirus pandemic. Health workers, supermarket employees and port workers have struck for safer working conditions, pay increases and against massive job losses. This radicalization is an expression of a deepening revolutionary crisis amid the ever-growing dangers of police-state dictatorship. Its under these conditions that Chiles parliamentary left, especially the Frente Amplio and the Stalinist Communist Party (PCCh), initiated legal action against President Pinera and his former Health Minister Jaime Manalich. Mayor Daniel Jadue (PCCh) and Senator Alejandro Navarro (Progresita) filed a complaint in June, after it became known that the deeply unpopular Health Minister was providing one set of health figures to the WHO and another to the nation, forcing his resignation. Claudia Mix (Frente Amplio) presented parliamentary charges last month. The essence of the complaint is that the government authorities improvised and mishandled the pandemic. They denied aid, delayed or refused protection or services; they denied services that resulted in negligent homicide. The court action has been backed by the entire parliamentary center left, the corporatist union apparatus and the pseudo-left parties that orbit them. The ultra-right government is undoubtedly responsible for criminally negligent policies and brazen lies, and should be held accountable. The figures speak for themselves: since March 3, when Chile registered its first case, there has been, to date, a total of 463,000 infections and 17,075 confirmed and suspected deaths. Not only did the government squander valuable time refusing to replenish the public health system with personnel, critical equipment and PPE, it played down the threat, rejecting calls from the health community to implement strict quarantines, close non-essential services and industries and conduct mass testing and contact tracing. It also stalled providing substantive financial aid to working families while it opened the states coffers to guarantee liquidity to the banks. Manalich, in particular, played a reprehensible role. Arguing that the virus would become benign, he promoted a dangerous herd immunity policy and claimed the country had achieved a new normal, to justify renewed economic activity, especially in the mining sector. He adopted a reckless dynamic quarantining policy, which meant letting the disease spread before reacting to the outbreak and only then placing a commune in or out of quarantine on seemingly arbitrary criteria. Yet it would be folly to believe that the parliamentary left would have responded to the crisis any differently. The political line that divides left from right is purely tactical: they both defend the profit system and serve in its institutions. Pinera took power in 2018 from Michelle Bachelet (PS) whose center-left coalition ruled for more than two decades since the return to civilian rule in 1990. During this entire period, the left kept intact the fascist-military juntas handiworkhealth care, education, pensions, social security all remained privatized or two-tiered. For services rendered, these lefts now sit on the boards of directors of the most powerful businesses and corporations and have been implicated in countless corruption cases. This includes the Stalinist PCCh and Frente Amplio, which dominate substantial interests in the union apparatus. The legal actions are being used to divert attention from the urgent necessity of health workers taking up an independent struggle to defend safety and lives, and to improve manifold labor conditions by turning to the working class and to a revolutionary perspective. Their allies are not the parliamentary left, nor the bureaucratic union apparatus, who represent one or another faction of the ruling class, but to fellow health care workers in Argentina, Brazil, the US and elsewhere who confront the same dangers. New organs of power need to be constructed where decisions are made by rank-and-file health workers linking arms with their brothers and sisters in an international campaign against these murderous policies. This is the perspective of the International Committee of the Fourth International. This page requires Javascript. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Barely a week to the Ondo State election, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has announced the deployment of a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, an Assistant Inspector-General of Police and 11 commissioners of Police to Ondo to ensure peaceful polls. The election will be holding on October 11. Mr Adamu deployed DIG Adeleye Oyabade in charge of Police Research and Planning, and AIG Karma Hassan of Federal Operations, Department of Operations, Force Headquarters, Abuja, to make security arrangements for the election. Others are 11 Commissioners of Police who will be in charge of security monitoring and evaluation. The commissioners are Garba Umar, Habu Sani, Abiodun Alabi, Bishi Omololu, Ashafa Kunle, Akeera Yonous, Buba Sanusi, Audu Madaki, Evelyn Peterside, Sadiku Gbenga, and Abutu Yaro. According to a statement by Frank Mba, the police spokesperson on Friday, the police will ensure due enforcement of all electoral laws throughout the period of the election. Officers and men of the Force as well as personnel of other security agencies deployed for the election have also been charged by the IG to conduct themselves professionally and work in line with best practices as highlighted in the Code of Conduct and Rules of Engagement for elections. He also enjoins members of the public, especially politicians and their supporters to cooperate with the police and other security agencies in the national assignment of guaranteeing a hitch-free gubernatorial poll, Mr Mba said in a statement. PREMIUM TIMES had reported violent attacks between the major contenders in the last few weeks. Then there is the American fashion brand Bill Blass, which was purchased in 2008 by the entrepreneurial brothers Cin and Peter Kim, who made their money producing dress shirts and neckwear for the mass market. The Kims hired designer Chris Benz, formerly of J. Crew, to reposition the brand for Gen Xers, and, like the Dayans, focused on direct-to-consumer e-commerce. The new Bill Blass hit the market in 2015 to much fanfare, but it failed to lift off. Mr. Benz left the company, and today Bill Blass only sells shoes. There is currently nothing available on its website. Rykiel has already been through this once. In February 2012, when the Rykiel family sold the company to the billionaire brothers Victor and William Fung of the Hong Kong manufacturing firm Li & Fung, there was lots of talk of potential, with grand plans to ensure the longevity of the brand, as Nathalie Rykiel, Sonias daughter, said at the time. But the company was plagued by a series of outside economic troubles and in-house management issues. In seven years, sales dropped from 83.7 million euros in revenue and 1.4 million euros in losses to 35 million euros in revenue and 20 million euros in losses before finally filing for bankruptcy. The Dayans brush all that off like a piece of lint. They say they are different. They say, as far as they are concerned, Sonia Rykiel right now is like a start-up, as Eric put it. And the Dayans know all about running start-ups. The sons of Moroccan immigrants, Eric, age 40, and Michael, who is 38, grew up in the 12th arrondissement, a middle-class quarter on east side of Paris. Michael studied law, passed the bar and went into practice. Eric enrolled in business school, dropped out, and worked for the familys destocking business. In the mid-aughts, Michael quit law and, with Eric, their brother David and their friend Thierry Petit, took the family business online. Police in Assams Lakhimpur district have arrested a tempo driver accused of raping two minor girls. According to the police, the incident happened on Thursday after the girls, aged 12 and 15 were given a lift by the accused in his tempo. The survivors have been rescued and are in a childcare home at present. The girls from Arunachal Pradesh were working as domestic workers in Naharlagun in the same state. On Thursday morning they escaped from their employers home and reached Banderdewa in Lakhimpur on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border where they met the accused, said Longnit Terong, superintendent of police, Lakhimpur. The accused kept taking them around the whole day. In the evening, he allegedly raped the elder girl who later managed to escape. The accused was caught by local villagers, while he was raping the other girl, the police officer added. Also Read: Hathras gangrape: Leaders, students, activists demand justice for victim in Capital The accused was handed over to the police who arrested him on charges of rape under sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Police have conducted medical examinations of the victims and sent them to a childcare home while efforts are underway to trace their families in Arunachal Pradesh. Results of the medical tests are awaited. To the Editor: A former college professor like Ray Lenzi should know that a big part of school is doing your homework. Unfortunately, it appears he doesn't practice what he teaches. Lenzi recently posted a video on his Facebook page claiming that Mike Bost has not visited Cairo and East St. Louis, and then shamefully asks, "does he have something against African American communities? Mr. Lenzi is lying and race-baiting to scare voters; a quick search on Mike Bosts website and social media proves just how wrong Lenzi is. In Cairo, Congressman Bost has met with elected officials and local businesses, and he hosted a constituent forum on public housing issues. He introduced legislation to hold the Alexander County Housing Authority accountable for its corruption, testified before a congressional committee on the crisis, and even brought Housing Secretary Ben Carson to Cairo to see the housing problems there for himself. Cairo's former Democrat mayor crossed party lines to endorse Mike Bost twice! In East St. Louis, Congressman Bost met with local businesses to tout Opportunity Zones, toured the Union Pacific Railroad, the East St. Louis Pump Station, and the Clyde C. Jordan Senior Center. He donated books from the Library of Congress and read to schoolchildren at Katie Harper Wright School. Mike Bost introduced legislation that led to a $240,000 grant earlier this month to improve school safety in East St. Louis. Don't believe Lenzi's lies. He's desperate and will say anything to try and save his lifeless campaign. Andrew Primous Carbondale Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A video shared by Azerbaijan's defence ministry claims to show Armenian military personnel being bombed as the conflict between the two nations escalates. The aerial footage - likely recorded from either a gunship or a drone - appears to show the Azerbaijani aircraft targeting Armenian soldiers and military equipment. Shared on Friday with the title 'Another video recording of the enemys heavy losses in military personnel and combat equipment', the video is the latest in a series in which Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defence claims to demonstrate its attacks. In a still taken from a video taken from an aircraft and shared by Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defence, people presumed to be Armenian military personnel are seen standing in small groups at a position in the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Second later, the aircraft drops a bomb on the position as the personnel run for cover, scattering bodies and leaving a large plume of smoke. It is unclear how many casualties there were in the attack Conflict between the two nations intensified further yesterday amid reports from Armenia that an Azeri warplane had been shot down along with two drones. Fighting between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian province that broke away from Azerbaijan in 1988, entered its seventh day today. Nearly 200 people been confirmed killed this week so far, including more than 30 civilians, in the worst clashes between the two nations since the 1990s. There are fears that the fighting could expand into an all-out war that has the potential to draw in other regional powers like Turkey and Russia. In the latest video, what is assumed to be an Armenian position with military personnel, equipment and bunkers is shown from above. A target is shown overlayed on the video above the personnel, who are standing around in small groups. In a second clip, personnel are seen standing near an Armenian armoured vehicle at another position in the region As with the first, seconds later, a bomb is dropped onto the vehicle, leaving a plume of smoke A second video shared by the Ministry of Defence shows another series of bombings, this time taken from a thermal camera. In this still, another position is shown manned by Armenian military personnel The video also shows the aircraft gun destroying Armenian military vehicles from above It appears that the men hear the sound of the aircraft gun being fired and attempt to run for cover, but seconds later an object is shown falling from above quickly followed by a large explosion destroying the position and scattering bodies. The video cuts to another instance, this time showing an Armenian tank, while a number of personnel are shown in-front of the vehicle. This time, the men appear to be unaware of the aircraft gun, and another explosion is seen hitting the top of the tank close to the men, leaving a plume of smoke. Damages are seen inside a Stepanakert apartment in a residential area after shelling during the military conflict over the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh A woman cries walking in front of an apartment building that was reportedly damaged by recent shelling in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region's main city of Stepanakert on October 3 In another video shared by Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defence, this one titled 'During the night, the enemys combat activity in various directions of the front has been suppressed,' similar attacks on Armenian forces are shown. The second video, this time using a thermal camera, shows an aircraft gun attacking more military personnel on the ground as well as moving vehicles. It is unclear how many casualties resulted from the attacks shown in the two videos. So far, nearly 200 people been confirmed killed this week so far, including more than 30 civilians. Pictured: A woman removes broken glass from a damaged apartment building The recent conflict that was sparked on Sunday has so far seen the worst clashes between the two nations since the 1990s Armenia has said that it would be ready to work with international mediators - such as France, Russia and the United States - to negotiate a ceasefire with Azerbaijan Yesterday, Armenia expressed its readiness to work with international mediators to clinch a ceasefire with Azerbaijan over the Nagorny-Karabakh region. The country 'stands ready' to engage with France, Russia, and the United States, who co-chair the OSCE group of mediators to the conflict, 'to re-establish a ceasefire regime,' foreign ministry in Yerevan said. The announcement comes as French President Emmanuel Macron demanded that Turkey explains the use of 'Syrian jihadists' in the disputed region. Macron said intelligence reports had established that 300 fighters from 'jihadist groups' in Syria had passed through Turkey en route to Azerbaijan. He added that 'a red line has been crossed, which is unacceptable' and demanded an explanation from Ankara. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron demanded that Turkey explains its use of 'Syrian jihadists' in the disputed region Azerbaijani forces yesterday struck Stepanakert (pictured) the main city in Azerbaijan's breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region, wounding 'many' people France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts in a telephone call that a failure to halt the fighting would 'bring the risk of an out of control escalation,' his office said. He also warned them 'over the risk that an internationalisation of the conflict' would represent. Azerbaijani forces yesterday struck Stepanakert, the main city in Azerbaijan's breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region, wounding 'many' people, an Armenian official confirmed. 'There are many wounded among [the city's] civilian population, civilian infrastructure is damaged,' Yerevan-based defence ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan said on Facebook without providing further details. But Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, ruled out talks with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday, and Azerbaijan's ally Turkey said on Thursday the three big powers should have no role in peacemaking. 'It is obvious that Armenia is not interested in resolving the conflict through negotiations and is trying to annex the occupied territories,' Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said. Armenia has expressed its readiness to work with international mediators to clinch a ceasefire with Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorny-Karabakh region where fierce fighting has entered a seventh day. Pictured: Image purporting to show an attack the Armenian army's artillery gun by Azerbaijan's forces Armenia 'stands ready' to engage with France, Russia, and the United States. Pictured: Image purporting to show an attack the Armenian army's artillery gun by Azerbaijan's forces Armenia's tentative move toward a ceasefire comes after the country claimed to have evidence that Turkish drones and F-16 jets had been bombing civilian areas. 'We have proof,' Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, told French newspaper Le Figaro. 'They are using drones and Turkish F-16 (fighter jets) to bomb civilian areas in Nagorny Karabakh'. His country has previously accused Turkey of sending mercenaries to back its ally Azerbaijan. Yesterday, the presidents of America, Russia and France in a joint statement called for a return to negotiations without delay. 'We call for an immediate cessation of hostilities between the relevant military forces,' the three presidents said in their capacity as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. 'We also call on the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to commit without delay to resuming substantive negotiations, in good faith and without preconditions, under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.' The announcement comes as French President Emmanuel Macron (pictured) demanded that Turkey explains the use of 'Syrian jihadists' in the disputed region The group was set up in 1992 to mediate a peaceful resolution over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in the South Caucasus. But Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan later said that it was unacceptable that the countries were involved in a search for a ceasefire in the disputed region given they neglected problems there for some 30 years. Erdogan also repeated that he expected a 'full Armenian withdrawal' from Nagorno-Karabakh if there is to be lasting peace in the region. Russia has since suggested it had been making progress in diplomatic efforts with Turkey. It said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu had confirmed they were ready for 'close coordination' to stabilise the situation. Armenia and Karabakh declared martial law and military mobilisation on Sunday - while Azerbaijan imposed military rule and a curfew in large cities. The defence ministry of Karabakh's separatist government reported the deaths of 54 more of its troops as of yesterday. It said there was fighting all along the frontline after 'a relatively calmer night'. Azerbaijan's defence ministry also said the fighting was ongoing and both sides claimed to have inflicted heavy losses. Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry released footage purporting to show Azerbaijan's forces attacking an Armenian army's tank during fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region Donald Trump (left), Vladimir Putin (centre) and Emmanuel Macron have all called for an immediate ceasefire in Karabakh as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (right) demanded 'full Armenian withdrawal' It comes after local media reported that two French journalists were injured by shelling in the Armenian town of Martuni. The two French nationals working for France's Le Monde newspaper had been wounded during Azeri shelling. An Armenian government source said they were in grave condition. Television footage released by the Ankara-based Anadolu Agency showed reporters running for cover behind a wall at an unidentified location in Nagorno-Karabakh after what it said was Armenian shelling. Loud blasts could be heard in the background. A car carrying journalists (pictured) was allegedly shelled by Azeri forces in the town of Martuni, in the self-proclaimed Nagomo-Karabakh Republicon Thursday Blood was spattered across the Nissan Micra after the attack which occurred yesterday The two French journalists were injured in the attack, according to local media Russia had also previously accused Turkey of sending Syrian and Libyan fighters from illegal armed groups into the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Russia called on the countries involved to prevent the use of 'foreign terrorists and mercenaries' in the conflict. Two Syrian rebel sources have said that Turkey is sending Syrian rebel fighters to support Azerbaijan, which Turkey and Azerbaijan have denied. Earlier this week Armenia revealed photos of the wreckage of its SU-25 fighter jet which it claims was shot down by a Turkish F-16 amid accusations that Ankara is throwing its military might behind Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan also announced it had 'neutralised' 2,300 Armenian soldiers in the worst eruption of violence between the two countries since a 1994 ceasefire over an Azerbaijani territory which is largely inhabited by Armenians. Azerbaijan's forces allegedly destroyed Armenian army's multiple rocket launcher during fighting (pictured) Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan repeated that Armenia must withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh. Pictured: Image purporting to show a rocket shell in the Ivanyan community in the breakaway Nagorny-Karabakh region Despite Azerbaijan and Turkey denying that an F-16 had downed Armenia's SU-25, the defence ministry in Yerevan named its dead pilot as Major Valeri Danelin and published photos of the jet painted in the Armenian Air Force colours, smouldering on a mountainside. Turkey has been stridently backing Muslim Azerbaijan, raising fears that Russia - which has a military base in Christian Armenia - could be drawn into a proxy war after Moscow and Anakara came close to trading blows in Syria last year. French President Emmanuel Macron slammed Turkey's fighting talk as 'reckless and dangerous' after Ankara pledged its full support for Azerbaijan to reclaim the ethnically-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh territory. The Kremlin, which also wields influence over the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, has called on the hostilities to be 'immediately ended' and warned Turkey not to 'add fuel to the flames.' Macron on Wednesday pledged his support to Yerevan, telling reporters: 'I say to Armenia and to the Armenians, France will play its role. But the French President also said it was too soon to speak of a regional conflict. He said he would discuss the tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday evening and US President Donald Trump on Thursday before reporting on the situation to the European Council of EU leaders. Armenia revealed photos of the wreckage of its SU-25 fighter jet which it claims was shot down by a Turkish F-16 over the the Caucasus Mountains The colours of the Armenian flag painted in a roundel on the plane's fuselage (left) and identification markings (right) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow was willing to host the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks, a ministry statement cited him as saying. He said Russia would continue to work both independently and together with other representatives of the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to mediate in the conflict. Ethnic-Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh are fighting for secession from Turkish-backed Azerbaijan and the dispute has led to decades of unresolved violence. Erdogan's aide Fahrettin Altun has said that Turkey 'stands with Azerbaijan, our friend and brethren' despite UN condemnation for the violence. 'Let there be no doubt that the world will hear our roar if Azerbaijan were to suffer from the slightest injustice under international law,' he said on Tuesday. Azerbaijan also aired footage of two Armenian tanks being blown up on the battlefield, while Armenia claimed to have taken out 80 armoured vehicles, 49 drones and four helicopters in the latest fighting which has killed dozens of people, allegedly including civilians. However, Altun dismissed the F-16 claim as 'absolutely untrue' while Azerbaijan described it as 'yet another lie of Armenian propaganda'. 'Armenia should withdraw from the territories under its occupation instead of resorting to cheap propaganda tricks,' Altun said. Turkey denies that one of its F-16 fighter jets was involved in a dog fight, but Armenia has named Major Valeri Danelin as their dead pilot (the wreckage pictured on the mountainside) Russian-backed Armenia warned that it would deploy more destructive weapons in the conflict because of what it described as an Azerbaijani offensive, saying the fighting had been 'elevated to a new level'. Armenia last night accused Turkey of 'supporting Azerbaijan to carry out genocidal acts', a reference to the early 20th-century massacre which it calls the Armenian Genocide and which still poisons relations between Turkey and Armenia. Both nations have accused each other of firing into each other's territory beyond the Karabakh region, raising fears of an all-out war which could draw in nuclear-armed Russia. The Kremlin has a military base in Armenia but has called for the hostilities to be 'immediately ended' - warning Turkey not to 'add fuel to the flames' by raising the prospect of intervention. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that 'both sides need to stop the violence' while German chancellor Angela Merkel called for an 'immediate ceasefire' and France called for a revival of peace talks. Martial law has been declared in both countries and Armenia has banned men over 18 in its military reserves from leaving the country as the warfare continues despite global appeals for calm. Crossroads between the Middle East and Russia: The fighting is in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh of Azerbaijan which is controlled by separatists allied to Armenia. Turkey borders Armenia but is an ally of Azerbaijan, and Ankara's support for Baku is the latest military adventure in the region after incursions into Syria and Libya. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are former Soviet republics that border Iran. Moscow has called for both sides to stop the fighting Why Armenia and Azerbaijan are fighting WHAT AND WHERE IS NAGORNO-KARABAKH? Karabakh is a region within Azerbaijan which has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since a full-scale separatist war ended in 1994, after killing about 30,000 people and displacing an estimated one million. Nagorno-Karabakh is about 1,700 square miles in size, but Armenian forces also occupy other nearby territory. HOW DID THE CONFLICT START? Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azerbaijanis began boiling over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years. Once the USSR collapsed in 1991 and the republics became independent nations, war broke out. A 1994 cease-fire left Armenian and Azerbaijani forces facing each other across a demilitarised zone, where clashes were frequently reported. WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE? International mediation efforts have brought little visible progress. The conflict has been an economic blow to the Caucasus region because it has hampered trade and prompted Turkey to close its border with Armenia. Fighting periodically breaks out around Nagorno-Karabakh's borders, often deadly, notably in 2016 and this July. Since new fighting erupted on Sunday, dozens have been killed and wounded in apparent shelling by both sides. Each country blamed the other. WHATS THE BROADER IMPACT? In addition to causing local casualties and damage, the conflict in the small, hard-to-reach region is also of concern to major regional players. Russia is Armenias main economic partner and has a military base there, while Turkey has offered support to Azerbaijanis, fellow Muslims and ethnic brethren to Turks. Iran neighbors both Armenia and Azerbaijan and is calling for calm. Meanwhile, the United States, France and Russia are meant to be guarantors of the long-stalled peace process, under the auspices of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Advertisement Azerbaijan's defence ministry said earlier this week that the opposing forces attempted to recover lost ground by launching counter-attacks in the directions of Fizuli, Jabrayil, Agdere and Terter. The ministry said there was fighting around Fizuli on Tueday morning and the Armenian army shelled the Dashkesan region on the border between the two countries, miles away from Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia denied those claims, but reported fighting throughout the night and said that Nagorno-Karabakh's army repelled attacks in several directions along the line of contact. Both sides blame each other for causing the latest flare-up, with Armenia claiming that the separatists in Nagorny-Karabakh are resisting a 'thoroughly planned attack'. 'Defence forces of Nagorno-Karabakh are left with little option but to defend themselves,' Armenia's foreign ministry claimed. Military leaders in the Armenian enclave say that 84 servicemen on their side have been killed so far, while both sides blame the other for alleged civilian deaths. Azerbaijan says 10 civilians have died on its side, but has yet to give details on military casualties. Armenia claimed on Tuesday that a nine-year-old girl was killed in shelling, while her mother and a brother were wounded, while Azerbaijan says five members of a family died in the gunfire. Armenia's defence ministry said a civilian bus was set on fire after being hit by an Azerbaijani unmanned drone. Armenia accuses its enemy of using Smerch and TOS-1A rocket launchers, saying it was forced to use 'military hardware with larger power' in response. 'Since early morning the Azerbaijani side resumed large-scale offensive ops. TOS-1A heavy flamethrowers are being employed. The use of TOS, Smerch and other large-caliber systems changes the philosophy and the scale of mil ops, elevating them to a new level of escalation,' claimed defence spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan. As a result, Armenian forces are 'compelled to use pieces of equipment and munitions designed to engage wide area targets, intended for large and indiscriminate destruction of manpower, and static and mobile property alike,' she warned. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan came down firmly on the side of Azerbaijan, which shares ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties with the larger power. 'The time has come for the crisis in the region that started with the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh to be put to an end,' Erdogan said. 'Now Azerbaijan must take matters into its own hands.' Aliyev on Monday ordered partial military mobilisation and General Mais Barkhudarov vowed to 'fight to the last drop of blood in order to completely destroy the enemy and win'. Armenia has accused Turkey of sending mercenaries to back Azerbaijan, a claim which Erdogan's government denies. Turkey informed the fighters they would be tasked with 'guarding border regions' in Azerbaijan in return for wages of up to $2,000, said Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Anna Naghdalyan, a spokeswoman for Armenia's foreign ministry, said people in Nagorno-Karabakh were 'fighting against a Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance'. 'Turkey, which a century ago annihilated Armenian people in their historical homeland and justifies that crime, now supports Azerbaijan by all possible means to carry out same genocidal acts in South Caucasus,' she said. As many as 1.5million Armenians were rounded up and killed by their Turkish rulers in mass killings which started during World War I, but Turkey fiercely disputes the term 'genocide'. Turkey has also conducted drills with F-16 jets in Azerbaijan, but Baku denied claims that it has any of the fighter planes or that one been involved in a shootdown. Russia has previously supplied Armenia with weapons in the sensitive region, where pipelines shipping Caspian oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the world pass close to Nagorno-Karabakh. How the military forces compare AZERBAIJAN 82,000 armed forces personnel 570 tanks including T-55, T-90 and modified T-72 upgraded by Israel 29 combat aircraft (five MiG-21, 12 MiG-29 and 12 Su-25 planes) ARMENIA 49,000 armed forces personnel 110 tanks including T-80, T-72, T-55 and BMP models 13 combat aircraft (nine Su-25 and four Su-30 planes) TURKEY 510,000 armed forces personnel 3,000 tanks including 339 German-made Leopard 2A4s and 1,200 American M60 tanks 206 combat aircraft (48 F4 jets and 158 F-16 jets) RUSSIA 1.45million armed forces personnel 12,950 tanks including Soviet-era T-72 and T-80, Russian-era T-14 Armata and T-90 models 1,616 combat aircraft including MiG, Sukhoi and Tupolev models 7,000 nuclear warheads with land, air and sea-based launchers Advertisement Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously urged the opposing sides in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to hold their fire, during a conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Kremlin said in a statement. Putin emphasised the urgent need for a ceasefire and for all sides to take measures to de-escalate the crisis, the Kremlin said. Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR said that the country's oil and gas infrastructure was safe thanks to measures taken by the army. The report of Turkish intervention comes after the European Union warned regional powers not to interfere in the fighting and condemned a 'serious escalation' that threatens regional stability. Omer Celika , spokesman for Erdogan's ruling party, denied reports that Turkey had sent arms or foreign fighters to Azerbaijan. 'Armenia is disturbed by Turkey's solidarity with Azerbaijan and is producing lies against Turkey,' Celik said. Erdogan criticized France, the US and Russia - the three chairs of the so-called Minsk group that was set up in 1992 to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict - saying they had failed to resolve the issue for 30 years. 'They have done their best not to solve this issue. And now they come and counsel and issue threats. They say, is Turkey here, is the Turkish military here?,' Erdogan said. France had warned previously it would 'trigger a co-ordination of the Minsk Group' in the coming days to 'find a way out' of the crisis. Armenia and Karabakh declared martial law and military mobilisation on Sunday, while Azerbaijan imposed military rule and a curfew in large cities. Analysts warn that the conflict could escalate into a proxy conflict between Moscow and Ankara, who both wield influence in Syria and Libya already. Michael Carpenter, a former Pentagon official, said any Turkish involvement would be 'hugely destabilising' and 'could lead to a proxy war between Turkey and Russia'. Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence monitoring group, said the two countries 'continue to vie for control across region, backing proxies on contentious non-secular lines' - referring to the fact that Azerbaijan is a majority-Muslim country, while most Armenians are Christians. In addition to the EU and Russia, France, Germany, Italy and the United States have urged a ceasefire. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the United States would seek to end the violence. 'We're looking at it very strongly,' he told a news briefing. 'We have a lot of good relationships in that area. We'll see if we can stop it.' Democratic nominee Joe Biden urged the White House to push for more observers along the ceasefire line and accused Russia of 'cynically providing arms to both sides.' Erdogan last night discussed the crisis in a phone call with British PM Boris Johnson, with Downing Street calling for 'urgent de-escalation in the region'. German chancellor Angela Merkel - who has clashed with Erdogan in the past - has called for an 'immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table' after speaking with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Five European countries - Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany and Britain - asked for a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council on the escalating conflict on Tuesday. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to both countries' leaders and called for 'an immediate stop to the fighting, a de-escalation of tensions and a return to meaningful negotiations without preconditions or delay. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation 'is a cause for concern for Moscow and other countries.' 'We believe that the hostilities should be immediately ended,' Peskov said, adding that the process of resolving the conflict should shift into 'a politico-diplomatic' dimension. Nuclear-armed Russia has a military base in Armenia and considers it to be a strategic partner in the South Caucasus region, supplying the ex-Soviet country with weapons. The Kremlin has cast itself as a mediator but Azerbaijan claimed last month that Moscow was 'intensively arming Armenia' after earlier clashes in July. Hostilities this year have been the worst since 2016, when intense fighting killed dozens and threatened to escalate into all-out war. Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan in a conflict that broke out as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Although a ceasefire was agreed in 1994, after thousands of people were killed and many more displaced, Azerbaijan and Armenia frequently accuse each other of attacks around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the separate Azeri-Armenian frontier. During the worst recent Karabakh clashes in April 2016, around 110 people were killed. In July 2020, heavy clashes along the two countries' shared border - hundreds of miles from Karabakh - claimed the lives of at least 17 soldiers from both sides. A LIMERICK cafe owner is celebrating a bit of good news after an incredibly tough year in business. Jane Conlon, who owns Sodalicious at Lower Cecil Street, has made it through to the finals of the prestigious Blas na hEireann food awards, which take place this Saturday. As the cafes name might suggest, Sodalicious focuses on soda bread. And Jane is hoping for victory in the artisan bread category with their cheddar and chive loaf. We were absolutely delighted when we found out wed been nominated, Jane told Business Leader, A bit of independent recognition is always encouraging. What we bake here is all sofa bread. Its all about celebrating this beautiful indigenous Irish product we have. Jane feels she is able to challenge perceptions of traditional soda bread through our cafe. Many people's perception of soda bread is your traditional farm bread. It's genuinely a really nice way to eat soda bread. But there is a lot more that can be done with it. We flavour most of our sofa bread with fresh additives - herbs, cheese, nuts. The product we put forward for the awards is flavoured with Irish cheddar and Irish grown chives. It's very tasty, she said. Jane praised her regular customers who have flocked back to her shop since it began trading again. We wouldn't be here without our regular customers. During lockdown when the cafe was closed ,we did do some take-away foods, and our regular customers were absolutely fantastic in supporting that just to keep a flicker of light open in a local business. Since we did open on July 6, they've been coming in every day in droves. They are the most supportive community. We don't get as much passing trade as they do down in town but people come out of their way to visit us. We greatly appreciate that, she concluded. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 20:48:59|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Iraq Adham Ismail said that the continuous increase in numbers of COVID-19 infections in Iraq is raising concerns due to the social gatherings and the approaching of winter. "The spread of the virus in the country at present is still under control and the government is making efforts to contain and control the pandemic," Ismail was quoted as saying by official al-Sabah newspaper on Saturday. "The WHO warns of a possible increase in the number of infections during the coming period due to the continuation of gatherings, failure to follow protective measures and adherence to health instructions, especially with the approaching of the Arbaeen Shiite ritual and the winter season," Ismail noted. He said that Iraq now is in the third stage of COVID-19 infections, which is the "communal spread." Ismail warned that in the coming fourth stage, the country will be completely infected, which will require taking swift and intensive measures including complete lockdown, according to the report. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Health Ministry reported 3,672 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, bringing the total nationwide infections to 375,931. The new cases included 1,505 in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, 333 in Dhi Qar, 264 in Basra, 263 in Duhok, and 258 in Wasit, while the other cases were detected in the other provinces, the ministry said in a statement. The ministry also reported 49 more deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 9,347 in the country. It also said that 3,861 more patients recovered in the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 303,665. A total of 2,330,386 tests have been carried out across the country since the outbreak of the disease in February, with 18,424 done on during the day, according to the statement. On Friday, the ministry said in a statement on the occasion of the Arbaeen ritual as thousands of Shiite pilgrims are heading every day from many Iraqi cities to the holy Shiite city of Karbala, some 110 km south of Baghdad, to commemorate the Arbaeen rite, in which the climax is expected to be on October 8. Iraq has taken a series of measures to contain the pandemic since February when the first coronavirus case appeared in the country. China has been helping Iraq fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem Leading experts from shipping, R&D and oil and gas have teamed up to develop a ground-breaking fuel solution for ships and oil and gas (offshore) sector. The new technology opens for many different types of fuel, including green ammonia and LNG. With this flexibility, vessels can choose fuel according to availability. The new and flexible fuel cell technology can reduce emissions from shipping by 40 to 100%. The main partners in the project are Norwegian industrial firms Odfjell, which has leading expertise in global shipping; Prototech, an expert in fuel cell technology, and Lundin Energy Norway, an oil and gas solutions specialist and Finland-based Wartsila, a major player in maritime technology and energy sector. These partners are now constructing a pilot system that can use different types of fuel. The system will first be tested at the Sustainable Energy catapult centre in Norway before installation on board a chemical tanker. The unique project was presented to the Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, during a ceremony celebrating an expansion of the catapult centre yesterday into Future Fuel Test Centre. Our tests show a CO2 reduction of as much as 40-45% when using LNG, compared to current solutions. Increased efficiency and reduced fuel consumption also provide significant cost savings, and the ship will be able to sail significantly longer on the same amount of energy. The system will also be ready to operate completely emission-free from the locations where, for instance, ammonia is available for bunkering, says Bernt Skeie, CEO of Prototech. The technology also enables direct capture of CO2, which will be yet another alternative for emission-free operation when logistics for CO2 management become available, Skeie explains. Around 90% of the world trade is transported by ships. Ship transport is still the most environmentally efficient way of carrying goods, but to achieve Norwegian shippings target of becoming climate neutral by 2050, new, energy-efficient solutions must be introduced. The project aims to develop a technology that can provide emission-free operation over long distances. Battery solutions are currently not suitable for operating ships that sail long distances, the so-called deep-sea fleet. This fleet consists of around 50,000 ships globally and thus constitutes a significant share of international shipping. It is impossible to achieve the goal of climate neutrality without finding solutions for this significant segment. The unique feature of the new technology is its high energy efficiency and the flexibility that enables significant emission reductions already from day one with the use of currently available infrastructure for LNG while also preparing for emission-free operation in line with the development of value chains and infrastructure for sustainable fuels in the years to come. Ships are to be operated for 20-30 years, and we need flexible solutions that can meet future emission requirements. We do not have time to wait, we have to think about zero emissions already now, says Erik Hjortland, Technology Director at Odfjell SE. The fuel cell project is one of the paths we are pursuing. We focus on machinery rather than focusing on one single type of fuel. Fuel cell technology gives us flexibility that ensures environmentally efficient operation regardless of fuel changes that may occur in the years ahead. The new energy solution has the potential to take us a big step closer to the goal of climate neutrality. And it does not stop with ships, this solution can also be used in offshore oil and gas operations, says Ingve Srfonn, Technical Director in Wartsila. Harald Solberg, CEO of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association, emphasizes the potential this project demonstrates. "The development of this fuel cell is an example of how forward-looking shipping companies and our unique maritime expertise have the prerequisites to drive new solutions through a broad collaboration within the maritime cluster," remarked Solberg. "In the long run, scaling up such solutions will be of great importance in achieving our climate goals, they will have business value, and they can create new jobs in Norway. Norwegian shipping has set ambitious climate goals. This type of projects is very important for us to be able to develop solutions that quickly reduce emissions," he added. In his third novel, telling the story of a gay man leaving 1980s Ireland behind, the broadcaster celebrates the better aspects of Irish society as well as applauding its progress, writes Darragh McManus. The "difficult second album" is a long-standing convention in music: band record a smashing debut, wobble considerably on the follow-up and then (hopefully) rediscover their mojo for a top-notch third LP. Could it apply to books as well?After limbering up with two well-written and well-received memoirs, Graham Norton's fiction debut, Holding, was excellent: an engrossing mystery wrapped in a charming, moving document of various lives in a small Irish town. The "difficult second album" came in the form of A Keeper, which had a lot to recommend it but was depth-charged by the faintly ridiculous sequence of events around which the plot revolved. As it happened, I actually quite liked the novel, for all its defects, but fear I was in the minority. Now we get Home Stretch, the broadcaster's third fiction offering. Will Norton shoot back to the top of the critical charts, or is his secondary career about to go the way of Babylon Zoo and Terence Trent D'Arby? Well, hardly. For one thing, A Keeper was every bit as much a bestseller as its predecessor - Norton could probably publish the proverbial shopping list and it'd go to several print runs - so his authorial endeavours, we can safely say, are not in any danger. More importantly, Home Stretch is a very fine novel: as good as Holding in some ways, similar to it in lots of ways too, though very much its own book. Again, we're in Norton Country: a fictional small town in Cork, this one named Mullinmore, somewhere near the coast, not too far from the city. It's 1987, and six young people are driving home from a day by the beach. Packed into a car, in those days where safe motoring and seatbelts were more of a vague principle than legally mandated, they don't stand a chance when the car hits a roundabout and crashes. Three passengers die, including the couple due to be married the next day, plus their bridesmaid. The bridesmaid's sister is comatose. Only two people are (relatively) unhurt: medical student Martin and barman Connor. When help arrives, Connor fesses up: he was driving. He's not quite ostracised by Mullinmore, not quite blamed; but he's kind of ostracised and kind of blamed, in that unspoken Irish way. Eventually, wracked with guilt - particularly on the effect this horrific tragedy has had on his parents and sister Ellen - and without much reason to stay anyway, Connor leaves for Liverpool. There he realises he's gay (or at least, comes out to other people), has a violent run-in with a self-hating gay flatmate and flees for London. It's an awful time for Connor, but it's darkest just before the dawn etc. He soon carves out a life for himself in London, then New York, which Norton follows by leaping through time, from 1987 to 1995, and on into the decade just past. Meanwhile, Ellen - the book is a large drama with an expansive cast, but she and Connor are its main characters - is unhappily married to Martin, now a doctor, still a cold, pompous prat. In 2012, their son Finbarr, a brash gay kid, bumps into Connor in a NYC bar. They soon clock the familial connection, and Ellen is reunited with her older brother. But will he come home to Mullinmore? He's embarrassed by the end of a long-term relationship and the fact that he's still drifting through life in his forties. He feels bad for not contacting his parents in decades. Will they even accept a gay son? Video of the Day Most of all, dark memories of what happened in 1987 remain as heavy as ever. Has the town forgiven him - and can Connor forgive himself? Norton has described Home Stretch as his most personal novel. On a facile level, the assumption might be that this is so because it has a gay central character, and charts the progress from those depressing old times when homosexuality was considered immoral and punishable by law to Ireland becoming the first country in the world to introduce same-sex marriage by popular vote. But on a deeper, and ultimately more satisfying, level, Home Stretch seems to me a love-letter from Norton to his homeland - the people and place that made him, for good or ill. He doesn't gloss over the bad things that were done, societally and individually: those gratuitous acts of spite or pride which made others' lives much harder than they needed to be. At the same time, though, he sees the complexity in people, the shades of grey - the way we all constantly balance those competing, compelling actors on our shoulders, the angel and the devil. And he appreciates and applauds the better aspects of Irish society, then and now: friendliness, warmth, forgiveness, humour, stoicism, community. It's an old truism that you have to leave a place to truly know it. Graham Norton left Ireland many years ago, but is marking out a space for himself as one of its most astute, sympathetic and interesting observers. Darragh McManus's books include 'Devil Hang Over Me' and 'Red Raven' The Jefferson County Circuit Court in Louisville, Kentucky, released audio recordings Friday of the grand jury proceedings relating to the killing of 26-year-old African American emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor. People gather in Jefferson Square awaiting word on charges against police officers, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) This came after an unidentified juror disputed Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Camerons explanation last month for why none of the officers were charged over Taylors murder earlier this year. Both the jurors decision to speak out publicly and the exposure of the grand jury are unprecedented and extraordinary developments. The juror in question came forward less than one week ago to accuse Cameron of misleading the public about the grand jurys deliberations. The juror filed a formal motion on Monday asking Jefferson Circuit Judge Ann Bailey Smith to allow fellow jurors to give up their confidential status if they wish and to speak freely about the proceedings, which are typically kept private. The jurors filing earlier this week stated that the full story and absolute truth of how this matter was handled from beginning to end is now an issue of great public interest and has become a large part of the discussion of public trust throughout the country. Judge Smith directed prosecutors to file the recordings during an arraignment hearing Monday for Brett Hankison, the former Louisville police detective who was indicted for shooting into neighboring apartments the night Taylor was shot and killed. Just ahead of a noon deadline, Camerons office released a redacted version of the recording in 14 different audio files. The redacted audio comprises approximately three minutes and 50 seconds out of approximately 20 hours of recordings. Im confident, Cameron stated, that once the public listens to the recordings, they will see that our team presented a thorough case to the Jefferson County Grand Jury. Our presentation followed the facts and the evidence, and the Grand Jury was given a complete picture of the events surrounding Ms. Taylors death on March 13. The Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) used a narcotics warrant to enter Taylors apartment on March 13 where they shot her after her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a gun at them one time. Taylor was shot a total of five times. The police never found any drugs in the apartment. The audio includes officers testimony that they knocked on Taylors door multiple times and announced their police presence before entering, which contradicts the story given by Walker. Walker previously stated that the officers bashed down the door with a battering ram unannounced, which was what prompted him to fire his warning shot at them in self-defense and that he never would have fired if he knew they were police. The LMPD maintains that none of the officers involved in the shooting wore body cameras, though body camera footage from other officers who responded to the shooting has since been released. That footage corroborates Walkers statements that he was threatened by the police and shows violations of department protocol. One audio recording comes from an interview on March 13, the day of the killing, from Lt. Shawn Hoover: We knocked on the door, waited, I dont know, 10 or 15 seconds. Knocked again, waited even longer. The majority of residents of the building report that they did not hear any such warning from the officers. Another recording features a law enforcement officer testifying that the police ultimately never executed the warrant to search Taylors apartment. Were drugs or paraphernalia recovered from apartment 4? The answer to that is no. They didnt go forward with executing the initial search warrant they had for Breonna Taylors apartment. Details are still emerging as journalists study the new audio recordings, but at least one interview has already come under public scrutiny at the time of this writing: a neighbor told the FBI that he heard three rounds of shots and that the last one sounded like an automatic rifle. The same neighbor stated that he saw an officer holding a 9mm Glock, which is the type of weapon that was fired into the leg of Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly. Cameron has previously claimed that the police officers do not carry 9mm weapons. The grand jury charged Officer Brett Hankison, who was previously fired, with three counts of wanton endangerment for shooting into a neighboring apartment, where no one was hit. He has pleaded not guilty, and Cameron has stated that there is no conclusive evidence that any of his shots hit Taylor. Cameron argued in his press conference announcing the grand jurys decision that Mattingly, who fired his weapon six times, and Detective Myles Cosgrove, who fired 16 shots, including the fatal shot that struck Taylor in the head, were protected by Kentucky law. While there are six possible homicide charges under Kentucky law, Cameron stated, these charges are not applicable to the facts before us because our investigation showed, and the Grand Jury agreed, that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in firing their guns. To date, none of the officers has been indicted on charges directly related to Taylors death. Walker, meanwhile, who fired a defensive warning shot when the door was busted down, was initially charged with attempted murder. As the WSWS explained earlier this week, the whitewashing of the police killing of Breonna Taylor is part of a politically orchestrated attempt to stifle the mass protests that have erupted against police violence since the spring. Protesters have again taken to the streets in recent days to demand more accountability in the case. Activists, Taylors family, and the unidentified juror had all called for the grand jury file to be released. Last week, Taylors mother, Tamika Palmer, wrote in a statement that was read aloud at a press conference, that I have no faith in the legal system, in the police, in the law. Speaking of Cameron, who is African American and a rising star in the Republican Party, she wrote, What I had hoped is that he knew he had the power to do the right thing, that he had the power to start the healing of this city. She concluded, What he helped me realize is that it will always be us against them, that we are never safe when it comes to them. In addition to the State of Kentuckys case against Hankison, the FBI is still reportedly investigating the police shooting. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-04 00:19:55|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close by Bambang Purwanto JAKARTA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo has called for micro-scale social restrictions to be introduced in provinces amid the surge in the COVID-19 cases. The president made the appeal for exercising such practices also known as "mini lockdown" at a cabinet meeting on Monday, while expressing the confidence that such measures will be more effective in bringing the surge in coronavirus infections under control. "The micro-scale social restrictions which are applied in villages, towns, RWs (community administrations), RTs (lower community administrations), offices and boarding schools would be more effective," he said. He noted that lockdowns of a whole district, city or province is not necessary as the COVID-19 pandemic likely affects only parts of an area, and that measures taken at scales larger than needed would impact the economy. In Indonesia, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has continued to rise. On Saturday, the Health Ministry reported a daily spike of 4,007, bringing the total tally to 299,506 with 11,055 deaths. Donny Gahral Adian, an expert from the Presidential Staff Office, told the Liputan6.com online news on Tuesday that in fact, measures like "mini lockdown" have already been imposed in a number of regions including West Java and Jakarta, and that other regions were expected to follow suit. "So, the mini lockdown shall be applied in areas found to be in the red or black zone (with high risks of COVID-19 transmissions)," Adian said. West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil has said his administration has implemented "mini lockdown" measures in cities including Bogor, Depok and Bekasi. The micro-scale lockdowns have been effective in curbing the number of the COVID-19 cases in West Java, he said, with applications in small administrative areas including at the levels of sub-district locally known as kecamatan and sub-sub-district or kelurahan. The capital Jakarta was among the pilot zones. Deputy Governor Ahmad Riza Patria said on Tuesday in the city hall: "Actually, Jakarta has since the beginning made a concept of 'standby area' in all RWs. It is similar to the concept of mini lockdown. The RWs which are found to be in the red zone are blocked." "The gates to the blocked areas are reduced by personnel who also prepare such necessary facilities as wash basins and hand sanitizers. They also sprinkle disinfectant in those areas and provide basic necessities for those who need them," he added. Enditem Baier and MacCallum were the only other Fox anchors in the hall. Other Fox personalities in Cleveland included Dana Perino, Juan Williams and Bill Hemmer, but they broadcast from a set across the street. Also on hand was Fox host Sean Hannity, who interviewed Donald Trump Jr. afterward. They bumped elbows and laughed at the gesture, assuring the audience that they had both been tested for the coronavirus. They joked about not wearing masks, and Trump Jr. noted that they might be thrown in the gulag for not doing so. FILE PHOTO: 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 strengthened against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, as domestic data showed factory activity expanding in September at its fastest pace in more than two years and short sellers covered their positions. The loonie was trading 0.3% higher at 1.3280 to the greenback, or 75.30 U.S. cents, having touched its strongest intraday level since Sept. 21 at 1.3268. It was the second straight day that the loonie has rallied, after the move higher in USD-CAD since the start of September peaked on Wednesday at 1.3420, which was an eight-week high. "I think we had some profit taking (on short Canadian dollar positions), the last two days, because it (USD-CAD) was stuck up there," said Ronald Simpson, managing director, global currency analysis at Action Economics. "It was six days in a row that it couldn't go any higher. So it didn't go any higher, everybody started selling," Simpson said. The IHS Markit Canada Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' index (PMI) rose to a seasonally adjusted 56.0 in September, its highest level since August 2018, adding to evidence of economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Still, oil traders have worried that rising coronavirus cases could dampen the demand outlook. U.S. crude oil futures settled 3.7% lower at $38.72 a barrel If oil stays in a lower trading band of $36 to $39 that could begin to weigh on the loonie, Simpson said. Canadian government bond yields eased across a flatter curve. The 10-year dipped 1.6 basis points to 0.550%, pulling back from a three-week high earlier in the day at 0.605%. (Reporting by Fergal Smith; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman) The National Identification Authority (NIA) has enrolled 15,549,242 people onto the National Identification System (NIS) at the end of its series of registration exercises for Ghana Card over the last three years. Comprising 8,268,429 females and 7,280,813 males, the Ashanti Region topped the regional chart with 3,016,319 registrants where the Ahafo Region recorded the least of 270,172 people. The NIA Executive Secretary, Professor Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah, who disclosed these at a press conference in Accra, yesterday, said processes were underway to enable the use of the cards for banking and other transactions. The NIA, in May 2017, started the NIS revamping project which aimed to compile a national database of Ghanaians living in the country and abroad as well as legal and permanent resident non-Ghanaian nationals. Guided by the National Identity Register (Amendment) Act, 2017 (Act 950), mass registration of persons above 15 years started from April, 2019 to June 2020 followed by a mop-up that ended on September 11, 2020. Of the 15million enrollment, Prof. Attafuah said, 14,689,672 cards had been printed; 13,848,697 issued; 840,974 printed but not issued with a backlog of 859,570 to be printed. Giving the regional breakdown, he said, Greater Accra, had the second highest registrants of 2,970,391 followed by Eastern, 1,670,262; Central 1,566,890; Western, 1,175,058; Northern, 801,132 and Volta, 781,346. He said Bono had 553,392; Bono East, 498,243, Upper East , 492,614; Western North, 489,035; Oti, 395,776; Upper West , 319,515; Savannah , 272, 260; North East 271,826 while 4,534 were captured under the wrong centre. Persons with disabilities were 75,874; persons above 60 years, 1, 382,134; persons between 18 to 60 years, 13,251,803 while farmers led the top 10 occupations with 3,183,545 registrants. Students were 2,707,952 while the registration captured 905,523 unemployed persons and 328,940 retirees with single men and women above 18 years being 5.8 million. According to Prof. Attafuah, NIA would set up regional and district offices nationwide to, among other things, issue the 1,700,544 remaining cards, handle application for registration, card replacement and record updates. When given clearance to recruit staff for such offices, he said, NIA would absorb 3,200 out of the 70,000 contract staff engaged for the registration exercises who did not have disciplinary issues. He said NIA, would in the coming months, set up premium registration centres in selected regions, set up review committees to address challenged cases and register children below 15 years as well as Ghanaians living abroad. On the use of the NIA database by other state agencies , Prof. Attafuah said, the Authority had signed a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority(DVLA), Bank of Ghana, Social Security and National Insurance Trust, Ghana Revenue Authority , Electoral Commission and others. The MoU would result in these agencies no longer producing sector specific ID cards and saving hundreds of millions of cedis over the 15 years life cycle of the NIS project, he said. Source: The Ghanaian Times Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The 126 new COVID-19 cases reported by Nigerian authorities, on Friday, took the total number of infections in the nation to 59,127. This is according to an update by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Friday night. For almost two months, Nigeria has been reporting daily cases below 300, a feat that reflects a slowing of the disease in the country. Authorities have, however, cautioned against relenting. The latest update came about a week after the NCDC warned that there is likely to be an even more devastating second wave of coronavirus in states such as Adamawa due to the non-compliance to COVID-19 health guidelines. The health agency said it is only when more persons are tested that the spread of this deadly disease can be addressed and tamed. Currently, Nigeria has tested over 510, 000 of its 200 million population. Of the over 59,000 cases, more than 50,000 persons have been discharged from hospitals after treatment while a little over 7,000 active cases remain in the country. The 126 new cases are reported from 12 states: Lagos (62), Rivers (22), Ogun (9), Plateau (7), FCT (7), Osun (5), Kwara (5), Taraba (3), Bayelsa (2), Abia (2), Zamfara (1), Imo (1). Lagos with the highest daily figure of 62 on Friday remains Nigerias COVID-19 hotspot with over 19,000 infections and 205 deaths. Abuja, Nigerias capital, is the second most impacted with a total of over 5,000 cases and 78 deaths. The number of deaths from the virus has also been minimal. Zero deaths were recorded on Friday, leaving the total number of deaths from the virus at 1,112. The NCDC had in its daily update stated that three out of every five deaths from the virus in Nigeria are in people over 50 years old, indicating the impact of the virus on the elderly. Pro-life Canadian observance Life Chain to hold 200 events nationwide despite COVID-19 shutdowns Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A nationwide prayer vigil by pro-life activists in Canada called Life Chain is scheduled to take place on Sunday at 200 locations throughout the country despite COVID-19 shutdown complications. The annual Life Chain observance is overseen by the pro-life group the Campaign Life Coalition and those involved will pray as a group for an end to abortion at given local intersections while some will hold signs with messages that read: "Abortion kills children and "Jesus heals & forgives." Josie Luetke, the youth coordinator with the Campaign Life Coalition and a Life Chain Canada committee member, told The Christian Post that it was our duty to bring attention to the injustice of abortion. The most commonly used Life Chain sign bears the message Abortion kills children, and that's what we're hoping people take away from the event, said Luetke. No matter what crazy things are going on in the world, we can't forget that currently, across North America, thousands of innocent preborn children are being killed through abortion. Luetke explained that last year saw around 250 cities participating, which was higher than the number this year, due in part to complications arising from the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, there were over 250 Canadian Life Chains from coast to coast, about a third of which, mainly those in the Toronto and Ottawa areas, were directly organized by Campaign Life Coalition, she explained. We will still see over 200 Life Chains this year, but we are contending with some last-minute cancellations and location changes. Luetke gave a conservative estimate of around 15,000 people participating in the 2019 Life Chain, with the expectation that fewer will be involved this year. The event will be fairly similar to that of previous years, with participants spaced out and praying silently, but there will be additional COVID-19 safety measures in place, like hand sanitizer and mask usage if necessary, she said. We'll also be abiding by social gathering limits, which, in Ontario for instance, means separating groups of 25 by a couple of blocks or so. Even with the complications associated with COVID-19, I imagine we could hit 10,000 participants this weekend. In addition to following local restrictions on mass gatherings, campaign organizers are also discouraging participants from taking group photos and suggesting they film demonstrations to show compliance to COVID-19 protocols if need be. The COVID-19 shutdown rules haven't prevented us from holding Life Chain, but we have developed extensive guidelines for organizers to ensure everyone's safety, continued Luetke. Life Chain is a very low-risk event and other much riskier protests and demonstrations have gone unhindered. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even attended one such protest. Ultimately, we have a constitutionally-protected right to protest, which ought to be respected. Life Chain was first observed in Canada back in 1990, having been inspired by a similar observance in the United States. It is generally held each year on the first Sunday of October. Canada among a small number of countries that allows for elective late-term abortions and Trudeau has championed state-funding for abortion. A Former Chairman of the Peoples National Convention, Bernard Mornah, has expressed his unflinching support for the newly elected leadership of the party as it heads into the December 7, 2020 polls. Having lost his re-election bid to Moses Dani Baah at the partys congress held in Accra on Wednesday, speculations were that Mr Mornah could quit the party. But in interview with online portal Ghanaweb, Bernard Mornah said he would remain at the service of the party as he seeks to represent the people of Nadowli/Kaleo constituency. I am PNC and I will continue to be PNC. I am going to contest in the Nadowli/Kaleo Constituency. Dont forget that in 2016 I contested but I was not favoured. In 2020, I am going there, he stated. Losing the race, he said, did not mean his political activism would come to a halt on national issues. I will not shut up; I am going to continue to talk when my voice is needed on any issue. What I can no longer do is to go and talk as a PNC Chairman. But I will speak as Bernard Mornah, as the political activist not only in Ghana but the continent of Africa. The defeated National Organiser of the party, Desmond Nana Ntow on his part said he would also continue supporting the party for the much needed victory in December. It was a contest, the delegates have voted and I respect the decision they have taken and I pledge my full support to the new executives and wish them well. I admonish them to raise the party higher as we planned but could not get the opportunity to continue. Mr Ntow said he has served the party well and believes the newly elected officers would do their best to make the party more attractive to the Ghanaian people. The congress saw the election of a former MP for the Bolgatanga Constituency, David Apasera, as the flagbearer of the party for the 2020 general elections. He defeated Rev Samuel Adjei-Debrah and Sampson Asaki Awingobit to pick the slot to be on the ballot in December. Mr Baah polled 1297 votes to beat Mr Mornah who has served the PNC in various capacities including General Secretary. For the National Chairman slot, Bernard Mornah got 1266 votes as against Moses Dani Baahs 1297 votes. With 1312 votes, Janet Asana Nabla beat her contenders Emmanuel Wilson Jnr and Kobe McDonald who managed 1041 and 230 votes respectively. Henry Haruna Asante won the Vice Chairmanship race with 1729 votes against Hajia Hajara Musah Alis 946 votes, Omar Ahmed Bekures 635 and Eugene T.K. Bashirus 375. In the race for the National Organiser position, Abass Nuhu had 1124 votes to beat his contenders Ntow Desmond Twumasi, 773 and Daniel Nii Noi 639 votes. The womens wing of the party would now be headed by Hidaya Sungjun who had 1249 votes to emerge as the National Womens Organiser. Source: The Ghanaian Times Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Russias version of Americas Operation Warp Speed vaccine project is located far from the Kremlin on a sleepy side street on the outskirts of Moscow. Tucked in a sandy-brick building with an office advertising medical tests and a dingy wooden door, it doesnt look like a cutting-edge medical laboratory. But it was here that, if you believe President Vladimir Putin, Russia won the global race to develop a vaccine against Covid-19. Praising the developers at the state-run Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Putin declared in August that Russia had registered a shot for public use, making it the first vaccine worldwide to gain such clearance. Russia named it Sputnik V after the Soviet-era satellite that set off the space race in 1957 a clear signal of the geopolitical importance Putin has attached to the project. The presidents live-TV announcement glossed over one key point. Russia approved the vaccine after tests in fewer than 80 people, with larger trials needed to assess safety and effectiveness just underway. Putins claim of victory has met with skepticism and disapproval from health experts in the West, where shots will have to be tested in tens of thousands of subjects before being cleared. The vaccine will be ready for wide distribution late this year or early next, officials say. That's roughly the same schedule as shots from rivals in the U.S., U.K. and China. Initial results from final-stage studies wont be ready until November, with full data expected next year. Overall Id say Russia is a little bit behind the leading Western candidates," said Rasmus Bech Hansen, CEO of Airfinity Ltd., a London-based firm that tracks Covid-19 vaccine and drug development, but not far behind." Putins August announcement has already delivered one key result for the Kremlin: It put Russias previously under-the-radar vaccine efforts on the map, triggering a rush of requests from governments around the world to buy or produce the shot. By late September, the head of the state fund backing the project said it had orders for 1.2 billion doses. We did a survey in 12 key countries and name recognition for Sputnik is 80%," Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in an interview. But its not PR. Were trying to save people." He says Sputnik is three to four months ahead of rivals. With the fourth-largest number of cases in the world but per capita health-care spending far lower than in most Western countries, Russia needs a vaccine. Facing a spike in cases, Moscow has joined other European capitals in tightening restrictions. Russian labs are working on another two dozen candidates. For years, Putin has pushed to rebuild Russias prowess in long-neglected life sciences, arguing success might one day determine global winners and losers. With little presence in global pharma innovation, the Kremlin has used vaccines as soft-power tools to win influence in developing countries. Named for a legendary Soviet microbiologist, Gamaleya was Russias biggest producer of a tuberculosis vaccine. In 2015, Putin praised its development of a shot against Ebola. About 2,000 people received it in Guinea in 2017-2018, according to Gamaleyas website. But in the recent outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, new inoculations from Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson were used. Still, Gamaleya had broken through with the audience that mattered at home. The Ebola vaccine used adenoviruses, relatively harmless cold viruses, that can make proteins that stimulate the immune system against specific pathogens. Gamaleya also used the technique to develop an experimental inoculation against another coronavirus, the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome. As Covid-19 began spreading earlier this year, it took Gamaleya scientists only a few weeks to adapt their MERS adenovirus vectors for the new pathogen. After testing on mice, guinea pigs and monkeys, the centers director and key scientists injected themselves with the vaccine. My goal wasnt to be first in the world; it was to protect my loved ones," Denis Logunov, a deputy research director at Gamaleya and head of the lab that developed the vaccine, said in July. Gamaleya got a key financial backer in the Russian Direct Investment Fund, whose chief, Dmitriev, meets regularly with Putin and works on some of the presidents most sensitive global assignments. RDIF studied more than two dozen vaccine efforts in Russia and chose Gamaleya and its human adenovirus-based technology because it had been used for years for other illnesses, said Dmitriev. He embraced the project, getting shots along with his family in April. We are confident in the vaccine because we know the platform is incredibly safe," he told Bloomberg Television Sept. 7. As the coronavirus spread, sickening officials and members of the business elite, Dmitriev and Gamaleya quietly offered shots to hundreds of Russias powerful people. The vaccine is the only way to return to normal life," said Andrey Guryev, a fertilizer CEO who was inoculated over the summer. Its important that Russia is one of the first countries to have it." Early-stage trials included just 76 people, mostly military personnel. Others who received it were formally signed up as volunteers for trials and monitored, but no data on them have been released. The research, peer-reviewed and published in the Lancet medical journal only after Putins approval announcement, still raised questions from scientists who said results from some volunteers appeared too similar to be plausible. While the Gamaleya specialists have responded, more details should be released, said Enrico Bucci, a biologist at Temple University in Philadelphia. We would like access to the full data record," said Bucci, one of the authors of a letter to the journal criticizing the Gamaleya study. The data we were asking for were not provided in the response the Russian researchers made to the Lancet, he said. The politics of Covid-19 vaccines and which countries will get them first have roiled a field in which scientists normally work in relative obscurity. After U.S. President Donald Trump hinted that a vaccine might be authorized before the Nov. 3 election, drugmakers banded together in a pledge to uphold safety standards and avoid shortcuts. Sputniks developers, on the other hand, encouraged Putin to move their vaccine to the public sphere. After a visit to Gamaleyas labs by Russias health minister in early April, the project was taken to Putin to seek his support. On a televised video meeting a few days later, center Director Alexander Gintsburg asked the president to sign off on an accelerated approval process, based on promising animal data. Well do everything to accelerate the administrative procedures," Putin replied. Before Aug. 11, Gamaleyas vaccine was just one of hundreds of projects worldwide, trailing frontrunners including Moderna Inc., the University of Oxford working with AstraZeneca Plc, and the partnership of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE. Putins announcement of the approval of Sputnik V seemed to change all that. We are the first to register one," Putin said. It forms lasting antibody and cellular immunity," he told government officials in the televised meeting. I know that well because one of my daughters has had this vaccination. In that sense, she participated in the experiment." Dmitriev, the RDIF chief, followed with a whirlwind of international broadcast appearances. Russian state television featured top officials and politicians getting the shots and deliveries of the first small numbers to regions around the country. More than 6,000 people have gotten the shots since approval in August and are reporting back using a special app. While China has also released a vaccine for use outside clinical trials, it hasnt claimed approval. Many of those getting shots are in the military, where experimental immunizations have often been used for national security reasons. In China, we see more adherence to standards and transparency about whats going on," Airfinitys Hansen said. Ultimately its in the states own interest." Meanwhile, Putin is pushing ahead, ordering an advertising campaign to help Russians choose which vaccine to use. RDIF announced deals with India, Brazil and Mexico to supply or produce the vaccine locally. Putin touted the shot in a speech to the United Nations, offering to provide it for free to the organizations staff worldwide. To help strengthen their case, RDIF officials say they will release interim data from about 25,000-30,000 people in the phase 3 trial now underway at the end of October or early November. Mass vaccination" will begin before that, Dmitriev said. Industry leaders are struggling to figure out how to produce whats been promised. Fewer than 150,000 doses have been made, though RDIF says its targeting 10 million a month by December. Its just a race to make news when our speakers say theres demand for another 100 million doses," said Alexey Repik, whose R-Pharm Group has signed on to produce Sputnik V. We dont have enough vaccine to cover our own needs yet." Despite the hype, Putin hasnt tried the vaccine himself. Visitors must quarantine before meeting him face-to-face or sit at a distance in official events. Experts share his caution. Covax, the $18 billion initiative to deploy future Covid-19 vaccines around the world, would need to see results from a full, properly powered efficacy and safety trial along with regulatory review to engage" on Russias vaccine, said Seth Berkley, chief executive officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, one of the partners in the international effort. But we are talking to them," he said, and whether they have a product that will ultimately be useful or not I think will have to be told by the science, not by the politics." This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics President Donald Trump for months has been making unsubstantiated statements about the potential for massive fraud as millions of Americans are expected to cast their ballots by mail ahead of the Nov. 3 election. But the presidents frequent claims dont jibe with reality in Illinois, which for a decade has allowed any voter to request a mail-in ballot without having to explain why they cant show up to the polls on Election Day. The percentage of ballots cast by mail has been on the rise since 2010 without any widespread problems, election officials say. As of Friday morning, nearly 2 million Illinois voters had applied to vote by mail, according to the State Board of Elections. Thats roughly a quarter of all active registered voters in the state and more than the combined number of those who cast votes by mail in all general elections since 2010. The numbers were likely boosted by new state law in effect just for the Nov. 3 balloting that automatically sent applications to millions of voters and allowed the use of secure drop boxes to collect completed ballots. While local election officials say theyre well-prepared for the anticipated deluge of mail-in ballots, the process so far has not been without hiccups. Problems have included a letter from the secretary of states office informing some voters that they hadnt returned their ballot application, even though they had; voters showing up at some early voting sites after applying for a mail-in ballot but before receiving it; and, in one downstate jurisdiction, ballots printed with some races omitted. Its just a matter of scale, James Nally, an attorney with Cook County Electoral Board, said of the steps officials are taking to ensure a smooth election. Weve been conducting early voting, weve been conducting voting by mail for quite some time now, but certainly not with the volumes that were going to see in this election. Ballots began going out to voters who requested them on Sept. 24 and should be counted as long as theyre postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by Nov. 17. It remains to be seen how many voters will choose to return their ballots by mail or through the secure drop boxes approved in the new state law, but election officials in Chicago, Cook County and elsewhere have invested in additional equipment to process the anticipated influx. Cook County has spent $315,000 on additional mail sorting machines that can process thousands of ballots per day and $25,000 on secure ballot drop boxes, which will be placed at each early voting site. A large portion of the funding came from the federal coronavirus relief package approved earlier this year. Chicago election officials also worked with the U.S. Postal Service to refine the outgoing and return envelopes to reduce the chances of ballots being lost in the mail. Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons. Both Chicago and Cook County are sending ballots with return postage prepaid -- which is not required by law -- and have set up systems to notify voters via email when their applications have been received, when their blank ballots are mailed out and when their completed ballots have been successfully returned. Heres how the process works once election authorities receive a mail-in ballot: As election authorities receive mail-in ballots, bipartisan, three-person panels of election judges review the outer envelope to make sure it is signed and that the voters signature matches the one on file. The three-judge panel can vote to reject a ballot if the signatures dont match, the envelope is unsigned or unsealed, or the voter already cast a ballot in person, among other reasons. The vote must be unanimous, and every ballot gets reviewed. Cook County will have multiple three-judge panels reviewing ballots throughout election season. Nally, the Cook County election attorney, said the most important thing voters can do to make sure their ballots are counted is to clearly sign the outer envelope. If a ballot is rejected, election officials must notify the voter within two days if its prior to Election Day or within one day after Election Day. If a ballot is rejected because of a signature issue, the voter can submit a statement attesting that they cast the ballot. If its rejected due to an open envelope, the voter can request a new ballot or vote in person if the polls are still open. Mail-in ballots are processed as theyre received but cannot be counted until 7 p.m. on Election Day. In Chicago, Cook County and other jurisdictions, automated machines are used to process ballot and to separate voters' identifying information from their ballots. Voters who apply for and receive a mail-in ballot may still choose to vote in person instead. In that case, officials say voters should surrender the ballot to election judges at an early voting site or Election Day polling place before voting in person. The use in jurisdictions including Chicago and Cook County of real-time electronic poll books, which allow election judges to quickly look up information such as voter registration details and whether someone has already cast a ballot, should prevent anyone from being able to cast two ballots -- as Trump urged supporters to do last month at a rally in North Carolina. Even if someone drops a ballot in the mailbox on the way to the polls on Election Day, the mail-in ballot would be rejected because an in-person vote already would be recorded by the time the ballot is received via mail, officials said. Though rare, knowingly voting or attempting to vote more than once in an election is a Class 3 felony in Illinois, punishable by two to five years in prison. Ballot drop boxes, a new option for election authorities this year, must be emptied daily and are subject to security guidelines established by the State Board of Elections. The board recommends 24-hour video surveillance for any unmanned drop box. There are also provisions in place in the event that a voter returns a ballot to the wrong jurisdiction -- if a Chicago voter slips his or her ballot into a suburban Cook County drop box, for instance. In that case, the election authority must send the ballot to the proper jurisdiction. If feasible, a bipartisan pair of election judges can hand-deliver the errant ballots. Vote-by-mail applications must be received by election authorities by Oct. 29 if sent by mail. Voters can also request a mail-in ballot in person at their local election authoritys headquarters until Nov. 2. Once the polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day, the counting of mail-in ballots can begin, with officials continuing to tabulate ballots received through Nov. 17. Local officials have until Nov. 24 to certify the results in their jurisdictions, and the State Board of Elections has until Dec. 4 to certify the results. Despite a high degree of uncertainty given the historically large share of votes expected to be cast by mail, election officials said they dont anticipate major delays in tabulating results -- especially if most voters dont wait until the last minute to mail back their ballots. Its not going to be anything out of the ordinary, said Hernandez, of the Chicago Board of Elections. I think we will be seeing reports, numbers coming in as we did in March. And I think a lot of it is due to the automation. So Im confident, Im hopeful that were not going to be seeing the delay that others are claiming. Election officials have an interest in instilling voter confidence in the electoral process, but voting by mail is not error-free or fraud-proof, said Brian Gaines, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign political science professor who specializes in elections, including a study of the benefits and drawbacks of convenience voting. While the president and others who make claims about massive fraud fail to provide evidence, Gaines said, it isnt as if theres no fraud at all. As an example, Gaines cites cases from southern Illinois in 2000 in which he testified as an expert witness. In that years Democratic primary for Alexander County circuit clerk, a challenger appeared to narrowly defeat the incumbent, but shortly before Election Day, police found nearly 700 absentee ballots in the home, office and truck of the county clerk, along with evidence that she was replacing ballots cast in favor of the incumbent with ones in favor of the challenger. A judge threw out the election results, but local Democratic leaders then appointed the challenger to fill the vacant office. Although cases like that arent the norm, its likely that when all is said and done there will be some discussion of irregularities" in this election, Gaines said. With more people than ever voting by mail, theres also the chance for inconsistencies in the way different election authorities deal with challenging cases, such as missing or unclear postmarks or evidence of someone turning in a large number of ballots without authorization. Maybe none of that will happen," Gaines said. It has to play out first before we know if some particular bad scenario has arisen. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 October 03 : Kareena Kapoor Khan loves to share every moment of her life with her fans on social mediabe it her birthday or her husband Saif Ali Khans, her memorable moments with her little munchkin Taimur, or even her lazy momentsshe never let her social media go dull. And her fans just love all her posts. The Good Newwz actress, who is currently in Delhi with Saif and Taimur to shoot for her upcoming film Laal Singh Chaddha with Aamir Khan, took to her Instagram handle and shared a beautiful selfie this morning. In the picture, the actress flaunts her radiant glow of her five months pregnancy as she looks gorgeous even without makeup. In the picture, Kareena is seen in a chic black and white checkered kaftan with a matching red border, as she seeps in the sun sitting outdoors in the lawn. The diva captioned the picture as, 5 months and going strong. PS : The #KaftanSeries continues. Back in August, when Kareena and Saif announced that they were expecting their second child together, their fans, friends and family not only showed them with good wishes, but also made comments like Taimur will get a little sibling, Saif was becoming a quad father and many more. Kareena and Saif are expecting their second child in February 2021. Fans are also looking forward to see Kareena flaunt her maternity fashion. Throughout the coronavirus lockdown, Kareena shared pictures in her comfy kaftans which she said is a must in her summer wardrobe. Meanwhile, on the work front, the actress is wrapping up her portions of Laal Singh Chaddha this month. She also has Karan Johars period drama Takht in the pipeline. DO vampires exist? According to legend, they are evil mythological beings which feed on blood and can morph into a bat or wolf. Most people associate vampires with movies or Count Dracula, the legendary, blood-sucking subject of Bram Stokers epic novel, Dracula, which was published in 1897. Tell that to villagers from Makwe area, Ward 8 about 40km west of Gwanda Town in Matabeleland South who have lost more than 57 goats in one month to what they believe is a nocturnal creature that sucks the blood out of their livestock and leaves two puncture/teeth marks on their necks. Some villagers believe the teeth marks and the fact that the creature leaves no tracks, are sure signs that a vampire is on the loose in the village. Isolated incidents were first recorded in 2018 but a pattern developed over the months, culminating in increased killings that have spread fear in the community. The palpable terror in the village has been magnified by superstition as some villagers believe they are dealing with goblins or some supernatural force from the underworld. Others think a strange cat-like being is responsible after it reportedly attacked a woman and her children at their home one night. A villager who said he was a wildlife expert told Chronicle there was no known animal species in the area that could inflict the deep tooth marks found on dead livestock. Frightened community members no longer venture outdoors after dark. The areas traditional leader, Chief Mathema has since asked Gwanda Rural District Council Officials to engage the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) officials to help track down the killer beast. A villager who chose to identify himself only as Moyo said he was convinced a vampire was preying on livestock. Believe what you want. Tell me they dont exist but you will be speaking from an uninformed point of view. You have not woken up to find six dead goats drained of blood in your kraal. Nothing else eaten and not even a sound of alarm through the night. This is a vampire. I know of other villagers who think the same. Authorities need to protect us, said Moyo. Mr Edwell Dube said he lost four goats last month. He said he found two of the goats outside the kraal while the other two were inside. Each goat, he said, had been pierced on the neck. Mr Dube said the kind of killings were only seen in vampire movies. Its like we are now living a horror movie because of what we are experiencing in our village. Almost every morning we find goats dead. A month ago, I found four of my goats dead and their blood had been sucked out. They had pierced markings on their neck where this creature sucked the blood out of them. These are the kind of killings that we see in vampire movies. We are now afraid to move around because we dont know what kind of creature we are faced with, he said. Yesterday the villagers woke up to find nine goats dead. The mysterious killings have left the villagers wondering when the blood thirsty predator will strike next or whether it will move further to attack humans. A villager told the news crew a bizarre creature recently sneaked into her house in the middle of the night. Ms Lenia Ndlovu said she found the animal which is the size of a cat in her childrens blankets. She bravely fought it and stabbed it with a spear in the stomach. She said she had since abandoned her home and was staying at her aunts homestead following the encounter. Describing the creature Ms Ndlovu said it looked like a cat with a very long furry tail. She said the cat had a capped forehead with a black, brown and white skin tone. As the creature bled, I alerted neighbours who threw stones and logs at it in a bid to kill it but it managed to escape and fled into the night, said Ms Ndlovu. She said she suspected that the creature which was killing their livestock was the one which invaded her home. Ms Ndlovu said however what puzzled her is that she was not able to spot any teeth on the creature. Ms Seluleko Ncube said on Thursday morning she found five of her goats lying dead scattered on the ground. I woke up at around 6AM and found five of my goats lying dead on the ground. The flesh was intact but four of them had puncture marks on their necks whose width is the size of an adults finger while the fifth had similar marks on the stomach. It showed that whatever attacked my goats, sucked blood out of them through the marks because they had blood stains around the neck area going down to the chest. I didnt find any blood stains on the ground. There were also some scratch marks on the bodies of the goats which I suspect were caused by this vicious creature as it was attacking the goats. Im now wondering that if this creature was able to attack my goats which were a few metres away from my homestead what about me and my children. This creature has to be hunted down soon otherwise there will be more bloodshed, she said. Mrs Thobekile Siziba (45) said she lost four goats to the eerie predator last week. A village head from the area, Mr Goden Ncube (77) said he had never come across a predator that kills in such a manner or creature which fits the description that people were giving. He said villagers suspected a goblin was on the loose and hunting for blood. This problem started two years back but it was just isolated cases and each time a goat was killed dogs would follow and devour it and we assumed that it was the dogs which were killing the goats. Now the situation has worsened and we see that we have a serious problem on our hands, he said. Mr Ncube said the community has previously had problems of predators such as hyenas and other wild animals but they had never recorded such encounters. He said even dogs were afraid of the creature. Chronicle US President Donald Trump is doing "very well" after spending a night at a military hospital, his physician Dr Sean Conley has said. Trump's doctors have said they are extremely happy with the president's progress since he was diagnosed with Covid-19. His medical team were speaking from outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre, where Trump is expected to spend "a few days", according to the White House. Mr Trump was brought into hospital as a "precautionary measure", Dr Conley said, adding that the US president is not on oxygen and does not have difficulty breathing. The medical team said Trump has been fever-free for over 24 hours and told a doctor: "I feel like I could walk out of here today." Mr Trump tweeted "going well, I think!" after his arrival. But some reports in the US gave a less positive picture, with sources telling the Associated Press that some of the president's vital signs over the past 24 hours were "very concerning", though he has been improving since going to hospital. A source familiar with Mr Trump's condition told AP that the president was administered supplemental oxygen at the White House on Friday before going to hospital. Mr Trump announced his diagnosis in a tweet in the early hours of Friday, following a positive test from one of his closest aides. Earlier, officials had said Mr Trump, 74, was experiencing mild symptoms of the virus which can notably cause fever, a cough and a loss of smell or taste. His diagnosis came after aide Hope Hicks returned a positive test on Thursday, with Mr Trump later tweeting: @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! The presidents re-election campaign said all events featuring Mr Trump and members of his family would either be postponed or go online, but that vice-president Mike Pence would resume campaigning as he had tested negative. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was admitted to intensive care following his own positive test, has expressed his best wishes to Mr and Mrs Trump. He said: Well, obviously, I think we all want to send our best wishes to the president and the first lady, and I have done that this morning as you can imagine, and Im sure that they will both stage a very strong recovery. Vernon, N.Y. A driver was killed Friday morning after his pickup truck hit a tree and rolled over in Oneida County. Jacob G. Van Ormer, of Oriskany Falls, died at the scene of the Vernon crash, said the Oneida County Sheriffs Office. He was 31 years old. The accident was reported at 10:04 a.m. Van Ormer was driving northeast on Peterboro Road when his gray Chevrolet 2500 drove off the north shoulder of the road and into a ditch, deputies said. The pickup truck crashed head-on into a tree, deputies said, before rolling over and coming to a stop partially in the road. Van Ormer was pronounced dead at the scene. Along with deputies, the Vernon Fire Department, Vineall Ambulance and the New York State Police responded to the accident. 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. The Nile is experiencing its highest flooding season in 108 years this year thanks to heavy rainfall on the Ethiopian Highlands, the source of the Atbara, Blue Nile, and Sobat rivers which contribute about 85 per cent of the water of the Nile. The White Nile, which starts in the Great Lakes region of Africa, has a constant flow throughout the year and accounts for only about 15 per cent of Nile water. This is the third of seven fat years in the Niles theoretical 20-year cycle. During these years, the rivers flow from its three Ethiopian tributaries can increase by 50 to 100 per cent. In the seven lean years that follow them, the flow diminishes by roughly the same amount. In the remaining six years, the water remains at an average level during the flooding season that lasts from June to November. A UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) study estimated in 2014 that the Ethiopian Plateau receives some 1,000 billion m3 of rainfall a year, of which about 72 billion m3 flow into the Nile. The remainder flows into the six other rivers that emanate from the Ethiopian Highlands. Heavy flooding seasons can be devastating for Sudanese people living near the Nile, as the rush of water can submerge homes and fields, sweep away livestock, and cause deaths by drowning. The flooding can also place heavy strain on Sudanese dams at Roseires, Sennar, Merowe, and Khashm Al-Girba and on the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. To avert any potential damage to the structure of the High Dam in the event of overfilling, Egypts Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has begun to release excess water into the Toshka spillway in the Aswan desert. It has also started diverting quantities of the excess water into irrigation canals in Upper Egypt so that farmers there can use the freshwater to decontaminate the soil from the build-up of the salts and pollutants that have accumulated in it during the 50 years since the High Dam put a stop to the natural flooding season. As this years flooding exceeds the needs of Egypts agricultural, domestic, and industrial sectors, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has decided to use the excess water to rejuvenate the Nile itself by allowing a certain amount of it to sweep accumulated pollutants northwards and out into the Mediterranean. Particular attention has been given to the Rosetta branch of the Nile, which suffers higher levels of pollution than the Damietta branch because it receives most of the agricultural and waste-water runoff from Upper Egypt. The Rosetta branch of the Nile has become notorious for fish die-offs during the summer months, when concentrations of pollutants increase as a result of higher temperatures, a phenomenon that has been particularly hard on fish-farmers. The flow of the Nile in Egypt is assisted by a gradient from 200 metres above sea level in Aswan to zero at the Mediterranean. In addition to this, there is also a slight gradient from east to west in the Delta in the direction of the Rosetta branch and the Beheira governorate, the largest of Egypts governorates which stretches from the edge of Giza to Rosetta at the mouth of the Nile on the Mediterranean. As a result of these two gradients, some areas in Beheira and some of the islands in that branch of the Nile will be adversely affected by the cleansing process, despite ministry of irrigation engineers regulating the discharge of water from the High Dam. An estimated 1,200 acres of land in Beheira will be submerged, as opposed to only nine acres on the Damietta branch of the Nile. As the flovoding season the year is expected to continue until the end of October for the first time in a century, water-resource officials are also thinking about using the excess water to cleanse agricultural land in the Delta from salinisation due to sea-water intrusion and shallow waterlogging (up to less than a metre high) and cumulative salt and pollutant residues generated by the reuse of agricultural drainage water for irrigation. Large expanses of Egyptian soil have been deprived of the natural cleansing processes of the Nile floods since the High Dam went into operation 50 years ago. Around 46 per cent of the agricultural land in the northern Delta, 37 per cent of the land in the central Delta, and 24 per cent of the land in the southern Delta suffer from heavy soil salinity, meaning that high salinity affects over a third of the agricultural land in the Delta. This years higher-than-average floods make it possible to wash away the excess salts, not to mention the accumulated residues from chemical fertilisers and pesticides. This is precisely what the ministry of water resources and irrigation is doing this year in order to breathe new life into Egyptian soil that had benefited from the fertile silt that the Nile brought into the Delta for thousands of years until the Aswan High Dam was built. *The writer is professor of soil and water sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture at Cairo University. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: NEW DELHI Indias COVID-19 fatalities are closing on 100,000 with another 1,095 deaths reported in the past 24 hours. The update by the Health Ministry on Friday raised Indias death toll to 99,773. Its reported deaths are low for a country with nearly 1.4 billion people and more than 6.3 million confirmed cases but experts say it may not be counting many fatalities. The ministry also reported 81,484 new cases. Total cases jumped from 1 million in mid-July to more than 6 million in less than 2 1/2 months. New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru are the main urban centers of the infections, accounting for one in every seven confirmed cases and one in every five deaths in the country. ___ HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK: Trump in quarantine process after top aide gets COVID-19 US hiring l ikely slowed in September for 3rd straight month Pfizer CEO pushes back against Trump claim on vaccine timing Democrats controlling the House narrowly have passed a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, a move that came as top-level talks on a smaller, potentially bipartisan measure dragged on toward an uncertain finish. The nations two largest school districts are rolling out ambitious and costly plans to test students and staff for the coronavirus. New York City launched a program to begin monthly testing of 10% to 20% of students and staff as the final wave of the districts more than 1 million students returned to brick-and-mortar classrooms Madrid and its suburbs are preparing to enter a soft lockdown that restricts trips in and out of the Spanish capital following a weeks-long political turf fight over Europes latest infection hot spot. ___ Follow APs pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak ___ HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING: MANILA, Philippines Two of the most popular Philippine tourist destinations, including the Boracay beach, have partially reopened with only a fraction of their usual crowds showing up given continuing coronavirus restrictions. Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said Friday that 35 local tourists, including seven from Manila, came on the first day of the reopening of Boracay, a central island famous for its powdery white sands, azure waters and stunning sunsets. Only local tourists from regions with low-level quarantine designations could go, subject to safeguards, including tests showing a visitor is coronavirus-free. The mountain city of Baguio, regarded as a summer hideaway for its pine trees, cool breeze and picturesque upland views, has been reopened to tourists only from its northern region, she told ABS-CBN News. Despite the urgent need to revive the tourism industry, its being done very slowly, cautiously, she said, adding mayors and governors would have to approve the reopening of tourism spots. We really have to be careful, she said. Like in most countries, the pandemic has devastated the tourism industry in the Philippines, which now has the most confirmed COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia at more than 314,000, with 5,504 deaths. ___ LOS ANGELES -- Californias plan to safely reopen its economy will begin to require counties to bring down coronavirus infection rates in disadvantaged communities that have been harder hit by the pandemic. The complex new rules announced late Wednesday set in place an equity metric. It will force larger counties to control the spread of COVID-19 in areas where Black, Latino and Pacific Islander groups have suffered a disproportionate share of the cases because of a variety of socioeconomic factors. Some counties welcomed the news and said it will build on efforts underway. Supporters of a more rapid reopening criticized the measure. __ NEW ORLEANS -- Starting this weekend, New Orleans bars will be allowed to sell drinks to go and restaurants may operate at 75% indoor capacity instead of 50% since a number of coronavirus indicators have stayed low, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said. The limit for restaurants and other businesses matches the state limit set weeks ago. If all goes well, New Orleans could match all state reopening levels by Oct. 31, with two more possible groups of changes, Cantrell said Thursday at a livestreamed news conference. Those will depend on public response ensuring we are a healthy city not only to live in but to visit, she said. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards let some bars reopen and restaurants and other businesses move to 75% of indoor capacity on Sept. 11. New Orleans, which had shut down bars in July, did not follow suit. French Quarter and downtown stores cannot sell package liquor outside bars state-set hours of 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. because when bars were allowed to reopen earlier, crowds continued drinking package liquor after 11 p.m., the mayor said. Cantrell said the city had closed six businesses as of Wednesday for flouting pandemic restrictions. ___ FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky reported 17 more coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, one of its highest one-day totals as the state combats an escalating outbreak. The latest deaths included a 29-year-old woman from Clark County who had significant underlying health conditions, Gov. Andy Beshear said. Her death marked the first coronavirus-linked fatality of someone in their 20s to be reported in Kentucky, he said. The 17 deaths were the fifth-highest daily total in Kentucky since the start of the pandemic, he said. The state also reported 910 new cases of COVID-19, down from the prior two days when daily case counts topped 1,000, the governor said. The spike in cases is hitting rural and urban areas, and Beshear said the state remains on course to set another record for the number of cases in a week. When we have a lot of cases, sadly a lot of death follows, Beshear said at a news conference. The Democratic governor continued to stress the need to wear masks in public, maintain social distancing and follow other health guidelines to contain the virus. We can turn this escalation around, he said. ___ SIOUX FALLS, S.D. South Dakota health officials have reported all-time highs for the toll of the coronavirus with 13 deaths and 747 more people who tested positive. State epidemiologist Josh Clayton says communities statewide from cities to rural areas are seeing significant levels of the virus. He noted that 245 of the infections reported were backlogged from previous days after a reporting error. One of the largest outbreaks came from a womens prison in Pierre as mass testing revealed that 29 more women in one housing unit had the virus. A total of 197 prisoners and staff have tested positive and 110 have recovered. ___ OKLAHOMA CITY A mask mandate in Tulsa is being expanded and extended in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The amended measure lowers the age of those who must wear face coverings from 18 and up to those older than 10. It also extends through Jan. 31 the mandate for masks to be worn in public when social distancing is not possible. Previously it was to expire Nov. 30 President Donald Trump held an indoor campaign rally in Tulsa on June 20 that attracted about 6,000 attendees as well as protesters. Local Health Department director Bruce Dart said later that the event likely contributed to a sharp surge in new coronavirus cases. As of Thursday, Oklahomas state health department has recorded 88,369 virus cases and 1,035 deaths due to COVID-19, increases of 1,170 and four, respectively, from the previous day. ___ DENVER Colorados deadliest workplace coronavirus outbreak has been declared resolved after five months, 291 cases and six deaths. The determination regarding the outbreak at the JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley was made by the state Department of Public Health and Environment after there were no new cases for at least 28 days and an investigation was completed. The announcement comes as families of some JBS employees who died say their workers compensation claims have been denied. JBS argues that their infections were not work-related. The plant did not respond to requests for comment by Colorado Public Radio. ___ PHOENIX Arizona is reporting 705 additional COVID-19 cases and 24 more deaths as health officials say all 15 counties have cleared state benchmarks for partial reopening of certain businesses. The overall statewide total of confirmed cases is now 219,212 cases, and the death toll 5,674. Arizonas Department of Health Services says the classification of largely rural Graham County improved to moderate transmission stage. That made it the final county to meet criteria for reopening businesses such as indoor gyms, bars serving food and movie theaters. One county, tiny Greenlee in southeastern Arizona, is at minimal status, the highest step below normal conditions. ___ HELENA, Mont. Nearly half Montanas confirmed COVID-19 cases came in September as the state continues to report record numbers of infections. The state reported 429 cases Thursday, the highest daily total by a margin of 81. Overall there were just over 6,000 in September, or 44% of the 13,500 since mid-March. The true numbers are thought to be much higher because not everyone has been tested, and studies show people can have COVID-19 without experiencing symptoms. ___ BOISE, Idaho Idaho will remain in the fourth and final stage of Gov. Brad Littles economic-reopening plan for at least another two weeks as coronavirus infections and deaths rise. The Republican governor says Idaho will receive 530,000 rapid antigen tests that will be prioritized for schools. Little also announced Thursday the formation of a COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee in anticipation of a vaccine that would be distributed by the federal government. Stage 4 of Idahos plan allows most businesses to open. ___ WASHINGTON U.S. health officials say hospitals bought only about a third of the doses of remdesivir that they were offered over the last few months to treat COVID-19, as the government stops overseeing the drugs distribution. Between July and September, 500,000 treatment courses were made available to state and local health departments but only about 161,000 were purchased. Dr. John Redd of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that we see this as a very good sign that supply now outstrips demand and its OK for hospitals to start buying the drug, also known as Veklury, directly from maker Gilead Sciences Inc. The government will buy some of the excess for the national stockpile. Several studies suggest remdesivir can shorten time to recovery and hospital stays by four days on average. At $3,200 per treatment course, its price might be playing a role in the low demand. ___ LONDON A British lawmaker has apologized for travelling to London to attend a coronavirus debate in Parliament despite having COVID-19 symptoms. She also took a train home to Scotland after getting a positive test. The Scottish National Party suspended Margaret Ferrier after she said that there is no excuse for my actions and that she had reported herself to police. People in Britain are told they must self-isolate if they have COVID-10 symptoms and while they are waiting for a test result. Also Thursday, Stanley Johnson, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's father, apologized after he was photographed shopping without a face covering. Britains government recently raised fines for not wearing masks in places like stores in a bid to curb a spike in infections. ___ HARRISBURG, Pa. A Republican state lawmakers positive test for the coronavirus has prompted legislative leaders to cancel the Pennsylvania Houses voting session. Human resources workers were deployed to trace Rep. Paul Schemels personal contacts to see if others should be quarantined. He was most recently in the Capitol on Tuesday, and its unclear if he wore a mask while in the buildings public spaces. With an increased number of people working from home, cybercriminals have come up with scams to take advantage of the current situation. Cyber security company ESET Ireland has identified email scams aimed at the office or home-office workers. These scams are targeting an increased reliance on emails and office software for conducting daily business. The first email scam can quickly catch unaware home-office users off guard, as the decreased personal interactions result in increased automation and task scheduling via various apps. The email appears like a notification by Microsoft saying Youve been assigned a new task! and comes with all the corresponding visuals. The content of the email says September Tasks and offers a link Open in Microsoft Planner. Clicking on that link takes the victim to a fake Microsoft account login, which could enable the scammers to log in and gain access to everything, including personal files, the users might have associated or stored with their Microsoft account. The other scam pretends to be coming from Salesforce, a known customer management software used by many companies. It claims they are deactivating non-active users (Not even just accounts, but users themselves) telling the victims to click on a link to confirm their email address and prevent deactivation. This in turn leads to a phishing website that harvests users login details. While the email is rather low effort and using poor grammar, it could still fool someone dependent on daily use of the software to quickly head over and confirm their details, thus enabling scammers access and abuse of their user account. Neither scam is particularly elaborate or unexpected. But due to the widespread use of the software they refer to and the way many people respond without pausing to think about the possibility of scams, they may still achieve wide reach and many clicks. ESET Ireland advises all users to pay particular attention and exercise extreme caution with any emails that require them to click on links and fill in login details. As always the best advise it to delete any such emails and warn colleagues of the threat. Kolkata: To up its ante against the Uttar Pradesh government, the West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will lead a protest march against the Hathras case today (October 3, 2020) in Kolkata. According to sources in the Trinamool Congress, the party supremo Mamata Banerjee and other senior leaders of the party will begin their march from Birla Planetarium and culminate at the Mahatma Gandhi statue. The march is scheduled to be held at 4 pm. Earlier on Friday, a four-member delegation comprising Trinamool Congress leaders were stopped by the Uttar Pradesh administration denying them from meeting the victims family at Hathras. Live TV Officials of Uttar Pradesh Police were seen manhandling Trinamool Congress MP Derek OBrien. The MP was pushed, shoved and then he fell down suffering minor injuries. A delegation of Trinamool MPs were stopped by Uttar Pradesh Police from entering Hathras. The delegation had traveled about 200kms from Delhi. The Trinamool MPs were on their way to the village in Hathras, traveling separately, to express solidarity with the grieving family and convey their condolences, said a release from the Trinamool Congress. The delegation comprised MPs Derek O'Brien, Dr Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Pratima Mondal and ex-MP Mamata Thakur. Another party MP, Pratima Mondal was seen being manhandled by male police officers while preventing them from advancing towards the victims house. We are traveling individually and maintaining all protocols. We are not armed. Why are we stopped? What kind of jungle raj is this that elected MPs are prevented from meeting a grieving family. We were just 1.5 kms from the victims home in Hathras, explaining to police officials that we will walk the 1.5kms to the victims house in Hathras. But we were prevented from advancing, said Pratima Mondal. FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a poster of Reliance Industries installed outside the venue of the company's annual general meeting in Mumbai By Rod Nickel and Nidhi Verma WINNIPEG, Manitoba/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Reliance Industries has agreed to purchase 2 million barrels of Canadian heavy crude per month, three industry sources said, as a substitute for dwindling Venezuelan supply. The deal, large for Canada, shows how global buyers are scrambling for new sources of heavy oil. Venezuela's production has collapsed over the last several years, and U.S. sanctions have squeezed its ability to sell oil to international buyers, including Reliance. The Indian refiner, which operates the largest refining facility in the world, is among several companies winding down purchases from Venezuela as a result of U.S. sanctions. Reliance's purchases from Canada will last for six months, two sources said, while a third said it was confirmed for at least the fourth quarter. With "Venezuela's collapse in production, (demand) needs to be met by someone," said a Canadian industry source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Bloomberg first reported the sale. Reliance did not respond to a request for comment. Mexico, another major producer of heavy crude, has also seen production fall, as state oil firm Pemex has been hobbled by debt. Canada is heavily dependent on oil sales to the United States, which purchased 97% of the country's exported crude in July, the most recent Statistics Canada data available. The Canadian oil industry has struggled for years with deep discounts for its heavy crude, due largely to congested pipelines that carry it to U.S. refiners. This year, producers have curtailed production as the pandemic has crushed demand, which has helped elevate prices. Canadian heavy crude for November delivery traded on Thursday for $10.80 per barrel less than the North American benchmark, according to NE2 Canada Inc. (Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Nidhi Verma in Delhi; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > The mythology of Justice | John Dayal It took crooked archaeologists and cultural mythologists to give a semblance of legality to the birthplace of Ram, the god. In the process, artefacts were found deep in the foundations where once stood the Babri Mosque. The artefacts were quickly dated, carefully avoiding the Buddhist period, on their way into a bygone era when King Dashrath reigned with his four wives, the senior queen giving birth to the heir. There was a finality to this pseudo-scientific defining of a timeline which helped the Supreme Court conclusively decide in favour of the majority community in the title suit of the contested piece of land Ayodhya. In a judicial first, the court ruled that three crimes had been committed, each of which the evidence proved without a shadow of a doubt. Two statues had been surreptitiously introduced into the locked mosque in the 1950s, the character of the building had been changed into a Hindu place of worship, and the structure was finally razed to rubble in acts of vandalism that had been captured in tens of thousands of photographs and hundreds of documentary films. But faith, as all people religious know, is stronger than fact. The land went to the ones with the older faith line. The presiding judge progressed to the Rajya Sabha, with a future chief ministership held out as further hope. Opprobrium of civil society and peers in the justice system does not really weigh heavy in this blind balance. But criminal cases are not based on faith, fiction, mythology or even future political postings. They are supposed to be based on facts, forensic science, evidence and witnesses. Or so it was believed. The judgment of the special court of the Central Bureau of Investigations, Mr SK Yadav, late last month chose to disregard very bit of visual evidence, eye witness accounts and self-confessed statements of the accused to hold every one of the 32 accused innocent of charges of criminal conspiracy to destroy the 500-year-old mosque on 6 December 1992. The demolition had left thousands dead in bombings, riots and retaliatory violence that followed, and was in fact preceded as many killings in the wake of Mr Lal Krishan Advanis Rath yatra movement to stake a claim to the birthplace of Rama and revive the fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata party which had near sunk when Rajiv Gandhi rode another majority anger wave to triumph in the 1984 general elections. Mr Advani, his colleague Murli Manohar Joshi, the then UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, the Hindu nun Uma Bharati, herself lager chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, were among those now heaving a sigh of relief. As The Hindus reporter who translated the judgement, written in Hindi, narrated The court rejected the charges of criminal conspiracy levelled by the CBI against the accused, observing that the charge sheet did not have any evidence to show that they got together in common intent with a group of hooligan kar sevaks to bring down the mosque. It observed that a group of arajak (hooligan) kar sevaks from the main crowd suddenly got agitated and indulged in violence even as senior VHP leader Ashok Singhal appealed to them to retreat that fateful day. All evidence in the charge sheet was examined. The crime alleged against the accused could not be prove n, said the court. According to the learned judge writing his 2,300-page verdict that evidence submitted by the CBI in the form of newspaper clippings, video cassettes, tapes, printed material, speeches, and witness testimonies, it is clear that there was no moment when the accused persons gathered in a room to plan the scheme to demolish the structure . . . . None of the witnesses have clearly named any of the accused to say they were demolishing the disputed structure. *** The CBI judges ruling flies in the face of the more voluminous findings of the Justice Liberhans commission which grilled everyone from the sleeping prime minister, Mr PV Narasimha Rao, and the main suspects, journalists and police officers, to reach a conclusion that the accused were guilty as charged. Interviewed after the judgement of the CBO court, the now very old Justice Liberhans reiterates his belief and his finding that the group led by LK Advani had indeed had a hand on goading the mobs to destroy the mosque in a drill that had been practiced perfection. Long ago, after the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi at his prayer meeting in New Delhi, the courts had found Nathuram Godse guilty of possessing a handgun and pulling its trigger thrice, but had found reason to let off the others initially charged with hatching the conspiracy f which the enthusiastic assassin was, in retrospect, was but a small part. The parallels that many have drawn are not without reason. Political expediency rather than the rule of law and the impartiality of justice have been the hallmark of court decisions all too often in recent Indian history. Underlying this is a fear of rousing the silent majority the so-called keepers of the National Conscience and national Consciousness on which may nefarious judgments have been based in the Supreme court and the high courts. It has something to do with the fear of mass violence, rioting as it is called. Though that fear is very real. The mass murder of Sikhs in Delhi in1984 and of the Muslims in Belchi once, and more recently in Gujarat in 2002, of Christians in Kandhamal in 2008 has shown that targeted violence against minorities, seen as aliens in the religious-cultural landscape, lies seething just under the surface. It has also something to do with electoral politics. Much as we want to believe in Muslims as a vote bank, or even Dalits, no election can be won with just one or the other of these minority vote groups. It is the vast majority, divided into classes and castes but united by strong religious and cultural links, that really counts. Not surprising that all but the Left want to keep on the right side of the majority. Not surprising that they are willing to sacrifice their belief in justice for this overwhelming reality. No one will be surprised if the nation moves on, forgetting that in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri masjid, far bigger things than a historic mosque has been eradicated a part of constitutional guarantees, a faith on national institutions, and a belief in justice itself is a thing of the past. Babri will be just a hiccup. Its dead not even a statistics. Alas, it will not end targeted and communal violence. Those roots run deeper, and the date will shift back into history from the coming of Babur and his commander who perhaps built a mosque on the ruins of a temple. This narrative needs a chronological timeline, created painstakingly by the venerable The Hindu of Chennai: 1528: Babri Masjid built by Mir Baqi, commander of Mughal emperor Babur. 1885: Mahant Raghubir Das files plea in Faizabad district court seeking permission to build a canopy outside the disputed structure. Court rejects the plea. 1949: Idols of Ram Lalla placed under central dome outside the disputed structure. 1950: Gopal Simla Visharad files suit in Faizabad district court for right to worship the idols of Ram Lalla. Paramahansa Ramachandra Das files suit for continuation of worship and keeping the idols. 1959: Nirmohi Akhara files suit seeking possession of the site. 1961: UP Sunni Central Waqf Board files suit for possession of the site. Feb 1986: Local court orders the government to open the site to Hindu worshippers. Aug 1989: Allahabad HC orders status quo in respect of the disputed structure. Dec 6, 1992: Babri Masjid demolished. Dec 1992: Two FIRs filed in the case. One against unknown kar sevaks for demolition of the mosque. The other names BJP leaders L K Advani, M M Joshi and others for allegedly giving communal speeches before the demolition. Oct 1993: CBI files composite charge sheet accusing Advani and others of conspiracy. May 2001: Special CBI court drops proceedings against Advani, Joshi, Uma Bharti, Bal Thackeray and others. Nov 2004: CBI challenges before the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court the dropping of proceedings against BJP leaders on technical grounds. Court issues notices. May 2010: High court dismisses plea. Says no merit in CBIs revision petition. Sep 2010: In a 2:1 majority, HC rules three-way division of disputed area between Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. May 2011: SC stays HC verdict on Ayodhya land dispute. Feb 2011: CBI moves Supreme Court against high court order in the mosque demolition case. Mar 2017: SC indicates it may consider reviving conspiracy charge against the BJP leaders in Babri Masjid demolition case. SC suggests fresh attempts to resolve Ayodhya dispute. Apr: SC favours time-bound completion of trial in the case and reserves order on CBIs plea. SC restores criminal conspiracy charge against leaders including Advani, Joshi and Uma Bharti and clubs the trials in the matters pending against VIPs and kar sevaks. Nov 2019: SC grants entire disputed land in Ayodhya to deity Ram Lalla, directs govt to allot an alternative five-acre plot to Muslims to build mosque. Aug 2020: PM Narendra Modi conducts bhoomi pujan in Ayodhya, launches construction of Ram temple. Supreme Court extends by a month the deadline for completion of trial in the Babri Masjid demolition case. Sep 30: Special Judge S.K. Yadav delivers judgment in the mosque demolition case, all accused acquitted. It speaks for itself. Specially the developments of November 2019, and August 2020 in the midst of the Corona pandemic. JUBA, South Sudan, Oct. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sudanese Transitional Government has signed an historic peace deal with leaders of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, according to the country's Sovereignty Council. Vice-President of the Sudanese Transitional Government, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan 'Hemeti' Dagolo, who played a leading role in the negotiations, called the agreement "a proud moment for the country." The peace deal was agreed in principle in August and an intense mediation process resulted in the final agreement that was signed by all parties on Friday. "Today is a proud day for Sudan. All parties have focused, engaged, and been relentless in our efforts to finalise this peace deal. The talks succeeded because we entered the negotiations as brothers, not foes," Hemeti said. The mediation was initiated and implemented by the Sudanese without any international intervention. "This is a peace that wasn't forced upon us. Rather it's a peace that the Sudanese people brought for themselves," he noted. Vice-President Hemeti has been at the forefront of the peace process in Sudan, as the country has worked to find lasting peace following almost two decades of conflict. "We must all remember peace has been hard fought, it has taken a long time to get to where we are. It's vital all parties acknowledge that and together, we ensure we stay within the framework of the agreement," the Vice-President said. The agreement covers key issues around security, land ownership, transitional justice, power sharing, and the return of people who fled their homes because of fighting. "Our people can't afford to fall back into heartbreaking conflict. It's time to move on, strengthen our economy, improve the lives of our citizens and work more closely with our international partners," Hemeti pointed out. The peace deal also provides for the dismantling of rebel forces and the integration of their fighters into the national army. Vice-President Hemeti called on other armed groups to join the peace process. "We still have work to do. Not everyone has engaged with the process. To Abdu Al Wahid Mohamed Al Nuor and other members of the Sudan Liberation Movement, engage, choose peace and let's allow our people to heal and grow," he said. (File image: News18) A delegation of Congress leaders led by former party president Rahul Gandhi will go to Hathras on October 3 to meet the family of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was assaulted and allegedly gang-raped. They will reportedly meet the family to hear their grievances and demand justice for them. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be part of the delegation. Meanwhile, UP Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Awasth on Saturday allowed only five people to meet victim's family. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi on October 1, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman. Also read | Hathras gangrape-murder case: UP government orders narco test of victim's family The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where she breathed her last on September 29. She was cremated in the early hours of September 30, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". 8:55 pm: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi meets the kin of Hathras victim. While addressing the reporters, he said, "No power in the world can suppress the family's voice." 8:50 pm: Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath hands over the Hathras rape-murder case to CBI. 8:45 pm: Priyanka Gandhi hits out at Yogi Adityanath government. Says family wants a judicial inquiry into the incident and removal of the District Magistrate. Adding more, she stated that Congress will continue this fight until the time justice is delivered. 8:00 pm: Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi meet the family of the Hathras gangrape victim at their home. 7:50 pm: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav seeks authorities to undergo a narco test to determine on whose direction they carried out their action. 7:25 pm: Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and others reach UP's Hathras to meet victim's family. 6:40 pm: A scuffle broke out between police and Congress workers on the Delhi-Noida flyway. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi is also present at the spot, news agency ANI has reported. 4:40 pm: UP Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Awasth allows only five people to meet Hathras victim's family. Meanwhile, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have been allowed to cross into UP. 4:00 pm: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reach Delhi-Noida flyway. They are en route to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to meet the family of the alleged gangrape victim. 3:15 pm: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on her way to meet the family of the alleged gangrape victim in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. 2:40 pm: ACS Home Avnish Awasthi and DGP HC Awasthy meet the family of the alleged gangrape victim. 2:25 pm: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi leaves for Hathras from the national capital to meet the family of the alleged gangrape victim. 2:18 pm: Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad hits out at UP government and calls the incident a routine in the state. Speaking to reporters, he said, "Is there a system in UP? Since this govt came into power there have been many cases. Earlier, there were cases of lynching, killing of opposition leaders & filing cases against them. This is not new but routine in UP." 1.55 pm: Barricades were installed at the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway where scores of policemen, including senior officers, were present at 12.30 pm, even as CrPC section 144 remained imposed in UP's Gautam Buddh Nagar. 1.40 pm: Our objective is just to meet the family and hear their grievances, Congress leader K Venugopal told reporters. 1.22 pm: I do not accept the treatment being done by the Uttar Pradesh government and its police with this girl and her family. No Indian should accept this, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted in Hindi. 1.05 pm: Security beefed up and barricades put up at the toll plaza on Delhi Noida Direct Flyway in view of the visit of a Congress delegation led by Rahul Gandhi to Hathras. 12.50 pm: I don't know why the media were stopped. If the government has not done anything wrong then the media should be allowed to visit there (Bulgaddhi village, Hathras) to bring out the facts: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut 12.35 pm: Nothing in the world can stop me from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and sharing their pain, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted in Hindi. (With inputs from agencies) The Junk Jaunt is like gambling. Its taking a chance on finding a rich treasure or two. Thats what my twin sister Martha said after a luscious afternoon of stopping and shopping last weekend at the 17th annual Junk Jaunt. She was visiting from Ashtabula, Ohio, a port city on the shores of Lake Erie about 65 miles east of Cleveland that practically rubs shoulders with Pennsylvania. Martha experienced her first Junk Jaunt in 2013. Back then, Id lived in Kearney for just a year and still was searching for a few things for my apartment. We found a Christmas tree for $20 and an old desk for $10. It was so much fun shes wanted to come back ever since. This year, she did. I wasnt really looking for anything, but what makes the Junk Jaunt fun is finding goodies you didnt know you needed. Saturday, we set off. We traveled from west to east this time, starting at Arnold and moving east along Highway 92 until we picked up Highway 2 at Merna. From there, we drove southeast through Broken Bow, Mason City, Ansley and Litchfield. The showcase horse race, which is normally held in May, is only one aspect of a party that has long drawn the well heeled and well dressed, along with politicians, gamblers and revelers who gravitated away from the grandstand and toward the less decorous confines of the infield. Lovely Warren, mayor of the Upstate New York city, faces two charges while also contending with mismanagement of Daniel Prudes death An Upstate New York mayor, who is at the center of controversy over the police-involved death of a Black man earlier this year, has been indicted after being suspected of campaign finance fraud related to a past reelection bid. Lovely Warren, the Democratic mayor of Rochester, New York, was indicted Friday, The New York Times reports. Two associates were also charged. Warren, 43, who has been the mayor since 2013, is already embroiled in an investigation into the mishandling of the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who was killed by police in March after his brother called for a mental health check. Rochester Mayor Lovely A. Warren addresses members of the media during a press conference related to the ongoing protest in the city on September 06, 2020 in Rochester, New York. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) As reported by theGrio, Prude was nude and unarmed when he was handcuffed and place in a spit hood by police, which officers allege was used to protect them against the novel coronavirus. After an officer applied force to hold down his head, Prude was rendered unconscious and died a week later in the hospital. Prudes death did not become public knowledge until September when his family was finally granted access to the body cam video of his arrest. They allege that the details of the arrest were covered up. The Rochester police chief has stepped down, and there have been calls for Warren to do the same. New York Attorney General Leticia James announced in September she will convene a grand jury in the case. Read More: Police leaders pressed Rochester to keep Prude video secret Now, she may be the next to step down. If convicted, it would lead to her vacating the position. Daniel Prude arrest (Credit: screenshot) The indictment says that Warren, her campaign treasurer and the citys finance director knowingly and willingly attempted to evade campaign contribution limits and were involved in a systemic and ongoing attempt to defraud more than one person. We all want our elections to be run fairly, and these are laws on the books to allow and ensure that people who are entering political office follow the rules, Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley said at a press conference on Friday. We all want fair campaigns. Story continues Read More: Rochester police chief fired in fallout over Daniel Prude death The mayor and her co-defendants, Rosiland Brooks Harris, the finance director, and Albert Jones, Jr., the campaign treasurer, are scheduled to be arraigned on Monday. Warren has denied any wrongdoing, blaming the financial irregularities on what Doorley described as a substantial sum on bookkeeping errors. Her position has not changed one bit, and that is, shes innocent, her lawyer Joseph Damelio told the Times. She is anxious to get this process started and shes ready to go to trial. Have you subscribed to theGrios podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now! The post Rochester mayor, embroiled in Daniel Prude controversy, indicted on felony campaign finance fraud charges appeared first on TheGrio. Actress Kangana Ranaut on Saturday reacted to news reports suggesting that the forensic team of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi hinted that late actor Sushant Singh Rajput had committed suicide. "Young and extraordinary individuals don't just wake up one fine day and kill themselves. Sushant said he was being bullied and outcast, he feared for his life, he said movie mafia banned him and harassed him, he was mentally affected by being falsely accused of rape #AIIMS," the actress tweeted on her verified account. "With latest progress we need answers to few questions. 1) SSR repeatedly spoke about big production houses banning him. Who are these people who conspired against him? 2) Why media spread false news about him being a rapist? 3) Why was Mahesh Bhatt doing his psychoanalysis?," Kangana wrote in a separate tweet. Young and extraordinary individuals dont just wake up one fine day and kill themselves. Sushant said he was being bullied and outcast, he feared for his life, he said movie mafia banned him and harassed him, he was mentally affected by being falsely accused of rape #AIIMS Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) October 3, 2020 With latest progress we need answers to few questions. 1) SSR repeatedly spoke about big production houses banning him. Who are these people who conspired against him? 2) Why media spread false news about him being a rapist? 3) Why was Mahesh Bhatt doing his psychoanalysis? Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) October 3, 2020 Kangana's reaction comes on a day when AIIMS, in its report to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), "hinted" that Sushant's death on June 14 happened by suicide and not murder, as per our sources from the hospital. The actress, on Saturday also posted tweets alleging that Sushant had a fallout with Yash Raj Films, there was a conspiracy behind his films getting shelved, and that he was being blackmailed. "He wrote in many his social media posts that he is being thrown out of film industry, spoke openly about his fall out with Yashraj films. His family went to cops because he feared people in his life, abetment of suicide is a murder, legally and morally it's a bonafide murder," Kangana wrote. "He spoke openly about his fall out with Yashraj films, it's a known fact that he was banned by many big production houses, many of his films were dumped which looked like an evident conspiracy. He begged people on social media and told them he is being thrown out of film industry," she added. "His family complained to cops about the threat to his life way before he died, he wanted to live but quit films, he wanted to settle in Coorg but who blackmailed him? Who cornered him in a way that dying was easier than living? Morally and legally abetment of suicide is a murder," Kangana further tweeted. He's kept a low profile since four of his shows were removed from Netflix, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. But on Saturday, comedian Chris Lilley was seen for the first time in weeks as he enjoyed a day out with a pal in Sydney's Bondi Beach. The comic, 45, appeared in a great mood as he soaked up some sunshine on the Northern grassy knoll, sporting a grey bucket hat, black T-shirt and cream shorts. Beaming! On Saturday, comedian Chris Lilley was seen for the first time in weeks as he enjoyed a day out with a pal in Sydney's Bondi Beach He smiled as he chatted with a mystery pal, shielding his eyes from view in a pair of black sunglasses. His appearance comes four months after his television series Summer Heights High, Jonah from Tonga, Angry Boys and We Can be Heroes were pulled on June 11, as streaming services worldwide removed offensive content in response to George Floyd protests. In the dumped mockumentary-style shows Chris appeared in brownface as Tongan schoolboy Jonah Takalua, in blackface as US rapper S.mouse, and mocked up as stereotypical Chinese-Australian physics student Ricky Wong. Under the radar: Lilley (right) smiled as he chatted with a mystery pal, shielding his eyes from view in a pair of black sunglasses All smiles: The comic, 45, appeared in a great mood as he soaked up some sunshine on the Northern grassy knoll, sporting a grey bucket hat, black T-shirt and cream shorts Chris then came under fire after real-life Sydney student Filipe Mahe revealed his appearance in ABC documentary Our Boys was the inspiration for controversial Tongan character Jonah, leaving him feeling 'angry and exploited'. Lilley chose not to acknowledge any of the backlash, but instead chose to share a deleted scene from Jonah From Tonga on his Facebook page. Despite the removal of four of his shows, Chris will still have two series available on Netflix - Ja'mie: Private School Girl and Lunatics, in which he dons brownface to play dog whisperer Jana Melhoopen-Jonks. Pictured: Chris Lilley (centre) in his role as Jonah Takalua in his program, Jonah From Tonga Chris has previously defended his style of comedy. Last year he told The Weekend Australian: 'I'm not trying to do the thing that is trendy at the moment.' The award-winning comedian went on to say he would continue making 'clever, layered' characters. Defending his controversial characters, he said: 'When you meet them, you think "I know that type of person", but then there is a twist, something crazy.' '[In] the end you think "Actually, I kinda relate to this, she just did that thing that I do everyday".' The deadliest outbreak to date of coronavirus at a meat processing plant has been reported at facility in California, where a ninth Foster Farms worker, hospitalized since August, died September 17. On September 1, the poultry powerhouse of the West Coast, Foster Farms, was forced to close its Livingston poultry processing plant, employing 2,500, by order of the Merced County Department of Public Health (MCDPH) after 392 employees tested positive for COVID-19. Despite the infections and deaths of workers, management bitterly opposed any shutdown to the end. Tyson Foods processing plant. (Image Credit: Tyson Foods Inc) Foster Farms was repeatedly urged by the MCDPH to increase efforts to protect its employees before any deaths occurred. On June 29, as the disease continued to spread throughout the facility, county health officials inspected the plant. In a failed effort to limit the outbreak, the health department suggested significant changes to the employee break spaces and performing widespread testing of employees within the facility. The department made continued calls for an increase in testing at the facility throughout the month of July. By the end of the month, Foster Farms had tested less than 10 percent of the department with the largest [COVID-19] impact within the facility. Among the employees who were tested, more than 25 percent turned up positive. In an August 27 press release, the health department reported unsuccessfully urging the company to take precautionary safety measures since late June. The most severe and long-lasting outbreak in Merced County is at the Foster Farms Livingston Facility. On June 29th, MCDPH notified Foster Farms that its Livingston Facility was officially declared an outbreak. This statement came one month before any documented coronavirus-related deaths at the plant. Nearly 9,000 people in Merced County out of a population of 277,680 have been infected, and 145 have died from COVID-19. Founded in 1939, Foster Farms runs hatcheries, feed mills, ranches, processing plants, and operates refrigerated delivery trucks. It has become the largest poultry processor in the state. It also operates the eight-facility Foster Farms Dairy, which distributes milk throughout California. The company has reported over $2.4 billion in annual revenue for the past few years. It employs 12,000 workers at wages ranging between the poverty level average of $10.62 per hour up to $29.84 per hour. On August 26, despite MCDPH ordering a shutdown, the Livingston poultry plant continued to operate. Officials reported that the company had repeatedly failed to comply with COVID-19 regulations, exacerbating the spread of the deadly disease in the facility. The following day, after a phone call with the US Department of Agricultures secretary for food safety, county officials issued a 48-hour stay . Merced County spokesperson Mike North said the company had 48 hours from Thursday at 18:00 PDT to shut the plant down. According to a statement issued by a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesperson to The Fresno Bee, the decision to delay the shutdown was made by the MCDPH in order to facilitate additional resources for [coronavirus] testing of plant employees and to ensure humane handling of the flocks at the facility. It continued, Immediate closure of the plant would not provide for a humane path forward for hundreds of thousands of live birds and would result in discarding hundreds of tons of food. In other words, protecting the poultry took precedence over the lives of humans. Notwithstanding the rapid increase in cases and deaths, Foster Farms has now been officially removed from the countys coronavirus outbreaks list. According to data collected by Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN), as of October 1 at 12:00 EDT, 504 meatpacking facilities, 358 food processing plants, and 136 farms and production facilities have had confirmed cases of COVID-19. At least 63,012 workers in total; 44,530 meatpacking workers; 10,337 food processing workers; and 8,145 farm workers, have tested positive for the disease, resulting in the deaths of 213 meatpacking workers; 35 food processing workers; and 17 farm workers. Despite the increase in infections and deaths at meatpacking and food processing facilities, President Donald Trumps invocation of the Defense Production Act remains in effect. The order indemnifies meat processors from lawsuits over COVID-19 infections and deaths. In a stepped up attack on workers, a number of poultry plants have been allowed to increase line speeds. In July, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) filed a complaint against the USDA over the waiver program. The Food Safety Inspection Services (FSIS) waiver program permits poultry plants the opportunity to obtain waiver-negating procedures required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). In particular, it allows poultry processors to exceed the maximum line speed set in a 2014 FSIS regulation that recognized faster line speeds jeopardize safety. On this basis the FSIS abandoned the proposal to allow poultry processing plants to operate at a maximum line speed of 175 birds per minute (bpm), capping the maximum line speed at 140 bpm. The FSIS reversed course in the aftermath of passage of the CARES Act, creating a program under which plants may operate at speeds up to 175 bpm. This has resulted in FSIS now permitting nearly 43 percent of all plants to operate at 175 bpm in order to help poultry processors generate the additional revenues needed to repay federal CARES Act loans. Furthermore, JBS, the worlds largest meatpacker, denied the application by the family of Saul Sanchez for workers compensation benefits, along with other families that have suffered due to contracting COVID-19 at the companys Greeley, Colorado plant. Sanchez, a 30-year JBS employee, was one of six workers at the Greeley facility who died from COVID-19. The fate of the JBS workers is not unique. In the state of Minnesota, 930 applications were made by meatpacking workers from various plants for workers compensation benefits related to COVID-19 infections. However, as of September 11, not one of those claims had been approved by management at any of the companies involved. Company officials rejected 717 applications outright and said 213 were still under review. Workers in Utah and Colorado have experienced similar stonewalling. As of August 1, seven coronavirus-related claims in Utah had been filed against JBS and all were subsequently denied. In Colorado, 69 percent (1,583) of 2,294 meatpacking workers had their workers compensation claims denied. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported as of Thursday over 34 million COVID-19 confirmed cases and over 1,031,000 deaths. The United States, with only 4.25 percent of the worlds population, accounts for 22.5 percent, or 7.5 million, of the worlds total cases and 20.5 percent, or 213,000, of the total deaths. In the face of this slaughter meatpacking workers should join the fight begun by teachers and autoworkers to build rank-and-file safety committees to save lives. Help mobilize the full strength of the working class to not only protect your lives but your social and democratic rights. Rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the corrupt unions and big business politicians are needed to organize the enormous power of the working class in defense against the incompetent and criminally negligent response of the corporations and government authorities. Align with your working class brothers and sisters internationallyeducators, parents, students, autoworkers, logistics and transport workersagainst the sacrifice of workers lives for corporate profit. We urge you to contact us to join this fight today. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-04 02:36:29|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and Chadian President Idriss Deby (front, from L to R) hold aloft the peace deal in Juba, South Sudan, Oct. 3, 2020. The Sudanese government and armed groups on Saturday signed a final peace deal in South Sudan's capital Juba to end armed conflicts. (Photo by Denis Elamu/Xinhua) KHARTOUM, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- After a full year of negotiations, the Sudanese government and armed groups on Saturday signed a final peace deal in South Sudan's capital Juba to end armed conflicts. The signing ceremony, which was broadcast live by Sudan's official TV, was attended by South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The participants also included representatives from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Chad and Egypt in addition to regional and international organizations such as the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League and the European Union. Deputy Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council Mohamed Hamdan Daqlu signed the deal for the Sudanese government, while leaders of nine armed groups, under the Revolutionary Front Alliance, signed for the alliance. Al-Burhan, addressing the signing ceremony, vowed that there will be no return to war, saying "we will not deviate from the peace. We reiterate our keenness to implement what has been agreed on." Meanwhile, Al-Hadi Idris, chairman of the alliance, urged the international community to support implementation of the peace agreement. The deal included protocols of security arrangements, power and wealth sharing, compensation for the displaced people and refugees, land ownership, and realization of justice and development. Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki, reiterated the AU support for the peace deal in Sudan. "Implementation of the deal is harder than its signing. The AU will support this deal," he said. Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, addressing the signing ceremony, voiced Egypt's support to Sudan's peace deal. "I reaffirm Egypt's firm determination to continue working with the brothers in Sudan to enhance the aspects of the standing partnership between our two countries," said Madbouly. Since October 2019, South Sudan has been mediating between the Sudanese government and the armed groups from Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. Sudan's Justice and Equality Movement, led by Jibril Ibrahim, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) /Minni Minnawi faction, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)/northern sector (Malik Agar and Abdelaziz al-Hilu factions) and opposition groups from eastern, central and northern Sudan, took part in the talks with the government. However, the SPLM/northern sector led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu has not yet signed the peace deal after the mediation suspended the negotiation between it and the Sudanese government, while the SLM/Abdul Wahid Mohamed Nur faction refused to join the peace talks. Enditem Victoria's Secret angel Elsa Hosk just announced her pregnancy news earlier this week. On Saturday, the Swedish stunner, 31, stepped out with her boyfriend of five years, and father-to-be Tom Daly in New York City. The good looking duo who quarantined together in Los Angeles hit the city streets in search of brunch, as they strolled arm in arm. Baby on board: Pregnant Elsa Hosk, 31, stepped out on Saturday with boyfriend Tom Daly in NYC as the two grabbed breakfast. The Victoria Secret model hid her burgeoning baby bump under a rainbow adorned sweatshirt as she strolled with her man arm and arm Elsa hid her burgeoning baby bump under a white sweatshirt adorned with a rainbow. She paired the oversized crew neck with light washed Levi's and a pair of Chanel 'dad sandals' in black, carrying a baby blue silk Prada purse as she walked. Making sure to hammer in the importance of the upcoming election, Elsa rocked a purple 'vote' mask as she played it safe in New York. Earlier in the day, Governor Cuomo mandated that the city step up it's enforcement of mask wearing, or the city could incur fines upwards of $10,000. Vote: Elsa and Tom wore matching 'vote' masks as it was revealed Saturday that Governor Cuomo would fine the city upwards of $10,000 if they did not enforce mask wearing Stylish pair: The couple embraced the cooler NYC weather as they dressed for fall. Tom was quick to throw on a long coat and Elsa hid her bump under a crew neck sweatshirt Elsa kept her blonde tresses tied up in a top knot as she threw on a pair of orange colored glasses. Tom cut an equally stylish display as he walked next to his supermodel girlfriend. He embraced the fall weather in a dark grey tweed coat, that he wore with a beige Vana shirt and a pair of dark washed jeans. The Running Vision creative director wore his seventies-inspired locks down and rocked a matching 'vote' mask in grey. Baby on board: Elsa appeared on her Insta Stories in the same outfit she wore out and about in New York - but pulled her sweater up to reveal her bump Details: She revealed that she was '21 weeks today' into her pregnancy and shared that the baby was 'the size of a small banana now' Cozy: The Swedish stunner took to her Instagram story to show off her cozy sweatshirt as she sported a bare face and light mascara in the stunning snap The pair looked content to be in each other's company as they walked back to their place. Upon arriving home, Elsa took to Instagram to share a closer look at her cute sweatshirt, crediting brand Heavy Manners for the cozy digs. The model, now in the safety of her own home, layed on the couch without a mask as she showed off her bare face and light mascara. The same day, Elsa shared a series of photos in an Alexander Wang pink sweat suit and Chanel sneakers, as she wished her 6.3M followers a happy weekend. Weekend look: The mom-to-be wished her followers a 'happy weekend' as she walked the streets of NYC in a pink Wang sweatsuit The mom-to-be has still been maintaining her great fashion sense, despite her growing tummy, and has taken to Instagram to show off her bump. The five-foot-ten stunner only revealed via social media Tuesday, that she and her partner were expecting. Sharing a series of gorgeous photos, Elsa posed for the camera naked with a furry white coat tastefully draped over parts of her body, as she displayed her baby belly. The in-demand model popped her leg as she showed off her changing body, wearing nothing but a g-string as she clasped her chest in her hand. Angel: Elsa kept her pregnancy a secret as she shared on Instagram that she was halfway there, putting her at about four and a half months pregnant Supportive friends: Fellow Angels Romee Strijd and Irina Shayk were quick to comment in loving support of the expecting mother Bursting with excitement, she captioned the stunning images: 'Been keeping this angel in my belly a secret for a while...Feeling beyond excited and lucky to be having a baby and begin the next chapter of life with the man of my dreams!!!! Halfway there' Her fellow Victoria's Secret Angels Romee Strijd and Irina Shayk were quick to comment in loving support. Elsa and Tom have been linked since 2015, though they had a long friendship before getting together romantically. Life partners: Elsa and Tom got together romantically in 2015 after having a long friendship; pictured in SoHo, NYC 2016 Changes: Elsa listed her SoHo loft for $3.5M last week. The model has said in the past that she hopes one day to move to Los Angeles Last week, Elsa put her exquisite SoHo loft on sale for $3.5M. The international supermodel purchased the stunning space in 2014 for around $2M, describing the original space as a 'fixer-upper', but is currently seeking a change. Though the modeling industry has slowly started to rev up again amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Elsa has continued to do a lot of modeling from home ahead of her baby news. At the height of the pandemic the pair fled NYC and quarantined in LA, as Elsa revealed on an Instagram live that she was so happy to be there and hopes to eventually make it her home one day. SIOUX CITY -- In the wake of President Donald Trump testing positive for COVID-19 Friday, local elected officials recalled how some of their family members were infected by the virus. The Journal contacted Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott, Sioux City school board President Jeremy Saint and Woodbury County Board of Supervisors Chairman Matthew Ung. None of the three leaders reported contracting COVID-19 themselves. But Ung said his mother-in-law died from the virus in August. She lived in Honduras, where there are limitations in the health care system. Ung said no other member of his immediate family has been infected. Scott said two of his family members tested positive. Those people who want to tell you that its not real just havent been affected by it, I can tell you that, because both my family members have been really sick with it, really sick, Scott said Friday. Scott said he and his wife, Karen, had dinner with the two family members before they tested positive. So, out of an abundance of caution, they took tests too, which came back negative. We didnt have to (test), but we did, just to make sure we werent spreading it, he said. Saint said no one in his family has tested positive, although one person was potentially exposed to the virus, but a test outcome turned out negative. So far, so good, he said. Journal reporters Dolly Butz and Bret Hayworth contributed to this story. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 3 Angry 0 The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of Kerala CPI (M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, to its Bengaluru office on Tuesday to question him in connection with the alleged drug funding charges. He was issued a notice on Saturday; a senior officer who is part of the investigation said adding he was also asked to produce details of his properties. He was asked to appear before the ED office in Shanthinagar in Bengaluru. There are reports he will also be questioned by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). Last month he was interrogated by the ED in Kochi for more than 11 hours and later the Central agency had frozen transactions of his properties. Trouble began for the second son of the state secretary after Bengaluru drug racket accused Anoop Mohammad gave a statement to the NCB in which he mentioned his name. After his arrest he said Kodiyeri had helped him a lot in his business venture. Later his name also figured prominently in the call list of Mohammad. There were also allegations that he allegedly helped Swapna Suresh, main accused in the gold smuggling case, to slip out of the state in July and helped her find a hideout in the city. Kodiyeri later admitted that he knew Mohammad and helped him to open a hotel in Bengaluru in 2015 but he was not aware of his alleged drug dealings. But, later the ED found that two shell companies floated by Kodiyeri, B Capital Solutions and B Capital Forex, were allegedly involved in many shoddy deals. Floated in 2015, both firms had failed to file tax returns and other formalities and the ED suspects these firms were floated for alleged money laundering and hawala transactions. Kodiyeri was not available for comment. During investigation into the 30 kg gold smuggling through the UAE consulate, the ED has also found that there is close link between the smuggling and psychedelic drug cases. The smuggling case came to light on July 5 after 30 kg gold was seized from a consignment that came in the name of the United Arab Emirates consular office in Thiruvananthapuram. And the drug surfaced on August 28 after the arrest of Anoop Mohammad and two others in Bengaluru. Drug seizure involving Kannada actors is a different case. Bhubaneswar, Oct 3 : Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday donated blood plasma for the treatment of serious Covid-19 patients at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. After recovering from the disease, he donated plasma at SCB plasma bank. "Donated plasma at SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack today. It is immensely satisfying to do my bit towards the fight against the #COVID-19 pandemic," tweeted Pradhan. The minister also urged all Covid-19 recovered people to come forward and donate plasma to aid the treatment of Covid-19 patients and help defeat the novel coronavirus. Pradhan had contracted Covid-19 in August. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) In a world with about 200 national leaders of every stripe and ideology, the COVID-19 virus has zeroed in uncannily on one group: the new breed of right-wing populists. It was true in Europe, where in addition to Boris Johnson's near brush with death, the virus also struck former Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, a giant of European right-wing populism who, in many ways, was Donald Trump before Donald Trump. And it has been true in the Americas, where along with the president of the United States four other leaders have acquired the infection: Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras, Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala, and Jeanine Anez of Bolivia. (One could add Luis Abinader of the Dominican Republic, although he was sworn in after overcoming the disease during his election campaign.) Twitter All five of those presidents are right-wing populists who present themselves as law-and-order leaders but are accused by their opponents of autocratic tendencies. The virus has also hit cabinet members in the governments of President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Dictators have been afflicted as well including Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who described the pandemic as a "psychosis" and recommended treating the virus with vodka. Left-wing and centrist politicians have been hit, including the Socialist deputy prime minister of Spain but even there, the virus first reared its head in the far-right populist Vox Party, whose secretary-general tested positive in early March. Vox has spearheaded anti-lockdown protests in the country. Honduran humility The leaders have reacted differently to their COVID experiences, both as patients and as politicians. And their supporters also have reacted differently to their illnesses. Some COVID-struck politicians have emerged with something like a newfound air of humility. "Many think this is a game and it is not until they see a relative who gets sick, or when they get sick themselves, that they understand the seriousness of this issue," Honduras's Hernandez said after emerging from hospital in July. "I tell you, the truth is I don't wish this on anyone." Story continues "I thought about what would happen if I could not be with my family anymore," he added wearing a mask as he admonished the Honduran people to take responsibility as individuals. "COVID has come to change our lives." Braggadocio from Bolsonaro At the other end of the spectrum, Brazil's Bolsonaro confronted his diagnosis with his typical bravado. He had little choice, having frequently dismissed COVID as a gripezinha or "little flu" and said that "as an athlete" he would suffer only a mild case. Adriano Machado/Reuters When he and his wife did become sick in July, he announced that he would treat himself with the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine promoted by Trump, and soon made a full recovery. But COVID did not put a dent in Bolsonaro's aggressive and confrontational style. Six weeks ago he told assembled journalists that "when it gets one of you wimps (bundaos), your chance of surviving is quite a bit lower." But unlike his near-fatal stabbing during the 2018 presidential election campaign, Bolsonaro's COVID experience did not boost his popularity in a country that has lost nearly 150,000 people to the disease. Trump of the tropics Bolsonaro is similar to Trump in many ways in that he draws more support from men than from women, more votes from evangelicals and people without higher education, and runs up his biggest vote margins in some of the country's more forgotten regions. Brazil is, if anything, more polarized politically than even the United States. Brazilians mostly reacted to their president's diagnosis along those partisan lines. Bolsonaro's popularity has gone up more recently; about half of the country now approves of his government's performance. But a deeper dive into those polls suggests that the sudden rise in approval ratings was linked to the unprecedented generosity of the social programs set up to deal with the economic fallout of COVID in the period after Bolsonaro's recovery, and did not coincide with his illness and recovery in July. "It's the 600 reales ($144CDN a month) in the pocket that's popular, not Bolsonaro," wrote Brazilian political analyst Thomas Traumann in Veja. Those benefits will be short-lived, however. "The approval of the government will fall gradually as the benefits are cut from 600 to 300 reales, and then drastically as millions are left with nothing" by the end of the year, Traumann predicted. Meanwhile, COVID continues to kill nearly a thousand Brazilians a day. How voters see it Looking around the world's democracies, it appears that voters judge the illnesses of their politicians by three different yardsticks. The first and strongest is their pre-existing ideological affinity. Those who sympathize with Bolsonaro or Trump will express condolences and regret that others are "politicizing" a health matter. Those who dislike them will see the hand of karma at work. But for those who are open to changing their views, gestures of post-COVID empathy, humility and greater understanding can soften hearts gestures such as the one Boris Johnson delivered when he expressed his thanks to two nurses, "Jenny from New Zealand" and "Luis from Portugal." "It could have gone either way," he said, looking chastened. Henry Nicholls/Reuters The third factor appears to be whether voters see the illness as a matter of bad luck or the consequence of bad behaviour. Johnson was widely criticized for his country's slow and inefficient response to COVID, which led to it becoming the world's epicentre for a time. But unlike Trump, Johnson did not invest his own political capital in minimizing the disease, nor did he ever encourage the flouting of public health rules and guidelines, much less throw his support behind anti-mask and anti-lockdown movements. Trump has done all of those things, repeatedly, and continued to do them right up to his own diagnosis. Double standards of care But none of the other leaders who have contracted COVID have done so with an election looming. Most were close to the start of their terms of office. Johnson had been in office just nine months, and Bolsonaro 18. Giammattei and Anez were just a few months in when they fell ill. Trump is just one month away from an election in which over a million votes have already been cast. Even if he were asymptomatic (he's not), his quarantine period would eat up half of the remaining campaign time. It also seems highly likely that infections will continue to rock his entourage, his cabinet and perhaps his family. He attended a fundraiser in a private home in Minneapolis after aide Hope Hicks had already tested positive. It is not unlikely that other people donors, rally attendees, Secret Service agents or staffers will become sick and trace their illness back to contact with him. The president may yet make a full recovery and return with a loud "told-you-so." But the timeframe suggests it will be difficult for him to do that before voting day. Some more equal than others And things could get worse for Trump politically now that he has been moved to Walter Reed Army Hospital. Bolsonaro never set foot in a hospital during his convalescence. Johnson, on the other hand, was in an intensive care unit. But the fact that he was treated in the country's NHS public health system, like any other Englishman, saved him from allegations that he was compounding his COVID incompetence with hypocrisy and special treatment. Should Trump now receive gold-plated medical care at taxpayer expense, while trying to strip public health care from millions of Americans who actually pay those taxes (unlike Trump himself, reportedly), that could create a very different impression. And Trump's treatment will be scrutinized for how it compares to what other Americans are receiving and how it squares with his own previous statements. A note issued by Trump's personal physician on Friday listed the medications the president is taking. Notably missing from the list is hydroxychloroquine, a drug he frequently promoted to others as a miracle cure for COVID but which the FDA has warned is dangerous. Needless to say, "disinfectant" and "sunlight" are also not part of the treatment plan. Other Americans who followed the president's advice have had reasons to regret it. At Walter Reed, Trump can count on the best medical attention in the world. But it's difficult to imagine how that would help him with any American voter who has lost a family member, a friend, or a job to the ravages of COVID-19. First year and returning Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) students will be able to apply for the laptop loan scheme from this week via the WIT website. Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris recently announced up to 17,000 laptops will be distributed to third level students to assist with online learning. WIT received 522,000 of the 15 million fund, which was described by Minister Harris as going some way to bridging the digital divide, support students and ensure equality of access to education. The institute will have a limited number of laptop units available to loan to eligible students whether they are on campus or studying from home. WIT will have blended delivery for courses for the 2020/2021 academic year a mix of online and on-campus learning. The mix is dependent on the programme of study. Robin Croke from WITs Access Office in the Student Life and Learning department says that the interest in the scheme is huge. This scheme to support disadvantaged students in the higher education sector is very welcome, and there has been huge interest from students, he said. We are expecting far more applications than there are devices, and advise students they will need to present appropriate and supporting documentation when applying to the laptop scheme. These documents may include proof of the students/parents income, as appropriate, and receipts for costs such as rent, bills or childcare and other forms of supporting documentation/ proof of circumstances. The devices will remain the property of WIT and will be distributed to eligible students by means of an appropriate lending/rental scheme. Full-time and part-time students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) who may fall under the following criteria are eligible to apply to receive a device under this scheme: Students disadvantaged by socio-economic barriers First-time mature students Students with disabilities Part-time/flexible learning students Students who hold further education qualifications Students who are lone parents Students who are members of the Traveller and Roma communities Members of ethnic minorities groups International, non-EU fee-paying students would not be considered eligible for support under this Grant. A loan agreement including the terms and conditions will apply. Devices can be retrieved from students if they pause or discontinue their studies. To read about the eligibility criteria or to find out more, see www.wit.ie/current_students/student_life_and_learning/wit-laptop-scheme. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Sat, October 3, 2020 08:04 477 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c48d8d83 2 Books books,library,coronavirus,COVID-19,#usesoap,e-books Free Public libraries have had to adapt their offering and imagine new ways to pursue their activity while most "non-essential" public places have remained closed worldwide because of the pandemic. Book-lending machines or "Library-to-go" systems are a few examples of how these institutions are helping book lovers get their fix. The London Library recently signed a partnership with digital service OverDrive to allow its members to loan e-books. An internal survey showed that 60 percent of London Library members would like to have greater access to e-books daily. "The Coronavirus situation has reinforced the importance of online content at a time when accessing physical collections can be more difficult. Our online journals and resources are already very heavily used by members," noted the London Library officials. The institution's librarians therefore put together an e-book catalogue available to loans, comprising works frequently borrowed by its London members as well as award-winning titles. Among the highlights are Grand Union by Zadie Smith, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo and Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert. While the London Library has started welcoming back the public in July, its operations are still limited due to the sanitary guidelines in effect in the UK. Read also: National Emergency Library releases over 1.4 million digital books for free When libraries turn to innovation American libraries have also had to adapt to the new health measures, especially in Los Angeles, where the 72 municipal libraries have remained closed for months. Several locations have launched a new book pick-up and drop-off service. City dwellers just need to go online and book the publications they would like to read and pick them up at a fixed time, wearing a mask. "Learning to live with COVID-19 means finding new ways to reconnect us with critical public resources, and Library To Go will provide Angelenos with access to this civic and cultural treasure," said city mayor Eric Garcetti, in a press release. On the other side of the Pacific, Singapore's Choa Chu Kang public library recently unveiled its first "book lending machine". This automatic device, set up in the Lot One Shoppers' Mall, contains many books in English from the library's collection. Bookworms can also navigate the Choa Chu Kang library's e-book catalogue and reserve publications they want from the machine. Read also: National Library of Indonesia temporarily closed after confirmed COVID-19 cases Spaces of solidarity Many libraries are also trying to build their connections with impoverished local communities who used to spend time in their areas. A recent survey, conducted among 200 American Library Association members, showed that 65 percent would like libraries to invest more in social work in the future. Because public libraries are more than just areas for reading books. Many individuals in need visit them to have free access to computers or to seek refuge when housing shelters close during the day. That's one of the reasons why the Toronto Public Library in Canada has decided to partner with local food banks to include children's books in its hampers. "One third of our food bank clients are children, so I know that our families will appreciate the addition of these books in the hampers," says Ryan Noble, executive director at North York Harvest Food Bank. - Godwin Otieno Agutu and two others were arraigned on Friday, October 2 and charged with abduction and impersonation among others - Agutu, Alex Mutua Mutuku, and Ken Kimanthi Gicovi are said to have falsely presented themselves as employees of Kenya Revenue Authority - They also presented themselves as officials from Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to Vijay Patel, a director of Hytec Investments - Further, the suspects are said to have abducted and detained Patel and later on obtained KSh 500,000 from him PAY ATTENTION: Click 'See First' under 'Follow' Tab to see Tuko.co.ke news on your FB Feed The COVID- 19 whistleblower Godwin Otieno Agutu and two others have been charged with abduction, ten counts of impersonation, obtaining money by false pretences, forgery, and stealing. Godwin Otieno Agutu (far right) with his two accomplices. Photo: Daily Nation. Source: UGC Agutu's accomplices were identified as Alex Mutua Mutuku and Ken Kimanthi Gicovi. They were alleged to have presented themselves on September 25, 2020, at Hytech Investment shop in Nairobi as employees of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). The court heard that they also presented themselves, with intent to defraud, as the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission officers to Vijay Patel the proprietor of Hytech Investment shop. On September 28, 2020, at the shop along Kombo Munyiri road with others not before the court, the accused caused Patel to be wrongfully abducted and detained. The court heard that the three, on the same day, in Westlands Nairobi obtained KSh 500,000 from the proprietor by pretending to be employees of KRA and claiming to be in a position to reduce the tax owed to KRA. The prosecutor, Everlyne Onunga while opposing bail said Agutu was the NAAC CEO, a non-Governmental Organisation which partners with the government in the fight against corruption. She further noted that the second and third accused were employees of Agutu as his Personal Assistant (PA) and driver respectively thus if released on bail, he would interfere with witnesses. "The witnesses are employees of Agutu and most of them have mot recorded their statement hence if he is released on bail he will interfere with the recording of their statements", she said The prosecutor further told the court that the network was wide and if the three were released on bail, the police would not be able to arrest the other suspects. "Godwin Agutu is a serial offender and he's facing similar charges in Makadara law courts," said the judge. There was a vehicle with the plate number GKB 070B Range rover, which was used on a hired motor vehicle KCV 788Y belonging to View Cape tours and car hire. The three pleaded not guilty before Nairobi magistrate Daniel Ndugi. Story by Zipporah Weru - TUKO.co.ke correspondent Help us change more lives, join TUKO.co.ke's Patreon programme Source: TUKO.co.ke President Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19 President Donald Trump was treated Friday for COVID-19 with a high-dose of the experimental antibody drug developed by the US biotech firm Regeneron. What is it, how far along are its clinical trials, and why do some experts disagree with using a medicine before it's been approved? Here's what you need to know. What is the treatment? Regeneron's treatment, called REGN-COV2, is a combination or "cocktail" of two antibodies: infection-fighting proteins that were developed to bind to the part of the new coronavirus that it uses to invade human cells. The antibodies attach themselves to different parts of the virus' "spike protein," distorting its structuresimilar in a way to knocking a key out of shape so it no longer fits its lock. Vaccines work by teaching the body to make its own antibodies, but scientists are also testing ready-made antibodies from convalescent plasma, taken from the blood of recovered patients. But it is not possible to make convalescent plasma a mass treatment. Researchers can also comb through antibodies produced by recovered patients and select the most effective out of thousands, and then manufacture them at scale. In a paper published in Science in June, Regeneron scientists described how they selected the two best antibodies from both recovered human patients and infected mice that were genetically modified to give them human-like immune systems. In another paper in the same journal, scientists argued that by using two antibodies, they had guarded against the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 might randomly mutate to evade the blocking action of one, and then go on to become the dominant strain of the virus. The company used the same "humanized mouse" technology to develop a triple-antibody cocktail which was shown to be effective against Ebola last year. "That's part of what's giving us confidence, the platform has been tried and has been shown to be to work very, very well," Christos Kyratsous, Regeneron's lead infectious disease scientist told AFP in March. The treatments are given by an intravenous drip. Does it work? Clinical trials are being carried out to test the drug's safety and efficacy at different dose levels and to compare it against a placebo, to answer this question. On Tuesday, the firm announced some results from an early stage clinical trial, saying that its treatment reduced the viral load and recovery time in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The results related to 275 patients, and Regeneron's president George Yancopoulos said the company had begun talks with regulatory authoritiespresumably for temporary approval before full licensure. But the detailed data hasn't yet been made public or peer-reviewed. In terms of safety, it said "infusion reactions" were seen in four patientstwo on placebo and two on the drug, while "serious adverse events" occurred in two placebo patients and one on the drug. No one died. The company did not detail what these side-effects were, but Arun Swaminath, a doctor at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital, said that in general, mild reactions to IV-therapies include fevers, chills and fatigue. More serious symptoms include chest pain and shortness of breath. The outpatient trial has now moved to late-stage. Regeneron is also running late-stage trials for hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the UK and for the drug's potential use to prevent household contacts of COVID-19 patients from being infected. Why are some experts concerned? The decision to give Trump the treatment before the trials have even produced enough data for emergency use authorization has puzzled some scientists. Carla Perissinotto, a geriatrician and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told AFP that using unapproved treatments on a "compassionate use" basis normally happens when everything else has failed. "The risk of having side effects is so much greater, that I usually am very cautious about anything that's experimental and not proven," she said. Jeremy Faust, a public health expert at Harvard, said it raised uncomfortable possibilities: Either the president's team had not understood the scientific process, or they had understood but were overridden by Trump on someone else's advice. "People will see this and they'll think that this is the treatment you should haveand if you don't give it to other people who have coronavirus that we're denying them special treatment. "In reality that's not the case... we shouldn't be treating the president as a guinea pig." Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak 2020 AFP Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday he believes the White House carefully considered all of its treatment options before it opted to give President Donald Trump the experimental coronavirus antibody cocktail from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. "This was a wholly appropriate decision to give him active therapy, and then it just became a choice of which therapy," Gottlieb said on "Fast Money," prior to Trump being taken to Walter Reed Medical Center "out of an abundance of caution" following his coronavirus diagnosis. "I wouldn't infer anything from the fact they chose the Regeneron product over another product other than they probably had confidence looking at the data on the Regeneron product that it seemed to be the most effective of the products, given what they knew," added Gottlieb, who led the regulatory agency under Trump from May 2017 to April 2019. Not everyone in the medical community agrees with Gottlieb about the decision to give Trump an experimental treatment. Some shared concerns about the preferential treatment provided to the president, as the drug has not been approved by federal regulators, and others pointed to the limited available data. On Twitter, as one doctor commented, "V.I.P. medicine doesn't mean better medicine when there is no data." Regeneron confirmed it provided a single, 8-gram dose of its REGN-COV2 treatment for use by the president, whose coronavirus diagnosis was announced just before 1 a.m. ET Friday. Regeneron's antibody drug is still experimental and has not received emergency use approval from the FDA, but it was provided in response to a compassionate use request. CNBC's Meg Tirrell on Friday reported that a "limited number of patients" had also received the drug on that basis after speaking with Regeneron's chief scientific officer, Dr. George Yancopoulos. On Tuesday, Regeneron said its REGN-COV2 treatment improved symptoms and reduced viral loads in non-hospitalized patients who have mild to moderate Covid-19. That was based on results for the first 275 trial patients. At the time, the company indicated it plans to "rapidly" discuss the early results with regulatory agencies, including the FDA. Regeneron is not the only company developing antibody drugs; Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline also are testing monoclonal antibodies, which experts have viewed as a promising potential Covid-19 treatment. Regeneron's REGN-COV2 is an experimental shot of lab-generated antibodies that mimics how the body would mount a reaction to a foreign invader. The goal is to boost the immune system's defenses, rather than to wait on human biology to do its job. In a memo provided Friday by the White House, Trump's physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said the president was given Regeneron's antibody cocktail "as a precautionary measure." Conley also wrote that Trump "remains fatigued but in good spirits." Trump also has a low-grade fever, NBC News reported Friday afternoon, citing three people familiar with his condition. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the decision to give Trump the antibody drug. Gottlieb said he thought that if Trump were going to receive any early treatments for Covid-19, it was likely to be Gilead Sciences' remdesivir. The antiviral drug has received emergency approval from the FDA, but for hospitalized coronavirus patients who are severely ill. "I would have thought they would use remdesivir because there's more data around that drug at this point and we are seeing that drug be used earlier and earlier in the course of the disease," Gottlieb said, adding that he is "optimistic" about Regeneron's drug, but it's still very early. "You might get a lot of benefit but you just don't know," he said. However, Gottlieb pushed back on any suggestion that Trump receiving Regeneron's treatment should be cause for alarm. He said virtually any other American, at this point of their coronavirus diagnosis, would just be monitored by medical professionals, hoping symptoms don't intensify. "For a president of the United States, if you have available therapy, I think you deliver it, especially if you understand the safety profile of these products and you believe they are otherwise going to be safe and aren't going to worsen his condition," Gottlieb said. Some doctors are skeptical, however, of the decision to treat Trump with the antibody drug. "It is bad science, bad medicine and bad ethics to give unproven things to powerful people," wrote Dr. Vinay Prasad in a Twitter post. Prasad is an associate professor of medicine and practicing hematologist-oncologist at University of California San Francisco. "I will say that in no case have I heard of a patient, especially of the importance of the president, getting an experimental infusion of an antibody cocktail," added Seattle-based pulmonologist Dr. Vin Gupta on MSNBC, who also pressed for more information from the White House. In addition to Regeneron's antibody cocktail, the president is also taking zinc, Vitamin D and the histamine-blocker famotidine. The famotidine treatment was "speculative" at this point, even though there are studies looking at whether it could be beneficial on coronavirus patients, Gottlieb said. "There are studies that suggest if you're low on Vitamin D, Vitamin D supplementation can be beneficial, but you'd want to be on Vitamin D prior to getting sick," he added. "I don't think any of those drugs are problematic or could cause harm, I just don't know that they're going to provide a treatment effect in this setting." Louise Carrol Designs based in Dromahair has been selected as one of Ireland's best crafters in a unique collaboration of Crafters of Ireland online market place. Crafters of Ireland was founded by Bernadette Clancy who worked for many years, designing, and delivering workshops for business development. It was through her mentoring sessions and business advisory clinics that she met a multitude of crafters, artists and designers who made one of a kind, bespoke items. However, these Irish based micro businesses sometimes struggled with visibility, sales, and growth. Crafters and designers based in Ireland had the option of joining online shops such as Etsy who have tens of thousands of other vendors flooding the platform. The result can be that their products are drowned out by competitors occupying the same category. We identified a need within this sector which was not being met and thus, Crafters of Ireland was created using a small pool of vendors for this venture. Crafters of Ireland is an online marketplace exclusively for crafters, artists and designers based in Ireland. Our team of experts provide a new service for each crafter too which includes business advice on a pro-bono basis should they require it, specific to the need of the individual crafter. Our vision is to accelerate their visibility and growth both nationally and internationally. Based in Dromahair Louise Carool Designs produces bespoke handcrafted gifts and presentation pieces for all occasions using natural slate and glass. The product range includes slate clocks, plaques, signs and photo frames, bespoke mirrors and glassware. For more information see www.craftersofireland.com Also read: New Local Link hub proposed for Drumshanbo Julio Cortez/AP News broke early Friday that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press. Trump's physician said in a memo that Trump and the first lady are both well at this time and plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of people underwent swab tests to know if they have the virus or not. Everyone who underwent the procedure stated that it feels like their brain is being "pierced by an oversized cotton bud." The statement made by those who had undergone a swab test terrified some people, and now a recent lurid headline may scare people into going in for a swab test. Did a woman's nose leak brain fluid? The headline from the Daily Star "Woman's nose 'starts leaking brain and spinal fluid' after she took a Covid swab test" immediately went viral. The headline from Mirror goes "Coronavirus swab test went so far up a woman's nose it caused her brain to leak" and it also caught the attention of netizens. But where did this story come from and do people have every reason to be afraid? The newspaper reports are based on a case study that was published in a respected medical journal, JAMA Otolaryngol Head & Neck Surgery. Also Read: Half a Million Girls are At Risk of Child Marriage Because of COVID-19 The study tells of a woman in Iowa, USA, who was asked to self-swab for COVID-19 before undergoing a hernia operation. Shortly after swabbing, fluid began leaking from her nose. She also suffered from headache and started vomiting after. The doctors at the University of Iowa hospital, where she was treated, identified the fluid as cerebrospinal fluid, which is a fluid that is found in the protective lining around the brain and spine. Is there a cause for alarm? There is no reason to be alarmed. The 40-year-old woman from Iowa already had a pre-existing defect in the base of her skull, which is the bone at the top of the nose, and a sac of brain tissue had protruded out into the nasal cavity. This is a very rare condition that is seen in neurosurgery and in ear, nose and throat clinics. About 1 in 10,000 babies are born with a defect like this, but the rate at which it occurs in adults is unknown. In the case of the 40-year-old woman, it was probably because the pressure inside her skull around the brain was higher than normal, creating a weak spot. It is very unlikely for any person who does not have this pre-existing weakness in the nose to cause any damage with a swab. However, a good top when swabbing the nose is to remember that the inside of the nose travels back, towards the back of the head, and not up. So any swabbing of the nose should involve pointing the swab towards the back of the head in the same direction as you would point the swab towards your tonsil when you swab your mouth, which is part of the same test. Medical experts encourage people to have a swab test to make sure that they are COVID-free. It may be uncomfortable but it will not jab your brain, unlike what the news claims. Swab test is the only way to know who has the virus and it is an important public health tool to help bring the pandemic under control. Related Article: Indigenous Woman Records Slurs By Hospital Staff Before Her Death @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Thumbs Down ... to the state of Illinois for failing to effectively enforce a three-year-old law aimed at making sure businesses that get tax breaks work with minority- and women-owned vendors. The Better Government Association said this week that since the law went into effect, 119 companies got $150 million in tax benefits but did not submit any reports about how they are working with minority- and women-owned firms; meanwhile, of the 61 businesses that did file reports, three-quarters of them did not provide the data the law was supposed to collect. The BGA reporting said this was a failing of both the Rauner and Pritzker administrations. This should outrage legislators who passed the law, not to mention the people of Illinois who have a right to expect that businesses getting tax breaks live up to the obligations attached to those benefits. Thumbs Up ... to the Source Book Store. A downtown Davenport treasure for decades, the Source has a new owner, 23-year-old Carter Brown, who was taking ownership of the book store Thursday, according to an article this week by Thomas Geyer. Jaipur: Polling for the second phase of panchayat elections in Rajasthan began on Saturday with 18.79per centof 34.06 lakh voters casting their ballot till 10 am in 1,028 gram panchayats in 21 districts. The polling to elect panch and sarpanch began at 7.30 am and will continue till 5.30 pm. The voting percentage was 18.79 till 10 am, according to a spokesperson of the State Election Commission. The elections are being held as per the guidelines related to COVID-19. Polling will continue till 5.30 pm and after that, counting of votes will take place," the official said. There are 34.06 lakh voters in the gram panchayats which are going to poll in the second phase. The first phase voting took place on September 28 in 947 gram panchayats. The third phase polling will take place on October 6 and the fourth on October 10. In total, 3,848 gram panchayats will go to polls in the state in four phases. 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 Hamilton police have identified a female suspect after a robbery near a downtown ATM Wednesday morning. Police say a man was approached by a suspicious couple after withdrawing money from an RBC ATM vestibule on the King Street West side of Jackson Square at around 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Upon exiting, the man was followed by an unknown male suspect who demanded cash, police say. The male suspect took out what appeared to be a pool ball in a sock and swung it at the victim, police say. The victim was hit on the head and hand, but managed to deflect some of the impact. The female suspect, who had been sitting inside the ATM vestibule when the victim entered, also approached, pulling out what was described as a Ginsu knife and swinging it at the victim, police say. The victim was able to get away, and reported the incident to police. Police said Thursday the victim was not injured. Police say a warrant has been issued for the arrest of a 22-year-old. She is wanted for robbery, assault with a weapon and six counts of breaching probation. Police continue to search for a second suspect, who is described as a thin white man in his 20s or 30s with Justin Bieber hair that is parted and pulled to the side. Another robbery occurred near a downtown ATM shortly after 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. An individual was approached by a man after withdrawing money from an ATM in the area of Main Street West and Bay Street South. The suspect demanded cash, and the victim was sprayed with an unknown irritant and sustained a minor injury. Police said Thursday that no connection had been established between the two incidents. Anyone with information should contact Hamilton police at 905-961-1876. Eight surviving members of a U.S Army unit known for bravery, courage and valor will accept a Congressional Gold Medal in honor of their famous military group. Way beyond their Golden Years all of them moving toward 100 members of Merrills Marauders added another deserved decoration on Sept. 22 when Congress passed the Merrills Marauders Congressional Gold Medal Act. Gilbert Howland, 97, a Hamilton Twp. resident featured in a Trentonian May 2019 article, headlines a group known for heroic efforts while fighting in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, aka the China-Burma-India Theater. Merrills Marauders codename Unit Galahad, officially named the 5307th Composite Unit, served as a Army long range penetration special operations jungle warfare group. Congressional Gold Medals will recognize Howland, Robert E. Passanisi, 96, (Long Island, NY); James Collins , 96, (Tampa, Florida); Rocco DeLuca, 98, (Norwich, Connecticut); Russell Hamler, 96, (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); Gabriel Kinney, 99, (Daphne, Alabama); Raleigh Nayes, 98, (Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin); and James Richardson, 99, (Jacksboro, Tennessee). The Great 8 will undoubtedly recall their band of brothers who volunteered for a death-defying mission then claimed incredible victories opposite unimaginable odds. This recognition means so much to me and the other survivors and our families, Passanisi, Merrills Marauders Associations spokesperson, said via a press release. My one regret is that only eight of us are alive to enjoy this historic honor. Their key effort included a May 1944 action that required a 60-mile march over the Kumon Mountain range to the town of Myitkyina. Marauders, which started as a 3,000-member unit commanded by Army Brig. Gen. Frank D. Merrill, witnessed their numbers depleted by more than half as casualties mounted and further death arrived via malnutrition, starvation and disease. Still, they attacked and seized the towns crucial airfield in August. The victory opposite a significantly larger and elite Japanese unit reestablished communication and supply lines between India and China. The recapture of Burma concluded the units mission as the 5307th disbanded just days after that crucial conquest. Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP partner Frederick R. Eames led a pro bono team assisting the Merrills Marauders Association in enlisting congressional support for the recognition. Highly trained infantrymen whom we regard today as heroes, such as the Special Forces, look to Merrills Marauders as role models, Eames said via press release. The unimaginable conditions these men successfully fought through changed the understanding of the limits of human endurance in armed conflict. The Congressional Gold Medal brings them the public recognition they deserve. We are honored to have assisted in getting it across the finish line. The press statement included remarks by Howland, an Army Ranger Hall of Fame member who fought in World War II, Korea and did two combat tours in Vietnam. It is a great honor for me and our unit. It recognizes how important our special operations mission was in Burma. We were the only American ground troops fighting on the Asian continent. The men in this unit all volunteered. We sacrificed a lot. The Congressional Gold Medal will now shine a light on that forgotten theater in the Pacific that was so crucial in defeating the Japanese. In a six-month operation, Marauders three battalions fought five major battles and endured more than 30 other engagements against elite Japanese enemy forces. Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP noted Merrills Marauders enjoy a Presidential Unit Citation, six Distinguished Service Crosses, four Legions of Merit, 44 Silver Stars, and a Bronze Star for every member. Thirty have been inducted into the prestigious Army Ranger Hall of Fame. Three, including Howland, have the extremely rare distinction of being triple Combat Infantry Badge recipients. Perhaps their achievements fade in time but meeting Howland inside his assisted living home remains a memorable personal highlight. Howland offered perfect summary of the all-volunteer Merrills Marauders. We did it because our country needed us. Zimbabwe has suspended parliamentary and council by-elections, which were expected to be help in December this year. Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the countrys health minister, made the announcement in Statutory Instrument 255 published Friday. It read in part, The holding of any by-election to fill a casual vacancy in parliament or in a local authority is, for the duration of the period of the declaration of COVID-19 as a formidable epidemic disease, suspended and if such vacancy occurred while such declaration is in force, no part of the period from the date of such vacancy to the date of the end of the declaration shall be counted for the purposes of section 158(3) of the Constitution. The Nomination Court was expected to sit next week to select candidates to fill several parliamentary and council seats left vacant after the opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by Thokozani Khupe recalled from parliament and local authorities of lawmakers and councilors linked to Nelson Chamisas MDC Alliance. The Khupe MDC formation started recalling them soon after the Supreme Court declared that Chamisa was not the legitimate leader of the MDC. The court restored Khupe as the legitimate heir to the late MDC founding president Morgan Tsvangirai. Reacting to the suspension of the by-election, the MDC Alliance said in a tweet, The suspension of by-elections is a vicious assault on the will of the people and the greatest threat to our democracy in as many decades. This is fascism. Democracy is dead. The people must and will fight back to defend their votes. Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa and Information Permanent Secretary Nick Mangwana were unavailable for comment as they were not responding to calls on their mobile phones. Kent University law lecturer, Alex Magaisa, said the suspension of the by-elections was unconstitutional. In a tweet, Magaisa said, Critics warned that COVID19 would present an opportunity for dictators to mount an assault on democracy. Statutory Instrument 225A effectively banning by-elections in Zimbabwe is living proof of it. (President Emmerson) Mnangagwa is lifting restrictions in other areas, but not in elections. But the legality of this Statutory Instrument is doubtful. It seeks to amend not only the Electoral Act but also the Constitution. The Minister of Health does not have power to do that. Second, the SI (Statutory Instrument) cannot operate retrospectively as it seeks to do. Its all very clumsy. Meanwhile, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reports that Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson, Justice Priscilla Chigumba, announced in an extraordinary gazette, the appointment of seven proportional representation parliamentarians, including MDC-T leader Khupe, who are expected to fill the vacancies of some recalled MDC Alliance lawmakers. According to the newspaper, the other appointed proportional representation lawmakers are Yvonne Musarurwa, Moyo Lindani, Sawuke January, Munochinzwa Memory, Sibanda Lwazi, Mokone Sipho, and senators Tamani Moyo, Piniel Denga, Khaliphani Pugeni, Gertrude Moyo, Chief Ndlovu, Nomalanga Khumalo and Teti Chisorochengwe. Boris Johnson agreed to the 'terrorist demands' of Dominic Cummings as the price for securing his services as an all-controlling adviser in Downing Street, an explosive new biography of the Prime Minister discloses. The renowned investigative author Tom Bower tells how Mr Johnson cycled to Mr Cumming's London home after becoming Tory leader to implore him to join his No.10 operation and was given his demands: Cummings wanted to deliver Brexit, win a general election and then 'revolutionise Britain's decrepit government machine'. The book, The Gambler, which is being serialised exclusively in tomorrow's Mail on Sunday, contains a string of startling revelations about Mr Johnson's public and personal life, and goes far further than any previous biography towards solving the enigma of his true personality. Boris Johnson, pictured today, agreed to the 'terrorist demands' of Dominic Cummings as the price for securing his services as an all-controlling adviser in Downing Street, an explosive new biography of the Prime Minister discloses The book says Mr Cummings warned Mr Johnson about the Civil Service: 'They will destroy you. You always need me to sort the b******s out.' Mr Bower writes of Mr Johnson: 'On his way to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, he already knew how he intended to run Downing Street...Only Dominic Cummings matched his requirements as a strategist and enforcer to push Brexit through the hostile Commons'. Mr Cummings has proved to be a divisive figure in the Tory party, with some MPs complaining that his No.10 operation is remote from the rest of the party and too preoccupied with institutional change. Over the past 12 months, Mr Cummings has forced out senior civil servants, embarked on a radical restructuring of Whitehall and declared war on the BBC. According to the biography, he told Mr Johnson that he would 'control the Downing Street administrative machine, appoint the prime minister's private staff and be the gatekeeper to control access to Boris himself....the only people he could trust, said Cummings, were the dedicated Vote Leave campaign staff. Those loyalists should come with him to Downing Street. Only through that command structure, said Cummings, could he accept Boris's offer.' Bower analyses the chemistry between Boris and Cummings, recording that some sources thought that the Prime Minister was 'mesmerised' by his aide. The book says Mr Cummings, pictured this week, warned Mr Johnson about the Civil Service: 'They will destroy you. You always need me to sort the b******s out' He writes: 'That would be an exaggeration. Boris's skill was to identify his own weaknesses and hire the right person to compensate for them. 'Cummings was not only a master of strategy and could intensely focus on detail but, like Boris himself, was a rule-breaker. 'As a kindred spirit, he understood [that] willpower would demolish their mutual enemies. His most important contribution would be instilling unyielding resolution never to compromise. His determination to march forward and trample the opposition was vital. Boris decided that he could not run Downing Street without him'. Having persuaded Cummings to sign up, Bower writes: 'Boris's acquiescence to Cummings' 'terrorist demands' of total control over Downing Street's administrative machine caused immediate friction.' The Internet is filled with all kinds of stories. Some stories make you laugh, some make you cry, and then there are some that leave you overwhelmed with emotions. Just like the story of a 10-year-old boy named Romeo Cox who, along with his father, walked from Sicily in Italy to London in the UK. Why, you ask? He embarked on this adventurous journey just so that he could meet his grandmother and give her a hug. The boy also gave the world a glimpse of his journey through Instagram. A link given in his bio also details that besides meeting his grandmother he also took the journey for another reason. Im walking 2800km to support refugees my age for Refugee Education Across Conflicts Trust because we should all get an equal chance to study & live! it says. He shared several videos and images which detail what he saw and the people that he meet. And to say that the tale is wonderful is surely an understatement. The image shows Romeo Cox. (Instagram/@romeos_big_journey_home) What is even more exciting is that his arduous journey was not only restricted to meeting new people. He also went on boat journeys and participated in jam sessions. Not just that. Turns out, he also fought off wild dogs, tamed a grumpy donkey and even got bloody feet while walking. However, what is truly heartening is that he never gave up. We got lost a few times. We slept under a wasp nest which wasnt a good idea, got bloody feet, but we never thought about giving up, he told Daily Mail. Here is a post giving a glimpse of him riding on a boat: Check out this fun video of the boy dancing to the hit number Gangnam Style: The youngster arrived at Trafalgar Square in London on September 21, having made the 2,800km journey. He is now in quarantine before he meets his grandmother. I cant wait to give her a cuddle, its been over a year since I last saw her. She was all alone during lockdown, he said. Well, we too will wait for him to update us about the hug for which he crossed thousands of kilometers. He was also invited to the House of Lords to enjoy some cake with Lord Alf Dubs. In a post, Romeo gave details about that too. What do you think of this wonderful boy and his journey? SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON There were no absentee ballots from Wisconsin found amoung three trays of mail that had been dumped in a ditch. Donald Trump pointed to the incident as evidence of voter fraud tied to mail-in voting. (AP) There were no Wisconsin absentee ballots amoung several trays of mail found discarded in a ditch in Wisconsin, an incident that Donald Trump previously touted as evidence of the pitfalls of mail-in voting. Last week, three trays of mail were found in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin. The Outagamie County Sheriff's Office reported at the time that there were several absentee ballots amoung the discarded mail. A statement issued by the Wisconsin Elections Commission now casts doubt on that initial report. Meagan Wolfe, the director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said that no Wisconsin ballots were found in the scrapped mail. Ms Wolfe was speaking specifically about Wisconsin ballots in her statement. She said she did not know if ballots from other states were found. The US Postal Service is investigating the incident. Mr Trump capitalised on the story when it first broke. During Tuesday's presidential debate, Mr Trump claimed that ballots were being dumped in creeks. "There's fraud. They found them in creeks. They found some, just happened to have the name Trump just the other day in a wastepaper basket," Mr Trump said. When a reporter pushed White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on where the creek was located, she admitted that Mr Trump was referring to the Wisconsin ditch story. Mr Trump's "wastepaper basket" reference was in relation to a federal enquiry into nine discarded mail-in military ballots that were found in a county elections office in northeast Pennsylvania. Seven of the recovered ballots were votes for Mr Trump. However, the FBI said it found no evidence that the incident was a "coordinated" voter fraud campaign. Mr Trump has railed against mail-in voting for months. He has claimed - without evidence - that an election in which substantial numbers of Americans vote-by-mail will lead to massive voter fraud and has stated his intentions to question the results of the election as a result. Story continues Read more Bad things are happening: Trump campaign sues Philadelphia over mail-in voting offices White House can't identify mystery river where Trump claims ballots were dumped The Duggar family is growing. These days, it seems that hardly a month goes by without a Duggar announcing a pregnancy. Thats hardly surprising, given that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have 19 kids and many of those children have started to have kids of their own. Soon, theyll have more grandchildren than they do kids. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have 18 grandkids Michelle Duggar and Jim Bob Duggar | Peter Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images RELATED: Counting On: Anna Duggar Just Took a Dig at Jim Bob and Michelle In the Most Duggar Way Possible Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar welcomed their first grandchild back in October 2009. Thats when their oldest son Josh Duggar and his wife Anna Duggar had their first child, a daughter named Mackynzie. Since then, Josh and Anna have had five more children: Michael, Marcus, Meredith, Mason, and Maryella. Jill Duggar and her husband Derick Dillard were the next to have kids. Their son Israel was born in 2015. Samuel arrived in 2017. Jills younger sister Jessa and her husband Ben Seewald also had their first child, Spurgeon, in 2015. They had Henry in 2017 and daughter Ivy Jane in 2019. In 2018, Joy-Anna Duggar and Austin Forsyth welcomed son Gideon. Their second child, a daughter named Evelyn Mae, was born in August 2020. Joe and Kendra Duggars first baby, a boy named Garrett, was also born in 2018. Their daughter Addison was born in 2019. Jinger Duggar and Jeremy Vuolo had a daughter named Felicity in 2018. Josiah and Lauren Duggar had a daughter named Bella in 2019. John David and Abbie Duggar had a daughter named Grace in early 2020. Add it all up and you have 18 Duggar grandkids. Two Duggar women are currently pregnant that we know of Counting On | TLC Eighteen grandkids is quite a crowd, but the family will soon be even larger. Two members of the family are currently pregnant. Jinger and Jeremy are expecting their second daughter in November 2020. And in August 2020, less than a year after welcoming their second child, Joe and Kendra announced they were expecting baby no. 3. Once those two babies are born, Jim Bob and Michelle will officially have more grandkids than they do kids. Some fans even think there might be even more Duggar babies on the way. There are rumors that Jessa could be expecting her fourth child. (Shes said shes not pregnant.) Those who follow the family have also wondered if Jill might be pregnant again. How many Duggar grandchildren will there ultimately be? Assuming Jim Bob and Michelles children keep having kids and theres no sign theyre going to stop the 19 Kids and Counting couple could eventually have dozens of grandkids. After all, only eight of their children have had children of their own so far. But as the other kids grow up, get married, and have families of their own, it might not be long before Michelle and Jim Bob have 30 or 40 grandkids. And Jim Bob has hinted in the past that he hopes to have many more grandkids than that. In 2015, after daughter Jill gave birth to Israel, her parents congratulated her in a Facebook video. Four grandkids and counting, Jim Bob said jokingly. Going on 200. For Jim Bob and Michelle to have 200 grandkids, each of their nineteen children would need to have more than 10 kids each. Check out Showbiz Cheat Sheet on Facebook! 3 1 of 3 John Minchillo/AP Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Kellen Riell / Times Union Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Seagram's heiress and NXIVM financier Clare Bronfman was sentenced to more than six years in prison this week following an hours-long hearing before a judge in Brooklyn. The nearly five-hour event featured 10 women who read emotionally charged statements about how Bronfman's crimes negatively affected their lives. Bronfman had pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and forced labor related to her role in the shadowy organization known as NXIVM. Cal Cunningham, the Democratic former state senator and Iraq war veteran who is locked in a closely watched and tight race to unseat Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican, apologized on Saturday after a report that he had exchanged romantic text messages with a woman who is not his wife. Screenshots of some of the text messages first emerged on Thursday; the Cunningham campaign confirmed their authenticity on Saturday morning. In the messages, Mr. Cunningham, who is married and a father of two teenagers, calls the woman historically sexy, the two discuss kissing each other and Mr. Cunningham says he had dreamed about his time with the woman. It is not clear when exactly the messages were exchanged, but they allude to crazier fall schedules and Mr. Cunningham writes that he is nervous about the next 100 days. I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends and am deeply sorry, Mr. Cunningham said in a statement on Saturday morning. The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do. Mumbai, Oct 3 : A Mumbai Special Court on Saturday sent former executive of Dharma Productions Kshitij Ravi Prasad -- who was arrested in connection with the drugs probe in Bollywood -- to judicial custody till October 6. Prasad was arrested on September 26 by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) during the ongoing probe into the drug case as part of the investigations into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. His earlier judicial custody ended on Saturday and he was produced before the Special NDPS Court, which extended his custody till next Tuesday. The NCB had claimed that Prasad was in touch with several drug suppliers and traders, and used the drugs for self-consumption, following which he was arrested. Prasad is the 20th person to be nabbed till date by the NCB in the high-profile case, including Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty -- the only woman among the accused -- besides her brother Showik, and 18 others, including drug peddlers, suppliers, aides of the late actor Sushant, etc. The NCB has also recovered certain quantities of different types of drugs and cash from the accused as it attempts to unravel the drugs nexus in Bollywood since the past nearly two months. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text (Photo : REUTERS/Leah Millis) U.S. President Trump walks to the Marine One helicopter as he departs the White House to fly to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where it was announced he will work for at least several days after testing positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 2, 2020. (Photo : REUTERS/Leah Millis) FILE PHOTO: Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump look on as Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Duluth International Airport in Duluth, Minnesota, U.S., September 30, 2020. After getting an experimental antibody drug Regeneron, President Donald Trump's physician has confirmed that he is also taking remdesivir to treat his COVID-19. In a statement released on the evening of Oct. 2, Dr. Sean Conley said the president has earlier received his first dose of experimental drug remdesivir and is comfortably resting. "This evening, I am happy to announce that the president is doing well," Dr. Conley wrote in the memo adding that Trump does not need to have oxygen supplement. The FDA has approved remdesivir for emergency-use on May 1 as it was shown to shorten the recovery period for hospitalized COVID-19 patients from 15 days to 11 days. The drug prevents the virus from copying itself, so it cannot spread further, although it is not yet clear how the drug does that. Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding welcomed the news as remdesivir "was shown to reduce illness duration." He also noted that the drug from Gilead Sciences Inc. is better than the earlier "sketchy use of the no-evidence Regeneron." Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020 Before being flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the president also received an 8-gram dose of Regeneron's experimental antibody drug. He was also taking vitamin D, melatonin, zinc as well as his daily dose of aspirin. Trump was reported to be in "good spirits" but was earlier reported to feel lethargic and fatigue. He will continue his quarantine at Walter Reed with his wife. Read also: White House Event Feared as 'COVID-19 Superspreader' After Trump, Other Attendees Tested Positive - Air Force One, Marine One Grounded Anti-Mask groups undeterred by Trump's diagnosis On Oct. 2, POTUS Trump tweeted that he and first lady Melania have tested positive for COVID-19. Hours after, top aide Hope Hicks and Utah Senator Mike Lee also confirmed that they acquired the virus. Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020 The four officials attended the unveiling of SCOTUS nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, which the White House hosted on Sept. 26. Some guests on the event that occurred on the said date were not wearing masks. Sen. Lee was even seen maskless in photos as he was hugging, kissing, and chatting with other guests. Aside from the top officials, three members of the White House press also tested positive, so the event was feared to be a superspreader. Meanwhile, dozens of public and private social media groups with thousands of members are still urging people not to wear masks, despite increasing evidence that wearing them prevent the virus from spreading. "The Free Face Society," a Facebook anti-mask group with 5,400 members, believes that "man cannot be free if he does not control his or her own face!"Based on the New York Times report, the number of people joining public anti-mask groups has increased by 1,800% since August. New York Times used data from Facebook-owned public insights tool CrowdTangle. Anti-maskers claim wearing a mask can even do more harm than protect a person from the virus. They also believe that forcing someone to wear a face mask in public is against their constitutional rights. According to the description of another group, "Anti-Mask Lives Matter," which has nearly 1,000 members, "Today, it seems as if being in public without a mask on is comparable to experiencing racism at its core." Read also: Californian Doctor Claims His 9mm Gun Offers More Protection Against COVID-19 than Face Masks, Receives Community Backlash This is owned by Tech Times Written by CJ Robles 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In September, I walked across Florence's Ponte Vecchio - like I have many times before, visiting the city where my mother was born and lives today. I stopped to take a photo of the next bridge on the River Arno, the Ponte Santa Trinita. At any other time, there'd be a scrum of visitors looking to take the same shot. But not that day, or this year. I was alone, save for a ridiculously handsome couple taking turns to photograph each other. City breaks are in trouble. For several months now, the pandemic has wrought havoc on all kinds of travel, but along with cruises, these are most beleaguered. The whole point of a city break is to be among people. On the street and in museums, in restaurants and bars, on the dancefloor or queuing for a late-night kebab. City breaks are the opposite of getting away from it all - the more in it we are, the better the experience (well, usually). In our new Covid-19 landscape, that's just not going to work. Firstly, there's the hassle of it all. Half-full is the new full for hotels and restaurants; pre-booked, timed entry has put paid to going with the flow; and nobody has the first clue as to when or how we'll be able to try out our latest dance moves in a nightclub. Read More Overshadowing all of the inconveniences is a persistent level of anxiety. Am I standing too close? Do I need to wear a face covering? And while most of us have adapted pretty well to one-way systems and new protocols for going indoors, they're neither relaxing nor fun - unless you enjoy having your temperature checked regularly. In Florence, I saw just a tiny fraction of the heaving numbers of tourists that previously made it one of Europe's most-visited cities. These concerns are clearly reflected in Tourism Ireland's latest survey of holiday habits. Only one in 10 outbound holidaymakers are currently attracted to a city break, it found - remarkable, given that in the last decade or so the city break has become the world's most popular type of holiday. A third of those surveyed preferred a rural break, with two-fifths favouring a mix of both. All over Europe and beyond, that ambivalence is reflected in a total collapse of visitor numbers. Barcelona made headlines in recent years for its efforts to contain the negative impacts of overtourism, but the pandemic has decimated its visitor numbers and the millions of euros they spend in the city. Barcelona Tourism doesn't yet have figures for how many will visit in 2020, but head of marketing Mateo Asensio tells me that only 126 of the city's 434 hotels have reopened since the end of lockdown. Expand Close Fionn in Doges Palace, Venice. Photo Credit: Fionn Davenport / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fionn in Doges Palace, Venice. Photo Credit: Fionn Davenport Even then, occupancy is around 20pc. "When you see that last year it was 90pc, it means that we've had a reduction of oh, my God 80pc in terms of visitors." Asensio's despair is shared by tourism authorities in most European cities. Dublin is currently in Level 3 lockdown. Down the coast in Spain, Valencia and the popular holiday resorts of Benidorm and the Costa Blanca welcomed 9 million international visitors last year. This year, to the end of July, the figures are down 65pc, the tourist board tell me. The drop-off also covers visitors to the beach resorts, but for Valencia, the hurt is even greater. Italy is no different. The so-called 'museum cities' - citta d'arte - of Venice, Florence and Rome are responsible for 75pc of Italy's tourist GNP but have seen the biggest collapse in visitor numbers: Venice's tourism boss Paola Mar tells me that her most optimistic prediction for 2020 is that the city would welcome around one fifth of its usual numbers, while in Florence, regional tourism director Francesco Palumbo reckons it'll be around 30pc. From a visitor perspective, visiting some of Europe's most popular cities without the crowds is no bad thing - so long as you don't mind the restrictions imposed post-lockdown. Venice hasn't been this empty in over a century, for example. 2020 may also be the first time in 50 years that you can visit a tourist hotspot like the Louvre in Paris without feeling like an art-appreciating sardine. The lack of demand also means that most cities have become cheaper. According to a survey by the UK Post Office, for example, 22 of 24 European cities offer considerable savings compared to 2019 - especially with accommodation. Vilnius is the least expensive, Rome is 20pc cheaper but the biggest savings are in Dublin, where it says the cost of a city break is down 26pc on last year. Even in peak months like July and August, most hotels were offering low-season rates or better, and discount schemes abound - from 'Eat Out to Help Out' in UK cities (for all of August, participating restaurants were giving 10 discounts to diners) to Barcelona's package of discounts on a range of tourist activities. Discounts and cheap hotel rooms aside, the idea of jetting off to a foreign city for the weekend remains a tough sell. Travel restrictions, rising infection rates and the deep uncertainty over whether a destination is deemed safe - or whether its status may change between booking and travel - has put most people off the very notion of getting on a plane. That goes even moreso for cities where you can't do many of the things you'd want to. Local tourist authorities have reconciled themselves to a collapse in international visitors, and have turned their attentions to local markets and internationally targeted online campaigns that boil down to a simple but urgent message: we're still here, waiting for you to come back. New York City's tourism board, NYC & Company, for instance, has a series of campaigns encouraging New Yorkers to rediscover their own city. There's little else for them to do: a city used to welcoming over 60 million visitors a year is only getting a fraction of that amount. NYC & Company's CEO Fred Dixon has said that "it's going to be a long road in terms of recovery." How long exactly? Predictions of when the crisis will end are a fool's errand and bring to mind Macmillan's quip of 'events, dear boy, events' when asked what might throw a government off course. Right now, it's almost impossible to imagine a time when we can visit a city without having to wear masks or be wary of standing too close to strangers - and that's before we consider the very real possibility of future lockdowns. Even tourism officials, who usually tend toward sunny optimism, are wary. "I think we still have a few more tough times," says Juan Munoz of Valencia Tourism. "I would say maybe one year?... I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball." Expand Close Fearless Girl wears a maks in Manhattan / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fearless Girl wears a maks in Manhattan Back on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the handsome couple finished their photoshoot and wandered southward toward Oltrarno and the Palazzo Pitti. For a moment, I was the only person on the bridge. It felt perfect, and a little sad. Sign up for our free travel newsletter! Like what you're reading? Subscribe to 'Travel Insider', our free travel newsletter written by award-winning Travel Editor, Pol O Conghaile. Mask up While most European countries require masks to be worn indoors and on public transport, they are also now compulsory outdoors in Athens, Madrid and Paris. In all Italian cities, masks must be worn outdoors between 6pm and 6am anywhere social distancing isn't possible, ie where there are restaurants, cafes and bars. As infections tick up, rules are tightening. Did you know? The word 'quarantine' had its origins in Venice during the Black Death of 1348, when plague-ridden ships had to wait 40 days - una quarantena in Italian - before unloading cargo or crew. Since then, the city has been struck by at least 21 other outbreaks of plague. Top tip For the latest EU-wide updates of restrictions for visitors, go to reopen.europa.eu. Updated daily, it covers all 27 member states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Sweden, and includes links to all relevant official sites. Ireland's latest travel advice is online at dfa.ie. More than a hundred Torquay residents will spend another night away from their homes as authorities pump the equivalent of 90 Olympic-sized pools of water out of a dam to ensure it does not collapse. Dozens of Surf Coast homes were evacuated in the early hours of Saturday morning after emergency crews assessed the leaking dam and found a "catastrophic" collapse could threaten lives and properties. More than 100 Torquay residents were told to leave their homes after a nearby dam began leaking water. Credit:Paul Jeffers The crews worked through the night after the 180 megalitre irrigation dam near the intersection of Pin Tail Drive and Horseshoe Bend Road started leaking into nearby properties, the owners of which alerted the local council. Concerns were first raised about 6pm on Friday when water appeared to come up through the ground on two nearby properties. By 1.30am on Saturday, emergency crews had woken more than 100 residents across 41 homes and asked them to leave immediately. Bhubaneswar, Oct 3 : Pandemonium prevailed in the Odisha Assembly on Saturday as the opposition Congress lawmakers voiced protest over the Hathras gang rape-murder case in Uttar Pradesh and "manhandling" of party leader Rahul Gandhi while he was on way to meet the bereaved family. After the proceedings began, the Congress MLAs stood up from their seats and started sloganeering against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adiyanath and condemned the horrific crime in which a 19-year-old Dalit woman was gang-raped on September 14. She died in a Delhi hospital on September 29. The Odisha lawmakers also rushed up to the Speaker's podium. Unable to run the House smoothly, Speaker Surya Narayan Patro adjourned it several times and for the last time till 3 pm. "Democracy has been murdered by the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress party will not tolerate attack on its leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. We will continue our agitation till Adityanath resigns," Congress MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati told media persons. Congress legislature party leader Narasingha Mishra termed the alleged "high-handedness" of UP Police as unfortunate. Notably, Congress supporters have been protesting the manhandling of Rahul Gandhi at several places across Odisha for the last two days. Biju Janata Dal MLA Snehangini Chhuria also condemned the Hathras crime. "We strongly condemn the Hathras incident. UP Police and the civil administration are functioning under the direction of the state government. We demand justice for the Dalit girl. We will resort to protest if justice is denied to the victim." BJP's deputy leader Bishnu Sethi said the Congress ws acting as the 'B' team of the ruling BJD. "The incident has occurred in Uttar Pradesh, not in Odisha. But, the Congress, which is acting at the behest of BJD, is raising the issue to unnecessarily divert the attention from important issues in the state," he told media here. "It's one thing to offer a unique and bespoke service at bargain prices during extraordinary times," he said. "It's a whole other deal when some sort of normalcy is restored and this type of offering may not be as advantageous for the consumer nor the theater. League nodded to that concept, noting that although private screenings are currently a "significant" portion of revenue, that's a skewed bar right now. "We're not in the revenue game right now, we're [trying to] survive," he said. For now, League added, that means creating "a world-class experience for coming back to theaters," League said. "Some folks just aren't comfortable going out these days, but [maybe you] are more comfortable with your friends and family, your bubble... so we've built this offering." At Cinemark, the world's third-largest movie chain in the US, private theater rental is also " something that was a small part of our business prior to Covid but now is more important," CEO Mark Zoradi told CNN Business. Renting a Cinemark theater pre-Covid could cost from $250 to $500, depending on the size of the auditorium, which included setup, concessions and other considerations. Apostle Yaw Adjei-Kwarteng, Hohoe Area Head,Church of Pentecost has called on all political actors and Christians in general to endeavour to be agents of peace ahead of the 2020 elections. As citizens, we are, therefore, required to let the virtues of peace and harmony permeate our thoughts, words and actions. It is very possible to do politics and go about our political campaigns devoid of insults, rancour or acrimony. Apostle Adjei-Kwarteng, who was speaking at the launch of the Agent of Peace Campaign in Gbi Kpoeta near Hohoe, said it was an initiative to educate and challenge Christians especially members of the Church to become Agents of Peace during this years election. This intervention, which will run from now through December, follows the maiden edition held in 2016, and is in keeping with our vision 2023 agenda - Possessing the Nations: Transforming every sphere of society with values and principles of the kingdom of God, to ensure the maintenance of peace before, during and after the upcoming general election on 7th December 2020. He said every believer was obliged to be an agent of peace, especially during the electioneering period and heeding to the clarion call, the Volta and Oti regions were ready to seek and pursue the peace of cities, towns, villages and the country as a whole. The Apostle noted that God had been gracious to Ghana as it had over the years enjoyed peace, especially during elections. Ghana is celebrated across the world as an oasis of peace in the West African sub-region and even in the whole of Africa. As a nation, we have experienced seven peaceful elections, with numerous by-elections in the Fourth Republic. These great accomplishments did not come by chance, but by contributions from various stakeholders, key among who are represented here today, he added. Apostle Adjei-Kwarteng said the Church had generally considered political authority as an essential element of human society adding that politics could play a positive role in Gods purpose in this world. The Church of Pentecost believes that the Church as the body of Christ has been called to belong to God and sent back into the world to serve Gods purpose. It is from such understanding that we have over the years shown unalloyed commitment to efforts by various governments towards development and nation-building. He said the Electoral Commission (EC) as a body, entrusted with the responsibility to run elections in Ghana, had a duty to conduct her affairs in a manner that promoted peace and builds trust. Similarly, leaders of the various political parties and security agencies must not just talk peace, but also work it out. They must be seen to walk the talk to engender trust and confidence. The Apostle urged the media to be circumspect in their reportage in the election period as agents of peace. This years campaign is on the theme: Seek Peace and Pursue It drawn from Psalm 34: 14. Mr Enoch Danso Agyekum, Hohoe Municipal Electoral Officer, commended the Church for its initiative adding that if God is ahead of us, we are all safe. He said election was a process, but not an event and all stages including; demarcation of polling stations needed to be fair and transparent adding that political parties had not been left out in all these stages and actions of the EC. Mr Agyekum said it was the prayer of the Commission to go into the pending elections peacefully while calling on citizens to support the Commission in carrying out a successful task. Mr Andrews Teddy Ofori, the Hohoe Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), said peace was important and without it, there was no development, which was the main reason why citizens and stakeholders needed to work together to ensure harmony in society. Solidarity messages were received from the Ghana Police Service and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) towards ensuring peaceful elections during the December 7, 2020 polls. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video London: The Tube, London's iconic underground rail network and the lifeblood of the city's economy, needs a massive bailout to avoid bankruptcy amid a sustained slump in usage by wary commuters. Journeys on the sprawling system collapsed during a nationwide lockdown earlier this year and were steadily rebuilding over summer but have now stalled at about a third of normal ridership. Westminster Station, one of the busiest in central London, is largely empty. Credit:Bloomberg Usage of London's double-decker red buses this week hovered at just 58 per cent of last year's numbers. The agency in charge of the public transport network, Transport for London (TfL) has not responded to the slump by cutting services. The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transportation on Thursday kicked off a project to dredge the iconic Nhieu Loc - Thi Nghe Canal to improve the citys drainage system. Sanitation workers will dredge a section of approximately 5.8-kilometers of the canal spanning from Le Van Sy Bridge to the junction of the Saigon River. They will remove around 33 thousand metric tons of garbage in the area measuring 15 meters wide and 3.3 meters high. Dredged sludge will be transferred to the Da Phuoc waste treatment complex for treatment. The city has not cleaned up the canal for a decade, making garbage and sediment to build up and block the drainage flow. A section from Ut Tich Street to Le Van Sy Street along Nhieu Loc - Thi Nghe Canal looks greener after being dredged. Photo: Van Binh / Tuoi Tre The project will support water flow, improve drainage capacity, and reduce flooding and bad odor, said the sanitation unit. Residents living along the canal have been suffering the stench for years while a vast number of fish often go belly-up on the canal during rainy seasons. The Ho Chi Minh City Water Transportation Management Center required the sanitary unit to apply the Effective Microorganisms (EM) cleaning technology to maximize the result of the project. The project is expected to be complete in December. Earlier, a dredging project on a section in Tan Binh District in February brought about positive results. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Panaji, Oct 3 : The Congress in Goa on Saturday burnt an effigy of Union Minister for Environment and Forests Prakash Javadekar, protesting against the detention of nearly a dozen opposition party workers. The Congress workers were detained following their protest outside a city five-star resort demanding a meeting with Javadekar on Friday night. The Congress workers, including Vice-President of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) Sankalp Amonkar, were detained by the police in Panaji while they were protesting outside the resort where Javadekar was staying for the night. The incident occurred just after midnight on Friday. Javadekar is in Goa to conduct meetings with farmers' groups over the controversial farm laws which were passed by Parliament recently. "Jungle raj in Goa -- @INCGoa delegation led by Vice-President @SankalpAmonkar @JanaBhandariGoa @varadmardolkar @AdvArchitNaik @RautMeghashyam @SudinNaikGoa and 10 others arrested by @DGP_Goa for seeking appointment with @PrakashJavdekar and waiting to meet him in hotel lobby in Panaji," Goa Congress Chief Girish Chodankar tweeted after the Congress leaders and workers were rounded up by the police and detained at the Panaji police station. Speaking to reporters, as the opposition party workers were being taken away to the police station, Amonkar said the Congress delegation had arrived at the hotel to meet Javadekar and seek a formal appointment to discuss the Mhadei interstate river water-sharing issue. "We are being arrested just because we want to seek an appointment with a Union Minister," Amonkar added. The Congress had in the past accused Javadekar of being partial to Karnataka, one of the three states besides Goa and Maharashtra which are part of the Mhadei river water-sharing dispute. On Saturday, party workers also burnt an effigy of Javadekar in Panaji. The police, however, said the Congress workers were arrested because they insisted on meeting Javadekar late at night. "It was a preventive arrest only to avoid a law and order situation from occurring," a senior police official added. . The BJP in Goa has condemned the "unruly behaviour" by the Congress workers. "The Congress leaders indulged in unruly behaviour. It was an act of goondagiri. We condemn this behaviour," Goa Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Spokesperson Dattaprasad Naik told a press conference on Saturday. "Prakash Javadekar is not here on a holiday. He is here on work, unlike Congress leaders like Rahul and Sonia Gandhi who constantly visit Goa on holidays. We have never protested or troubled their leaders outside hotels whenever they are on a holiday," Naik said. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Scandalised, Shania Twain says, drawing the word out in her rich Canadian tones. Thats a good word! I didnt do it intentionally, but I probably was considered a bit scandalous. Its been 25 years since Twain, queen of country-pop, was herding cattle and frolicking around a field in double denim in the music video for Any Man of Mine. It was a first, not just for the amount of bare skin Twain was showing amid a deeply conservative country music industry, but for the assertive nature of the song. Released as the second single from her 1995 album, The Woman in Me, the track mixed jubilant fiddles with rock guitar elements and Twains own irrepressible charisma, offering a first glimpse at the crossover star she would become. It was a huge success, marking her first No 1 on country radio, as well as her second crossover hit in the US Top 40. At the time, Nashville hadnt seen anything like Twain a leopard print-loving, midriff-exposing artist determined to be an international star. She remembers being warned by her label about a backlash: I would be hated by the men because I was too opinionated and too forceful and demanding, and I would be hated by the women because I was being sensually expressive, she says. And I thought, well, I dont believe thatll be the case. In Twains mind, she was speaking to women as a kindred spirit; someone who refused to conform to a single archetype of femininity. She could be heartbroken, funny, vengeful, empowered, self-deprecating, in love or in lust, all on the same record. And as far as the men went, I was doing it all with a sense of humour not in an aggressive way, she says. I didnt see it the same way the industry saw it. She was proven right, and then some. The Woman in Me, produced by her ex-husband Mutt Lange, became the bestselling release by a female country music artist in history, and picked up a Grammy Award for Best Country Album (to date, Twain is the only non-American winner). This was the album her second that took a relative newcomer in US music and made her into a global superstar. I didnt let fear get in the way, she says. And I didnt let anyone create doubt. Shania Twain in the music video for Any Man of Mine (YouTube/screengrab) Now 55, Twain is speaking from Zurich, where shes travelled from her home in Geneva to attend Switzerlands International Film Festival. Its an industry shes already dabbled in, initially with the odd cameo but more recently in the 2019 sport action film Trading Paint opposite John Travolta. The movie received mostly negative reviews but appears to have given Twain the acting bug and encouraged her to use talents gained by directing many of her own music videos. Now shes working as executive producer on a TV adaptation of US romance author Debbie Macombers bestselling Heart of Texas series, about a young family trying to keep it together after their parents die prematurely. Its easy to see how Twain, a longtime fan of the books, might relate. Raised by a mother suffering from depression and an alcoholic, violent stepfather (whom she has said was both sexually and physically abusive), Twain sang in bars from the age of eight to help feed her family. She was in Nashville in 1987, on the cusp of a breakthrough, when she received the news that her parents had been killed in a car crash. The then-22-year-old Twain was forced to return home to care for her four siblings. I had a lot of responsibility, she says. I had to grow up fast. During lockdown, with her Heart of Texas show and a Las Vegas residency on hold, Twain found herself writing songs about her early life for the first time. Ive never been reflective like that before, she says. It feels good. After six months, shes found herself with more than enough songs to make a new album, one she says will have a real feel-good, singalong vibe to it. She finds she works best when shes not distracted, and so tends to isolate herself in a room and let the words pour out. Its a very emotional experience. I often start in a melancholy place, and then I spin it around and turn it into a happy song. Assisted by Lange, a pro at crafting stadium-sized rock music thanks to his work with AC/DC and Def Leppard, Twain was on to a winning formula. From the cheerfully delivered warnings to would-be cheaters on The Woman in Me, Twain went one further on 1997s Come On Over, the album that asserted her as an unstoppable global force. Come On Over produced hit single after hit single, from the feminist anthem Man! I Feel Like a Woman, to the tongue-in-cheek That Dont Impress Me Much. Then came 2002s Up!, Twains last album and her most pure-pop record to date, released before a hiatus that ended only two years ago. Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up As she discusses her songwriting, Twain sounds far more confident than when we last spoke, around the release of her 2017 comeback album, Now. It marked her first record in 15 years, following a long hiatus caused in part by her diagnosis with Lyme disease, which caused vocal paralysis. It was also the first one Twain had written without Lange, with whom she had produced three consecutive Diamond-selling records (shes the only woman to have achieved the feat), including 1997s Come On Over one of the bestselling albums of all time. Its understandable that Twain might have felt some pressure. Im definitely over that insecurity of, Oh my God, Im doing this on my own, and that is also why the Now album was really important for me, she says. I needed to do it alone, to start ideas and finish them without relying on anybody elses opinion and direction. Writing Now was also a way for Twain to process the devastation caused by her split from Lange in 2008, in one of the most highly publicised break-ups of the time. During her stint away from the spotlight, Twain and Lange had moved to Geneva, where the couple became close friends with her assistant, Marie-Anne and husband Frederic Thiebaud. At some point, Thiebaud told Twain that Marie-Anne was having an affair with Lange. In a very Fleetwood Mac-style twist, both couples divorced, leading to a relationship and then marriage between Twain and Thiebaud, who are still together. Twain with her husband, Frederic Thiebaud, at the Zurich Film Festival, 2020 (Getty for ZFF) I needed to evacuate my own pain and get a lot of things off my chest, Twain says of writing Now. Songs like Poor Me and Lifes About to Get Good alluded to that time, with lyrics such as: He never told me how long/ I'd been living in the dark/ No one turned the light on/ I fell and broke my heart. It was a little bit indulgent in that way but [my fans] were fantastic, she continues. They understood my story, and I felt supported. And now Im writing a different album again, and Im much more comfortable in my own skin. Now surprised fans for its broad range of influences, many of whom Twain was put onto thanks to her and Langes teenage son, Eja. Yet Twain herself has inspired generations of younger artists, from Taylor Swift to sad rap pioneer Post Malone. The latter, who has been criticised by some for his country music influences, was filmed at one of her concerts last year, having the time of his life. Some people are just very purist about those things, Twain says, referring both to Post Malone and her own genre-hopping controversy during the Nineties. You just have to work through it and do the music that is true to you. Eja introduced Twain to Post Malone a few years ago, and she returns his appreciation for her music in kind. Hes obviously very diverse, and versatile I think he could apply to any genre he wanted to. Shes delighted to see country music influences appearing in other genres, from rock to pop: Its more rock and roll, the way its being treated now. It takes me back to the edgier country artists like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash Its grittier, greasier, more authentic somehow. Her comment reminds me of one made by the Nashville musician Steve Earle, who is known for speaking his mind and who said in 2017 that female artists were the ones pioneering contemporary country music. While Twain agrees that women are definitely putting out strong music, she sounds disappointed at the lack of space still afforded to female artists. Were still living in a sexist society, she says. Its been very slow to change. She feels country music has experienced waves of progress and then regression: There are fewer women being played now than when I came out. Onstage with Taylor Swift at the 2019 American Music Awards (Getty for dcp) She believes she was controversial simply because there was a narrower margin of creative expression that was accepted. Youre not really allowed to be too pretty or too sexy or too anything, expressively, as a woman, she says. I think thats a very sexist point of view. She managed to get around it though. I managed to get my way, she says, laughing. Not that she didnt have to put in the work to get where she is: Making the album is one thing but after the album is released, the work keeps going on. Right now, though, with a Diamond-edition release of The Woman in Me, Twain is in a jovial mood. Im celebrating the same album twice in my life, she says. Its wonderful, and its renewed a lot of things in me. Im feeling motivated. The Woman in Me Diamond Edition is out now Indias outbound shipments rose for the first time in seven months with merchandise exports registering a 5.3% growth in September, driven mostly by an increase in demand for engineering goods, petroleum products, drugs and garments. Exports rose to $27.4 billion, while imports contracted 19.6% to $30.3 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $2.9 billion, according to preliminary data released by the commerce ministry ahead of schedule. Mint was first to report on 25 September quoting provisional figures that exports have turned positive in the first three weeks of September, growing by 8.3%. In the six months ended 30 September, exports have declined 21.4% to $125.1 billion, while imports contracted 40.1% to $148.7 billion, creating a trade deficit of $23.6 billion. Non-oil non-gold exports rose 11.1%, while non-oil non-gold imports dropped 13.3% in September. The growth in merchandise exports is heartening, after the faltering trend seen in the previous month, said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at ICRA Ratings. Regardless, the sharp gap in non-oil non-gold merchandise imports remains a cause of concern regarding the strength of domestic demand," she said. View Full Image Green Shoots Among major countries, exports to China (20.8%) and the US (15.5%) grew at the fastest pace in September, while Indias imports from most major economies contracted, including China (10.1%). Indias merchandise trade has been weakening even before the covid-19 pandemic hit the economy and external demand. In 13 of the past 15 months starting June 2019, the countrys exports have been negative. However, since March of this year, both exports and imports started declining in high double digits, even temporarily leading to a trade surplus in June for the first time in 18 years. Data compiled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) showed global merchandise trade declined by 21% in the June quarter. In comparison, the decline in merchandise trade values during the financial crisis was deeper with a 33% drop recorded in the second quarter of 2009," it said. In April, the trade body had projected global merchandise trade to drop by 13% to 32% in 2020 because of the pandemic. Indias economy contracted 23.9% in the June quarter, hit by the double whammy of a demand contraction and supply shock because of a countrywide lockdown considered to be the strictest in the world imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. (Newser) Egyptian authorities have arrested hundreds of people in their effort to clamp down on a spate of small but exceptionally rare protests across the country, a global watchdog and human rights lawyers said Friday. Riot police forcibly dispersed the limited demonstrations over economic grievances that erupted across several impoverished, rural villages over the past few weeks, firing tear gas and birdshot, per a new report from Amnesty International. The group said it verified videos showing officers with rifles out in force, in two cases beating unarmed protests with batons and firing birdshot at those running away, per the AP. Two men were killed in the crackdown, the group said, one hit with birdshot by security forces south of Cairo and another during a police raid in Luxor. Nearly 500 remain in custody pending investigations into murky terrorism-related charges, a common tool used by state prosecutors to silence critics and quash dissent, according to estimates from lawyers. story continues below In an unusual show of defiance, small groups of Egyptians dared to join street demonstrations on the anniversary of short-lived protests against the authoritarian rule of Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi that flared last year. "The fact that these protesters took to the streets while knowing the very high risk to their lives and safety they were taking shows how desperate they were to demand their economic and social rights," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's regional research and advocacy director. A government media officer didn't respond to requests for comment about the allegations. The Interior Ministry has not publicly acknowledged making arrests in response to demonstrations. State-owned media, meanwhile, insists the situation is under control. (Read more Egypt stories.) Etihad Airways is now including a COVID-19 test in the price of outgoing flight tickets from Abu Dhabi. The Gulf airline has taken several steps to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus on its flights. As of Thursday, Etihad passengers can get a virus test at a number of centers in the United Arab Emirates between 48 and 96 hours prior to their flight. The test price is included in the cost of any Etihad ticket departing the airlines base in Abu Dhabi, Etihad Airways said in a press release. The UAE newspaper The National said such tests, which must be taken before passengers can board a flight, typically cost between 180-370 dirhams (roughly $50-$100) at health clinics and testing centers. Several countries around the world require travelers to test negative for COVID-19 before their flights. Etihads vice president for medical services said this new perk will make flying easier for their customers amid the pandemic. This is one further step in the efforts being made by Etihad to provide a professional, secure and protected travel experience at every stage of their journey with us, Dr. Nadia Bastaki said. The free test is available to all Etihad customers except for those traveling to China, according to the release. Those traveling to China must instead go to an Abu Dhabi Health Services Co. facility for a coronavirus test; the result must be sumitted within 48 hours of their flight, according to The National. Etihad Airways has taken several measures to mitigate the spread of the virus since resuming regularly scheduled flights in June. Last week, the carrier announced that all people flying into Abu Dhabi need to wear a wristband that tracks their movements for two weeks as they undergo a mandatory quarantine. In August, Etihad temporarily canceled services to and from Shanghai after passengers tested positive following one of its flights to the Chinese city. Like other Gulf airlines, Etihad has struggled financially due to the global travel crisis resulting from the coronavirus. The UAE is also experiencing record highs in daily COVID-19 infections. President Donald Trump steps into the northern side of the Military Demarcation Line that divides North and South Korea, as North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un looks on, in the Joint Security Area of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized zone, on June 30, 2019. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) Kim Jong Un Wishes Trump, First Lady Speedy Recovery North Korean regime leader Kim Jong Un on Friday wished a speedy recovery from COVID-19 to President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. Pyongyangs state news agency released a message of sympathy from Kim to Trump on Saturday local time. Kim offered his sympathy to the president and the first lady and hoped they will surely overcome it, according to the news release. Trump and Kim have met at two summits while negotiating a deal to denuclearize North Korea. The two leaders have developed an unlikely rapport and have exchanged a number of letters. The communist regime in North Korea claims to have had no confirmed cases of COVID-19 despite major outbreaks in neighboring China and South Korea. The World Health Organization told CNN in July that it had tested 922 people all of whom were negative. Trumps physician, Dr. Sean Conley, announced early Friday that both the president and first lady tested positive for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the coronavirus. The first couple were tested after the presidents senior counselor, Hope Hicks, tested positive for the virus. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk from the Marine One helicopter back to the White House after traveling to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Md., for Memorial Day holiday commemorations from Washington, in a May 25, 2020, file photograph. (Erin Scott/Reuters) Trump on Friday moved his offices to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where he will continue to work, according to the White House. The president received an injection of an experimental antibody drug before departing the White House. I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support. Im going to Walter Reed Hospital. I think Im doing very well, but were going to make sure that things work out. The first lady is doing very well. So thank you very much I appreciate it. I will never forget it. Thank you, Trump said in a video posted on Twitter shortly after he arrived at Walter Reed. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said earlier in the day that Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day. She said the president will remain at the hospital for the next few days out of an abundance of caution. A number of key people in regular contact with the president all tested negative after Trumps diagnosis: Barron Trump, the presidents youngest son, Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. In addition to taking Regenerons experimental antibody cocktail, the president has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and a daily aspirin, according to his physician. Allen Zhong contributed to this report. Concern for Napa Valleys wine grape crop previously plunged into uncertainty during the LNU Lightning Complex fires has been compounded this week by smoke from the ongoing Glass Fire. More than 170 homes have burned in Napa County, as have a number of wineries and a few vineyards. The Glass Fire had burned more than 62,000 acres and was 10 percent contained as of Saturday morning. A cooling trend was expected beginning Sunday, when an additional Red Flag Warning issued for portions of the county late Saturday afternoon was set to end. Even so, smoke from the Glass Fire is an unwelcome reminder of the threat of smoke taint that has hung heavy over the regions grape growers this harvest. Wine grapes can can absorb certain compounds in smoke, known as volatile phenols, which are produced from burning wood and other materials. Wine made from grapes impacted by smoke typically presents an undesirable smoky character (sometimes described as wet ashtray by winemakers). Smoke from the Glass Fire is in many parts of Napa County even heavier than itd been during the LNU Lightning Complex fires, when a haze hung over the valley for the better part of late August. Researchers still have much to learn about smoke taint, according to David Block, chair of the department of viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis including how repetitive smoke events, like the kind Napa Valley has now faced during this years harvest, might affect a sitting wine grape crop. Theres not information out there to say explicitly, Block said, asked what the impact of smoke from a second wildfire might be. Experts know smoke that is fresh and heavy threatens the viability of wine grapes, but impact depends on variables like location and even grape variety. Its more than possible growers will see grapes currently on the vine escape this smoke event unscathed, Block said. But as was well demonstrated in the days and weeks after the LNU Lightning Complex fires began, the threat of smoke taint alone has been enough to shake up the market for wine grapes and strain relationships between wineries and grape growers. A handful of wineries, including St. Supery Vineyards and Winery, have publicly announced their decisions to forego making wine from grapes grown in vineyards proximate to the LNU Lightning Complex. Test results from grape and wine samples Block has seen from grapes exposed to smoke during the LNU Complex seem to indicate much of Napa Countys wine grape crop had been spared, he said. Growers will likely have to reassess with additional testing following this weeks smoke. Multiple heat waves over the course of the summer have expedited harvest this year; some growers have already picked varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec, which are sometimes harvested as late as the end of October. Stakeholders on both sides of the industry vintners and growers alike are now trying to decide what the course of action for wine grapes that remain on the vine should be, according to Justin Leigon, viticulturist for Pina Vineyard Management. This round of smoke exposure is definitely more intense, and that makes the decision making process a lot more difficult, he said. I think one of the challenges is that we dont have enough of that foundational research the primary literature (about smoke taint) just isnt there. Poor air quality in Napa Valley is not necessarily cause for vintners or wine consumers to categorically reject this years grape crop or the coming vintage, according to Daniel Baron, whose decades-long career in winemaking spans names like Silver Oak, Twomey Cellars and now Complant Wine. Hes spent the last month scrutinizing existing peer-reviewed researched on smoke taint. As humans, we have a tendency to catastrophize to panic, and say, everythings wrecked, Baron said. But I do think there is a lot of excellent fruit being rejected, and its going to muddy the waters (and could) raise insurance rates. You can think of all the ripples itll create. Among those ripple effects, Baron says, are the way growers and vintners formulate grape contracts, which stipulate the terms for grape sales (at the most basic level, tons of grapes to be purchased and price per tons). As smoke events during harvest increase in their frequency, growers and vintners will need to think about how to collaboratively deal with any inflicted damage, Baron said: a way that acknowledges that were all in this together. Growers and wineries need each other we need to have ways to detail what kind of different contractual relationship a smoke event might cover, Baron added. Various levels of exposure could trigger different solutions, he said. Backlogs at laboratories performing smoke taint testing began almost as soon as the LNU Complex fires began in late August; even before the Glass Fire erupted, the St. Helena-based ETS labs warned of delays that would force them not to accept grape or wine samples from new clientele until November at the earliest. Additional laboratories have made testing available, U.C. Daviss Block said, part of an industry-wide effort to get results to concerned growers. Though the earlier start to fire season this year has been challenging for the industry, it may also lend a hand to researchers gathering important data that could aid growers dealing with smoke events in future harvests, he added. For some of Napas producers, like Schramsberg Vineyards, the choice not to move forward with harvest was made simple. The vast majority of Schramsbergs grapes had been harvested before the Glass Fire began its entire sparkling crop, according to Marketing and E-commerce Manager Matt Levy, along with all of the Pinot Noir grapes for its J. Davies Estate label. But a substantial portion of the winerys estate Cabernet Sauvignon remained on the vines when flames from the Glass Fire reached the property September 27. Something like 600 cases worth of Cabernet Sauvignon had already been harvested, Levy said, adding that was a small percentage of the winerys total tonnage. The rest will be almost assuredly unusable, Levy said. The reality is we know we are not going to have much Cabernet for the 2020 vintage. Its definitely been impacted by this fire, he added. Napa Valleys 2020 vintage will likely be on the whole smaller than a typical year, according to Baron. Some wineries especially those reliant on their tasting rooms or restaurant sales may have already been planning to artificially cut down their production because of decreased demand. The fires will undoubtedly curb production further, he said. Even wineries doing their best to honor contracts have vineyards with fruit it makes no sense to bring in, especially if they were right in the path of one of the fires, he said. There are some wineries who may take this opportunity to step away from their contracts because theyre long on inventory from previous vintages (and) sales are down. Consumer perception of wines could also impact the 2020 vintage, Baron added, recalling rain that punctuated vintages in Napa Valley in 1989 and 2000. Some consumers refused to buy those wines, he remembered, and rejection became almost stylish a way to show youd kept up with news reports about the respective years harvest. The North Bays wine industry has over the past month repeatedly emphasized there is almost zero risk of smoke tainted wines ending up in the hands of consumers. Wine producers as a rule are overly cautious when it comes to smoke taint, Baron said, citing a vineyard hed worked with this year which had produced gorgeous fruitgrapes that had nonetheless been rejected by an anxious buyer. (The fruit, which by all accounts had not sustained significant damage, was soon after picked up another winery, Baron added.) Its very dangerous and negative for the whole industry to typecast an image (of a ruined vintage), he added. Its hard to know how itll play out. Lets just survive this year. Watch Now: Repeat wildfires ruining grapes in Napa Valley(tncms-asset)31f78e30-0413-11eb-9af1-00163ec2aa77[0](/tncms-asset)(tncms-asset)8070a176-0267-11eb-abab-00163ec2aa77[1](/tncms-asset)(tncms-asset)48448812-019a-11eb-9607-00163ec2aa77[2](/tncms-asset) You can reach Sarah Klearman at (707) 256-2213 or sklearman@napanews.com. 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. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Persistent and fierce battles are underway in the northern and southern directions of the Artsakh border, Armenian defense ministry spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said, adding that the Azerbaijani side has started an attack, concentrating major forces in these two wings. The Armenian units are repelling the adversarys attacks, causing major losses. In his turn the defense ministrys representative Artsrun Hovhannisyan stated that fierce battles were carried out at night. The adversary has included new forces to the battle. The Armenian side is showing a heroic resistance, he said. The Defense Ministry of Artsakh said in a statement that the battles of different intensity continued in the Artsakh-Azerbaijan conflict zone at night. At the moment fierce battles are underway in the northern and southern directions of the frontline where the Azerbaijani side started an attack bringing new forces to the frontline. The Defense Army units show a heroic resistance, causing major losses to the adversary. A while ago the Defense Army units shot down 3 more Azerbaijani warplanes at the southern direction. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan (Photo : Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images) The new Huawei Mate X mobile phone is shown on display at the Huawei booth on day 2 of the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2019 on February 26, 2019 in Barcelona, Spain. The annual Mobile World Congress hosts some of the world's largest communications companies, with many unveiling their latest phones and wearables gadgets like foldable screens and the introduction of the 5G wireless networks (Photo : Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images) Hou Xiaonan, general manager of Tencent Open Platform, Lu Wei, general Secretary of Internet Society of China, Ren Yuxin, chief operating officer of Tencent, and Lin Songtao, vice president of Tencent Mobile Business Group, attend the 2015 Tencent Open Strategy Annual Conference at National Convention Center on April 28, 2015 in Beijing, China. The 2015 Tencent Open Startegy Annual Conference got held at National Convention Center and COO of Tencent delivered a speech that Tencent would start new integration of resources to created more innovative and entrepreneurial platform for society. General Secretary of Internet Society of China Lu Wei, COO of Tencent Ren Yuxin, vice president of Tencent Mobile Business Group Lin Songtao and general manager of Tencent Open Platform Hou Xiaonan attended the conference. A limited-edition foldable Huawei Mate Xs are now being sold for double its prices at Chinese online stores by Tencent employees. The tech company reportedly gave free Huawei Mate Xs to 10,000 selected Tencent employees as 'company gift', only for them to sell it right away. Looking for brand new foldable Huawei Mate Xs? South China Morning Post reported on Friday, Oct. 2, Tencent employees were recently given a free Huawei Mate Xs as a company gift. At least 10,000 selected employees from the company's Platform and Content Group (PCG) department were included. As said, Tencent wants to congratulate the unit by giving the free smartphone for its second anniversary that creates content for Tencent's social, video, and news platforms. It may also serve as a gift for the National Day that occurred on Oct. 1, a holiday commemorating the People's Republic of China's founding. Though the gift seemed to be a token of appreciation for their hard work, on Wednesday, Sept. 30, a lot of the Huawei Mate Xs company gifts were found from online stores in China. Instead of using the devices for their own, the Tencent employees decided to sell the gift on Chinese sites and charged them for double their prices. SCMP noted sellers priced the devices for at least 2.5 times more expensive than the original $2,500 model. Other sellers even priced them at over $3,000. Huawei Mate Xs specs Huawei Mate Xs was a limited edition foldable phones, first available and sold out in China. This 8-inch device holds 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, powered by Android 10 with 4500 mAh. ALSO READ: What Would Happen to Huawei's Mobile Phone Mate Xs Now That MWC 2020 is Canceled? This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Jamie Pancho 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. KYODO NEWS - Oct 1, 2020 - 18:16 | All, Japan, World The Financial Services Agency is likely to order the Tokyo Stock Exchange to report on the cause of its worst-ever system glitch that caused the bourse to suspend Thursday's trading, sources close to the matter said. It is "very regrettable," the government's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, told a press conference in reference to the largest outage for the exchange since it fully computerized the system in 1999. The financial watchdog issued business improvement orders to the TSE in 2005 and 2012 when the bourse partly suspended trading due to system malfunctions. Related coverage: Tokyo stock trading halted entire Thurs. session due to system glitch Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-04 00:08:55|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KATHMANDU, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least five aides working at Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's personal secretariat tested positive for COVID-19, two officials at the secretariat said on Saturday. "Prime Minister's chief advisor Bishnu Prasad Rimal, Foreign Affairs Advisor Rajan Bhattarai, Press Advisor Surya Thapa and Chief Personal Secretary Indra Prasad Bhandari tested positive for coronavirus," Asgar Ali, information technology consultant at the Prime Minister's Office, told Xinhua. Likewise, Rajan Kafle, personal photography officer at the Prime Minister's personal secretariat, also confirmed to Xinhua that he tested positive for coronavirus. Of them Rimal, Thapa and Bhattarai said on the social media that they were infected with coronavirus. An official at the secretariat said on condition of anonymity that Prime Minister Oli tested negative. "His swab was collected on Thursday and he was confirmed not infected with the virus on Friday," the official told Xinhua. According to officials at the Prime Minister's personal secretariat, swabs of around 250 people including Prime Minister Oli and staff deployed at the official residence were collected on Thursday and Friday. "Other around 60 people including security personnel, drivers and others have also been infected with coronavirus," the official said. Local Kathmandu Post reported on its online edition that a total of 70 security personnel deployed at Prime Minister Oli's residence tested positive for COVID-19. Basudev Pandey, director at Epidemiology and Disease Control Division under the Department of Health Services, an agency under Nepal's health ministry, told Xinhua that he has received report about several infections but he did not confirm the number. Last week, Dibya Singh, Prime Minister Oli's personal physician, was confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19. Nepal has been witnessing a rapid rise in coronavirus cases in the recent weeks after the Nepali government lifted a nearly four-month lockdown on July 22. On Friday, the Nepali government reported record high single day spike of 2,722 cases. Nepal's health ministry confirmed 2,120 new cases on Saturday, bringing the total COVID-19 cases to 84,570. Enditem At the inauguration of 9.2km long Atal Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lighted up three projects in the west, central and east India to underline that the previous government lacked strategic vision and pitched for a rapid border infrastructure upgrade to defend India. With the on-going stand-off between Indian Army and Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in east Ladakh in mind, PM Modi took the example of 16,800 feet high airstrip at Daulat Beg Oldi post near the Karakoram Pass which could not be activated due to lack of political will from 1965 to 2008. The advanced landing ground was activated by the Indian Air Force (IAF) in 2008 using a Russian AN-32 plane and the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was informed after completion of the mission. The airstrip, which is vital for supplies to troops in DBO-Depsang Bulge area, is now used by C-130J Hercules aircraft much to the chagrin of the Chinese commanders. Without referring to China, PM Modi also blamed the previous regimes for placing hurdles in way of Indian Army patrols along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) by not building roads to the perceived line. China experts believe that it is this 30-year differential in border infrastructure between the two countries that helps the PLA, in terms of both capacity and capability. Interestingly, PM Modi used three projects launched by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government Atal tunnel (Himachal Pradesh), Kosi Maha Setu (Bihar) and Boghibeel bridge (Assam) to showcase the apathetic attitude of past governments towards achieving national goals. While the Atal tunnel was inaugurated on Saturday, Kosi rail bridge was launched in September after hanging fire since 1934 and the Boghibeel Setu was commissioned by PM Modi in 2018 . In the presence of defence minister Rajnath Singh, chief of defence staff Gen Bipin Rawat, India Army chief General MM Naravane and defence secretary Ajay Kumar, PM Modi took a pot-shot at the Indian bureaucracy that kept the Rafale fighter acquisition pending by only flying files from one desk to the other and thus compromising the defence of India. Citing the example of the state of ordnance factories, PM also issued an oblique warning to Indian bureaucracy to not stand in the way of Atmanirbhar Bharat. While the importance of Atal tunnel cannot be understated, the fact is that this tunnel under Rohtang La opens a new road to Ladakh via Darcha-Padam-Nimu route rather than Darcha-Upishi-Leh route which is blocked six months a year due to heavy snow at four other high mountain passes en-route. The Darcha-Padam-Nimu route can remain open round the year once a 4.5km tunnel is built under Shinku La on Darcha-Padam axis. Just as roads in the Ladakh sector are being built to connect remote areas of the country, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is moving at a much faster pace to complete strategic roads in Arunachal Pradesh so that places such as Tawang, Walong and Kibuthoo are linked through all-weather roads to other parts of India.It is no wonder that China has refused to recognise the Union territory of Ladakh and calls the border infrastructure upgrade in the areas to ensure Indias so-called occupation of this territory. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar on Saturday said budget of the agriculture ministry has been increased 11 fold to Rs 1.34 lakh crore from Rs 12,000 crore in 2009-10 during the UPA regime, which reflects Prime Minister Narendra Modi''s commitment for welfare of farmers. The government has been under attack for bringing in new farm laws which are aimed at providing marketing freedom to farmers for selling their produce. However, there are apprehensions that farmers would not get minimum support price (MSP) ensured by the government for their produce. The increase in the agriculture ministry budget indicates a considerable rise in government spending on procurement of foodgrain and other farm produce at crop support price. The MSP insulates farmers from market fluctuations. "There has been continuous progress of villages, farmers, poor and agriculture since Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken over charge in 2014. "The budget of the agriculture ministry was just Rs 12,000 crore in 2009-10, which has been increased 11 fold to Rs 1.34 lakh crore because of the commitment of the Prime Minister towards farmers and agriculture," the minister said. He was speaking at 4th Annual Convention - Virtual on Capital Market & Commodity Market: Role of Financial Markets in Building Aatmanirbhar Bharat by PHDCCI. He was of the view that farmers would benefit immensely from the new farm laws as they would be able to sell their produce at better prices in other states as well. The minister also brushed aside the apprehensions about scrapping of MSP saying there has been considerable increase in the crops'' support price compared to the UPA regime''s. He also spoke about three major labour codes on social security, industrial relations and occupational safety health and working conditions passed by Parliament, saying these reforms would help workers become self-reliant in coming days. Gangwar also said the President has given his assent to the three labour codes. He opined that these labour codes would also help increase ease of doing business adding that industry and worker complement each other and therefore they have to work together in tandem with changing times. He appealed to the industry leaders to provide support to the government for economic progress for achieving ultimate goal of making India a USD 5 trillion economy. CLEVELAND, Ohio During Tuesdays presidential debate in Cleveland, President Donald Trump stated that the practice of counting of absentee ballots received after Election Day results in a rigged election, an assertion that is disputed by the Ohio Secretary of States Office. Can you imagine where they say, You have to have your ballot in by November 10th. Trump said during the debate with former Vice President Joe Biden. "November 10th. That means thats seven days after the election [results], in theory, should have been announced. We have major states with that all run by Democrats, all run by Democrats. Its a rigged election. But the Secretary of States Office for Ohio, a state with a Republican-dominated General Assembly and a Republican governor and secretary of state, told cleveland.com this week that it is unaware of any election fraud related to Ohios long-standing practice of counting some ballots after Election Day. With all the misinformation circulating about the November election, The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com another installment of its myth-busting series called Election Truth. Today, we examine questions raised about the counting of ballots after Election Day. What does Ohio law say? Ohio Revised Code requires boards of elections to count absentee ballots received up to 10 days after Election Day, as long as they were post-marked by the day before Election Day. For this years Nov. 3 election, that means ballots must be post-marked by Nov. 2 and received by Nov. 13. Has that practice resulted in rigged elections? Election fraud is very rare in Ohio, and to our knowledge, none of the few cases we have seen are related to that provision of law, says Maggie Sheehan, a spokeswoman for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Why count late-arriving ballots? Not counting such ballots postmarked by the day before Election Day would mean valid votes would be tossed out, according to Aaron Ockerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. And we want to count every valid vote we can, Ockerman told cleveland.com. If youre deadlined to [mail the ballot] the day before Election Day, it makes sense youd allow the post office a reasonable amount of time to get that ballot to us. How are late-arriving ballots counted and secured? Ballots received through Nov. 13 are counted the same way as other absentee ballots are counted and are subject to the same security protocols, Ockerman said. Bipartisan teams of elections officials count all absentee ballots, and names, dates of birth, addresses and identification provided with the ballot are checked to ensure they match voter-registration records. Read more stories in our Election Truth series: Introducing Election Truth: A Plain Dealer and cleveland.com series about voting in Northeast Ohio and how the system is secure How to apply for Ohios vote-by-mail option, and why its secure: Election Truth Using a state ID to apply for an Ohio absentee ballot? You should know this: Election Truth Want to ensure you are properly registered to vote in Ohio? Heres how: Election Truth How do election drop boxes work, and how are they secure? Election Truth US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk to board Marine One at the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, in Washington, for the short trip to Andrews Air Force Base en route to Cleveland for first debate against Democrat Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) US President Donald Trump will spend a "few days" at a military hospital after contracting Covid-19, the White House said, as the virus that has killed more than 205,000 Americans spread to the highest reaches of the US government. Trump "remains fatigued," his doctor said. He was to depart the White House by helicopter late last night for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The White House said the visit was precautionary and that he would work from the hospital's presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to continue his official duties. "President Trump remains in good spirits, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day," said press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. "Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days." Cocktail Earlier, the White House said Trump had been injected with an experimental antibody cocktail by the White House physician. The president's physician said in a memo that Trump received a dose of an experimental antibody cocktail by Regeneron that is in clinical trials. Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley said Trump "remains fatigued but in good spirits" and that a team of experts was evaluating both the president and first lady. The first lady, who is 50, has a "mild cough and headache," Conley reported, and the remainder of the first family, including the Trumps' son Barron, who lives at the White House, tested negative. The revelation he has the virus came only a month before the election in a Trump tweet after he returned from a political fundraiser without telling the crowd he had been exposed to an aide with the disease. Covid-19 has killed more than 205,000 Americans and one million-plus people worldwide. First Lady Melania Trump also tested positive, the presi- dent said, and several others in the White House have too, prompting concern that the White House or even Trump himself might have spread the virus further. Both Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris have tested negative, their campaign said. Vice-president Mike Pence tested negative for the virus yesterday morning and "remains in good health", his spokesman said. Mr Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was with him and many others on Saturday and has been on Capitol Hill meeting with lawmakers, also tested negative, the White House said. The president's diagnosis was sure to have a destabilising effect in Washington and around the world, raising questions about how far the virus has spread through the highest levels of the US government. Hours before Mr Trump ann-ounced he had contracted the virus, the White House said a top aide who had travelled with him during the week had tested positive. "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for Covid-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately," the president tweeted. "We will get through this TOGETHER!" Chief of staff Mark Meadows tried yesterday to assure the public that Mr Trump was conducting business as usual, even as he confirmed that the White House knew Hope Hicks, the aide, had tested positive before the president attended a fundraiser in New Jersey on Thursday. "In terms of Hope Hicks, we discovered that right as Marine One was taking off yesterday," said Mr Meadows. Several staffers were pulled from the trip, but Mr Trump did not cancel, even after having been exposed to Ms Hicks. Many White House and senior administration officials were undergoing tests yesterday, but the full scale of the outbreak around the president may not be known for some time as it can take days for an infection to be detectable. Officials with the White House medical unit were trying to trace the president's contacts. Mr Trump was considering how he might address the nation or otherwise communicate with the American people yesterday, an official said. The president is 74-years-old and clinically obese, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has infected more than seven million people in the US. His physician said he and Mrs Trump, who is 50, "are both well at this time" and "plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence". Mr Trump has been trying all year to convince the American public that the worst of the pandemic is behind them. Doubt His illness, coming only weeks before the election, puts his participation in the second presidential debate, scheduled for October 15 in Miami, into doubt. Mr Trump's handling of the pandemic has already been a major flashpoint in his race against Mr Biden, who spent much of the summer off the campaign trail, remaining at his home in Delaware, citing concern about the virus. He has since resumed a more active campaign schedule, but with small, socially-distanced crowds. He also regularly wears a mask in public, something Mr Trump mocked him for at Tuesday night's debate. "I don't wear masks like him," the president said of Mr Biden. "Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen." In a tweet yesterday, Mr Biden said he and his wife Jill "send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family". World leaders offered the president and his family their best wishes as governments used the case as a reminder for citizens to wear masks and practice social-distancing measures. Mr Trump's announcement came hours after he confirmed Ms Hicks had been diagnosed with the virus on Thursday. She began feeling mild symptoms during the flight home from a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday evening, and was isolated from other passengers aboard the plane. Mr Trump has consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable. "I felt no vulnerability whatsoever," he told reporters in May. Serious questions remain about why the president and his aides continued to go to work and travel after Ms Hicks became ill. Mr Trump's social media director Dan Scavino and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who were supposed to join him on the trip to New Jersey, were replaced at the last minute. However, Ms McEnany still briefed the press on Thursday morning and made no mention of Ms Hicks' suspected illness, raising anew concerns about White House transparency. Mr Trump is far from the first world leader to test positive for the virus, which previously infected Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and British prime minister Boris Johnson, who spent a week in hospital, including three nights in intensive care. A firefighter mops up a hot spot while battling the Glass Fire in Calistoga, Calif., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) California Wildfires Threaten Towns, Wineries Ahead of Dangerous Weekend CALISTOGA, Calif.California fire crews deploying water-dropping helicopters made a defensive stand on Friday against flames raging in the foothills of the Napa Valley wine region as forecasts called for a return of dangerous high winds and hot weather this weekend. More than 2,500 firefighters were battling the Glass Fire, which broke out last Sunday near the resort community of Calistoga, some 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of San Francisco, and has already destroyed 248 homes or other structures. Among them were the stately Chateau Boswell Winery north of Napa, and a farmhouse at the landmark Castello di Amorosa winery, where the castle-like main building survived. Thick smoke poured over deserted Napa Valley communities that would typically be bustling with visitors for the grape harvest. A Cal Fire firefighter monitors a firing operation while battling the Glass Fire in Calistoga, Calif., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Everyone is hunkered down, its very, very quiet, said Kari Corte, who works at the Ghost Block Estates Winery outside Oakville. She was in her home in Zinfandel, the fire burning less than 3 miles to the north. Ive got my bags packed and Im ready to go, Corte said, recalling that in 2017 she had been forced to flee the town of Atlas Peak community during another bad fire year for the wine country. At some wineries employees stood guard over buildings and crops with bulldozers and water tankers, hoping to serve as a desperate last line of defense if flames made a run out of the foothills. The Newton Vineyard winery went up in flames on Wednesday, according to a Reuters photographer, who saw rivulets of red wine mixed with ash flowing down its main access road. Vintners in the area fear the smoke has spoiled much of this years vintage. Members of the Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit march along Old Lawley Toll Road during the Glass Fire in Calistoga, Calif., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Rain in the Forecast Roughly 52,000 residents were under evacuation orders at least through the weekend, with the fire at only 5 percent containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings for high winds over the next two days. Rain storms are forecast for the region at the end of next week and firefighters hope they could keep the blaze from entering populated areas again until the showers came. Its going to be a big firefight for us in the next 36 hours, Cal Fire operations section chief Mark Brunton said on Thursday. Resources were stretched due to the high number of fires burning across the state, he said. Some 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the north, crews have made significant progress against the Zogg Fire in the foothills of the Cascade mountain range. Containment had reached 46 percent as of Friday afternoon, up from 26 percent a day earlier. A group of inmate firefighters traverse a slope during the Glass Fire in Calistoga, Calif., on Oct. 2, 2020. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Four people have been killed in the Zogg fire, which has also has destroyed nearly 150 buildings near the town of Redding. No casualties have been reported in the Glass Fire. Overall, at least 30 people have died since mid-August in a devastating string of wildfires across the U.S. West that have been stoked by bouts of extreme heat, winds, and dry-lightning storms. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has blamed decades of poor forest management. California fires have scorched nearly 6,100 square miles acres (15,800 square kilometers) since January, more than three times the land mass of Delaware and far exceeding the acreage burned during any previous year on record. By Adrees Latif With addition of 194 cases of COVID-19, the infection count in Gujarat's district rose to 37,432 on Saturday, an official from the health department said. Four fatalities took the in the district to 1,838, the official said. 254 patients were discharged from various hospitals, raising the number of recoveries to 31,607. As per an official report, recoveries outnumbered new cases in city, with 237 patients getting discharged as against 171 persons testing positive for Rural reported 23 new cases and 17 recoveries, it was stated. Of the four deaths, three were reported from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) limits and one was recorded in rural areas. Ahmedabad city's west zone accounts for the highest number of active cases with 641 patients, followed by the north-west zone with 637 patients. Of the city's seven zones, the north zone has the least active cases at 347. The number of micro containment areas in the city has come down to 194, with the removal of 11 and addition of six areas, a civic official said. As many as 1,411 of 1,870 beds for COVID-19 patients in the city's 64 private hospitals requisitioned by the AMC are occupied, the Ahmedabad Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association 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.) A woman has been arrested in connection with a stabbing reported on Thursday, authorities said. Laredo police officers responded to a stabbing report at about 8:20 p.m. Thursday in the 3100 block of East Okane Street. Witnesses told police that Andrea Valadez, 23, had stabbed a 47-year-old woman. Downing Street was panicked into a full national lockdown after its scientific advisers Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance were given doomsday mortality projections by Imperial College's Neil Ferguson, an explosive new biography of Boris Johnson by investigative author Tom Bower reveals. Bower tells how a critical meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) on February 25 was presented with the 'reasonable worst-case scenario' from Professor Ferguson under which 80 per cent of Britons would be infected and the death-toll would be 510,000 people. The author writes: 'This was an improvement on Ferguson's earlier assessment that between 2 per cent and 3 per cent would die up to 1.5 million deaths. Even with mitigation measures, he said, the death toll could be 250,000 and the existing intensive care units would be overwhelmed eight times over. Downing Street was panicked into a full national lockdown after its scientific advisers were given doomsday mortality projections by Imperial College's Neil Ferguson, pictured, an explosive new book reveals A report published by the Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team, led by Professor Ferguson, predicted on March 16 that 510,000 people could die in the UK if no measures were taken to slow down the coronavirus. Britain might end up with a higher per-person death rate than the US, the report warned An explosive new biography of Boris Johnson, pictured today at a construction site in west London, by investigative author Tom Bower, is being serialised exclusively in the Mail on Sunday 'Neither Vallance nor Whitty outrightly challenged Ferguson's model or predictions. By contrast, in a series of messages from Michael Levitt, a Stanford University professor who would correctly predict the pandemic's initial trajectory, Ferguson was warned that he had overestimated the potential death toll by 'ten to 12 times'.' By Friday, the total number of UK deaths had reached 42,268. Bower's biography, which is being serialised exclusively in tomorrow's Mail on Sunday, contains a string of startling revelations about Mr Johnson's public and personal life, and goes far further than any previous biography towards solving the enigma of his true personality. The book reveals how shortly before the national lockdown, on March 16, Ferguson forecast that one third of the over-80s who were infected would be hospitalised, of which 71 per cent would need intensive care using ventilators. This exaggerated prediction - that hospitals would be overwhelmed by at least eight times the usual admittance rate - made the lockdown all but inevitable. Ferguson was forced to resign from his advisory position in May for breaking the Government's own social distancing rules to meet his married lover. The book also raises questions about whether the UK's response to the early stages of the pandemic was hindered by the fact that Health Secretary Matt Hancock stepped in for Mr Johnson as chair of a string of emergency Cobra meetings in January and February. At one meeting on January 29, Bower says ministers, including Hancock, were reassured by Vallance that Public Heath England (PHE) could contain 'a new infectious disease'. But Bower suggests that chronic failures at PHE - a quango whose responsibilities included 'maintaining the pandemic influenza stockpile' - prevented the mass early testing which could have transformed the UK's ability to contain the virus. Neither Patrick Vallance nor Chris Whitty, pictured outside Downing Street this week, outrightly challenged Ferguson's model or predictions, the author claims The author reveals that PHE's founding chief executive, Duncan Selbie, had admitted when he was appointed in 2013: 'I am that well-known international expert. You can fit my public health credentials on a postage stamp'. Bower writes: 'Without medical or academic training, he was rejected for 13 executive jobs before becoming an NHS lifer at a psychiatric hospital ... Selbie's appointment justified Dominic Cummings' despair about the qualifications of civil servants'. By March, shortly before the lockdown, PHE had abandoned testing in the community, restricting it to hospital staff: but with a capacity of 1,000 tests a day, PHE could handle only three tests per day in each of Britain's hospitals. In response, the Government scientific advisers that PHE's plan to discontinue testing was 'sensible', with Whitty admitting that 'containment was pointless'. It meant that a complete lockdown of the British economy was the only real option left on the table. Bower says: 'The question remains whether Boris himself should have corrected his own weaknesses: his lack of involvement in the government machine beyond Downing Street, and his failure to scrutinise Hancock's chairmanship of the Cobra meetings. He did neither. 'But with hindsight, the alternative to Boris's overt reliance on the scientists' advice was to announce that he was deliberately ignoring the experts. That disclosure would have outraged the public and his political opponents ... The only conjecture is whether Boris, unlike Hancock, would have spotted the professionals' frailties if he had attended the Cobra meetings in February.' Coronavirus mass vaccination could be just 'three months away' according to Government sources who believe everyone could get jab by Easter Coronavirus vaccination could be just 'three months away' in Britain, Government sources have revealed. Every adult in the country could be vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as Easter as plans are put in place to train an army of careworkers to administer the jab. It coincides with Boris Johnson's hint last night that the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure a family of five can have both grandparents round for festive lunch. The Prime Minister stressed the Government would do 'everything we can to make sure Christmas for everybody is normal as possible'. Mr Johnson has often identified a vaccine as the key to being able to lift many of the restrictions imposed on the public since March, but has insisted 'we must never cut corners' or 'sacrifice safety to speed' in the search for one. It comes just days after it was claimed that Britain's rising coronavirus infection rate may actually speed up vaccine trials and move the world one step closer to eradicating the disease. But scientists are sceptical and say it could be much longer before full vaccination can be carried out, reported The Times. Earlier this week a Royal Society report warned there would be significant challenges in distributing and producing the vaccine on such a mass scale. Nilay Shah, head of the department of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, and a co-author of the report, said: 'Even when the vaccine is available it doesn't mean within a month everybody is going to be vaccinated. Boris Johnson, pictured today at the Conway Heathrow Asphalt & Recycling Plant construction site in west London, has often identified a vaccine as the key to being able to lift many of the restrictions imposed on the public since March, but has insisted 'we must never cut corners' or 'sacrifice safety to speed' in the search for one Care home residents and staff will be first to get a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of NHS staff and all over-80s Care home residents and staff will be the first to get a Covid-19 vaccine when one is approved, according to fresh government advice. Everyone over the age of 80 and NHS staff will be second in line, updated guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation states. The body, which consists of 20 top scientists, advises ministers on all vaccines. It admitted its guidance for any UK Covid-19 vaccination scheme is likely to change in the future. Matt Hancock previously pledged that Britons with underlying conditions would be near the front of the queue for any jab. But millions living with heart disease or other ailments that raise their risk of dying of Covid-19 won't be vaccinated until everyone over the age of 65 is inoculated, according to the new guidance. WHO WILL GET A COVID-19 JAB FIRST? Under the proposed ranking by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the vaccines will be rolled out in the following order: older adults' resident in a care home and care home workers all those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers all those 75 years of age and over all those 70 years of age and over all those 65 years of age and over high-risk adults under 65 years of age with underlying health woes moderate-risk adults under 65 years of age with underlying health woes all those 60 years of age and over all those 55 years of age and over all those 50 years of age and over rest of the population (priority to be determined) Advertisement 'We're talking about six months, nine months . . . a year. There's not a question of life suddenly returning to normal in March.' Oxford University has been running human trials on a vaccine since April and there are hopes it could be approved by regulators by Christmas. Government sources involved in the much-anticipated vaccine said it would be less than six months before a full programme, excluding children, would be ready. Plans to speed up the process include the creation of drive-thru vaccination centres and rules allowing more staff to give the jabs. The armed forces could even be drafted in for extra help. 'We are looking at closer to six months and it is likely to be far shorter than that,' a government source said. To administer two doses of a vaccine to 53 million adults in the six-month time period would involve 600,000 jabs a day. Those who need the injections most are first on the list, meaning care home residents and staff will get it as soon as it's ready. Those aged over 80 and NHS staff are next, followed by all over 65s, younger adults at higher risk and people over 50. Some care home managers were asked for a list of eligible frontline staff last month. Around 100million doses of the Oxford vaccination, which is yet to be proved successful, have already been ordered by the Government. It is hoped scientists will know if it prevents at least 50 per cent of infections, the threshold for success, by the end of this year. Britain is currently bound by the European Medicines Agency until January, meaning it can't administer the drug even if approved by UK regulators. But Ministers have revealed plans to change the law to allow vaccinations to start sooner. The Department of Health said: 'We are confident we have adequate provision or transport, PPE and logistical expertise to deploy a Covid-19 vaccine across the country as quickly as possible.' Several challenges had been highlighted in the Royal Society report, including the need to inject people with RNA, a type of genetic material, in some of the most promising studies, even though an RNA vaccine has never been produced at a large scale. Questions also remain over supply chains, with some vaccines having to be kept at -80C while being transported. Furthermore, as much as 80 per cent of the population may have to be innoculated to achieve herd immunity, even if a vaccine proves to be 90 per cent effective in reducing transmission. Prof Shah added that some 20,000 people would need to be recruited by the NHS to deliver the drug and that field hospitals may have to be built for the mass vaccination programme. People enter Oxford Circus underground station in London after the 10pm curfew that pubs and restaurants are subject to in order to combat the rise in coronavirus cases in England It comes after it was revealed New York-based company Codagenix plans to begin experiments of its vaccine in London by the end of the year. The jab will be of a type called a live attenuated vaccine, meaning people will be given a genetically-modified version of the coronavirus that is weaker than the real thing but still infectious. Live attenuated vaccines such as the MMR jab work by stimulating the immune system in the same way that real Covid-19 would, but by relying on viruses unable to cause severe illness. Codagenix says its vaccine was successful after a single dose in animal trials and is designed to produce immunity against various parts of the coronavirus, rather than just the 'spike protein' on the outside that many others have focused on. This could mean it would still work even if the virus mutated. Using a live virus may enable medics to create a type of immunity that is similar to what the body would make naturally. The report comes after scientists suggested that Britain's rising coronavirus infection rate may actually speed up vaccine trials and move the world one step closer to eradicating the disease. The UK is now well and truly in the midst of a second wave, with 6,000 new cases every day and hospital admissions doubling every week. Britons have been told they will need to live with tough new lockdown restrictions for another six months, with ministers banking on a jab being ready by then. Oxford University's front-runner vaccine candidate was supposed to be rolled out this autumn but trials came to a standstill when infection rates petered out over summer. Studies had to be moved abroad to the likes of Brazil, the US and South Africa - where coronavirus was still rife - to test if the jab can prevent infection. In order to prove beyond doubt a vaccine works, scientists need to inoculate tens of thousands of people then send them back into the community and wait for some to get infected. This has been a sticking point for the Oxford team because there was barely any Covid-19 transmission for months in the UK. But experts have told MailOnline the one 'silver lining' to Britain's climbing Covid-19 rates is that it could speed up this process. When the president announced early this morning that he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, it immediately introduced the first real uncertainty into the 2020 election in months. A race that has been stubbornly stable since former Vice President Joe Biden opened up a lead in the high single-digits in June, immune to public health upheaval and economic calamity and widespread unrest, will now get its biggest test yet of the "nothing matters" theory of the 2020 election. While no one can say for certain what effect this unsettling bombshell will have on the race, we can think now through different possible scenarios and where they might lead us. 1. Trump falls seriously ill and cannot campaign. Anyone who has experienced the symptomatic version of COVID-19 can tell you that it is an exhausting ordeal. Even people whose lives are not immediately threatened experience relentless fatigue, mind-fog, and shortness of breath for long periods of time. Many suffer seemingly unrelated heart and kidney problems. If the president is unlucky enough to be someone like that, it could knock him off the campaign trail altogether and force him to skip the remaining two debates with Biden, or, to try to do so while a hollow shell of his ordinary self, which might look even worse. In normal times, you might expect public sympathy for a president suffering through an unexpected and potentially deadly illness, but Trump burned through his limited reserves of good will long ago, and independents and moderate Republicans the people he needs to win back to get within striking distance of victory are unlikely to forget that the president has spent weeks recklessly crisscrossing the country, holding indoor rallies, meeting with donors, advisors, and even his Supreme Court nominee without a mask. He has directly jeopardized countless thousands of his fellow citizens, some of whom may not be thrilled by the news that their hero breathed the plague on them while freebasing Hunter Biden rumors at the podium. A President Trump perceived all along as a sober steward of this crisis since March would likely be in line for much more compassion than the man who was caught on tape in March bragging about how he was downplaying a virus he knew perfectly well was a catastrophic threat. Story continues On the other hand, a largely incapacitated Trump who nevertheless seems like he is improving would at least be mercifully silent, inadvertently fulfilling the dreams of countless advisors who believe he would be cruising to re-election if he had simply turned off his relentless Twitter culture war machine and behaved normally. Perhaps with Trump sleeping it off and Pence and other surrogates making the case for re-election that the president himself is too depraved and undisciplined to make himself, the race could tighten, especially if Biden stumbles with the stage mostly to himself. 2. A chastened President Trump asks the nation for forgiveness. As of today, President Trump's symptoms are being described as "mild" (although apparently serious enough for him to be admitted to Walter Reed hospital). This is not unusual, as many infected patients deteriorate even after days of relatively unserious symptoms. It is certainly possible, though, that despite his comorbidities and age, his situation will not deteriorate and that he might be back to normal as soon as he tests negative (or "positively toward negative" as he once put it). What if the president were, post-recovery, to break character by showing some rare contrition for his actions? He need not confess that he never took the virus seriously as the country heads into its third COVID-19 wave, all he needs to do is position himself, for the first time, as a sober steward of the crisis, newly awakened to the gravity of the threat by his own illness. He could publicly apologize to people he recently endangered. He could, in other words, behave like the kind of workaday leader the American people are craving after four years of ugly chaos from the White House. A chastened President Trump would be a sight beholden in the flesh by no one, living or dead, who has ever had even incidental contact with the man. The novelty alone could drive days of "pivot to presidential" media coverage and blunt Biden's edge on the COVID issue. With views of President Trump and his record so deeply baked in, this scenario might not save him but certainly couldn't hurt. In other words, the president has nothing at all to lose by doing the right thing, which of course has never once stopped him from instead choosing the most venal and self-destructive path available. 3. President Trump recovers quickly and goes back on the attack. That means the more likely scenario is the one in keeping with his uninterrupted, lifelong record of boorishness and self-interest. With every health innovation imaginable at his fingertips, he gets back on his feet relatively quickly, unleashes his indiscriminate bluster somewhere in the vicinity of the Chinese Communists and dopey Hope Hicks and some hapless aide that should've tested her, tweets maniacally about his incredible strength and returns to his regular program of hurling conspiracy-flecked invective about the "radical left" while egging on violent clashes between protestors and right-wing militias. Instead of using his diagnosis as an opportunity to eliminate the absurd partisan divide between those who take COVID seriously and those who are unmasked out there right now, infecting and killing each other in bars, restaurants, and Trump rallies, he claims that if he can vanquish this thing so easily, at his age, there really is nothing to worry about. Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends, who conducts the closest thing Trump has to a daily briefing he actually listens to, is already on the case here, asking this morning, "doesn't that also send a message that you could say whatever you want in stats and graphs, but I give you an example of somebody who's in that danger age of 74 who is out there, gets it, and beats it?" What Kilmeade says frequently becomes the thing that Trump tweets out minutes later. You can see this being the move recommended to him by the Stephen Millers of the world, and it is the one scenario that the president absolutely could not benefit from electorally. President Trump's biggest problem since the day he took office is that his behavior has alienated a majority of the American people, who as of this morning appeared poised to deliver a comprehensive, across the board walloping of the president and his GOP allies in Congress. If he's emboldened by his survival and returns to the trail with the same ghoulish lack of basic decency and an unchanged disinterest in appealing to a single person who voted against him in 2016, he will ultimately end up in the exact same position he is now, and quickly. And unless there is a polling error of truly epic and unprecedented scale, that position is one of a man cruising toward a one-term presidency and a long series of legal battles. You would think the president would want to do everything in his power to avoid that scenario by trying to win the election legitimately rather than deliberately causing a 40-car pileup with threats, litigation, and rancor. But that's just not who he is. 4. President Trump passes away before or after the election. This is not an outcome considered blithely and the death of a sitting president is not something any Americans should want. But given Trump's age, gender, and comorbidity (obesity), it's worth thinking through what would happen if he died of a virus that has already taken the lives of over 30,000 other Americans in his age group. Most people who pass away from the coronavirus follow a familiar trajectory that ends between two and eight weeks after infection. If Trump's fate fell on the earlier side of that spectrum, it would likely mean the Republican Party couldn't officially replace him with another nominee. No one has ever been asked to vote for a deceased person in a presidential election. There is no recent or meaningful polling about how Vice President Mike Pence would perform in a head-to-head matchup with Biden, but this is effectively the choice voters would be left with. While Rule Nine of the 2016 Republican Party rules says that the GOP can technically replace Trump as the nominee with someone other than Pence, it would cause massive confusion because it is already too late to get Trump's name off the ballots and the understandable public assumption would be that the sitting vice president would be his natural replacement. The Electoral College implications of this unusual situation could be worked out easily by Congress and the states in the event that Biden is clearly defeated. Pence is a relentlessly bland politician with very right-wing views on social issues, but he looks and sounds like the kind of generic Republican who mostly went extinct over the past decade. The guess here is that Pence could improve on Trump's margins by just enough to make the ticket competitive. What could make things even more chaotic is if Trump falls gravely ill but not pass away before the election. Would the GOP try to officially elevate Pence in late October even if Trump is alive but lingers in a Herman Cain-like state for weeks? It could set off a battle between long-suffering Republicans like Susan Collins who have probably been dreaming for years about swapping Pence in for Trump and the proto-authoritarian Tom Cotton wing of the party, which might want to rally behind the president, regardless of his medical outlook. It could cause genuine turmoil in the electorate, because people would in a literal sense not know exactly who they're voting for. It's hard to see how GOP field organizers would be able to maximize turnout under such circumstances. While it might seem macabre to speculate about Trump's health in such a way, this is where the president's COVID antics have landed us. His months-long recklessness has endangered himself, his advisors, and everyone who was at his many events this past week. In a way, it's fitting for the chaos candidate to make this election even more chaotic. But all things being equal, Trump's illness will probably just give voters one more reason to vote him and the Republicans out and replace them with people who don't give them constant nightmares. More stories from theweek.com Trump is reportedly 'bored' watching TV at Walter Reed, 'angry' at how his illness is being covered Trump is sick. So is the GOP. Mark Meadows defends Trump's motorcade ride after White House aides call it 'selfish' The Indian Army has built a memorial for its 20 personnel who were killed while valiantly fighting Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on June 15, official sources said on Saturday. The memorial, located at Post 120 in eastern Ladakh and inaugurated earlier this week, mentions the heroics of the Gallants of Galwan under operation Snow Leopard and the way they evicted the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops from the area while inflicting heavy casualties" on them in hand-to-hand combat". China is yet to disclose the number of its soldiers killed and injured in the clash though it officially admitted to have suffered casualties. According to an American intelligence report, the number of casualties on the Chinese side was 35. Post 120 lies along the Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) road. The names of all the 20 Indian Army personnel were inscribed at the unit-level memorial. Colonel B Santosh Babu, the commanding officer of the 16 Bihar regiment, was among the Indian Army personnel killed in the clash that had significantly escalated the border tension between the two countries with India calling it a premeditated and planned action by China". The Chinese soldiers used stones, nail-studded sticks, iron rods and clubs in carrying out brutal attacks on Indian soldiers after they protested the erection of a surveillance post by China around patrolling point 14 in Galwan Valley. Giving a brief account of Operation Snow Leopard", the Army mentioned in a plaque at the memorial that Colonel Babu led the Quick Reaction Force of 16 Bihar Regiment and attached troops tasked to evict a group of Chinese troops from the general area in Y nala (a junction) and stop them from moving further to Patrolling Point 14. The column successfully evicted the PLA OP from Y Nala and reached PP14 where a fierce skirmish broke out between the IA (Indian Army) and PLA troops. Col B Santosh Babu led from the front and his troops fought gallantly in hand-to-hand combat, causing heavy casualties to the PLA. In the ensuing fight twenty Gallants of Galwan achieved martyrdom," the Army wrote. The list of 20 personnel in the memorial included three naib subedars, three havildars and 12 sepoys. The defence ministry has also started the process to inscribe the names of Colonel Babu and other soldiers at the National War Memorial in Delhi. During a visit to Lukung forward post in eastern Ladakh on July 17, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh personally conveyed his appreciation and compliments to the troops from the Bihar regiment for displaying exemplary grit and courage in fighting the Chinese troops. In his address to the soldiers, the defence minister said the Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clash not only showed exemplary courage in safeguarding the border but also protected the pride of 130 crore Indians. Army Chief Gen M M Naravane has already awarded Commendation Cards to five soldiers of the unit for their bravery in dealing with Chinese troops during the Galwan Valley clashes as well as confronting them in Pangong Tso in May. India and China are locked in a five-month-long bitter border standoff in eastern Ladakh that has significantly strained bilateral ties. Both sides held a series of diplomatic and military talks to resolve the row. However, no breakthrough has been achieved to end the standoff. Compound interest accrued during the six-month moratorium on repayment of loans up to Rs two crore taken by individuals and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) will be waived, the Centre told the Supreme Court in an affidavit on Friday. The moratorium was announced as part of measures to mitigate economic hardships caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown imposed to check its spread in March. The government made the announcement in the affidavit as a bunch of petitions seeking a waiver of accrual of interest for the moratorium period are pending before the court. The affidavit, however, said the waiver on contractual interest on loans cannot be waived as it will lead to a huge financial burden on banks estimated to be more than Rs 6 lakh crore. Union of India has decided to continue the tradition of handholding the small borrowers. The Government has decided that the relief on waiver of compound interest during the six-month moratorium period (March 1-August 31) shall be limited to the most vulnerable category of borrowers. The waiver will apply to MSME/entity or individuals, who have taken below Rs 2 crore education loans, housing loans, consumer durable loans, auto loans, personal loans, professional, etc. The Centre said the decision was taken in the interest of borrowers and the banks, which would unable to sustain this load. It had initially opposed the waiver in the court. The proposal was also opposed by the Indian Banks Association (IBA) and the State Bank of India separately represented in the matter. Agra-based businessman Gajendra Sharma was the first to move the court seeking the waiver. A three-judge bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan is expected to take up the matter on Monday and pass further orders after going through the affidavit. The bench has maintained that it is the responsibility of the Centre and Reserve Bank of India to handhold the borrowers. It has pointed out that it was the Centres decision to impose lockdown, shutting down businesses and establishments. The court on September 10 asked the Centre to consider the issue taking all parameters into consideration. Earlier, with the moratorium ending on August 31, the court had said that banks will not declare loan accounts as non-performing assets (NPA) on account of non-payment. IBA, which represents 215 banks, told the court no account shall become NPA at least for two months. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The United States and the EU hit Belarus officials with long-awaited sanctions over the country's political crisis on Friday, drawing an angry response from Minsk and its ally Moscow. After more than six weeks of diplomatic efforts, EU leaders finally persuaded Cyprus to drop its block on sanctions at a summit in Brussels, opening the way for some 40 members of President Alexander Lukashenko's regime to be listed. The US Treasury also moved against eight Belarus officials with punitive sanctions Friday for what it called their roles in "fraudulent" elections and a subsequent violent crackdown on protesters. The sanctions targeted Interior Minister Yury Karayev and Deputy Minister Alexander Barsukov, public security officials, and election commission officials. "The Belarusian people's democratic aspirations to choose their own leaders and peacefully exercise their rights have been met with violence and oppression from Belarusian officials," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement. The EU targets for its travel bans and asset freezes are officials it blames for rigging the August 9 election that returned Lukashenko to power and for orchestrating the crackdown. Lukashenko himself is not on the list, but it does include Karayev, who the EU says was responsible for the "repression and intimidation campaign" against protesters, and Central Election Commission chief Lidia Yermoshina. The EU's official listing blames Yermoshina for the "falsification of election results" in the poll, which Western powers have dismissed as rigged and illegitimate. Minsk swiftly announced tit-for-tat "counter sanctions" against the EU, though it was not clear what form these would take or what they would target. "In connection with visa sanctions adopted by the EU against a number of Belarusian officials, the Belarusian side from today is introducing a list of reciprocal sanctions," Belarus's foreign ministry said in a statement. Story continues The ministry said that by imposing sanctions the EU had "alienated" the country, which western commentators have dubbed "Europe's last dictatorship" under Lukashenko's strongman rule. Minsk said it would not disclose which European officials were being targeted, but threatened "even more serious consequences" if the EU expands its restrictions. - 'Manifestation of weakness' - Protesters have taken to the streets of Belarusian cities since Lukashenko claimed a sixth term with 80 percent of the vote. Riot police have detained thousands of protesters, many of whom alleged torture and abuse in custody, prompting international condemnation. Russia has backed its longstanding ally Lukashenko in the crisis, offering financial backing and hinting at military support if events turn against him. The Kremlin slammed the new EU sanctions, which follow similar measures from other Western governments including Britain and Canada. "In general, we are very, very negative about the sanctions policy... this is more a manifestation of weakness than strength," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. The EU had promised sanctions on Belarus since August, but approval was held up by Cyprus, which refused to give its backing until the bloc took more action on Turkey drilling for gas in its territorial waters. The deadlock was finally broken early Friday after seven hours of summit haggling, with the 27 leaders agreeing a formal statement threatening Turkey with sanctions if it does not halt its activities. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the sanctions were a "strong message of support" to supporters of democracy in Belarus. "We hope these sanctions will encourage the Belarusian leadership to refrain from further violence, to free all the unlawfully detained people... and engage in a genuine and inclusive dialogue with the opposition," Borrell said. - Lukashenko spared - Lukashenko is the most glaring omission from the sanctions list. Unlike Britain and Canada, which listed the veteran leader in their measures, the EU decided to spare him in the hope of persuading him to engage in talks with the opposition aimed at ending the crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the main Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya for talks on Tuesday. Tikhanovskaya, who claimed victory in the August 9 election, fled Belarus soon afterwards and has sought to keep up international pressure on the Minsk regime while protests continue on the streets. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-04 00:56:27|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close LONDON, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Britain and the European Union (EU) will work intensively to bridge gaps in fisheries, the level playing field, and governance in order to reach a post-Brexit trade deal, a Downing Street spokesperson said Saturday. The spokesperson made the remarks following a phone conversation between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The two leaders acknowledged "significant gaps remained" when they were speaking about the state of play in the negotiations on the future UK-EU relationship and they agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future, the spokesperson said. "They endorsed the assessment of both chief negotiators that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained, notably but not only in the areas of fisheries, the level playing field, and governance," the spokesperson said. "They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps," the spokesperson said. Both sides concluded their ninth round of trade talks in Brussels on Friday, with state subsidy and fisheries remain two sticking points. Britain and the EU have said a future trade deal needs to be agreed by mid-October to enable it to be approved ahead of Jan. 1, 2021. Both sides started the lengthy and bumpy post-Brexit talks in March after Britain ended its EU membership on Jan. 31, trying to secure a future trade deal before the Brexit transition period expires at the end of the year. If there is no deal in place, Britain will trade with the EU on terms of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Enditem India has marked the 151st anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth against a backdrop of shocking rapes that have convulsed the nation. Amid outrage over the gang rape and death of a young woman in Hathras, a town in northern Uttar Pradesh, another similar case has been reported from the state. In the first case, the 20-year-old woman died on Tuesday, days after being savagely assaulted by a group of men. The woman was cutting grass to feed the family's five milk buffalos in Hathras when she was taken away by a group of upper-caste men. Her tongue was cut and her spinal cord was broken after she was dragged by her neck with a rope. In the second incident, some 500 km from Hathras, a 22-year-old woman from the Dalit community, the country's lowest caste, died after being allegedly raped and assaulted by two men in Balrampur. Both have been arrested. She was reportedly abducted while on her way back from college where she had gone to pay her fees. A post-mortem report said the woman sustained 10 injuries both contusions and abrasions on various parts of her body, suggesting the woman was assaulted with a blunt object, the police said. Her death has put more pressure on the ruling Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, where both deaths have caused widespread outrage. Political parties said under the BJP government, women, especially from the Dalit community, faced unprecedented violence. The law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh has completely deteriorated, said Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi. It's highly sad that so many daughters are being sexually assaulted and we have not been able to protect them. The guilty must be hanged at the earliest, said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. The Congress party signalled prolonged protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Both Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka were stopped by the police from entering Hathras to pay respects to the bereaved family. He invoked Mahatma Gandhi on the Father of the Nation's 151st birth anniversary to declare that he is not afraid of anyone. I will not fear anyone in the world. I will not bow down to anyone's injustice. I will win the untruth with the truth and I can bear all the sufferings while opposing the untruth, said Rahul Gandhi. In its statistics for 2019, the National Crime Records Bureau showed that on an average, almost 10 Dalit women are raped every day across India. Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan top the list of crimes. Civil society activists and women's' groups have called for a national protest day on Sunday called #IfWeDoNotRise against the gruesome murders. Momodu Jimah, Rector of Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State, is dead. Mr Jimah died on Friday night following an undisclosed brief ailment. Mustapha Oshiobugie, the public relations officer of the institution, confirmed the death of Mr Jimah in an interview on Saturday. Mr Oshiobugie said, I can confirm that he is no more. He died on Friday night after a brief illness and his remains will be committed to mother earth today Saturday by 10 a.m. according to Muslim rites. He said a statement will be issued by the institution soon. The demand for healthy, natural beverages and coffee substitutes has increased over time. Consumers are looking for a sustainable, superior, stimulant and that is what we aim to provide with Pu'er tea Ultra-luxury Pu'er tea company from Singapore, TEASPEC, was unveiled at the Mandrake Hotel Londons inaugural Shamanic Tea Experience (STE) last Tuesday. The event, which was hosted at the Mandrake's acclaimed YOPO restaurant, captures the imagination by displaying the most exotic teas from all over the world. On display were TEASPECs exquisite collection of high-end Pu'er teas of various vintages, as well as their highly versatile LazyGo Travel Tumbler, exemplifying the contrast between the traditional and the modern in the world of tea. The STE menu was curated by Executive Chef George Scott-Toft and aims to exhibit the rich history behind thousands of years of tea drinking. The demand for healthy, natural beverages and coffee substitutes has increased over time. Consumers today dont just want healthy tea. They are looking for a sustainable, superior, stimulant and that is what we aim to provide with Pu'er tea, said TEASPEC founder and Managing Director, Carole Tan. A BBC article last year said Canadian researchers at McGill University had found that tea bags used by various brands had been leaking high levels of microplastics into water. A single tea bag releases billions of particles into the hot water. Plastics are harmful to the human body and we wanted to make sure that all TEASPEC tea bags are made from biodegradable corn fiber from Japan that contain no plastic. Offering dozens of colourful and innovative designs, TEASPEC products are sold all over Europe and Asia. We are so excited to be at the Mandrake Hotel London and we cant wait to share this with the tea community in London, Carole remarks. Puer has been the most prized tea in East Asia for over two millenia. We love it, and that's why we want to introduce this to the many tea drinkers across the United Kingdom. About TEASPEC: TEASPEC was founded in 2015 by connoisseurs and seasoned Pu'er tea collectors. TEASPEC is carried by some of the best known brands in retail and hospitality such as Harrods in London, One and Only Resorts and Singapore Airlines Krisshop. With a desire to make tea the gift of choice for all seasons, TEASPEC makes beautiful and premium gifts which are sold in store or online. The team at TEASPEC believes that a gift of tea is a gift of health. What started as a passion project has become a fully-fledged enterprise that aspires to raise awareness of Puer tea all over the world. Product images and reviews are available on Instagram @teaspectea and @lazygotumbler. Those who publicly express on Twitter the hope that anyone may die or come to serious harm could be suspended from the site, the social network announced, shortly after news broke that the US president Donald Trump has Covid-19. The announcement on Friday came as Mr Trump was taken to hospital as a precaution, where he is expected to have a few days of treatment. The disease has killed over 213,000 people in the USA, and after news broke of the presidents infection, some people explicitly said on Twitter that they hope the disease causes his death. The announcement of the new policy from the Twitter Communications team has prompted fierce accusations of double standards in its application of rules, as the site is well known for being riddled with aggressive abuse. Many people have questioned why the presidents health has been the issue which has prompted the company to make its new rules clear, which have reportedly been in place since April. It also comes after Mr Trump himself retweeted a video in late May of a right-wing activist claiming that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat, and which is still up. Responding to a Vice article headlined Twitter says you cannot tweet that you hope Trump dies from Covid, the social networks communications team said: Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed. This does not automatically mean suspension. The message was met with incredulity by people who have been victims of relentless abuse. Many have responded to the message saying they have had daily death threats on the platform for several years. So... you mean to tell us you couldve done this the whole time? Tweeted New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who last year said she often starts her day by reading the death threats sent to her. Ilhan Omar, a black congresswoman who has also spoken about the daily death threats she receives on the platform, responded with a gif which read: EXCUSE ME? Former UK childrens laureate Malorie Blackman said: Weeks of death threats and serious threats against my family when I was Childrens Laureate resulted in Twitter doing bugger all about it. *side-eyes in Black woman*. A 2018 investigation by Amnesty International into the scale of abuse which US and UK journalists and politicians face on Twitter concluded that the platform is endemic with racism, misogyny and homophobia. 1.1 million abusive or problematic tweets were sent to women in 2017, the investigation found an average of one every 30 seconds. The study found black women were disproportionately targeted, being 84 per cent more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets. Back in 2013, the US Secret Service investigated about 10 death threats a day against Barack Obama, and there were as many as 30,000 such threats a day during the first year of his presidency, according to The New York Times. A spokesperson for Twitter told The Independent: At Twitter, our singular goal is to improve the health of the public conversation, including ensuring the safety of people who use our service. Abuse and harassment have no place on Twitter and we have policies in place which apply to everyone, everywhere that address abuse and harassment and hateful conduct. If we identify accounts that violate these rules, we will take enforcement action. Late on Saturday, the Twitter Safety account tweeted: We hear the voices who feel that we're enforcing some policies inconsistently. We agree we must do better, and we are working together inside to do so. Well continue to respond to concerns about our enforcement through action, not empty words." New Delhi: On the occasion of 20 years of the establishment of the "strategic partnership" between the Russian and Indian governments, Russia's envoy to India Nikolay Kudashev has said that his country is working with India for "common approaches" for the development in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Both countries had signed the Declaration on the India-Russia Strategic Partnership in October 2000 during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Nikolay Kudashev also said, "Strategic partners means to proceed from the unity of destinies and to form common approaches and views on common on issues directly connected to the existence of our countries and peoples." He opined, "These include jointly finding solutions to the problem. Working out common approaches to the vision of regional development: in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, or in the Persian Gulf." My remarks on the occasion of 20th anniversary of signing the Declaration of Strategic Partnership between Russia and India https://t.co/VytVmPdzii Nikolay Kudashev (@NKudashev) October 3, 2020 The comments assume significance even as India and the United States are working on the Indo-Pacific concept, which New Delhi has also raised with Moscow. The Russian envoy mentioned how both countries are jointly dealing with COVID-19 pandemic, countering new challenges and threats -- terrorism, drug trafficking, transnational organized crime and attempts to rewrite the history of the great victory. Amid the COVID crisis, India had sent hydroxychloroquine to Russia. Russia is sending its COVID vaccine Sputnik V to India, but subject to regulatory approval in the country. This year also marks 10 years since India and Russia elevated the relationship to the level of Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. The envoy said, "Special and privileged partnership can be described by an unprecedented, unparalleled level of confidence and it means a situation when partners views, opinions, positions are by default embedded in Moscows or New Delhis approaches to key problems of the day or to key problems of developing our bilateral relations." He added, "Future of Eurasia and other regions of the world belongs to this partnership." Earlier last month, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had visited Moscow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meets. In November, Russia as the host is expected to host a virtual meeting of SCO and BRICS head of state. Presidente del Consejo de Ministros: El Peru sigue optimizando su respuesta hospitalaria, tratamiento oportuno e insistiendo en las normas de cuidado porque continuamos luchando contra la pandemia, que aunque esta disminuyendo aun no ha terminado. pic.twitter.com/qW6LETKrFQ (CNN) In openly sharing her painful message of loss on social media, Chrissy Teigen became an important voice for mothers who have also experienced the loss of a child to pregnancy complications. Teigen announced early Thursday that she and her husband, John Legend, had lost their baby midway through the pregnancy. "We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we've never felt before," Teigen wrote on Twitter. "We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn't enough." The couple has two children, Luna and Miles, who they have said were both conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Their third baby was conceived naturally. For as much support as she's receiving for being so vulnerable with her audience, there is plenty of criticism, too, with commenters on her posts questioning her decision to share intimate details and photos about a topic that isn't often talked about openly. A long-standing culture of silence Every year, 2.6 million babies are stillborn, according to data from the World Health Organization. Miscarriage occurs in 10% to 25% of known pregnancies, according to the American Pregnancy Association. Approximately 80% of them occur in the first trimester -- which is why women have traditionally been encouraged to keep their pregnancy private until they are at least 12 weeks along. Only after crossing that marker do some feel "safe" in sharing the news with others. "What that notion means is, 'Don't let people know you're pregnant until your pregnancy is far enough along that it's not going to be lost,'" Mindy Bergman, professor of psychology at Texas A&M University, said. "That's what we mean when we say 'safe.' So there's already from the very beginning this stigma, this shame for the potential of losing it." "This is usually kind of hidden," Sarah Allen, a Chicago-area psychologist specializing in woman's mental health through reproductive years, told CNN. "Oftentimes people don't know what to say and women are typically feel quite lonely going through this." And though the stigma is prevalent, Teigen was forthcoming on social media about her struggles through her third pregnancy, chronicling complications with her placenta, heavy bleeding and her doctor's advice for bed rest. Teigen recently said her IVF pregnancies felt "untouchable and safe" and that this pregnancy left her feeling "eggshelly." Teigen was about halfway through her pregnancy when she was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Sunday, after a worsening of bleeding that she said she had experienced for almost a month. Comfort through shared loss Lisa Patel, a pediatrician at a hospital in San Francisco, was not far along in her pregnancies when she miscarried, but she told CNN she knows something of what Teigen's loss may feel like. "I was just so grateful that she (Teigen) put herself out there like that," she said. "Because until I started talking about it, you just feel so lonely." Patel joined hundreds of women and families who have opened up on social media about their experience with loss following Teigen's announcement, despite the topic being difficult to talk about. "I feel like people are more able to share on Twitter what they're less willing to share in personal relationships with people," she said. "I think that's one of the nice things about social media -- you feel more comfortable, ironically, doing so. "But my hope is that if you're willing to share it in a public forum, it also means you're willing to share it within your network with people who may be struggling." Amy Kuo-Hammerman lost four pregnancies and said, "there's a feeling of being broken ... as though I've failed at the one unique thing that women's bodies are supposed to be able to do." It's easy to feel we know celebrities, "particularly when the celebrity is so engaging in part because of how 'real' she presents herself, as Chrissy Teigen is," Kuo-Hammerman said. "So, when you hear them share something that's so difficult to go through and to talk about, it can change the culture around the topic." 'Women are angry at their bodies for disappointing them' And every woman navigates their pregnancy in a unique way -- which includes processing grief and loss in a way that's unique as well, Allen said. "Everybody's journey is different," she said. "When somebody loses their baby, whether it's 6 weeks or 26 weeks, it doesn't matter," Allen said. "As soon as you know you're pregnant, you have hopes and dreams for that baby. You have this fantasy in your mind of what they're going to be like, what they're going to do. That doesn't just all go. You have to process that." Allen said mothers go through a roller-coaster of stages when they've experienced pregnancy complications: numbness followed by guilt, anger and grief. "Women are angry at their bodies for disappointing them," she said. "But a body does what a body wants to do." Photos as remembrances Teigen's photos on social media from her hospital room have caused some to wonder whether she overshared. Some even asked who took the pictures and why Teigen felt the need to post about such a personal experience. For Todd Hochberg, a photographer in Illinois, photographing perinatal loss is part of his life's work and has become a routine practice for him -- capturing the most intimate moments in the hours and minutes after a couple has lost a child. His field of bereavement photography is not uncommon, Hochberg told CNN. Teigen's celebrity status lends itself to scrutiny and has amplified her photos, but everyday people are also opting to freeze these moments in time with their baby. Hochberg said he has had the privilege to be in the hospital room with between 500 and 600 families to date. "I also feel alive that these strangers to me allowed me into their world, into the most fragile moments of their life," he said. Bereavement photography isn't for everyone, Hochberg said. Ultimately, he said, his goal is to provide families with lasting memories. "There has been a cultural paradigm shift in understanding and supporting families experiencing perinatal loss and I hope I've contributed to that by way of parents sharing the images within their circles of love." October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month In 1988, President Ronald Reagan deemed October as a month of remembrance and support for parents who have lost a child to pregnancy complications, according to the Star Legacy Foundation, a non-profit focused on education and support for families dealing with pregnancy loss, stillbirth and neonatal death. During the month, organizations such as Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep hold walks and advocacy events in several states to honor the lives lost. This year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the walk will be a virtual event on October 3. This story was first published on CNN.com Chrissy Teigen breaks a long-standing culture of silence by sharing her loss BANGKOK Indonesias Parliament is on the verge of approving a sweeping coronavirus stimulus package that opponents charge would undermine worker protections and permit widespread destruction of the countrys rainforests. The legislation is backed by Indonesias president, Joko Widodo, and is seen as a way to attract investment and stimulate the creation of new jobs by reducing regulations on businesses. Its supporters hope to win passage before Parliament ends its session next Friday, even as opposition to the measure grows. A confederation of labor unions is calling for a three-day national strike starting on Tuesday over provisions in the bill that would reduce job security, wages and mandatory days off. Union leaders say the strike has the backing of five million workers from dozens of industries. Environmentalists oppose the measure because it would eliminate environmental reviews for many new projects and could lead to the destruction of primary rainforests that are essential in controlling carbon emissions and slowing climate change. Twenty five years and three weeks after the abduction, rape and murder of 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce, his father Don Ryce died Saturday at the age of 76. The Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction announced Ryces death Saturday morning by natural causes that were not coronavirus-related. Don Ryce and wife Claudine Ryce, who died in 2009, founded the center as they tried to live with the parental horror of Sept. 11, 1995. Don and Claudine Ryce, parents of Jimmy Ryce, thank volunteers for their help in the search for their child on Sept. 15, 1995. Jimmy got off the school bus in the Redland area, but never finished the five-block walk home. Juan Carlos Chavez forced Jimmy into his car at gunpoint, took the child to a trailer, where he raped him. That would also be where Chavez later shot Jimmy, took the boy apart and buried him among planters. Chavez was arrested that December. After conviction for the crime, the state of Florida put Chavez to death in February 2014. In the 19 years between Jimmys death and Chavezs, Don and Claudine Ryce started the center. In addition to trying to teach children and parents how to prevent being a sexual predators victim, raise awareness of children who are missing and providing bloodhounds to law enforcement agencies to assist in searches, the center has backed various forms of legislation. The Ryces wrote the Jimmy Ryce Involuntary Civil Commitment for Sexually Violent Predators Treatment and Care Act, commonly called The Jimmy Ryce Act. It got signed into Florida law in 1998. It allows the state of Florida, after an imprisoned sex offender serves his/her sentence, to file a request keep the offender in whats called a civil commitment center until the offender isnt considered a threat to society. Jimmys sister, Martha Ryce, took her own life in 2013 at the age of 35. Don Ryce is survived by son, Ted Ryce, 43. Funeral plans havent been made yet. Donations in Don Ryces memory can be made to the Jimmy Ryce Center. HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) Republican governors and lawmakers in many states have followed President Donald Trumps lead on their response to the coronavirus, declining to impose mask mandates and pushing to lift restrictions on businesses and social gatherings as swiftly as possible. Revelations that the president and first lady are now among those who have tested positive for the disease appeared to do little to change their thinking. In the hours after the nation learned that Trump had tested positive for the virus, Republican-controlled courts, conservative groups and Republican lawmakers continued to move against mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions. In Michigan on Friday, the state Supreme Court, which has a Republican majority, struck down months of orders by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, including a mask mandate, that were aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus. It said she illegally drew authority from a 1945 law that doesnt apply. It was an extraordinary development in a long, nasty fight between Whitmer, a Democrat, and Republicans who control the Legislature. At one point over the summer, protesters and an armed militia filled the statehouse to demand an end to the restrictions some labeled tyranny. Also Friday, Republicans who control the Louisiana House of Representatives supported a package of measures aimed at unraveling the states coronavirus restrictions imposed by Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat. The legislation would overturn all of Edwards' coronavirus executive orders for a month or more. It also would give lawmakers greater ability to overturn all or part of future executive orders or extensions of existing COVID-19 restrictions the governor wants to enact. I dont think that the president having COVID is any more important than every Louisianian thats had COVID, so it doesnt really change my perspective on it, said Rep. Julie Emerson, a Republican from a suburban area in southcentral Louisiana. Rep. Tanner Magee, the chambers No. 2 Republican from a seafood and oil industry hub in southeastern Louisiana, said its a false narrative that Republicans are not concerned about public health. We are. Were just concerned about both public health and the state of our economy and seeing how we can move forward in a way that addresses both issues, Magee said. In Wisconsin, which is third in the nation in new cases per capita, according to the COVID Tracking Project, Republicans who control the Legislature filed a court motion Friday in support of a lawsuit seeking to repeal a mask mandate under Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. That prompted a Twitter response from Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Democrat: Republican legislators have officially joined Covid-19 in the fight against Wisconsinites. The motion came even as virus cases there are rising quickly. There is no pandemic exception to the rule of law or our Constitution, said Rick Esenberg, president of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which is suing Evers over the mask mandate. Similar power struggles have played out ever since the beginning of the virus outbreak in numerous states, mostly where the governor is a Democrat and Republicans control the legislature. Kansas has had one of the longest running feuds, since Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly closed schools in March and imposed stay-at-home orders and restrictions on businesses and social gatherings. Republican lawmakers, who already had forced Kelly to accept local control over coronavirus restrictions, are now considering creating a panel with permanent oversight of how the governor handles extended emergencies. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf holds a press conference in July. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com/file In GOP-controlled Legislatures in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Democrats pushed Republican majority leaders to toughen their policy on masks for lawmakers on official business, force Republican members to actually comply with it or simply implement one. More: Gov. Wolfs office says crowd limits remain in place for this weekends high school games; more guidance next week Ohio state Rep. Kent Smith, a Democrat from suburban Cleveland, said it isnt known how many Republican lawmakers from the state interacted with Trump who was there Tuesday for the debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden or his entourage in recent days. He asked for a mask mandate for committee hearings and floor sessions. The work of the people need not become a super spreader event during a global pandemic without a treatment or cure, he said in a statement. Some Republicans, including Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, said they were comfortable with the existing protocols, while others said they cannot force rank-and-file lawmakers to obey them. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who has imposed a statewide mask mandate and endured criticism from some fellow Republicans in the Legislature over his coronavirus restrictions, would not criticize the Legislature for lacking a mask mandate of its own. On Thursday, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives canceled its floor session on the news that a second Republican member had tested positive. Pennsylvania House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody works the phone on the house floor during debate in September. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com/file House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, a Pittsburgh-area Democrat, unloaded stinging criticism after months of watching Republicans many of them flouting the chambers mask-wearing protocol pass more than a half-dozen veto-bound bills that are designed to strip or limit Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfs power to impose coronavirus restrictions. More: After Pa. lawmaker tests positive for coronavirus, House Democrats urge GOP to take pandemic more seriously Trumps reckless approach has seeped down to his Republican counterparts, who have blocked a resolution to enshrine a mask mandate into the chambers rules, Dermody said. Its time that we realize that we are in this situation and it is real, and I hope they realize that it is real when the president contracts the virus, Dermody said. Rep. Dan Moul, a Republican from rural southern Pennsylvania, said it has nothing to do with Trump. He almost always wears a mask when he enters a business, Moul said, he but doesnt on the House floor because hes around friends. When its my turn to get it, Im going to get it, whether Im wearing a mask or not, Moul said. More: How doctors are treating President Trumps coronavirus as he settles into Walter Reed hospital (Alliance News) - The UK and the EU have agreed to "work intensively" to resolve the differences in the Brexit trade talks, Downing Street has confirmed. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke via video conference on Saturday to take stock of progress in the negotiations following the final scheduled round of talks between Brussels and the UK this week. The pair have tasked chief negotiators, Britain's David Frost and the EU's Michel Barnier, with intensifying the talks after acknowledging that "significant gaps remained" between the UK and Brussels. The prime minister has set the deadline of the EU Council meeting on October 15 for securing a deal a only 12 days away. A Downing Street spokesman said: "They agreed on the importance of finding an agreement, if at all possible, as a strong basis for a strategic EU-UK relationship in future. "They endorsed the assessment of both chief negotiators that progress had been made in recent weeks but that significant gaps remained, notably but not only in the areas of fisheries, the level playing field, and governance. "They instructed their chief negotiators to work intensively in order to try to bridge those gaps. "They agreed to speak on a regular basis on this issue." Frost, in a statement issued after his meeting with counterpart Barnier on Friday, expressed concern there is "very little time now to resolve" the outstanding issues on fishing, state aid and governance before October 15. But, taking to Twitter after the leaders' conversation on Saturday, Lord Frost said the work to "bridge the gaps between us" would "begin as soon as we can next week". The agreement between Johnson and von der Leyen to intensify the talks could soon pave the way for what is dubbed "the tunnel", where the negotiating teams enter a media and briefing-free blackout in a bid to work out compromises on the outstanding differences. The UK prime minister has struck a positive tone about the prospects of securing a trade deal in recent days, along with Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, who is in charge of Britain's Brexit preparations. Johnson told reporters on a construction site visit in west London on Saturday morning that there is a "good deal to be done" with the EU. Vote Leave campaigner Gove, speaking at the Conservative Party's virtual conference, said: "I suspect there will be one or two ups and downs along the way but I am optimistic that we will get a deal." Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, however, took a tougher approach in his conference speech, telling members the "days of being held over a barrel by Brussels are long gone", as he stressed any trade deal must be "fair". Von der Leyen on Friday said she believed a deal was still possible but warned time was running out without an intense period of negotiations. She said the "most difficult issues" a including fisheries and state aid rules a still had to be resolved if they were to get an agreement in place by the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31. "But where there is a will, there is a way, so I think we should intensify the negotiations because it is worth working hard on it," she told a press briefing in the Belgian capital. By Patrick Daly, PA Political Correspondent source: PA Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the world's longest highway tunnel, Atal Rohtang Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh, that connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley. The strategically important all-weather tunnel, which will be available to the commuters throughout the year, has been built in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas. The tunnel is located at an altitude of 10,000 Feet from the Mean Sea Level (MSL). It will reduce the road distance between Manali and Leh in Ladakh by 46 km and travelling time by four to five hours. The 9.02 kilometres long engineering marvel connects Manali in Himachal Pradesh to Lahaul-Spiti throughout the year. Currently, the area remains cut off for about 6 months each year owing to heavy snowfall and inclement weather. The Atal tunnel has huge strategic significance as it will greatly assist in the movement of armed forces, reported PTI. The decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken on June 3, 2000 during the tenure of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. The Atal Tunnel is a horse-shoe shaped single tube double lane 9.02-km-long tunnel that goes under the Rohtang Pass in the eastern Pir Panjal range on the Leh-Manali highway. The tunnel has been designed for traffic density of up to 3,000 cars and 1,500 trucks per day with a max pace of 80 km per hour. The Atal Rohtang Tunnel took 14,508 MT of steel; 2,37,596 MT of cement and the new Austrian tunnelling technique for construction. Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) said it has contributed to the mega project by supplying more than 9,000 tonnes of steel. Two-thirds of the total 15,000 tonnes of steel used in the project has been supplied by SAIL, it said. Out of the 9,000 tonnes, 6,500 tonnes was TMT, 1,500 tonnes structurals and 1,000 tonnes plates for fabricating beams, besides a small quantity of GP/GC sheets for constructing stations and control rooms. The engineering marvel has many safety features built into it including: *Entry barriers at both portals. *Auto incident detection system with CCTV cameras installed at every 250 m, emergency exits every 500 m and a turning cavity every 2.2 km. *Telephone connections at every 150 m for emergency communication *Fire hydrant mechanisms at every 60 m and evacuation lighting/exit signs at every 25 m. During the opening ceremony, PM Modi was accompanied by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, and Army Chief General MM Naravane. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and Union minister Anurag Thakur were also present on the occasion. Launching a blistering attack on the Congress, a party which had ruled the country for over 60 years, Modi said India's defence interests were compromised under its rule. The PM asserted that nothing was more important to his government than protecting the country. He hit out at the opposition party, which headed the coalition government at the Centre during 2004-14. Citing a number of strategically important projects, from Atal Tunnel to the air strip at Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh and Tejas fighter aircraft production, Modi asserted that they were delayed or almost forgotten and questioned as to what "compulsion" and "pressure" might have been behind it, without directly naming the Congress. His government, the prime minister said, has deployed all its strength to develop border infrastructure, adding that never before has work been done at such a big scale, be it building roads, bridges or tunnels. For long, he said, border projects could never come out of planning stage and those which did got stuck or were kept on the back burner. "Work on only 1,300 meters was completed by 2013-14 and at that pace the project would have been completed only by 2040," quipped Modi. The project really took off only after my government took charge in 2014 and speeded it up at an unprecedented rate," he stated. "Our govt increased the pace of construction from 300 meters/year to 1400 meters/year and completed the project in 2020," he added. Defence Minister said the tunnel was a strategic project as it will make soldiers' deployment and movement of weapons and ration easier. It will also be a big help to people and tourism sector, he added. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 03:19:09|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close GENEVA, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday expressed his best wishes to U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, who have tested positive for COVID-19, for a full and swift recovery. "I wish them both a full and swift recovery. Our prayers are with them," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the start of a press briefing on Friday. Trump tweeted early Friday morning that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19. Also at the press briefing, Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, said: "WHO absolutely trusts the U.S. public health authorities to make appropriate decision." Ryan noted that there's clearly a cluster of cases occurring in the Trump scenario, which needs to be properly investigated. On the COVID-19 situation in the U.S., Ryan said: "there's no reason why the U.S. cannot control this disease, turn the corner, and get the disease under control." But that requires work, effort, commitment, transparency and honesty, as well as sustained support to get that job done. "We want all public leaders, particularly leaders of great countries, to lead us and give us hope, and to give us certainty, to give us truth, and to give us a chance to fight and win this disease," he added. "It is never, ever too late for that to be true. I hope that all leaders around the world in health, in medicine, in politics reflect upon what we're all facing, and that we can all come together to fight this disease," Ryan stressed. As the world is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries across the globe -- including UK, China, Russia, Britain and the U.S. -- are racing to find a vaccine. According to the website of the World Health Organization (WHO), as of Sept. 30, there were 192 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 41 of them were in clinical trials. Enditem [Watch live VP debate and analysis.] PHOENIX Soon after he woke up on Friday morning, Cruz Zepeda, a 54-year-old Trump supporter, received a text from a lifelong friend eager to share a sentiment he found on Twitter: Looks like RBG successfully argued her first hearing with the Lord. Still in a bit of shock, Mr. Zepeda felt his anger rise. The friends once shared similar political beliefs, but disagreed more often than not over the past 15 years. This is not funny, he shot back. This is real time, real life and really happening. The pandemic could have been a great unifier a widespread and life-altering tragedy that inspired a notion of shared national purpose, as at other moments of crisis in the countrys past. And perhaps in another moment, in another place, a president falling ill would have seen citizens keeping vigil regardless of political affiliation. But the coronavirus, which has sickened more than seven million Americans, including the president, the first lady and a growing number of people in his inner circle, has deepened divisions rather than united the country. Now, a month before Election Day and with the president in the hospital, interviews with voters in some of the most contested battleground states make clear that the divisions that the president himself has stoked in the country are being reflected back at him, with his supporters defiantly insisting he will hold rallies again before Nov. 3 and Democrats, if not wishing him a turn for the worse, certainly not shedding any tears. WASHINGTON U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz tested negative for COVID-19 after interacting with U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, who tested positive for the virus this week. A spokeswoman for Cruz said the Texas Republican is staying home out of an abundance of caution, but feels healthy and exhibiting no symptoms. Cruz plans to return to D.C. in time for confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trumps nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. THE LATEST: Trump got oxygen Friday at White House In accordance with medical advice, he will return to the Senate for the Supreme Court nomination hearings, the spokeswoman said. Both Texas senators appear to have so far avoided the coronavirus outbreak in the senate, which as of Saturday afternoon had infected three Republicans, despite having attended Judiciary Committee hearings this week that two of those Sens. Lee and Thom Tillis also attended. A third senator, Ron Johnson, has also tested positive. U.S. Sen. John Cornyns office has not said whether the senator has been tested or if he plans to stay home. A spokesman for Cornyn on Friday said: Sen. Cornyn followed CDC guidelines during the hearing this week. TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday that he would halt Senate floor activity until Oct. 19, but will allow committees to continue to meet. U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said it would move ahead with confirmation hearings for Coney Barrett as planned. Those hearings are set to begin Oct. 12. Cruz also quarantined in March after learning he interacted briefly with a man who later tested positive at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland in late February. He then extended that quarantine after learning that Santiago Abascal, the leader of the Vox Party in Spain tested positive. Cruz said he met with Abascal for about 20 minutes in his Senate office. ben.wermund@chron.com I don't know where I am going to wear it but I have to have it in my wardrobe. It's that kind of sentiment and enthusiasm which greeted print-loving Dubliner Sarah Plunkett Chadwick and her pal Nicola Orme, when they launched their brand Queens of Archive. The pair launched in March as lockdown began with an Instagram image, and it's clear a love of vintage runs very deep here. You've probably seen their dresses but maybe didn't realise where they came from. Una Healy of The Saturdays wore their 'Chrissie NYC' dress when she performed with the Women in Harmony crew on The Late Late Show last month, making full use of that thigh-high slit to show off her awesome pins. Remember that dress now? Amy Huberman is another early fan and posted pictures of herself in the long, red 'Patti' ditsy-print dress with ruffled hem. The last time I witnessed anything remotely like this rush to embrace a new dress label was with fellow Irish brand Rixo, which continues to have a legion of committed loyal fans. I tracked down Sarah to Manchester where the Dubliner now lives, and she explained how herself and Nicola met in London and decided last Christmas that it was time to act on their dream. "We are both massively influenced by vintage and the whole era of 1970s and the music and fashion of that time," says Sarah, who worked as head of visual merchandising at brands like All Saints while Nicola worked as a designer with top end brands. "We have named all of our dresses after the trailblazing queens of yesteryear that set the pace for all of us today, such as Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Anita Pallenberg, Viv Albertine and Marianne Faithful," Sarah explains. The dress which sparked my initial interest was the 'Grace', with its metallic detailing, frill bib front and bow tie. It was named after Grace Slick from psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane. While Sarah works from Manchester, Chester-born Nicola, the other half of the brand, lives in Ireland and the brand is head-quartered in Belfast. The pair have done endless sourcing of prints for their products and do a hat-tip to amazing designers of the 1970s such as YSL and Ossie Clark. It is clear they are aiming at a premium product with a generous use of fabric and quality French seaming. It can only be a matter of time before they are picked up by stores here. For the moment, they are available from their website, queensofarchive.com, and if you are intrigued, I can reveal that next up will be a range of blouses with big balloon sleeves. Lockdown walks Expand Close Inner Island Booley ring, 135 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Inner Island Booley ring, 135 Speaking of queens, I've always regarded jeweller Gemma O'Leary of Inner Island as a queen of pearls. Her gleaming strata baroque pearls twinned with textured gold and silver are gorgeous, and her fans may be interested to know she has just launched three new collections which were inspired by her walks with her dog near her home near New Ross, Co Wexford. "For me, lockdown was a very creative time. I got lost in making things in my studio. I made so many pieces that I had too many to choose from, but I've whittled it down to three collections which are interchangeable, heavily textured and all are inspired by stones in different forms," Gemma explains as she introduces me to the Stoney, Molten and the Booley collections. Expand Close Half hoop earrings, 125 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Half hoop earrings, 125 The history nerd in me loved discovering how the latter was inspired by the 'booley' - one-room huts built with stone, straw and clay which herdsmen used seasonally when they moved animals. Looking at these mixed materials, Gemma built up texture with tiny molten beads melted from underneath to give it that bobbly look. There are five Booley pieces including a ring as well as earrings, bracelet and two necklaces. The Stoney half hoop earrings are 125. innerisland.ie Better basics Expand Close Quilted bomber jacket, 249, camel cashmere jumper, 199, theoandgeorge.com / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Quilted bomber jacket, 249, camel cashmere jumper, 199, theoandgeorge.com I am fascinated by all the developments in the field of sustainable fashion and being more thoughtful about our fashion purchases and how they fit in with our lives and, indeed, our skin. Katie O'Riordan is a Philadelphian living in Dublin and she has built up her Theo + George label with the aim of creating wardrobe essentials that "make everyday effortless". Back to work to launch her latest collection 11 weeks after baby Dick arrived (she also has daughters Isabelle and Zara), Katie has included a new bomber style for autumn. She has enjoyed huge success with them and offers a new style each season. This autumn, her quilted bomber jacket is made from recycled polyester from dead stock so don't dawdle on this one because it is a limited run. It was styled for her shoot in Paris over a cashmere jumper in camel but the jumpers are also available in black, grey and pink. The organic cotton denim skinny jeans have 2pc stretch in them, and are made at a small Italian factory which specialises in denim. Chatting with Katie, I was interested to hear her plans for the future include going back to basics. "The tagline in my head and what I'm pushing for is better basics, really focusing on the materials, the manufacturing and making everything really friendly to the skin because we are living in them," she said. "Most of those pieces are directly up against your skin so you want to make sure there aren't any plastics and pollutants in there so I'm really thinking about how to improve your own health by wearing better basics". The action was taken in coordination with the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union. The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned eight Belarusian officials for undermining democracy. This was announced in an October 2 press release on the U.S. Treasury's website. "Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated eight individuals for their roles in the fraudulent August 9, 2020 Belarus presidential election or the subsequent violent crackdown on peaceful protesters," the press release said. Read alsoEU imposes sanctions on 40 Belarussian officials "These designations, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13405, target individuals who are responsible for, or have participated in, undermining democratic processes in Belarus. OFAC previously sanctioned 16 Belarusian officials pursuant to E.O. 13405 for their activities in connection with the previous fraudulent 2006 and 2010 elections." "The Belarusian people's democratic aspirations to choose their own leaders and peacefully exercise their rights have been met with violence and oppression from Belarusian officials," the document quotes U.S. Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin as saying. "The United States and our international partners stand united in imposing costs on those who have undermined Belarusian democracy for years." The action was taken in coordination with the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union to demonstrate the international community's solidarity in standing with the Belarusian people against the fraudulent and violent actions of the Belarusian government. The U.S. Treasury targeted the Belarusian Interior Ministry and law enforcement officials, in particular, Minister of the Interior Yuriy Khadzymuratavich Kareau and Deputy Minister of the Interior Alyaksandr Pyatrovich Barsukou, Commander Yuriy Henadzievich Nazaranka and Deputy Commander Khazalbek Bakhtsibekavich Atabekau. On the sanctions list are also Ivan Uladzimiravich Kubrakou and Dzmitriy Uladzimiravich Balaba, who lead organizations that have beaten and detained peaceful protesters, journalists, and others in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Kubrakou, the head of the Minsk branch of the Ministry of the Interior, oversees the city's policing and prisons, including Akrestsina prison. Kubrakou also made public statements discouraging Belarusians from participating in peaceful, pro-democracy protests and claimed that the protests were trying to destabilize Belarus and cause societal unrest. Balaba commands the Minsk Special Purpose Police Unit, or OMON, whose members have violently suppressed protests and have been responsible for the inhumane treatment of detainees. Belarus' Central Election Commission (CEC) Deputy Chairperson Vadzim Dzmitrievich Ipatau and Secretary Alena Mikalaeuna Dmukhayla were also sanctioned. Sanctions against Lukashenko's regime Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 17:01:37|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 13 people were killed and 30 others wounded in a Taliban car bomb explosion and ensuing gunfight outside a district office in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province on Saturday, a local government spokesman said. Enditem Enterprise Life celebrated the hard work of 200 deserving Life Planners at an awards ceremony held on Friday, October 2, 2020 in Accra. The Annual Life Planners Awards Ceremony is a proprietary event hosted by Enterprise Life to reward outstanding Life Planners for the previous year. This event is borne out of the companys culture of rewarding performance. The 2020 edition, dubbed The Life Planners Awards-Virtual Edition, was organized in conformity with COVID-19 protocols and thus saw a limited number of guests at the venue while several others including the wider staff of the Enterprise Group and the general public, were able to join via the companys many digital platforms. The ceremony witnessed the presentation of various awards to 200 deserving Life Planners with the grand prize being the 2020 edition of a Hyundai saloon vehicle. Speaking at the ceremony, the Managing Director of Enterprise Life, Mrs. Jacqueline Benyi, said the ceremony is important to Enterprise Life because of the value Life Planners bring, especially in a context where insurance is not appreciated. In our part of the world, insurance is not appreciated and for most people, the insurance salesperson is a nuisance. But it is refreshing to know that at the time when it matters most, their real value is brought to the fore. That is why the insurance salesperson must be celebrated, she said. Mrs. Jacqueline Benyi said, Im happy to note that never did we stop doing what we do best claims and benefit payment. Even in the midst of lockdown, we did not refrain from providing the relevant solutions to Ghanaian families. Our huge technological investments in the past years paid the price for us. Mrs. Jacqueline Benyi also encouraged Life Planners never to forget the essence of who they are even as they are being celebrated. On his part, Mr. Keli Gadzepko, Group CEO of Enterprise Group Plc was gratified at the levels of consistent high performance of the Life Planners, particularly because they are the face of the business. As you are aware, the Enterprise Family is a high-performance organization and we are always proud to recognize and reward high performance from team members. I must say we are even more excited to do this when it is for you our gallant Life Planners because of the special role you play in our business. Admittedly, you are the Face of our business and we are grateful for the work you do every minute of the day, Mr. Keli Gadzekpo said. Mr. Fiifi Kwakye, Board Chairman of Enterprise Life, expressed satisfaction at the performance of the Life Planners, which he said reflected in the companys pledge to touching the lives of its clients and ultimately preserve the wellbeing of Ghanaian families Mr. Fiifi Kwakye said The Board is proud of Enterprise Life for the strides they are making, not only in the insurance industry but in the Ghanaian economy as a whole. We are also proud of the companys performance in the 2019, and the Board stands ever ready to render its support to Enterprise Life as they work to sustain their leadership position in the insurance industry. The MD of KEK Insurance Brokers, Mr. Shaibu Ali, who shared a few words, said; We are grateful to Enterprise Life not only for recognizing the hard work of Life Planners but also for taking a leadership role in rewarding Life Planners and KEK Insurance Brokers and is honored to be a partner of Enterprise Life. Stephen Amemakakpor, who emerged the top Life Planner at the ceremony and winner of a brand-new Hyundai saloon vehicle amongst other attractive prizes, expressed gratitude to the company for not only recognizing their efforts but also encouraging them to do more. He pledged to continue his quest to cover more Ghanaian lives. Enterprise Life is the Leading Life Insurance Company in Ghana and the current Life Insurance Company of the Year according to the Ghana Insurance Awards. The company has footprints in Ghana, the Gambia, Nigeria, and has connections to the wider world through its Akwantupa policy, a product made for Ghanaians living abroad, to secure the lives of their loved ones in Ghana. Enjoy the Enterprise Advantage by downloading the Enterprise Advantage App via the Google PlayStore or Apple App Store. You can also call us on 0307-084444 or email us via [email protected] You can also visit our website and our digital touchpoints on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @enterpriselifegh. The 9.02 km long Atal Tunnel which connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh has been formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Atal Tunnel here at Rohtang on Saturday. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and Army Chief General MM Naravane were also present at the inauguration ceremony, which was held shortly after 10 am. After inaugurating the tunnel, Prime Minister Modi addressed the nation. He said that Atal tunnel will give new strength to Indias border infrastructure, it is an example of world-class border connectivity. He added that there have been demands to improve border infrastructure but for a long time, such projects either couldnt get out of planning stage or got stuck midway. PM said that connectivity has a direct connection with the development, connectivity in border areas is directly related to security issues. He said that Atal Ji laid the foundation stone of approach road of this tunnel in 2002, till 2013-2014, progress was made only on 1,300 meters of this tunnel. He added that after 2014, the project progressed with unprecedented pace. Also read: Hathras horror: Arvind Kejriwal joins protest at Jantar Mantar Himachal Pradesh: PM Narendra Modi reaches North Portal of Atal tunnel in Sissu, Lahaul Valley from South Portal of the tunnel at Rohtang. pic.twitter.com/jpglqLhA8f ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 Many other important projects were treated in the same way as Atal tunnel. The strategically important Daulat Beg Oldi airstrip in Ladakh remained closed for 4045 years. I don't want to go into details as to what was the helplessness and the pressure behind it: PM Narendra Modi https://t.co/AVlkfKA388 ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 There is nothing more important for us than protecting the country. But the country has also seen that a period when the defense interests of the country were compromised: PM Modi at Rohtang https://t.co/cHtMC0pNGp ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 Connectivity has a direct connection with development. Connectivity in border areas is directly related to security issues: PM Modi at the inauguration of Atal Tunnel, Rohtang#HimachalPradesh pic.twitter.com/OX7xdnFE3P ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 Himachal Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Atal Tunnel, Rohtang It is the longest highway tunnel in the world built at an altitude of 3000 meters. The 9.02 Km long tunnel connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley pic.twitter.com/yh2KmITCSB ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 Himachal Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates Atal Tunnel at Rohtang. pic.twitter.com/A7bXMs6WSR ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 #WATCH Live from Himachal Pradesh: PM Modi inaugurates Atal Tunnel, Rohtang (Source: DD) https://t.co/Q7Jv7HleOs ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 Also read: Hathras incident: TMCs Derek OBrien manhandled by UP police on his way to meet victims family Himachal Pradesh CM Jai Ram Thakur said that after the construction of this tunnel at the height of 10,040 feet, Himachal Pradesh, a small state, has got recognition not only in the nation but in the whole world. He added that there is no other tunnel of this length at this height. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that Border Roads Organisation completed construction of Atal Tunnel within its estimated cost of construction. He said that this tunnel is dedicated to the soldiers guarding our borders & those living near border areas. The Atal Tunnel, at 9.02 km is the longest highway tunnel in the world, connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti Valley and will ensure movement throughout the year. Earlier, the Valley was cut off for about six months each year owing to heavy snowfall. The tunnel reduces the road distance by 46 kilometres between Manali and Leh and the time by about four to five hours. The tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) from the Mean Sea Level (MSL). The Prime Minister also enquired about the construction process, layout and other details about the Tunnel from the Army officials present. Following this, Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to address a public gathering at Sissu, Lahaul Valley. This is a very proud moment not only for BRO but for the whole country. The hard work put in by BRO in the last 10 years is reaching the final stage. This tunnel is an example of Atmanirbhar Bharat, Purushothaman told ANI. The South Portal (SP) of Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 metres, while the North Portal (NP) of the tunnel is located near village Teling, Sissu, in Lahaul Valley at an altitude of 3,071 metres. It is horseshoe-shaped, single tube double lane tunnel with a roadway of eight metres. It has an overhead clearance of 5.525 metres. Also, it is 10.5-metre wide and has a 3.6 x 2.25 metres fire-proof emergency egress tunnel built into the main tunnel itself. There are 18 egress tunnels where after every 500 metres there is an opening in case of emergency. If any fire incident happens so the first thing is how the people trapped are to be rescued. For that, there is an entry at every 500 metres. The tunnels are clearly marked and one can easily find out where is the egress tunnel, Purushothaman said. Atal Tunnel has been designed for traffic density of 3,000 cars per day and 1,500 trucks per day with a max speed of 80 km/hr. It has the state of the art electromechanical system including semi transverse ventilation system. The tunnel has ample safety features built into it including telephone connections at every 150 metres for emergency communication, fire hydrant mechanisms at every 60 Metres, auto incident detection system with CCTV cameras at every 250 metres, air quality monitoring at every one Km, evacuation lighting/exit signs and broadcasting system throughout the tunnel among others. Speaking to ANI, S Paramasivan, Managing Director, AFCONS, which was the main construction company for the tunnel, said it is of very great importance both from the national defence angle and also from the international arena because this is the longest tunnel at this altitude in the world. The historic decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken on June 3, 2000, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. Officials said the BRO worked relentlessly to overcome major geological, terrain and weather challenges that included the most difficult stretch of the 587-metre Seri Nalah Fault Zone. The breakthrough from both ends was achieved on October 15, 2017. The Union Cabinet decided in 2019 to name the Rohtang Tunnel as Atal Tunnel to honour the contribution made by the former Prime Minister. After attending the inauguration function of the Atal Tunnel at South Portal, Manali, PM Modi will also be participating in public functions at Sissu in Lahaul Spiti and at Solang Valley. Also read: Priyanka Gandhi attends Hathras victims prayer meet in Delhi After construction of this tunnel at the height of 10,040 feet, Himachal Pradesh, a small state, has got recognition not only in the nation but in the whole world. There is no other tunnel of this length at this height: Himachal Pradesh CM Jai Ram Thakur https://t.co/9bw4YVNXmv pic.twitter.com/QjJTCQgV7J ANI (@ANI) October 3, 2020 COVID-19 cases hit record high in Missoula COVID-19 cases hit a new high in Missoula County on Friday when the county reported 84 new cases since Thursday, another daily record. As of Friday, the County was at 364 active COVID-19 cases with more than 1,160 close contacts. Fourteen people were hospitalized in Missoula County on Friday, 6 of which were county residents. With the rise in cases, the health department has received a lot of questions about what might trigger increased restrictions, Missoula County COVID-19 Incident Commander Cindy Farr said in a video Wednesday. "We primarily need to protect our healthcare infrastructure so if our healthcare systems begin to become overwhelmed, we would need to impose restrictions," Farr said. On Thursday, the Missoulian reported that there was only one open ICU bed at St. Patrick Hospital, where 11 COVID patients were hospitalized and six of those patients were in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The hospital has 24 licensed ICU beds and there were 17 other patients in ICU with non-COVID-related issues. Community Medical Center had two open ICU beds on Thursday of a total of 13 ICU beds, with 11 patients in the ICU for non-COVID-related issues. Officials noted the numbers are a snapshot in time, as people are being admitted and discharged. In addition to healthcare infrastructure, Farr said the County would also evaluate where the cases are occurring and how they are being transmitted, as well as the health department's ability to do adequate testing and timely contact tracing when considering imposing new restrictions. "Right now we have the ability to test anyone who's having symptoms and anyone who has been identified as a close contact to a confirmed case," Farr said. "We also look at our own ability to do timely contact tracing. We're stretched a little thin currently in this area but ... we're actively adding additional staffing to increase our capacity." Farr said one thing residents can do to help is simply answer their phone when the health department is trying to reach them, and call back because the department spends "a significant amount of time and resources" attempting to reach people and notify them that they are a close contact. As of Friday, a little less than half, 45%, of active Covid-19 cases in Missoula County were in the 20-29 age group, 18% were in the 10-19 age group, and 14% were in the 30-39 age group. Farr said that people in the 20-29 age group, who make up the majority of the county's active cases, are more likely to work jobs in restaurants, bars, grocery stores and coffee shops where they have more interaction public, and therefore may be more at risk of developing the COVID-19. Many people in that age range also live with roommates further increasing their chance of exposure, Farr said. "It is important to remember that while the severity of the disease may be minimal for you, you are still able to spread it to those who may be more vulnerable," Farr said. Farr urged everyone to limit social activities, practice physical distancing and adhere to the quarantine and isolation orders if contacted by health department staff. On Friday, Missoula County Public Schools sent a press release stating that the district needs help filling a number of positions including paraeducators, noon duty aides, custodians, and a pool of substitutes "as soon as possible." The email stated that many of the substitutes the district has "relied on for years" have been hired to fill positions within the Missoula Online Academy. The job listings can be found on the district's website, mcpsmt.org. The email came after the district's Board of Trustees voted Thursday to keep students in the current hybrid model until at least Nov. 9. City proposes new bans on tobacco, ban on animal trapping on city land The Missoula City Council is considering new ordinances that would ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, and would make it illegal to place animal traps on city land. On Wednesday, the City Councils Public Safety and Health Committee discussed and approved the ordinances in majority votes, meaning they will be open for public hearing before the council takes them up for final consideration. The ordinance that bans animal traps within city parks, trail and conservation lands, would also give a judge the ability to determine what restitution could be paid if a pet is caught in a trap, an event which Stephen Capra, executive director of Footloose Montana called a "PTSD-type situation" that "people never get over. Council also discussed a proposal to prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products and to regulate self-serve tobacco sales aims to reduce youth access to and use of nicotine-containing products. The ordinance defines "flavored tobacco products" as any product containing, made, or derived from tobacco or that contains nicotine, that "imparts a taste or smell other than the taste or smell of tobacco," including menthol, mint, fruit and other flavors. The ordinance would apply to any flavored tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars, hookah, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff, snus and electronic smoking devices. It is absolutely our responsibility as leaders in this community to take action when we're being asked to take action on a health issue, Councilor Mirtha Becerra said. Much of what we do in city council is provide a Missoula that is beautiful, healthy, equitable to our future generation. This is our future generation, it's kids that we're trying to protect. Councilor Amber Sherrill also noted that many flavored tobacco products are made to be hidden and can come in devices that look like highlighters or flash drives. E-cigarettes are now the most commonly used tobacco product among Montanas youth and 58% of Montana high school students have used an electronic smoking device in their lifetime, according to the 2019 Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey. County aims to 'level the playing field' for some businesses The Missoula County Board of County Commissioners is expected to pass a resolution that would give preference to businesses owned by people of color, women or people with disabilities that the county chooses through a vendor selection process. On Thursday, the Missoula County Board of County Commissioners expressed support for and also heard some pushback against the resolution that would give preference to businesses owned by people of color, women or people with disabilities who are registered with the Small Business Administration, or other organizations listed in the resolution. Commissioners said the resolution would help to even the playing field, but two members of the public expressed opposition, including a man who called commissioners and county staff "racist" and "sexist" for suggesting the resolution. City Council member Sandra Vasecka was one of the commenters who opposed the motion, which she also called "blatantly sexist and blatantly racist." Commissioners decided to wait to approve the resolution until "very specific and very supportive, objective data" is added to show that the preference will be a benefit to those groups, per the advice of Deputy County Attorney Brian West. "Any time we have a preference, especially one that's related to gender or race, we want to be on a very firm basis that the actual preference is narrowly tailored to specifically help those that is aimed at," West said. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 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. Actor Shahid Kapoor has urged his fans to check out half-brother Ishaan Khatters new film, Khaali Peeli, which debuted on pay-per-view on October 2. The film also stars Ananya Panday. Taking to Instagram stories, Shahid wrote, All the best @IshaanKhatter @AnanyaPanday and the entire team. Go Watch it you all. Ishaan in a recent interview said that director Maqbool Khan pitched the role to him as Nalasopara ka Guy Ritchie. He told Mid-Day, To summarise the films treatment in the context of Bambaiya characters, he pitched the role as Nalasopara ka Guy Ritchie. That was hilarious and genius at the same time. It drew me in as the film has the 90s flavour that I enjoyed. Hindustan Times mixed review of the film noted, Khaali Peeli, much like the title suggests, is a good enough option to while away your time on a couch this weekend. A popcorn-muncher straight from the belly of Bollywood, its a movie that will not ask much of you, and sometimes, thats what we need from our movies. Also read: Khaali Peeli movie review: Ishaan Khatter, Ananya Panday take you back to Bollywoods mindless masala years Ishaan will soon be seen in Mira Nairs sprawling TV adaptation of Vikram Seths A Suitable Boy, due out on Netflix. The drama also stars Tabu, Ram Kapoor, and newcomer Tanya Maniktala, among others. In the series, Ishaan plays Maan, a son of a politician, smitten by a courtesan, played by Tabu. A Suitable Boy has been an enriching experience and Im ever so excited for people to see it. Maan is one of the most interesting characters Ive read and portraying him on screen has been a delight, Ishaan said in a statement. Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Waves hit the shore as storm Alex reaches the French riviera's coasts near the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, on Oct. 2, 2020. (Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images) One Killed, 19 Missing in Floods in France and Italy PARIS/ROMEA fireman died and 19 people were missing in France and Italy after a storm hit border regions of the two countries, causing heavy flooding that swept away roads and damaged homes, authorities said on Saturday. The storm, dubbed Alex, ravaged several villages around the city of Nice on the French Riviera. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi called it the worst flooding disaster in the area for more than a century after flying over the worst-hit area by helicopter. The roads and about 100 houses were swept away or partially destroyed, he told French news channel BFM. At least eight people were missing in France, authorities said. These included two firemen whose vehicle was carried away by a swollen river, according to local witnesses cited by several French media. In Italy, at least one person died and up to 11 people were missing, local authorities said. A fireman was killed by a falling tree in the Valle dAosta region, while three people travelling in a van were swept away by flood waters in Val Roya on the border with France. Six German trekkers were among the missing after failing to return from a trip in the mountains in the province of Cuneo. Officials in the Piedmont region reported a record 630 mm (24.8 inches) of rain in just 24 hours in Sambughetto, close to the border with Switzerland. The Piedmont regional chief Alberto Cirio called on the government to declare a state of emergency. Television images shot in Italy showed several roads and bridges in the northwest of the country had been swept away by flood water and numerous rivers were reported to have burst their banks. Eric Ciotti, a member of French parliament who is from one of the worst affected villages in the area, Saint-Martin-Vesubie, said several villages were cut off as they are located in steep-sided valleys of the mountainous region. Meteo France said that rains of 450 mm (17.7 inches) of rain were registered over 24 hours in some areasthe equivalent of close to four months of rain at this time of the year. There was more rainfall than on Oct. 3 2015, when floods caused the death of 20 people in and around the French Riviera city of Cannes, Jeremy Crunchant, the director of civil protection, told France Info. Venice, a long-delayed flood barrier system successfully protected the lagoon city from a high tide for the first time on Saturday, bringing big relief following years of repeated inundations. By Tangi Salaun and Crispian Balmer Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 20:40:07|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close LONDON, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Even before the end of the latest round of trade talks between Britain and the European Union (EU) on Friday, the EU has launched legal proceedings against the island country as the British government refused to ditch plans to override parts of the Brexit divorce deal. But according to David Phinnemore, professor of European politics at Queen's University Belfast, a trade deal is till possible as the two sides have refrained from walking away from the negotiating table. LEGAL ACTION, NO SURPRISE According to Phinnemore, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government should not be surprised by the EU's position to pursue legal action. "First off, if you're going to break the terms of an agreement you've completed with the EU and there are mechanisms in place for either side to respond to infringement, then you must fully expect the other side to use those measures," Phinnemore told Xinhua. "I think they may have been surprised as to how willingly the EU wants to use them. And also possibly some of the backlash that it's been faced in terms of the reaction to the prospect of the UK not meeting its international legal obligations," he added. A deadline set out by the EU for the British government to remove sections of the Internal Market Bill expired on Wednesday. Observers say the "letter of formal notice" could eventually lead to a court case against Britain at the European Court of Justice. But according to Phinnemore, the fact that the EU has not walked away from talks over a post-Brexit trade deal means that they "clearly want to have an agreement with the UK". "The EU doesn't want to collapse the negotiations. But at the same time, it wants to ensure that the UK is meeting its commitments, its obligations towards the EU, as the nuclear option would have been to stop the negotiations, but there was no need to do that because you've got the infringement proceeding, pro-impeachment proceedings available to you," Phinnemore said. "I think it's following due process what was provided for in the agreement, and in doing so reminding the UK of its obligations and expectations but at the same time, not collapsing the talks on the UK-EU trade relationship." ONGOING TALKS Despite a lack of a major breakthrough in the trade talks, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Johnson have agreed to a video conference call on Saturday to "take stock" of negotiations and "discuss next steps". Phinnemore said that he believes that these talks are significant. "At some point, during any set of negotiations, which are highly technical, you'll reach the point where you need to bring in the principles to try and unlock the issues on which there continues to be an impasse. And it's always been anticipated that at some point, you would have to bring in the prime minister and someone from the EU side," he said. "I think what's important is the fact that we're running up against a deadline, time is running out," he said. "If there has to be an agreement for the end of October, middle of November, then you probably need to get the political decisions that will create the space for the technical negotiations to be drawn to conclusion, you need those big decisions taken sooner rather than later." SENSE OF URGENCY Britain and the EU ended the last round of formal talks in Brussels on Friday. Britain's Chief Negotiator David Frost said Friday that outlines of a trade agreement with the European Union (EU) are "visible" while in some areas familiar differences still remain. State subsidy and fisheries remain two sticking points for the Britain-EU talks. Frost said there has been some "limited progress" in level playing field but the EU need to move further before an understanding can be reached. Frost's EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, said there are "positive new developments" on some topics, but he warned there is "a lack of progress" on some important topics like the protection of personal data, climate change commitments or carbon pricing, as well as persistent serious divergences on matters of major importance for the EU. Meanwhile, London and Brussels have agreed to continue talks over the next two weeks ahead of the critical EU summit on Oct. 15. "If the UK government is serious about getting a deal, it's got to get that political agreement on the terms of that within the next week, 10 days, if you're going to keep the timetable whereby the agreement is in place for the first of January, so there is a genuine sense of urgency here," Phinnemore said. Britain and the EU started the lengthy and bumpy post-Brexit talks in March after Britain ended its EU membership on Jan. 31, trying to secure a future trade deal before the Brexit transition period expires at the end of the year. If there is no deal in place, Britain will trade with the EU on terms of the World Trade Organization. Enditem Is there anything more obnoxious than a health scold? About 40% of Democrats are "happy" that President Trump has caught COVID, according to a MorningConsult poll. Some have popped out of the woodwork and expressed just that, making their "I hope he dies" tweets the words they'll be remembered for. But some are a little smarter than that bunch, recognizing how repellent such a response is to normal people. Instead of death-wishing, they're concern-trolling. They're the Karens, hectoring President Trump and Republicans in general that he didn't wear a mask and of course he should have worn a mask, they know for sure he caught COVID by not wearing a mask and (they would have us think) they simply care so much about Trump's health. Democratic pols such as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are particularly prominent in this, as is Julian Castro: Im happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for COVID. Thank you to everyone for your messages of concern. I hope this serves as a reminder: wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands. Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 2, 2020 Joe Biden Always Wore a Mask, not just for himself but others around him. pic.twitter.com/E5dOgf7Iow Lopez (@LopezLovinLife) October 3, 2020 Biden tells @wxyzdetroit that he hopes Trump's positive test "changes the perception" about mask-wearing among people who thought "not wearing a mask made them somehow, I don't know, free or whatever." Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) October 3, 2020 I would love to hear what Trump's followers now have to say about wearing a mask and social distancing. Richard Caslon (@CaslonRichard) October 3, 2020 Joe Biden has once again reversed himself . . Now saying he'll demand every American to Wear a Mask . . *A National Mask Mandate On Sept 8th Joe Biden admitted that his proposal to implement a national mask mandate was unconstitutional Lawyerforlaws (@lawyer4laws) October 3, 2020 Pelosi Scolds Trump For Positive COVID-19 Test: Have To Wear Mask, He Invited It https://t.co/IgePTLcF7u pic.twitter.com/nmPnBPwcA9 The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) October 3, 2020 Mr. Presidentif these reports are confirmed, I wish you and the First Lady well. I hope this is a wake up call that this virus is not a hoax or something cured by injecting bleach. We need a plan, not the same divisive, dangerous rhetoric. https://t.co/9AfimT16EF Julian Castro (@JulianCastro) October 2, 2020 Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took this virus seriously. They wore masks, they social distanced, and they put forward plans to combat the pandemic. These results are the product of leading by example. https://t.co/ruabI1KDbT Julian Castro (@JulianCastro) October 2, 2020 Others are saying that because he didn't wear a mask in some photo-ops, he therefore deserved COVID. NOW? the mainstream media is showing trump with a mask on. A bit late aren't we? Scoot (@ImpeachmentHour) October 3, 2020 Trump to Biden 3 days ago: 'There's nothing smart about you.' Me to Trump today: Biden was smart enough to wear a mask. Frank Schaeffer (@Frank_Schaeffer) October 3, 2020 "But when I looked over to the right-hand side, not a single person on the Trump side, including the Trump family, Melania Trump, the Trump children, were wearing a mask," "And they walk in without masks, it was really a level of arrogance you rarely see," Dave Matt (@davematt88) October 3, 2020 Here is trump happily spreading the virus to others including the new SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett. I don't see a single mask in that room. pic.twitter.com/5lHbfjuSsu Just a Guy (@ClarkpDavidson) October 3, 2020 Just one problem with all this concern-trolling from the party of death threats: They don't know how Trump caught COVID. They're insisting that he caught COVID because he didn't wear a mask in this or that picture, often fully protected by White House protocol, which involves testing everyone who enters the presidential residence and offices. They're also ignoring that Trump often did wear a mask, just as he stated at the last presidential debate. Masks do help prevent the spread of COVID, and ought to be worn in many circumstances, but they are hardly foolproof. Big-mask-wearing Joe, remember, still had to be tested after being in Trump's vicinity, even with social distancing and no physical contact. Nancy Pelosi (and Anthony Fauci) have been caught in public without wearing masks, and somehow they didn't get it. Sometimes the mask wearers get it and sometimes the face-nakeds don't. Julian Castro unwittingly blew apart his health-scolding of Trump by noting that workers who did wear masks got COVID anyway: Farmworkers, postal employees, meat-packing workers, and food service staff didnt get the choice to skip work. They wore masks, social distanced, and quarantined to keep their families safe. Many still got sick, and relied on the Affordable Care Act for their health coverage. Julian Castro (@JulianCastro) October 2, 2020 The whole argument is garbage. The fact of the matter is, they have no idea how President Trump caught COVID. He's a president and just by the nature of the job he comes into contact with many people daily right there. It's also possible he caught it from Melania who caught it from a hospital on a visit to comfort sick children, to take another hypothetical example. It could have been any number of ways. The most likely way, it seems, might just be the Secret Service, which has been battling huge outbreaks for several weeks. An agent goes to headquarters to pick up some papers and even with a mask could have easily brought some back. And if you're the president of the United States, there's no getting away from the Secret Service. There's also the baleful possibility that one of our nation's enemies purposely exposed him to it - a few months ago a Chinese reporter with full blown COVID was trying to get into a presidential press conference, quite possibly to spread it. Sinister as that sounds, there's certainly reason to look into it now. The bottom line though is that how Trump caught COVID is not something any Democratic Party health-scold is actually going to know. At this early stage, there's simply no way of telling. So all the claptrap about masks, whether Trump wore one, or whether Trump deserved to get the disease is a partisan exercise. COVID is an invisible enemy. Democrats would do well to scrap the finger pointing until they have some 'science.' Right now, all they have is rabid Trump-hate. Democrats insist he caught it either from the White House event to introduce Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court (although she certainly was unscathed), a fundraiser in New Jersey, one of his big campaign rallies, contact with his young advisor Hope Hicks who also came down with it (and who knows, maybe he gave it to her), or something else that's near and dear to his heart. Image credit: Twitter screen shot, enhanced with FotoSketcher. ALBANY Changing deadlines for ending the 2020 Census have frustrated Capital Region officials as theyve battled with overcoming COVID-19 restrictions and convincing their residents to complete the census questionnaire so millions of dollars in federal and state aid arent lost. The deadlines for counting households that didnt complete census forms on their own have shifted several times between Sept. 30, Oct 5 and Oct. 31 in the past few weeks. Finally, Oct. 31 was set by a federal court ruling in California. Its really been difficult to plan and carry out our plans with the shifting deadlines, said Leslie Cheu, co-chair of the Rensselaer County Complete Count Committee. Officials handling local census drives thought it was going to be Monday, Oct. 5, the date announced by the U.S. Census Bureau. For hard-to-count areas such as the Capital Regions cities and rural towns, that date would have meant the loss of four weeks of additional efforts to completely count these communities. Its disappointing that the federal government continues to undermine a complete count by limiting operations for only five additional days when they could extend them by an entire month, David Galin, chief of staff for Mayor Kathy Sheehan and co-chair of the citys complete count committee, said when it appeared Oct. 5 was a hardline deadline to end the count. The pandemic forced communities to cancel their carefully structured campaigns that relied heavily on in-person contact. It also shut down libraries as centers for where residents without computers or internet access could sign on to complete the 2020 Census questionnaire. The local municipalities have been further hampered by not knowing what percentage of their households have been counted. The census bureau only provides a statewide percentage New York state is at 99.5 percent of households counted without saying what the count is in each county, city, town or village. Enumerators have been going door-to-door to count the households that didnt fill out the census forms online, over the telephone or through the mail. People can still respond this way. The census bureau issued a message to the enumerators Friday stating, As a result of court order, the October 5, 2020 target date is not operative, and data collection operations will continue through October 31, 2020. Employees should continue to work diligently and enumerate as many people as possible. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. At the Batchellerville Bridge in Edinburg, the message board erected by Saratoga County has been flashing the Oct. 31 deadline date for days and will continue to do so, Supervisor Jean Raymond, R-Edinburg, and chair of the countys complete count campaign, said Friday. Raymond said elected officials in Washington D.C. should have acted to extend the deadline by law instead of it having to go to court. Census officials had told Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross that if operations wrapped up Oct. 5, the Dec. 31 deadline of providing a count for reapportionment could be achieved. The Oct. 31 deadline, Raymond said, will help improve counting in some of the northern towns. The local complete count committees are still promoting the be counted message online, in person and through advertising such as signs and billboards. Cohoes is continuing our overall effort, said Theresa Bourgeois, the citys director of operations. We will work every day. Health Minister Robin Swann has told how he was left "floored" after almost 1,000 new Covid-19 cases were announced in Northern Ireland on Friday. The minister also urged people to "wise up" and "catch themselves on" - and warned that Covid-19 hospitalisations could soon exceed those of the first wave earlier this year. "Our Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor were warning that we could get to 1,000 cases per day in two to three weeks: we've got there today," Mr Swann told UTV last night. And in an urgent briefing to the NI Assembly last night, Mr Swann revealed that the rapid increase in positive tests was forcing hospitals to reactivate their crisis plans. "Unfortunately, the warnings about the resurgent Covid-19 threat are coming true in the starkest of terms," he said. "Cases are doubling every nine days and hospital admissions every 13 days. "If the current trends do not change in three to six weeks' time, hospital inpatient numbers will exceed those witnessed during the first wave. "Some of our hospitals are already having to switch on their surge plans for coronavirus." Read More The latest daily total of positive Covid-19 tests - 934 - is more than double the previous high for a single day. It's just two fewer than the highest daily total recorded in the Republic of Ireland back in April. Across Northern Ireland, 65 people are in hospital being treated for Covid-19 - nine of them are in intensive care, with seven of the nine on ventilators. In the Derry City & Strabane council area, the positive test rate is now 422 per 100,000, according to the new figures - one of the highest rates in the UK. There has been one further Covid-related death - a man in his 80s - bringing the toll to 582. In other areas of concern, the infection rate in the Newry, Mourne and Down council district is up to 213.7 while Belfast has risen to 161.5. The area with the next highest prevalence is Mid Ulster at 155.2. Read More As the shock figures were made public, Stormont's Chief Scientific Adviser warned people in Northern Ireland they should prepare for the potential of multiple winter lockdowns. Professor Ian Young said it's not yet certain whether intensive periods of lockdown will be required to halt the spread of coronavirus but it would be "sensible" to plan on that basis. The devolved executive's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Michael McBride, also advised people to prepare for a potential second lockdown. The Stormont Executive announced a wide-ranging series of restrictions for the Derry City and Strabane Council area on Thursday. Professor Young suggested the Executive may go for a full lockdown in the Derry City and Strabane area if rates are not brought under control soon. On the prospect of the whole of Northern Ireland having to be in lockdown for a two-week period - a so-called circuit break - he told BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show there are several options open to the Executive. "Probably one of the most effective is certainly this idea of a circuit breaker or a relatively short-term lockdown," he admitted. "I don't think that a single period of lockdown or circuit breaker would be sufficient to get us right through the winter." He added: "I think it would be sensible to plan for the possibility of one or more periods of circuit break over the course of this winter. "I don't know, I can't say, whether that's something that will be required, but I think it would be sensible to plan for it." But Stormont's expert adviser said he didn't think it appropriate to introduce such a measure over the Christmas holidays. Stormont Health Committee chairman Colm Gildernew said there were serious questions about the capacity to respond to the Covid-19 surge. "This record high number of new cases is a deeply worrying sign," he said. "Covid-19 is extremely dangerous and for each of those individuals who get a positive test result, there is a family and a community affected and at risk." Pat Cullen of the Royal College of Nursing said nurses were very worried by the rapid rise. "They are terrified, they're scared, they're anxious, they're worried that the services have found themselves under such enormous pressure in such a short space of time," she told BBC's Evening Extra programme Meanwhile, the Southern Health and Social Care Trust confirmed that another patient at Daisy Hill Hospital has died after contracting Covid-19 on the male medical ward. Six patients connected with the ward have now died following a Covid-19 outbreak at the Newry hospital. An outbreak at Craigavon Area Hospital's haematology ward has already claimed the lives of six patients. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav will be the Chief Ministerial candidate of the opposition alliance in Bihar Assembly Election 2020, the Congress has announced in a joint press conference on Saturday, after days of deliberations over the crucial issue of seat sharing. All components of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) have decided to come together as coalition for the Bihar Assembly elections. Congress, RJD, CPI, CPM and Vikassheel Insaan party will be part of this alliance under leadership of RJD. We want Bihar to prosper under Tejashwi Yadav, Bihar Congress leader Avinash Pandey said, as reported by ANI. According to the seat-sharing agreement that has been agreed upon by the alliance partners ahead of the three-phase election starting on October 28, the RJD will contest in 144 seats, while the Congress will contest from 70 seats. The Left parties will be contesting in 29 seats. The second and the third phase of the election will be held on November 3 and 7. The seat-sharing announcement comes after days of deliberations marked by initial disagreement among the allies. The exercise gained pace after RJD supremo Lalu Prasads emissary Bhola Yadav returned to Patna from Ranchi with his message on the distribution of seats among different partners, reports said. Lalu Prasad was not in favour of offering more than 60 seats to the Congress, it was claimed. Sources in Congress said they are not happy with the seat-sharing pact and no senior leader of the party will be there at Saturdays press meet. Congress general secretary and Bihar in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil has returned to Delhi on Friday night. To douse speculations, Gohil on Saturday tweeted, All is well. Tejashwi Yadav, the former deputy CM of the state, is the incumbent MLA of family stronghold Raghopur (Vaishali). The constituency has been represented by both Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi in past. Here is a detailed breakdown of seats 1. RJD will accommodate Mukesh Sahnis VIP and JMM in its quota of 144 seats 2. Congress to get 70 seats besides contesting by-poll to Valmiki Nagar Lok Sabha seat. 3. CPI(M) will contest on 4 seats 4. CPI will contest on 6 seats. 5. CPI(ML) will contest on 19 seats Out of 243 constituencies, 71 will go to the polls in the first phase, nomination filing for which is going on between October 1 and October 8. The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is also likely to announce a seat-sharing agreement on Saturday A mother who was found next to the body of her 'badly burned' daughter after a house fire died 'from pressure to the neck' as police probe a double murder. Dr Saman Mir Sacharvi, 49, and Vian Magrio, 14, were discovered dead at their home in Reedley, Burnley, by police at around 8.45am on Thursday. Lancashire Constabulary received a report of concern for the mother and child's safety and also discovered evidence of fire and smoke inside the house. Police have this afternoon revealed that Dr Sacharvi was assaulted and died from 'pressure to the neck' in findings uncovered during a Home Office post-mortem carried out today. A murder inquiry has been launched after Dr Saman Mir Sacharvi, 49, and Vian Magrio, 14, both pictured, were found dead inside their fire and smoke-damaged house in Burnley The force also confirmed a double murder inquiry into the incident is underway, with extra patrols being introduced in Burnley. The second body has yet to be formally identified by police but is believed to be Ms Magrio, and is said to have been found badly burned. A Lancashire Constabulary statement said: 'The woman has now been formally identified as Dr Saman Mir Sacharvi, aged 49. 'The body of the girl has yet to formally identified but is believed to be Dr Sacharvi's daughter, 14-year-old Vian Magrio, who was a pupil at Marsden Heights School in Nelson. The two lived together at the address. 'A Home Office post-mortem has today revealed Dr Sacharvi died as a result of pressure to the neck. She had also suffered an assault. 'Although the post-mortem investigation is ongoing for Miss Magrio, so we cannot yet give a cause of death, we can confirm she was found badly burnt inside the address. The second body has yet to be formally identified by police but is believed to be Ms Magrio, pictured, who was a pupil at Marsden Heights School in Nelson, Lancashire Police received a report of concern for the mother and child's safety and discovered evidence of fire and smoke inside the house (pictured on Thursday as police investigated the scene) 'Detectives are now treating the deaths as murder and their next of kin have been informed. 'They are being supported by specially trained officers and our thoughts very much remain with them and all of those who knew Dr Sacharvi and Miss Magrio, a pupil at Marsden Heights School in Nelson. 'We are now urging anybody with any information at all about the deaths to get in touch with us as soon as possible.' Investigators are urging anyone with any information about the deaths to get in touch as soon as possible. Supt Jon Holmes, Lancashire Constabulary's Head of Major Crime, said: 'This is a truly harrowing set of circumstances and my thoughts are very much with the loved ones of Dr Sacharvi and Miss Magrio. Lancashire Police said the two deceased have not been formally identified but their next of kin have been informed 'They have my deepest condolences at this awful time. We are now treating the investigation as a double murder inquiry and although we are still in the relatively early stages we have a dedicated team of detectives and staff working on it. 'They are following a number of lines of enquiry to piece together exactly what has happened.' He added: 'I would now appeal to anyone with any information about these two deaths to get in touch with us. 'Perhaps you have seen something suspicious close to the scene in recent days or weeks, maybe you have CCTV or dashcam footage taken in the area that you can share with us, or perhaps you think you know who may be responsible. 'Even if you think that the information you have is insignificant, please come and speak to us and let us be the judge. 'We also recognise that this will have caused concern in the local community and we would like to reassure residents that we have extra patrols in and around the area. If anyone has information or concerns they can approach any of our officers.' The Talegaon Police have lodged a case against seven persons for fleeing with illegal liquor stock worth 50 lakh, stored in a container, on Friday morning. The stock was seized by the Maharashtra state excise department during a raid conducted on Thursday night. The staffers at the excise department brought the container to their office, when the accused escaped with the container. Maharashtra excise inspector Nanabhau Phatangare has a lodged an official complaint in this regard. The complaint states that the container, with number plate MH 20 DE 0207, was confiscated by the excise department during the raid on Thursday night at Shankarwadi, near Somatane phata on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. The container was brought to the office premises located on Talegaon Chakan road where a panchnama was conducted, the complaint stated. The FIR further added, At around 1.10am, two cars with numbers MH 12 DM 2020 and MH 12 CD 2713 arrived at the office where some unidentified persons abused and assaulted the staffers including the complainant and took away the container in violation of the government rules. Inspector (crime) Shahaji Pawar said, It is a serious case where the accused prevented the government officials from discharging their official duties. The total illicit liquor stock kept in the container is estimated to be worth 50 lakh. Their details are being obtained and they will be arrested soon. The accused have been booked under 395 ( punishment for dacoity ), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from the discharge of his duty ), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace ), 506 ( criminal intimidation ), and 34 ( acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention ). Matteo Salvini is due to address a rally after his hearing on Saturday An Italian judge reviewing charges against far-right leader Matteo Salvini that he illegally detained migrants at sea delayed the hearing until November 20 so he could hear from senior members of the government, including Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Salvini made no comment as he went into the closed door hearing at the Catania court house which was held to determine whether he should face trial on charges that he abused his powers as then-interior minister to block 116 migrants from disembarking from the Italian Gregoretti coastguard boat last year, under his so-called "closed ports" policy. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years. If the opposition leader and head of the anti-immigrant League party is convicted for more than two years, he could well also be barred from holding public office for six years, preventing him from running for prime minister at the next election in 2023. Salvini's defence counsel as well as the prosecutor called for the case to be dismissed. But Judge Nunzio Sarpietro decided instead to hear from current Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, along with Prime Minister Conte, before making such a decision. Salvini, who had some sharp words on the hearing earlier in the week, appeared satisfied with the outcome. "It is not a political process. I found the judge to be a free person," he said, after having previously berated the local authorities for pursuing him while not doing anything about the mafia and serious crime. "The Italian justice system is a system which works," he said Saturday. - Rallies, debates - Salvini arrived in Catania on Thursday for three days of rallies, dinners and debates on issues from immigration to security in the city's port area. The League printed t-shirts and advertised cheap flights for the "Italians choose freedom" festival, which will feature fellow far-right head Giorgia Meloni, of the Brothers of Italy party, and bigwigs from ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia. Story continues Fellow rightwing travellers in Italy backed Salvini, with Giovanni Toti, regional president of Liguria and a Forza Italia member, slamming what he termed "the most absurd trial in the history of the Italian Republic." A 500-strong police force was tasked with preventing clashes between Salvini fans and leftwing protesters. Salvini had vowed to "plead guilty of having defended Italy and Italians". Among his accusers are a Nigerian family who claim they were "treated worse than animals" and are a civil party in the case. - 'Italians will decide' - The 116 migrants, mainly from Sudan, as well as central and western Africa, were rescued in the Mediterranean in two separate operations on July 25 last year after five days at sea. They were transferred to the Gregoretti on July 26, then held on the overcrowded patrol vessel under the fierce summer sun despite a scabies outbreak and a suspected case of tuberculosis. Fifteen unaccompanied minors were eventually allowed off on July 29 following pressure from Catania's juvenile court. The remaining migrants disembarked on July 31 after Salvini, 47, said a deal had been brokered with EU countries to take them. His defence team insists the decision to hold them was not Salvini's alone, but reached collectively within the government. Salvini, who has said Sicilian judges would be better off concentrating on jailing mafiosi than trying him, declared that it would be "the Italians, in the next elections, who will say whether I did the right thing or not". Senators lifted his parliamentary immunity last February. Analysts say the legal trouble is unlikely to hurt Salvini's popularity, but could in fact work in his favour. Salvini's fierce "Italians First" stance saw his popularity shoot up as interior minister, though his polling numbers slid significantly during the coronavirus lockdown, which overshadowed the migrant question. With the centre-left government promising to water down Salvini's harsh security decree which makes it easier to expel migrants, the stage is set for a fresh political showdown. The far right is hoping to cash in once more on a vote-winning issue. ide/bmm/dl BETHESDA, Md. (AP) President Donald Trumps doctor on Saturday painted a rosy picture of the presidents health as he remains hospitalized for coronavirus treatment. But that assessment was immediately contradicted by a person familiar with Trumps condition, who said the president was administered supplemental oxygen on Friday at the White House. As well, Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said the president went through a very concerning period Friday and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. The briefing by Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley and other doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center raised more questions than it answered, as the presidents physician left murky the issue of whether the president needed supplemental oxygen and declined to discuss exactly when he fell ill. Conley, in his briefing, also revealed that Trump began exhibiting clinical indications of COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon, earlier than known. The president was at Harrisburg International Airport in Lower Swatara Township, Pa., for a rally on Saturday, Sept. 26. Without wearing a mask, he greeted Pennsylvania lawmakers and gave an outdoor speech before a crowd of thousands. Dr. Sean Conley, physician to President Donald Trump, briefs reporters at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020. Trump was admitted to the hospital after contracting the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)AP According to the person familiar with Trumps condition, Trump was administered oxygen at the White House on Friday before he was transported to the military hospital. The person, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, Conley had said Trump has been fever-free for 24 hours as he updated the nation on the presidents condition from Walter Reed Saturday afternoon. Trump was admitted Friday after testing positive for the coronavirus and has been undergoing treatment. While Conley said the president is not currently on oxygen, he refused to say whether the president had ever been on oxygen, despite repeated questioning. Thursday no oxygen. None at this moment. And yesterday with the team, while we were all here, he was not on oxygen, he said. He said that Trumps symptoms, including a cough and nasal congestion are now resolving and improving. Hes in exceptionally good spirits, said another doctor, Sean Dooley. More: Where Trump was before being diagnosed with coronavirus: timeline President Donald Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, on Marine One helicopter. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)AP The administration has consistently been less than transparent about the presidents health as the virus spread inside the White House. Aides had declined to share basic health information about the president, including a full accounting of his symptoms, what tests hes undertaken and the results. The first word that a close aide to Trump had been infected came from the media, not the White House. In a memo released shortly before midnight, Conley did report that Trump had been treated at the hospital with remdesivir, an antiviral medication, after taking another experimental drug at the White House. He added that Trump is doing very well and is not requiring any supplemental oxygen. Conley, the White House doctor, declined to say when Trump had last been tested before he was confirmed to have COVID-19 late Thursday. He initially suggested that Trump was 72 hours into the diagnosis, putting the confirmation of the infection to Wednesday. Conley later clarified that Trump was administered an accurate test for the virus on Thursday afternoon, after White House aide Hope Hicks was confirmed to be positive and Trump exhibited unspecified clinical indications of the virus. The White House said Trump was expected to stay at the hospital for a few days and he would continue to work from the hospitals presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties. In addition to accessibility to tests and equipment, the decision was made, at least in part, with the understanding that moving him later, if he took a turn for the worse, could send a worrying signal. More: Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie tests positive for coronavirus after helping Trump prep for debate On Saturday, Conley said Trumps blood oxygen level is 96%, which is in the normal range. Trump has been treated with two experimental drugs, given through an IV, that have shown some promise against COVID-19. On Friday, he was given a single dose of a drug Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. is testing to supply antibodies to help his immune system fight the virus. Friday night, he began a five-day course of remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug currently used for moderately and severely ill patients. The drugs work in different ways the antibodies help the immune system rid the body of virus and remdesivir curbs the virus' ability to multiply. Were maximizing all aspects of his care, attacking the virus in multiple ways, Conley said. I didnt want to hold anything back if there was any possibility it would add value to his care. By JONATHAN LEMIRE, JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER, The Associated Press More: Trump met with much of Pennsylvanias GOP congressional delegation prior to COVID-19 diagnosis More than a dozen people have been killed and at least 30 injured in a car-bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan. Officials in the Ghani Khel district of Nangarhar Province said the October 3 blast targeted an administrative building that also housed some military facilities. Several armed gunmen reportedly attempted to enter the building after the explosion, but they were killed by security forces, provincial government spokesman Attaullah Khogyani told AFP. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, although officials blamed the Taliban. Provincial police spokesman Farid Khan said the victims included both members of the security forces and civilians. Taliban militants have stepped up attacks throughout Afghanistan even as the group is holding peace talks with government negotiators in Doha. Based on reporting by AFP and dpa Ghaziabad: The Rafale fighter aircraft that was formally inducted into the Indian Air Force's (IAF) famous 17 Squadron, the 'Golden Arrows', at the Ambala airbase in Haryana on September 10, is set to make its Air Force Day parade debut on October 8. The IAF made the announcement through a post on their official Twitter account. Talking about the aircraft that will be the part of the celebrations, IAF wrote, "The Rafale is a 4.5 generation, twin-engine omnirole, air supremacy, interdiction, aerial reconnaissance, ground support, in-depth strike, anti-ship and nuclear deterrence fighter aircraft, equipped with a wide range of weapons." #AFDay2020: Rafale The Rafale is a 4.5 generation, twin-engine omnirole, air supremacy, interdiction, aerial reconnaissance, ground support, in-depth strike, anti-ship and nuclear deterrence fighter aircraft, equipped with a wide range of weapons.#KnowTheIAF#IndianAirForce pic.twitter.com/Zv6VXc17q9 Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) October 3, 2020 The IAF which was founded on October 8, 1932, will celebrate its 88th anniversary at the Air Force Station Hindan in Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh). In pics: IAFs lethal flying machines that give India an edge over Pakistan, China Notably, the first five of IAF's Rafale aircraft arrived at Air Force Station in Ambala on July 29, 2020. The aircraft got airborne from Dassault Aviation Facility, Merignac, France on the morning of July 27 and reached India with a planned stopover en-route at Al Dhafra airbase in the UAE. The ferry was undertaken by IAF pilots and the aircraft covered a distance of nearly 8500 km from France to India. The aircraft is a part of 17 Squadron, the 'Golden Arrows', which was resurrected on September 10, 2019. The Squadron was originally raised at Air Force Station in Ambala on October 1, 1951, and in 1955, it was equipped with the first jet fighter, the legendary De Havilland Vampire. In August 1957, the Squadron became the first to convert on to a swept-wing fighter, the Hawker Hunter. Also read | Rafale fighter jets induction big and stern message to those eyeing Indias sovereignty, says Rajnath Singh "The Rafale aircraft will give India a strategic advantage in case of any aerial combat with China in the mountainous Tibet region as the fleet will be able to use the terrain to its advantage, destroy enemy air defence and incapacitate the surface-to-air missiles," news agency PTI quoted former Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal (retd) BS Dhanoa as saying. Besides Rafale, Mi-35, SU-30MKI 'Flanker', AH-64E Apache, C-130J 'Super Hercules', and C-17 'Globemaster' will also feature in the 88th-anniversary celebrations. #AFDay2020: C-130J Super Hercules - The C-130J is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. IAF has integrated this machine for Special Ops, HADR missions & air maintenance roles.#KnowTheIAF#IndianAirForce pic.twitter.com/u3sPdTaQlf Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) October 3, 2020 #AFDay2020: AH-64E Apache - The Apache is a twin-turbo shaft attack helicopter with a tandem cockpit for two crew & a tail wheel-type landing gear arrangement.#KnowTheIAF#IndianAirForce pic.twitter.com/S8Y68SckyF Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) October 3, 2020 #AFDay2020: C-17 Globemaster - The C-17 is a high-wing, 4-engine, T-tailed military-transport aircraft, capable of carrying large equipment, supplies & troops both by day & night. Extended reach and swift response.#KnowTheIAF#IndianAirForce pic.twitter.com/OHR5ep4sju Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) October 2, 2020 #AFDay2020: Mi-35 - The Mi-35 is a twin-engine turboshaft, assault, anti-armour helicopter capable of carrying 8 men assault squad with four-barrel 12.7 mm rotary gun in nose barbette and upto 1500 kg of external ordnance including Scorpion anti-tank missiles.#KnowTheIAF pic.twitter.com/bJEtAorqaz Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) October 2, 2020 Also read | Explained: Here's how Rafale fighter jet can give IAF huge edge over China and Pakistan Advertisement The Cerne Giant does not seem to have suffered too lonely a lockdown, being out in the open air and accessible from the fields around. My first glimpse of his generously endowed outline is from a layby where the A352 joins Duck Street in Cerne Abbas. The chalk figure, 180ft from head to toe, is waving his club from the hill opposite. His age and origins have long been argued about. Is he a prehistoric fertility symbol? A Roman depiction of Hercules? Or perhaps a 17th-century caricature of Cromwell, his unabashed anatomy mocking the Puritans? Historic: Cerne Abbas is a village in Dorset known for the Cerne Giant, an ancient chalk figure carved into hillside Dating him might sound difficult but Hannah Jefferson, of the National Trust, says: Just before lockdown, we took samples from the giants elbows and feet. Now scientific tests are under way to find out how old he really is. Cerne Abbas is as twee a huddle of thatch and ivy-clad Dorset cottages as you will see. Tourism normally fuels the village economy, its fortunes lying squarely with the manly figure. We all know what it is about the giant that gets people excited, dont we? says Annette Beardsmore, landlady of The New Inn. We do indeed. Ribaldry and innuendo inevitably attend the figure. In the past, villagers have been upset by commercial interests trying to hijack him with various stunts. Among the guilty are Paddy Power, Raleigh and The Simpsons, whose promoters once painted a white Homer in Y-fronts on a neighbouring hillside. All the same, in The Old Saddler arts and crafts shop, I find tea towels, mugs and aprons all glorifying his priapic image. And, in the Abbots Tearoom, families daintily nibble round the private parts of gingerbread giants. The Cerne Giant measures 180ft from head to toe and his age and origins have long been argued about TRAVEL FACTS The New Inn at Cerne Abbas, thenewinncerneabbas.co.uk, has B&B doubles from 100. For more informationationaltrust.org.uk Advertisement From here I set off to climb Giant Hill, into whose steep, chalk western flank the figure is carved. From Long Street at the village heart, Abbey Street takes me past a duckpond and through a graveyard skirting a ruined 10th-century Benedictine monastery. The monks are among the suspected creators of the giant, one theory being that early Christianity was entwined with a fertility cult. Another belief is that the figure was the work of anti-Papists at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, intended to satirise monkish habits. Up close, he appears composed of scoured white paths, each about a foot wide. I pause near his club-wielding right arm where its outlines meander off in parallel, one trail joining his torso at a T-junction. His breasts are roundabouts, his ribs cul-de-sacs. There has apparently been a long tradition of infertile couples visiting the giant by night. He is credited with numerous conceptions, including the late Marquess of Baths daughter Lady Silvy Cerne. One hard fact I discover, sitting on the summit, is that the giant enjoys stupendous views over the Cerne valley as he whiles away the centuries. Later this year, National Trust archaeologists reckon they will be able to give him an age range, at least. But I am left with a sense that he deserves more anonymity. So, long live your right to silence, I say to him. My favourite comment came from a lady I met in the Abbots Tearoom, who has lived in Cerne Abbas for more than 50 years. She said: By the look of him, Id say he is about 18, or in his early 20s at the most. And he always has been. Norway is modifying its Tromso naval base to accommodate American nuclear submarines. These modifications include a well-guarded berthing area for the largest American SSN (nuclear attack sub) the USS Carter, a modified (for intelligence work) Seawolf class SSN that underwent nearly a billion dollars worth of modifications and upgrades that turned it into a 12,100-ton boat that is 138 meters (453 feet) long and extends 10.9 meters (35.8 feet) underwater. Most American SSNs displace 7,900 tons and are 115 meters (377 feet) long. The largest American subs are the Ohio class SSBNs (nuclear powered ballistic missile carrying) boats which displace 18,700 tons, are 170 meters (570 feet) long and extend 10.8 meters (35.5 feet) underwater. The Carter has a crew of 141, and is 30 meters (100 feet) longer than the other two Seawolfs to accommodate a 2,500-ton middle section containing a MMP (Multi-Mission Platform) that can deploy divers and ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) and other special equipment for intelligence work. The Carter was the last of the Seawolfs built and entered service in 2004. The Carter was intended for undersea or amphibious intelligence work. In 2010 the Carter was used to assist South Korea in the aftermath of a recent attacks by North Korea, which included a North Korean mini-sub torpedoing and sinking a South Korean corvette. American SSNs often call at American naval bases overseas to take on supplies or for minor repairs. SSBNs stay under water for their three-month tours at sea and then return to their homeport in the United States to take on supplies and a new crew before going out again. The Carter retains its weapons which include eight torpedo tubes plus up to 40 torpedoes or cruise missiles and up to a hundred naval mines. All three Seawolfs are the quietest nuclear subs in American service, and probably the world. The Seawolfs, and especially the Carter, have already been operating near Norway in the northern waters that contain the largest Russian naval bases and most of its warships. The offshore waters are regularly used for Russian and NATO naval exercises. The smaller Olavsvern naval base is outside the port city of Tromso, 375 kilometers west of the Russian border and the Kola Peninsula where many of the Russian naval facilities are located. Olavsvern, which includes a tunnel complex accessible by seagoing ships, was shut down in 2009 but soon Norway found that it still needed a naval base that far north. By 2014 Norway was regularly allowing NATO warships to use part of the civilian port of Tromso and that led to the 2016 decision to reactivate Olavsvern as a naval base, especially for NATO and Norwegian submarines. In 2012 Norway sold the Olavsvern underground submarine bases for $17.5 million. Located outside the city of Tromso, next to highway E8, the former Olavsvern Naval Base is basically a water level tunnel dug into a mountain at the mouth of a fjord, one of the many deep-water channels that give the Norwegian coastline that heavily indented look. The tunnel can dock small warships or a submarine and has 25,000 square meters (269,000 square feet) of underground space. There are several tunnels down there, most of them dry. The above ground structures contain 13,500 square meters (145,000 square feet) of space. Built in the 1970s at a cost of several hundred million dollars, its industrial grade space hasn't been used by anyone since the military moved out in 2002. In 2015 the Norwegian military obtained a long-term lease for the Olavsvern underground facility and several other bases along the coast that had also been sold off, but were now deemed needed once more for Norwegian and other NATO naval forces. The Olavsvern underground dock is too small to handle the larger nuclear submarines, especially one of the three American Seawolf, but is a very safe place to store supplies, especially spare parts, for the Seawolf and other naval ships that want to use Olavsvern rather than returning to more distant naval bases equipped for that task. Washington: While President Donald Trump's re-election bid has been upended by his COVID-19 diagnosis, his challenger Joe Biden kept his campaign apace, after two tests came back negative. The former vice-president and his wife, Jill Biden, underwent PCR testing, which uses a nasal swab. Jill Biden was also negative. Trump and first lady Melania Trump revealed early on Friday that they both have the virus. Democratic presidential candidate former vice-president Joe Biden speaks at United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 951 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Credit:AP Biden returned to the trail in Michigan on Saturday AEST, while his running mate, Kamala Harris, travelled to Las Vegas. At his sole event in Grand Rapids, Biden largely stuck to his standard stump speech, vowing to be a president who will not forget working-class communities that have been overlooked in the past. The remarks were nevertheless freighted with the news of the day, as Biden wore a mask for the event's duration and bookended his comments with well-wishes for the first family. Jalna: BJP leader Pravin Darekar on Saturday accused Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut of playing politics on the Hathras incident in Uttar Pradesh wherein a dalit woman was brutally killed after alleged gang-rape. The Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Council told reporters that Deshmukh and Raut are conveniently avoiding speaking on rising incidents of rapes" in Maharashtra under the watch of the Sena-led MVA dispensation. Raut should speak about rape cases in Maharashtra," Darekar said. Responding to a query, the legislator said Yogi Adityanath government had not failed on any front, but opposition parties are doing politics. Meanwhile, Darekar demanded the state government declare wet drought in the Marathwada region, failing which protests will be held. 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 As the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an alliance of major opposition parties, finalises its plans to launch a series of protests this month against the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the political temperature in Islamabad has started to rise with talk of lawmakers switching sides and restrictions being placed on key opposition figures. PM Khan has told his party members to devise a strategy to foil the PDMs moves, which he claims are aimed at defaming the army and sparking chaos across the country. The main target of Khans ire is former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who the current PM claims is following the agenda of India by maligning the armed forces of the country. In an all-party conference in September, Sharif had launched a scathing attack on Khan, whom he termed a selected PM, and on the people who placed Imran Khan in power - a reference to the army high command. Sharif said the army leadership had created a state above a state in Pakistan and recounted numerous occasions when as PM his government had been undermined by the military. Khan has said that his government is working out a legal strategy to bring Sharif back from the UK. Notably, Pakistan has no extradition treaty with Britain. These efforts have repeatedly hit a wall. A local news channel reported that the Pakistan High Commission has made five attempts to have non-bailable warrants served on Sharif. But the British government said it doesnt want to get involved in the tussle. Shahzad Akbar, adviser to the PM on interior and accountability, had said that he had written letters to British authorities seeking Sharifs repatriation, adding that a formal application had also been sent for his extradition. The adviser was of the view that though there was no extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK, people who are wanted could be handed over to each other under special arrangements. Also, Khan has launched his own attack, telling the media that Sharif and India wanted to weaken Pakistan. Criticising Sharifs comments targeting the army, Khan claimed that this was being done to appease India. Nawaz Sharif is toeing Indias narrative, said PM Khan. Khan said that those who were enemies of the armed forces were enemies of Pakistan, calling on the whole nation to stay united. He said the government will defend its institutions and asked his party officials to defend the army and other state institutions on television talk shows. In a related development, the countrys broadcast media regulator PEMRA has prohibited TV news channels from broadcasting interviews and public addresses by proclaimed offenders and absconders. The controversial order will prevent TV channels from airing interviews and speeches by Sharif. As the president of the United States boarded the Marine One helicopter for hospital on Friday, he was leaving behind a dizzying array of questions. Donald Trump was bound for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he will be treated for COVID-19, the disease that has consumed the attention, and the health, of the country he leads for the past six months. Trumps diagnosis, announced on Twitter the previous night, has speculation swirling about his condition, an already-fraught election campaign and what would happen should he become incapacitated by the virus that has shaken America and the world. The Star talked to political observers about some of the most pressing implications of the presidents health problems. All eyes may be on Mike Pence In a scenario with so many moving parts how sick Trump is, whether others close to him will test positive one certainty is that the campaign must go on. For the minimum of 14 days that the president is in isolation, surrogates such as U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence, who has tested negative for the virus, and White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows, may play a greater role in campaigning. Given some of Trumps issues of late with messaging that, in some ways, could be a boon, said Renan Levine, a political science professor at the University of Toronto. I would expect that as others in the campaign handle Trumps messaging, that the messaging is going to be more on-theme. More on what needs to be done in the campaign to sway voters. Levine points out that polling throughout the 2020 presidential election campaign has been incredibly stable with Trump behind by about 10 points in the polls, and few undecided voters. But among those voters Levine calls wavering, who may be Republicans who dont appreciate Trumps persona, yielding centre stage to a more conventional conservative leader such as Pence may be just the motivation they need to go vote, with about a month left of campaigning. Stewart Prest, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University, said Trumps disappearance from rally stages will be a major disruption to what has been a leader-centred campaign. The approach to campaigning that Donald Trump favours is not going to be possible in the same way, bringing together large rallies. Hes a galvanizing figure for the campaign, so theres no one who can replicate that. It really is Donald Trumps party. An unpopular president could reap public sympathy We should expect there will be an outpouring of at least some sympathy for Trump even if some of the response is, Well, this was a risk that all the doctors told you was going to happen, Levine said. The question is whether that sympathy will translate into votes. On that front, Levine is doubtful. America is already so polarized, he said. People are going to respond to the news of Trumps illness as Republicans and Democrats. Markets will react to an even greater level of uncertainty Walid Hejazi, professor of international business at the University of Toronto, said the news that Trump has coronavirus leaves financial markets in an even more volatile position than they already were. Markets just hate uncertainty, Hejazi said. In this case here theres so much uncertainty. Start with the election itself. The stock market thrives when the future regulatory and political environment in the U.S. is predictable, and likely to remain stable. With Donald Trump behind Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden in the polls, the likelihood of future policy changes is already high. The uncertainty surrounding the presidents health just raises the stakes. Trump could change his tune on COVID-19 ... or not The president, as a 74-year-old man, is in a higher risk category for having a severe form of COVID-19, but the most likely outcome is that he will recover fully. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said on Bloomberg TV on Friday that a person with Trumps risk factors still had about a 90 per cent chance of recovering without having to be hospitalized. The White House said Trump was showing cold-like symptoms. In the evening, he was taken to the military hospital, reportedly as a precaution. But, given the presidents statements downplaying the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a chance that the president contracting the illness could change his tone and that of those who have followed him. Somebody who has been at the forefront of COVID-19 skepticism nationally, him contracting the virus may lend some credence to taking this more seriously, Prest said. But Prest and Levine are both watching closely for how Trumps disease progresses and whether that has a bearing on his supporters impressions of the pandemic. I will unequivocally state as an American that I pray and wish for the president to make a speedy and quick recovery, Levine said. As a political scientist, I worry that an implication of a speedy recovery may be that Americans who look to him will continue to not take the pandemic seriously. The second debate is in doubt A diagnosis of COVID-19 throws all of Trumps pre-scheduled campaign events out the window. The next debate between the candidates is scheduled for Oct. 15 exactly 14 days after Trumps positive COVID-19 test. Since Trump is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, and will likely have to isolate for 14 days after symptoms dissipate, its unlikely he will be able to make that date. The debate was already under scrutiny given how chaotic the first was, Prest said. The debate cannot go ahead with one candidate seriously ill so that portion of the campaign might be suspended. Changes already proposed to the debate structure, intended to promote a more productive dialogue between the two men, will likely have to be re-examined. More government figures will be tested, and isolate With the president isolating for at least 14 days, and at least one senior Trump adviser, Hope Hicks, having also tested positive, other government officials will have to be tested. One of the things we need to ascertain is how many people are affected, Prest said. If a significant portion of the executive branch are isolating, that raises questions about the functioning of government. This is one of the major reverberations associated with Trumps diagnosis. Biden must decide what to do while Trump is sick Biden has maintained a relatively low profile throughout the 2020 election campaign, seemingly preferring to allow Trump to speak for himself while enjoying a 10-point lead in the polls. Trumps COVID-19 diagnosis means he will be in public a lot less leaving Biden with a choice between trying to use that time to gain more Trump-free airtime, or taking a step back to respect his opponents inability to campaign. Much will depend on how quickly Trump recovers. A New York Times journalist Friday tweeted Biden would be pulling all negative ads about Trump. Notably, Trump continued campaigning in 2016 when Hillary Clinton experienced pneumonia. He even mocked her falling over during her illness in front of a rally crowd. There will be conspiracy theories Already online Friday, unfounded rumours started circulating on both the left and the right about Donald Trumps illness. Prest viewed the online chatter as a both a symptom of how polarized the United States is, and how we can expect the rest of the campaign period to proceed. Its going to make it harder to have a sustained and factually based conversation in the United States where everyone agrees on what happens, Prest said. Read more about: Donald Trump (74) has Covid. There was always an inevitability about this diagnosis. No mask-wearing. All those rallies. The swaggering assertion that he was the most tested (testing?) man in America. But then, when it happens, it's still a bit of a shocker. Trump's time in office, surely the most outlandish in White House history, now features another dramatic twist in the mouth of an historic election. He has tweeted to assure the world that he and Melania, who also has tested positive, are bearing up and will get through this TOGETHER! He's not the first world leader to have been infected. Boris famously battled it, too (some say he's still not over it). Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, also had it. He'd previously called Covid "a little flu". And Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, who'd advised drinking vodka to counter infection (a slightly more palatable prescription than Trump's bleach ingestion) also tested positive. Coronavirus is a killer. Over a million people worldwide have lost their lives to it. You wouldn't wish it on anybody and it's to be hoped that Donald, Melania and anyone else they may have smit on their rallying rounds will fully recover. But with Trump now out of commission as he quarantines, it's not quite clear yet how this will impact on an election due to be held in just a month. This week he faced off Joe Biden in a television debate moderated (there's a laugh) by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. The debate has since been described as a melee, a dumpster fire, a s*** show, shameful, disgraceful, appalling, shocking. It was all of the above. But also entertaining. There was name-calling, shouting, sniping, bluster and insult. It was like a marital tiff got badly, badly out of hand. Two men in the twilight of their years clawing lumps out of each other like alley cats. In terms of "winner", Joe Biden just about edged it. Which means that Trump was the real winner. Because, if he really is demonstrably the worst US president ever since US presidents began - which Joe Biden maintains he is and many would agree - the Democrat candidate should have been able to take him out at the knees from the word go. Equally worrying for the Democratic Party is the fact that their man would surely have come off far worse had Trump's consistent guldering not diverted attention from Joe's frequent lapsing into the dithery warble that has many observers, even on his own side, wondering if he's up to the job. At one point he yelled: "Will you shut up, man?" Yes, Trump would make a saint swear. But it's still a bit unsettling that the man who would replace him has a similar hair-trigger temper. If Joe loses the rag so easily in a debate, can we be assured that he won't go off on one should Kim Jong Un threaten nuclear missile attack? Over and over again, I think to myself ... America, that great nation of over 330 million souls. And Joe Biden is the best they can come up with to run against the ego-maniacal Trump? For now, Mr Biden's chief concern will, understandably, be getting himself tested for Covid. Both men - Biden is nearly 78 - are in one of the most vulnerable age groups. And the virus is said to be more easily spread by shouting. Trump at the debate was like a spray gun. This week, the most bizarre election in US history became even more bizarre. Who could have foreseen such a scenario? A ballot box on one hand - and a thermometer in the other. Local hero a better fit for recognition The Royal Mail is marking Black History Month by repainting several postboxes. The one in Belfast salutes comedian Lenny Henry. I've no problem with Sir Lenny. But mightn't a local hero fit better? Andy George, of the National Black Police Association, is a man well deserving of honour. Another great man was Olaudah Equiano, a freed slave who, in 1791, visited Belfast, where he was much feted for his memoir, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. One of the most affecting works I've ever read. My choice of book to mark the month. Council needs to get on their bike Disagreement at Belfast City Hall (now there's a novelty) over the choice of a new car for the Lord Mayor. They've gone green with an electric Audi - cost 53,150. It will be leased, though, not bought. Sinn Fein favoured a lower-cost Hyundai. Wouldn't an even cheaper - and greener - option be to ask the Lord Mayor to get the bus, like the rest of us? The odd taxi? A bike even? It's not as if they're short of cycle lanes around City Hall. Im not seeing red over a puppet Spitting Image, which returns to the telly tonight on Britbox, has apparently lost its nerve over the Ed Sheeran puppet. Expand Close Spitting Image, which returns to the telly tonight on Britbox, has apparently lost its nerve over the Ed Sheeran puppet / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Spitting Image, which returns to the telly tonight on Britbox, has apparently lost its nerve over the Ed Sheeran puppet Originally, it had carrot leaves coming out of its head. It was felt this might be seen as "gratuitously offensive" to redheads. As a redhead myself, I'm offended that they think we're so easily offended. And is the new puppet, which now has turnip leaves attached, any less "gratuitously offensive" ... to turnips? By PTI HATHRAS: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has completed its probe into the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman after an alleged gangrape, a Hathras administration official said on Saturday. The administration has also lifted restrictions on the media's entry into the village, a day after outsiders, including politicians, were barred from meeting the victim's family due to the ongoing SIT probe, the official said. "Only the entry of media has been allowed into the village of the victim as the probe of the SIT has completed," Joint Magistrate Prem Prakash Meena told reporters. ALSO READ | UP government showed it doesn't believe in fundamental rights: Pawar attacks Yogi Adityanath He also refuted allegations that the administration had confined the victim's family and confiscated their phones. Amid country-wide outrage over the incident, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on Wednesday formed a three-member SIT which was instructed to submit its report by October 14, according to officials. The Hathras administration had on Thursday clamped prohibitory orders under CrPC section 144, which bars assembly of more than four people, in the district where political parties had reached and staged protest to demand justice for the young woman, who died earlier this week, a fortnight after her alleged gangrape here. Meanwhile, Yogi Adityanath has rushed senior officials, including the additional chief secretary (home) and DGP to Hathras, to meet the family of the alleged gangrape victim. Additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi and Director General of Police H C Awasthi have left for Hathras and would be submitting their report to the chief minister upon returning, a government spokesperson said. ALSO READ | Ram temple foundation laid, but jungle raj reigns in UP: Shiv Sena's jibe at Yogi Adityanath government We have left for Hathras and will meet the family members and take detailed information about the incident, Awasthi said when contacted. After returning from there we will be submitting a report on the entire incident to the chief minister, he added. The 19-year-old woman was allegedly gangraped in a Hathras village on September 14. She was taken to Aligarh hospital in a serious condition from where she was referred to Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she died. The incident led to nationwide outrage with political parties staging protests and demonstrations. Dr Reddys Laboratories has sought permission from the Drugs Controller General of Indias (DGCI) to conduct the phase 3 human clinical trials of Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine to treat the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), according to news agency PTI. Russias sovereign wealth fund has reached an agreement with the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm for clinical trials and distribution of its experimental vaccine, which was approved by the Russian government in August. Follow latest updates on coronavirus here The Dr Reddys Laboratories has applied to the DCGI seeking permission to conduct phase-3 human clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 developed by Russia. The DCGI will carry out a technical evaluation of the application before giving its approval, PTI quoted a source as saying. The phase 3 trial of Sputnik V, developed by Gamaleya National Research Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), is underway in Russia since September 1 on around 40,000 subjects, they added. According to sources cited by the agency, it would be multi-centre, observer-blind, randomised controlled study. The RDIF had earlier said that upon regulatory approval in India, it shall supply 100 million doses of the vaccine to the Indian pharma company. Click here for full Covid-19 coverage Russia has a good history as far as manufacturing vaccines is concerned; they make good vaccines so we presume this vaccine is good. They have published the first study of 76 patients in the medical journal The Lancet which is showing good effectiveness and good antibody immunity generation, Dr Balram Bhargava, director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), had said when RDIF and Dr Reddys had agreed to collaborate. (With PTI inputs) Is it just me, or are you beginning to get the impression that a lot of people do not give a damn about the 2020 Census? It could be just me. The 2020 Census first started being promoted back almost three years ago. There were segments pushed through every news outlet in the country, there were announcements in newspapers, there was an online campaign, and there were public service ads that tried to get everybody excited. The Census Bureau partnered with corporations to get the word out about the Census. They provided resources to faith groups so that they could preach about it. And average citizens were encouraged to talk about the Census with their friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and strangers on the street. But, again, that was back in 2018. Once 2020 got here the promotions went into overdrive. Evidently the two years of nonstop pandering didnt get everybody as hyped up as the Census Bureau had hoped so they adopted a new approach. It was an approach that has failed many times in the past, but they tried to educate people. Yes, somewhere in a government office it was decided that people just needed to understand how vital the findings of the Census really are especially it seems to Census workers, politicians, their partners, and affiliates. They took a bolder course to get the world out about the importance of the Census as well as the consequences of ignoring it. They got late night comedians to talk seriously about it. It was described as being critically important mainly because the Census determines how many representatives each state has in the House of Representatives. The number is adjusted after each Census, and after the 2020 Census Alabama stands to lose one, possibly two seats. A lot of Alabamians dont seem to mind how that sounds at first listen whether it will hurt them in the long run or not. Alabama ranks last in the country for participating in the 2020 Census. As of September, 81% of households had been counted. The point of the Census is to count every man, woman, and child in the United States whether they are citizens or not. This count is said to then provide communities the statistics they need in order to plan for new schools, or highways, or emergency services. I dont know how that pairs now with police departments being defunded and schools being closed across the country. The first deadline for the Census form to be completed was April 1 a super fitting date and it was extended to the end of July, and then to mid-August, and now to October 5, unless another extension takes the deadline to October 31. It is almost like they are desperate for response. We can all agree they have certainly begged. If you lost or threw away your first form, a second one was mailed. Then there were a couple of postcard reminders. It was said to be the easiest year ever in history to respond to the Census because people could even fill out the forms online. But even in these historic timesduring a pandemic where literally almost everyone in the country was stuck at home for months even in Alabama and some people are still not interested in answering questions to the government about their age, sex, race, or whether they rent or own. It is almost like nobody cares. ButI guess it could be just me. Amanda Walker is a contributor with AL.com, The Selma Times Journal, Thomasville Times, West Alabama Watchman, and Alabama Gazette. Contact her at Walkerworld77@msn.com or at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist. A special UK Home Office chartered plane flew only a single migrant out of the country after last-minute legal challenges blocked the deportation of 29 others. The flight to France took off from an unnamed airport on Friday and is believed to have cost at least 1,00,000 pounds. According to Home Office sources, lawyers representing dozens of asylum seekers who were due to be returned waited until the final possible moment to lodge appeals which would prevent them from being put on board the charter plane. In 18 cases, lawyers lodged claims under human rights laws. Six further cases involved allegations of modern slavery. Five of those whose removal was postponed had already been deferred from an earlier flight. The lone migrant deported to France was a Sudanese national. As per the Dublin III Regulations, asylum seekers who have previously claimed refugee status in another EU country can be deported there, however, the current law allows lawyers to submit challenges at any stage of the process, including at the last minute. The flight failure came as it emerged the number of migrants living in budget hotels has gone up to more than 9,500. In early September, the figure was 8,000 spread across 91 properties in 51 local authorities. Asylum seekers are entitled to 37.75 pounds per week for food, clothing and toiletries. Matthew Rycroft, the Home Offices most senior civil servant, said: There are more people coming into the asylum system at the moment than are leaving it and that is because of Covid." Of the 9,500 living in hotels, 1,200 have been denied asylum and are awaiting deportation, the public accounts committee heard. Around 2,500 have been granted asylum and can leave after suitable accommodation is found for them. A Home Office spokesman said: On this mornings flight we received a large number of first-time human rights claims, which have to be given appropriate periods of consideration. The governments efforts to facilitate entirely legitimate and legal returns of people who have entered the UK through illegal routes are too often frustrated by last-minute challenges submitted hours before a scheduled flight. These claims are very often baseless and entirely without merit, but are given full legal consideration, leading to removal being rescheduled, and can effectively result in the timing out of a return due to the stringent Dublin Regulation. It is right that we seek to remove migrants who have travelled through a safe country and have no right to remain in the UK i people should claim asylum in the first safe country they enter and we make no apologies for pursuing removals." Liverpool star Mane has tested positive for coronavirus. The Reds winger is the second member of the squad to test positive for Covid-19 Sadio Mane will miss Liverpools trip to Aston Villa. The Senegal forward is in self-isolation after his positive test, with Jurgen Klopps plans affected once more by the growing spectre of coronavirus. According to the club, Mane has displayed minor symptoms of the virus but feels in good health overall. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates Remaining Gracious Button-Making Machines No matter how serious President Trumps bout with COVID-19 turns out to be, his diagnosis has already revealed an illness in the country at large. Rather than rooting for the presidents recovery, some decided it was fitting to kick him when hes down.Almost instantly after Trump tweeted early on Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the coronavirus, a series of insults, mean jokes and ill wishes began to appear on social media. They havent let up.The combination of the unceasing partisanship of our times with the unending anger that sometimes seems to dominate social media has left at least some people incapable of expressing sympathy, or without any sense of shame about expressing malicious feelings toward the nations leader during a time of trouble.On social media, people have expressed hope that Trump ends up on a ventilator, or worse. Many suggested that he might be faking his illness. Some have wished that he infect other Republicans. A tweet posted minutes after Trumps announcement that read, my tl (timeline) just turned into whatever the opposite of a prayer circle is, has received more than 300,000 likes. One illustration showed the words "thoughts" and "prayers" tattooed on a pair of extended middle fingers.By Friday morning, Merriam-Webster reported that searches for schadenfreude the German word for taking pleasure in someone elses misfortune had spiked by more than 30,000 percent.Many threw Trumps own past words back at him, parodying his past parade of insults. Just saw thousands of muslims dancing on a rooftop in jersey city . I like people who dont get covid . He demanded Obamas birth certificate, Im going to need to see his COVID-19 test and his tax returns. Theres no question that Trump has routinely insulted his opponents mocking a disabled reporter and a Gold Star mother, calling numerous women who have questioned him nasty, and suggesting that non-Anglo women members of Congress all native-born or naturalized citizens return to their countries of origin.When Utah Sen. Mitt Romney announced in March that he had tested negative for the coronavirus not long after casting the sole Republican vote in favor of Trumps impeachment Trump tweeted sarcastically, This is really great news! I am so happy I can barely speak. He may have been a terrible presidential candidate and an even worse U.S. senator, but he is a RINO, and I like him a lot!If Trump has set a bullying tone, however, many Democrats have forgotten the celebrated admonition from former first lady Michelle Obama, when they go low, we go high.Trump has been a polarizing figure, the fourth president in a row that roughly half the country couldnt stand. With just over a month to go before the election, partisan tempers have been running high. For his critics, who have long criticized his often-dismissive response to the pandemic, theres a sense that his own illness is just some form of karmic debt.Theres been a lively debate in political science circles in recent years about whether the general populace is as polarized as political elites, such as elected officials and party operatives. The response to Trumps illness suggests that average individuals may be more polarized than the professionals.Elected officials, activists and prominent members of the media have remained gracious in a way rank-and-file Democrats have not.Politicians who have been regularly insulted by Trump, including Romney , House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo , all extended good wishes for the Trumps health.Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery, tweeted Joe Biden . We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family.Its notable, however, that many of the responses to his tweet attack either Biden or Trump. Biden campaign manager Jen OMalley Dillon sent a memo to campaign staff warning, As this situation continues to unfold, we ask that you refrain from posting on social media unless otherwise directed by your manager.Theres a risk for people directly involved in politics in attacking an opponent on a personal level when hes ill. In Georgia, Republicans expressed offense at a late-night tweet from state Sen. Nikema Williams, who chairs the Georgia Democratic Party. Given the timing, her tweet offered an implicit criticism of Trump: Looks like somebody should be more consistent with wearing a mask like our next POTUS @JoeBiden.Georgia Democrats noted in turn that Republican Congressman Doug Collins tweeted on the night of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs death condolences not for her but for the more than 30 million innocent babies that have been murdered during the decades that Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended pro-abortion laws.Collins opponent in a U.S. Senate race, Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler , took to Twitter on Friday to score a political point. Remember: China gave this virus to our President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @FLOTUS, she wrote. WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.In his 1933 novel, Nathanael West describes a group of cynical journalists drinking at a bar who make fun of someones religious experience. They were machines for making jokes, he writes. A button making machine makes buttons, no matter what the power used, foot, steam or electricity. They, no matter what the motivating force, death, love or God, made jokes.Social media seems similarly to have trained people to make snarky or even obnoxious comments regardless of the seriousness or magnitude of the real-life events theyre commenting on. Many of the attempts at finding humor in Trumps diagnosis were essentially mild, adapting tropes that have recurred all year, such as the idea that theres something especially cursed about 2020, or that the scriptwriters of the reality show we all seem to be living in have pushed things too far.But many posts were of the couldnt have happened to a nicer guy variety, suggesting nothing would change about Trumps work habits during quarantine as long as the remote for his TV is still working. Many people made either lewd suggestions about the closeness of his relationship with aide Hope Hicks, who was reported Thursday to be infected before the Trumps, or attempted plays on her name such as Hope is contagious.Would he lose any voters if he shot himself in the middle of Fifth Avenue? asked novelist Gary Shteyngart Making fun of presidents is a time-honored tradition. Perhaps there was something irresistible about mocking Trump after he fell prey to the worst infectious disease to hit the country in a century, one that he suggested would soon go away as recently as Thursday. Debate footage from Tuesday of Trump saying that Biden had taken mask-wearing to an extreme has played repeatedly on television since his diagnosis.He failed to protect the country, George Conway , a frequent Trump critic and husband to Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, tweeted as the news broke. He couldnt even protect himself.The alternatively angry and gleeful reactions to Trumps illness, however, reflect something other than mere disagreement. They express disgust. They also suggest that politics is something more akin to war, with no sympathy or humanity involved. Trump himself has spent much of the campaign alleging that Biden is senile, while during Tuesday's debate belittling Biden's son's addiction.No matter what happens to the other side is all fair game, because their loss is necessarily our gain. Not long ago, Americans recognized that even when they disagreed with a president, he represented the nation as a whole. During the transition between their presidencies, George W. Bush told Barack Obama, Ultimately, regardless of the day-to-day news cycles and the noise, the American people need their president to succeed.The old expression was respect for the office, if not the man. In this century, no president can count on that kind of automatic respect, just venom. A dismembered body of a teenage Dalit girl, who was reported missing for around a week by her family, was found in a field in Kanpur Dehat by villagers, police said on Saturday. The body of 15-year-old Laxmi Kumari was found by villagers, who were on a search for her in a field. The villagers found dismembered parts strewn in different places, said Kanpur Dehat superintendent of police Keshav Chowdhury. The body parts were being eaten by the dogs in the field, police said. Laxmis father said he identified his daughters body through the clothes found nearby. Laxmis parents had lodged a complaint with the local Roora police station, fearing that she might have been killed after she went missing on September 26, police officials said. In his complaint, the teenagers father had accused his two brothers Brajlal and Jiyalal of murdering his daughter over an ongoing land dispute. The two accused have been taken into custody, the SP said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Married At First Sight star Jules Robinson and Cameron Merchant have welcomed their first child together. On Saturday, Jules, 37, shared an emotion-filled video of her birthing experience before confirming their son's arrival. She also revealed their boy's sweet name, calling him Oliver Chase Merchant. He's here! On Saturday, Jules Robinson announced the birth of her baby boy Oliver in a sweet Instagram video 'I would do it a thousand times again for you Oliver Chase Merchant. Our little man has arrived,' she gushed. 'Surprise, it's a boy, healthy and beautiful and my heart is full. We are home now and enjoying the love bubble and getting to know our lil (sic) man Ollie who has the world ahead of him.' The heartwarming footage showed Jules and her husband, 36, dancing next to her hospital bed - with Cam sweetly stroking his wife's body as she prepared to go into labour. Adorable! Jules confirmed the little one's arrival with a sweet image of his tiny hand against hers The short clip then cut to the arrival of their baby boy, showing a tiny little hand clinging on to his mum as she recovered in hospital. Proud new dad Cameron shared a picture of himself holding his son's hand shortly after the birth, praising 'amazing' Jules in the process. 'Hold on tight little one.. This thing called life is an amazing ride,' he said. 'So thankful to welcome a healthy and gorgeous little Oliver Chase Merchant into our lives. 'What an incredible experience and one that I will never forget. Mum was amazing throughout and doing well and I'm not sure I can describe the love I have and so thankful to hold your little hand throughout.' So sweet: Proud new dad Cameron later shared a picture of himself holding his son's hand shortly after the birth, praising 'amazing' Jules in the process There was speculation their newborn had arrived yesterday, after Cameron was seen bringing a number of supplies to the Sydney hospital where Jules is currently a patient. After her Instagram announcement, Jules also gushed about the new arrival on her new 'mummy blog' Instagram page, Baby Cub and Lady Lumps. She shared a picture which read: 'Welcome to the world baby cub. Oliver Chase Merchant.' She captioned the snap: 'Babycub has a name! I couldn't love you anymore lil Ollie.' Heartwarming: The sweet footage showed doting husband Cam stroking his wife's body as she prepared to go into labour Over the moon: Jules also announced the news on her new 'mummy blog' Instagram page, Baby Cub and Lady Lumps The happy couple announced they were expecting their first child in April, via a spread in Stellar Magazine. Jules had initially said her little one was supposed to be due last Friday. The popular reality star had always been open and honest with fans during her baby journey, most recently said she was 'struggling to walk' late last month after gaining 17.5kg during her pregnancy. In a series of Instagram posts, she said: 'As the end is near... well actually the start of new beginnings. 'I think back to when my bump was so little, but to me it was so big. Love: Jules and her husband Cameron met on season six of Married At First Sight. They were legally married in November 2019, airing their wedding day on A Current Affair 'Fast forward to photo three and 17.5 kilos heavier and yep the struggle is real. I can only just walk by night, it's more of a slide,' she added. The red haired beauty went on to say: 'As I have said before, this has been a time to 'not let myself go' but to just 'go with it' and not feel anything but gratitude and embracing all the extra lumps, bumps, and weird and wonderful changes going on.' She also said the most important thing is her 'growing baby is healthy as that's all that matters'. Jules and her husband Cameron met on season six of Channel Nine's Married At First Sight, which was filmed in late 2018 to early 2019. They were legally married in November 2019, airing their wedding day on A Current Affair. It was reported the couple recently bought a $1.8million property on Sydney's Northern Beaches. THESSALONIKI, Greece - Doctors marched with their families and a few friends in Greeces second-largest city Saturday not to protest, but to debunk misinformation about face masks circulating during the coronavirus pandemic. A few dozen people fast-walked and ran 2 kilometres (1.25 miles) through central Thessaloniki while wearing face masks and then measured their oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, finding them all normal. Opponents of mandatory face mask use have spread the claim that wearing face coverings makes people short of breath and actually is bad for their health. Doctors specializing in respiratory medicine wanted to prove them wrong. Face masks, alongside social distancing and personal hygiene, are the only measure of protection against the coronavirus, Dr. Iraklis Titopoulos, a pulmonologist, told The Associated Press after the demonstration in Greece. I would never have believed that such a large part of the population would deny the obvious, he said. A lot of individuals with chronic lung obstructions are pressing their doctors to write affidavits that would exempt them from wearing masks, Titopoulos said. Others are asking to be excused from going to work. New coronavirus cases, but not deaths, have surged in Greece since early August, with nearly 80% of the countrys more than 19,300 confirmed cases reported since then. With the summer tourism season now over, authorities say people not wearing masks and failing to keep social distancing are to blame for the surge. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Saturday that while local lockdowns will be used to keep the coronavirus from spreading, a second nationwide lockdown is almost inconceivable. At the same time, he said he expected a very difficult three to four months ahead. ________________________ Demetris Nellas reported from Athens, Greece Read more about: Thehe scene of a road crash involving a Dublin Bus and a car at the junction of Northumberland Road and Haddington Road in Ballsbridge Friday night which left a number of people injured. Photo: Damien Storan. Two men are in a serious condition and eight people were rushed to hospital last night following a collision with a Dublin Bus and a car in south Dublin. Emergency services were called to the scene at the junction of Northumberland Road and Haddington Road last night at 10.45pm. Units from the Dublin Fire Brigade, Gardai and Ambulance Service attended the scene of the collision, where eight people were rushed to St Vincents University Hospital, including both occupants of the car. lts understood that two passengers from the bus, who are both male, are currently in a serious condition. One of the cars involved in the collision had come to the attention of Gardai prior to the crash and the An Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) have been notified of the incident. The scene remains sealed off for technical examination and the junction is currently closed to traffic. Road users are advised that diversions are expected to remain in place for most of the day. Gardai have appealed for witnesses. "Gardai at Irishtown are appealing for witnesses to this collision to come forward. They are also appealing to those who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) from the area at the time to make it available to them," said a garda spokesperson. "Anyone with information is asked to contact Irishtown Garda Station on 01 6669600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station," they added. Chandigarh Union minister for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday defended the farm laws enacted recently by the Centre and accused the opposition parties of creating political hooliganism in the name of dissent. Whatever happened in Rajya Sabha the day these Bills were passed, the way a tractor was set on fire at Rajghat by Congress workers, and now attacks on BJP offices and dharnas outside BJP leaders houses in Punjab, all this show the real plot, he said. Puri, as per BJP insiders, was specifically sent by the party high command to Chandigarh to hold a press conference on the issue. He also said the Narendra Modi government was committed to safeguarding the interests of farmers and minimum support price (MSP) system will continue. Misinformation, disinformation and outright lies are being spread that the Centre intends to dismantle the MSP system, Puri told the media. He said: Lies are being spread that farmers land will be snatched by big corporates. Sale, lease or mortgage of farmland is prohibited. Farmers land is also protected against any recovery. All this is mentioned in the Bills. The Union minister sought to know from the Congress and other opposition parties if they were opposing the farm Bills then why 33 of their 107 MPs in Rajya Sabha remained absent from the House on September 20. The ordinances were promulgated in May. Go through the Congress manifestoes of 2017 (Punjab Assembly polls) and 2019 (Lok Sabha), he said, adding former prime minister Manmohan Singh and former deputy chairman of erstwhile Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia had said that these things should be implemented, apparently referring to the new farm laws. Claiming that the new farm laws were a win-win situation for everyone, he said the BJP-led government wanted to put money in farmers pockets by liberating them. When pointed out that agriculture was a state subject, Puri said that it was mentioned in the Constitution that the Union government can legislate in this domain in the national interest. Farmers will be the real beneficiaries as they will get better prices, he said. Avoids direct attack on SAD Puri, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Amrtisar seat, avoided a direct attack on Badals-led Shiromani Akali Dal that recently snapped ties with the BJP over the new laws. However, without naming Harsimrat Kaur, who resigned from the Modi cabinet last month, he said till September 6, she thought the Bills were good for the farmers. About the SADs claim that they had raised their concerns over the farm reform laws with the Centre, he said, Where and when it was raised, I do not know. Som Parkash ji (union minister) and I also sit in the council of ministers. Whatever information was sought on the Bills was provided to the SAD. They asked for a written assurance from the Union agriculture minister and a statement in Parliament on the MSP, which was done. I dont know what happened in three days ahead of the first Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha, he said. Union minister Som Parkash said the SAD had supported the ordinances. Even former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal also spoke in favour of these Bills, he said. Black and Latino residents are the ones most often given a citation by the California police for minor, non-traffic infractions such as sleeping in public or loitering more than their White counterparts. According to a study, Black residents account for 30 percent of the non-traffic infraction citations from 2017 to 2019 while only making up 7 percent of the population in Los Angeles. On the other hand, Latino residents in Hayward, just outside San Francisco, account for 61 percent of non-traffic infraction citations even though they comprised only a third of the population. Also, every person given a citation for marijuana possession in Hayward from 2017 to 2019 was a person of color. The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area released the study on Sept. 30. The study also found that Black adults account for 63 percent of all loitering citations issued by the police. And that they were 3.8 times more likely to be issued non-traffic infraction citations than the White adults. Generally punishable by a fine, these citations include owning a dog without a license, standing or sleeping outside or jaywalking, among others. These non-traffic infractions have also been often used to homeless police members of a community. According to one of the study's authors, Tifanei Ressl-Moyer, when people, the Black and Latino residents for example, are cited for these minor, non-traffic infractions, they conclude that they are being told not to exist in public places. This inequality is also noted in other cities such as the Bay Area, San Jose, Sacramento and San Diego. In Long Beach, Black adults also account for 36 percent of the citations issued for these non-traffic infractions when in fact they only make up 11 percent of the community. It is also happening in Berkeley wherein the Blacks only make up 7 percent of the city's population but they account for 36 percent of the non-traffic infraction citations issued. The Long Beach Police Department said in a statement that racial profiling is unacceptable and against the law as well as against their policies. The statement further noted that they are committed to scrutinizing their strategies to make sure that communities of color will not feel that the police are profiling them. What makes it worse is that these minor, non-traffic infractions are enforced in a racist and classist way. Ressl-Moyer said that this is why she agrees on calls of defunding the police and instead use those funds for social services in an effort to reimagine community safety. She added that the local government should spend for services to stabilize people who have met the criminal justice system, and people who have unmet needs in the municipality or those living in the streets instead of criminalizing them. Being targeted for these infractions has "really high" costs on marginalized communities, such as the Black and Latino residents, who can be useful in the community if given an equal opportunity. Check these out: Pelosi Wants to Stall Furloughs of 40,000 Airlines Workers, Assures Additional Aid Second Stimulus Checks Possible by October 12 at the earliest if Bipartisan Deal Reached by October 5 40,000 Airline Workers in Danger of Losing Jobs if Congress Not Able to Reach a Deal Al-Azhar described Macron's comments as as an 'explicit call for racism and hate' The Islamic Research Academy at Al-Azhar, Egypts top religious authority, has condemned French President Emmanuel Macrons announced plan for fighting Islamic separatism, which Al-Azhar described as an explicit call for racism and hate. In a speech in Les Mureaux, near Paris, Macron announced intentions to propose a bill to Frances parliament next year to address what he called Islamist isolationism and separatism. The bill would impose tighter controls on funding for mosques and severely restrict home-schooling to prevent children from being indoctrinated by unregistered schools that deviate from the national curriculum, Macron said. There is a crisis of Islam everywhere, which is being corrupted by radical forms, Macron said. In a statement on Saturday, Al-Azhars Islamic Research Academy, which works to reform Islamic culture and safeguard it from political and ideological intolerance, said that President Macron has directed false accusations that have nothing to do with the true context of religion. It said that Islam calls for tolerance and peace among people, including those who do not believe in it. The academy said it completely rejects Macrons remarks, which it said destroy all joint efforts by religious figures to eliminate racism and bullying against religions. The academy also said that some people insist on making false accusations against Islam, including those of separatism and isolationism, and are confused by the fact that some people exploit some religious texts to fulfil malicious goals. The religious body called for abandoning attacks against religions, as this obstructs constructive dialogue and backs hate speech. It also said that such attacks can hinder attempts to establish co-existence among people in a society. Search Keywords: Short link: Jobs are at risk in the Belfast branch of fancy goods and cafe chain Avoca as it confirmed it will scale back its dining venues when it reopens. However, the company would not say how many jobs in its kitchen and restaurant are at risk as it begins a consultation with staff members. But it said it was reacting to findings that footfall in the city centre has fallen by as much as 45%. It is understood staff of Avoca were informed by conference call yesterday. Before the Covid-19 crisis, Avoca operated a large premises in the city's Arthur Street, with a retail section on the ground floor and a cafe and sit-down restaurant on the upper floor. Now the company has said it will not be reopening its restaurant for the time being as it seeks to maintain social distancing. Instead, it will spread out its cafe establishment on the upper floor. A spokeswoman confirmed it will open for the first time since March - and lockdown - later this month. In a statement, the company said: "Avoca, like many businesses in the retail sector, has been significantly impacted as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic - we've seen stats around footfall in Belfast city centre down 45% alone. "For now, effort is being made to restructure and innovate our services in order to open the Belfast operations safely, and in accordance with the latest government guidance on food and retail. "We are looking forward to welcoming back staff and customers in the safest possible manner in the coming weeks, with many exciting changes to come." The company added: "This year footfall in Belfast city centre is down 45% when compared to the previous year. "Regardless, our overall aim is to minimise any redundancies and to protect the Avoca business, and brand, for the future. "Unfortunately today, some restaurant and kitchen staff roles have been put at risk of redundancy, although none have been confirmed. A formal consultation process will now follow." The business was established by the Pratt family, and originated in the Co Wicklow village of Avoca. It was sold to catering giant Aramark in 2015. But cafes and restaurants in Belfast city centre have been hit by an absence of office workers. A survey by Belfast Chamber in August found that just 5% of office workers at businesses in the city were back at their desks. It is understood that percentage has remained steady since then. The Chamber said the drop in office workers has hit both sales and footfall in the city by 50% in recent months. Businesses in hospitality and retail are particularly dependent on office workers. Many indicated to the Chamber that they believe the worst hit to business was still to come, with concerns mounting over an increase in business closures and job losses. And 40% of businesses told the Chamber that they do not anticipate a full return to the office until the end of the year at least. Mark Crimmins, the head of Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland, has said that out of an anticipated 1,200 staff at its headquarters in Donegall Square, only 50 were coming into the office at present. In an interview last month, he said Covid-19 had precipitated pre-existing trends in city centres. He said: "I think gradually, city centres from an office worker perspective will start to repopulate but not to the same extent as they were previously." JasonMould, a leading China plastic injection molding manufacturer, today announced that it is updating its line of machines for robotics and automatic plastic injection manufacturing. Plastic injection molding is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting thermoplastic and thermosetting polymers into a mold. Material for the part is fed into a heated barrel, mixed and injected into a mold cavity, where it cools and hardens to the configuration of the cavity. Custom plastic injection molding China manufacturer, JasonMould, specializes in producing high-quality plastic injection molded parts and mold tools. The company supplies its plastic injection manufactured products to many leading 3D printing companies in the world. The company currently employs 55 machines for robotics and automatic plastic injection manufacturing. They offer all machining and finishing services to make tools from a variety of materials and can produce 100 to 200,000 finished parts in all major plastics in their Huizhou 15,000 square meters facility. JasonMould is a professional plastic injection molding or molding company with low cost and high-quality products, said Jason Lam, president of JasonMould Industrial Company Limited. "We are good at rapid prototype injection molding, CNC milling services, and plastic tooling and injection. We sincerely hope to offer our best services to worldwide customers." JasonMould is renowned for the superior quality of their plastic mold products that can be found in household appliances, medical equipment, electronic equipment, safety equipment as well as monitoring systems. The company can manufacture products such as small and precise mobile phone parts to products as big as automotive parts. JasonMould is a China low-volume manufacturing service factory. Low-volume is the way to go for customers who need quantities of finished parts ranging from a few hundred up to hundreds of thousands. Low volume manufacturing is a specialized service offering full production-quality parts but in volumes usually limited to 100,000 pieces or fewer, depending on the process used. Low-volume manufacturing is an increasingly popular option among customers due to the advantages it offers. Advantages such as reduced costs, rapid access to emerging markets, faster design changes, low financial exposure, and others. JasonMould offers low-volume manufacturing services for tools and parts that can be produced using plastic injection molding, metal 3D printing, pressure die casting, or CNC machining. About JasonMould Founded in 2010, JasonMould is a leading injection molding manufacturer based in Huizhou, China. The company specializes in plastic mold production for household appliances, medical equipment, electronic equipment, safety equipment as well as monitoring systems. Its mission is to provide its customers with high-quality molding products and services. To do that, JasonMould is committed to continually improve employee skills and efficiency, provide their employees a clean and safe working environment, periodically upgrade their machine technology and support equipment, and to maintain customers tooling to its highest peak of performance. The company employs 140+ people in a 15,000 square meters factory. Their tools and parts are mainly exported to USA., Europe, Japan, and the UK. JasonMould products are fully tested and comply with ISO 9001, TS 16949, UL certifications For more information, visit https://www.jasonmolding.com CONTACT INFO: Name: James Yuan Email: info@jasonmolding.com Organization: JasonMould Industrial Company Limited Address: LongGang Village, LongXi Town, BoLuo County, HuiZhou City, GuangDong Province, China Phone: +86-13352636504 Family handout photo of David Haines at his parents home in Ayr, Scotland, in 2012 (Handout/PA) The brother of murdered humanitarian David Haines has warned the UK is at a radicalisation crossroads, with young people at particular risk of being groomed by extremists during lockdown. Mike Haines, who has visited schools to discuss fighting terrorism since his aid worker brother was captured and beheaded in 2014 after being held by a four-man terrorist group of Britons dubbed The Beatles, described the current situation as grave. Mr Haines said he was determined to be a positive force, despite initially seeking revenge against his younger brothers killers. Expand Close Brothers David and Mike Haines in the late 1990s (Family handout/PA) PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brothers David and Mike Haines in the late 1990s (Family handout/PA) And he said the greatest weapon people have in fighting grassroots, homegrown extremism was to talk to young people, understand them, and dont push them to the fringes. He told the PA news agency: The situation just before lockdown was grave, and its only got worse. Speaking anecdotally, he added: There has been more online grooming of youths for all extremism. Teachers and police have told me that cases of online grooming and I use that word because there are so many similarities between the steps extremists take and the steps paedophiles take have gone up. People are getting pushed to the fringes of society. They have a feeling that they dont belong. So I believe we are now at a crossroads. We would love to come and present at your school pr college. pic.twitter.com/gP6soSRZXK GlobalActsofUnity (@mikebhaines) January 23, 2020 His comments echo those of senior police officers, who warned a month into national lockdown that bored and isolated youngsters could be more susceptible to radicalisation and grooming as they spend longer online unsupervised. Police officers also reported a significant drop in the number of reports being made to the anti-terror Prevent programme in the wake of school closures in March. Mr Haines, 54, from Dundee, was speaking after legal developments last month meant the two British-raised Islamic State (IS) jihadis suspected of killing his younger brother and several other Western humanitarians edged closer to going on trial. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, both from West London, have been in US custody for months over the deaths, including that of father-of-two Mr Haines, from Perth, who was working for an aid agency in Syria when he was captured in March 2013 before being killed on camera by the terrorists the following year. Hate is loud but kindness is strong and deep, and it affects people in a more positive way than hatred does in a negative way. Mike Haines Mohammed Emwazi the groups ringleader, also known as Jihadi John was killed in a US air strike in 2015, while Aine Davis is in jail in Turkey for terror offences. Mr Haines, who runs education charity Global Acts of Unity, said he remains hopeful that people stand up and be a positive force in an attempt to prevent vulnerable people from radicalisation. He said: The voices of hatred are loud and in all sorts of places. The thing that the average person in the street can do is think about how their own actions impacts on others. Expand Close David Haines pictured in South Sudan in 2012 (Family handout/PA) PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp David Haines pictured in South Sudan in 2012 (Family handout/PA) Kindness is the greatest force in this world kindness to your neighbours, the homeless man on the street, the migrants, the people with Covid, everyone. Hate is loud but kindness is strong and deep, and it affects people in a more positive way than hatred does in a negative way. Mr Haines is due to be featured in BBC Two series In The Face Of Terror, which begins on Monday night with a focus on the so-called Beatles terror cell. Calling the inauguration of the 'Atal Tunnel' a historic day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah described it as an engineering marvel and said "it will prove to be a major boon for the entire region" He expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inaugurated the all-weather 9.02 km horseshoe shaped two-lane 'Atal Tunnel' in Himachal Pradesh, that links Manali to the Lahaul-Spiti valley, on Saturday. In a series of tweets Amit Shah said, "A historic day for the entire country as the vision of Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji comes true! Congratulations to BRO for working relentlessly on this unprecedented project." "As the longest highway tunnel in the world, Atal Tunnel will reduce the travel time between Leh and Manali by 4-5 hours. Being an all-weather tunnel, it will also connect Lahaul-Spiti valley with the rest of the country throughout the year which used to be cut off for months earlier," Shah said. "Atal Tunnel will prove to be a major boon for the entire region. People will now have access to better healthcare facilities, business opportunities and essential items. It will also strengthen our defence preparedness and generate employment by giving impetus to the tourism sector." The 9.02 kilometre long tunnel is built with ultra-modern specifications in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas at an altitude of 3,000 mtrs (10,000 feet) from Mean Sea Level. It has been designed for a traffic density of 3,000 cars and 1,500 trucks per day, with a maximum speed of 80 km per hour. It has state of the art electromechanical systems including semi transverse ventilation, SCADA controlled fire fighting, illumination and monitoring systems. The tunnel also has ample safety features built into it. The decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken on June 3, 2000 when late Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The foundation stone for the Access Road to the South Portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002. The Union Cabinet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided on December 24 last year to name the Rohtang Tunnel as the Atal Tunnel to honour the contribution made by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. After meeting the Hathras victim's family on Saturday, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Saturday listed their demands which included a judicial inquiry through the Supreme Court and suspension of the district magistrate. IMAGE: Congress's Priyanka Gandhi Vadra embraces a family member of the Hathras victim after meeting them at their home. Photograph: @INCIndia/Twitter Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi met the family and declared that they will fight for ensuring justice to the Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped. In a series of tweets, Priyanka Gandhi listed some of the demands and questions of the victim's family. IMAGE: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra offers her condolences to the family members of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who died after being allegedly raped two ago, at Bulgadi village in Hathras. Photograph: PTI Photo "Questions of Hathras victim's family -- 1. A judicial probe be conducted through the Supreme Court. 2. Hathras DM be suspended and not given a big post. Why our daughter's body was burnt using petrol without our permission. "4. Why we are being repeatedly misled and threatened. 5. For humanity's sake, we brought 'chita se phool', but how do we believe that this dead body is that of our daughter?" Priyanka Gandhi tweeted in Hindi. In Hindu tradition bringing 'chita se phool' generally means collecting remains after cremation. SEE: Will continue to fight until family of Hathras victim gets justice, says Priyanka Gandhi It is the right of this family to get answers to these questions and the UP government will have to give answers, the Congress general secretary in-charge UP said. IMAGE: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at Bulgadi village in Hathras. Photograph: PTI Photo After meeting the victim's family, Rahul Gandhi tweeted, "I met the Hathras victim's family and understood their pain. I assured them that we are standing with them in this difficult time and will provide all help in getting justice for them." "The UP government will not be able to act in an arbitrary way as the whole country is standing for ensuring justice to the daughter of the country," he said in the tweet in Hindi. While heading to Hathras, high drama unfolded in the national capital. There was heavy police deployment on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with barricades on Delhi-Noida Direct flyway and scores of policemen deployed. IMAGE: Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi meet the family members of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who died after being allegedly raped two weeks ago, at Bulgadi village in Hathras. Photograph: PTI Photo As swarms of Congress workers and others jostled with each other amid loud honking, slogans and Congress flags fluttering in the air, the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police finally allowed five people, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, to go to Hathras. Congress workers -- some who described what happened as "brutal repression" -- claimed police used batons to disperse the crowd. IMAGE: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that they will fight against injustice. Photograph: PTI Photo A video also did the rounds on social media in which Priyanka Gandhi was seen coming to the rescue of party workers coming in between them and baton-armed police. SEE: Scuffle between Police, Congress workers at DND flyover Several Congress leaders also slammed the UP government for showing "disrespect" to a woman and they tagged a photograph in which a policeman is purportedly seen "grabbing" Priyanka Gandhi's kurta. There were also some posts on social media hitting out at the Congress over a video in which people were purportedly heard laughing in the car as Priyanka Gandhi drove a silver Innova with Rahul Gandhi by her side and some people on the back seat. IMAGE: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi at Delhi-Noida border as they attempt to move towards Hathras to meet family members of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was allegedly gang-raped, in New Delhi. Photograph: Ravi Choudhary/PTI Photo While several Congress MPs such as Shashi Tharoor, P L Punia, Partap Singh Bajwa, Deepender Hooda, as well as leaders like Jitin Prasada and Sushmita Dev reached the DND flyway, only a few proceeded beyond the border. Earlier in the day, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged that the Yogi Adityanath government was threatening the family of the Hathras victim and asserted that such behaviour was not acceptable to the country. She said the UP government is "morally corrupt". IMAGE: Priyanka Gandhi at Delhi-Noida border as she attempts to move towards Hathras. Photograph: Ravi Choudhary/PTI Photo "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed -- now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test," she said in a tweet in Hindi. "This behaviour is not acceptable to the country. Stop threatening the victim's family," she said. IMAGE: Police stop Congress workers attempting to cross Delhi-Noida border to move towards Hathras to meet family members of the 19-year-old woman who died after she was allegedly gang-raped, in New Delhi. Photograph: Ravi Choudhary/PTI Photo On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi along with several party leaders and workers were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit woman. In a tweet in Hindi in the morning using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul Gandhi said the behaviour of the UP government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable to me. No Indian should accept this." He asserted that "no power in the world can stop me from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and share their pain". IMAGE: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra before leaving for Hathras to meet the family members of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who died after allegedly being gang-raped two weeks ago, in New Delhi. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan/PTI Photo The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday. She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night. Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family". By Forrest J. Remick Although China has displayed bad faith in abundance, the ongoing economic battle is not limited to Chinas disdain for international rules and norms, or even its abysmal record on intellectual property rights and its coverup of the COVID-19 crisis during the early stages of the pandemic. It is a struggle over global control of critical industrial materials, which are needed for U.S. security and clean energy technologies. China is now the worlds leading supplier of minerals and metals, ranging from strategically important lithium and cobalt to rare earth elements, giving it great leverage over supply chains for developing high-tech consumer goods and weapons systems. Allowing China to strengthen its grip on control of crucial materials will leave the United States and other countries with little choice but to bend to its will. This would hobble important high-tech industries such as the semiconductor sector and telecommunications, cripple automobile manufacturers, threaten U.S. access to markets and resources, cost millions of jobs, and limit Americas ability to project economic power and political influence. Despite the enormous stakes, the U.S. has failed to deter China from attempting to dominate the global production of critically important minerals and metals. This is why we must take action to reject the moderation of those who view China as a trustworthy and responsible player in global affairs. Regrettably, U.S. risk aversion has allowed China to reach the brink of total control over some key minerals. China dominates the entire supply chain of lithium, a necessary ingredient in electric cars and storage for the electricity grid. It produces 80% of the worlds battery manufacturing capacity. China now possesses half of the worlds electric cars, thanks to the billions of dollars given to domestic companies in subsidies and other support. By scaling up the production of lithium-ion batteries, China is now poised to overtake established automakers and gain leadership in global electric-car markets. Whats more, global production of lithium needs to increase 10 times or more by mid-century to meet demand for electric car batteries and other clean-energy technologies. Semiconductors pose another difficult challenge. Maintaining U.S. production is important because chips are at the heart of most high-tech equipment, including weapons systems. What if China decides to retaliate against the U.S. by restricting the export of some critically important minerals? Semiconductor chips are made from a number of China-sourced minerals such as gallium, silicon, boron and germanium. Among the other industries that rely on China-sourced minerals and metals are robotics, wind turbines, advanced aircraft, and industrial drones. The good news is that although China has made huge strides toward global control of industrial materials, it is not in total control yet. But if this trend continues, the U.S. will face dangers to its economic security and a trade deficit so big that no combination of tariffs and domestic production can save us. However, we can reverse this trend and regain U.S. leadership through an industrial policy of government and industry working together to reach national security goals. For this strategy to succeed, there needs to be more domestic investment in new products and new technology. And there should be a requirement that the government purchases U.S.-made products to the extent possible. Government investment in the economy used to be anathema to free-market conservatives. But when the Senate voted this summer on legislation that would direct billions of dollars to the semiconductor manufacturers, every Democrat and nearly every Republican supported it. That is the strongest sign yet that industrial policies which allow the government to identify the industrial sectors most critical to national security and economic growth, and spur investment in them is gaining support among conservatives and liberals alike. Forrest J. Remick is a retired professor of nuclear engineering and retired associate vice president for research at Penn State. He served as a commissioner on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. New Delhi: Two new audiotapes related to the Hathras gang-rape case have become viral in which some people are heard talking to the family of the victim. In the tape, the victim's kin is being urged to speak against the police and the government in front of the media and also asked to wait for the arrival of Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi before making the statement. In one of the audio clips, some unknown persons can be heard talking to the victim's brother Sandeep and asking him to stay at home until Priyanka Gandhi arrives. Live TV This audio clip has once again raised questions against the Congress party. The person talking to the victim's family is also heard suggesting them not to settle for Rs 25 lakh but to ask for Rs 50 lakh compensation. The audio clip clearly shows the political angle in the alleged rape and murder incident that took place in Hathras. However, ZEE NEWS does not confirm the veracity of both the viral audio clips. The Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday filed an FIR against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and 201 party leader for violation of prohibitory orders while walking towards Hathras to meet the Dalit rape victim's family. The FIR has been lodged in Ecotech One Police Station of Greater Noida and there are several serious sections against these people in the FIR. The case has been filed by Gautam Budh Nagar Police. *UPDATE Oct. 3, 2020: Yosemite National Park has reopened after closures due both to Covid-19 and wildfires. Day-use reservations will be required to enter the park until Nov. 1, 2020. Before your visit, please check nps.gov for the latest updates and possible closures. Be sure to bring your mask and keep distance from others. Also note that smoke from nearby fires may be causing poor quality; you can check current air quality index at iqair.com. -- Fall in Yosemite, particularly past mid-October, offers a quieter, peaceful experience. Fall is almost here and it's the perfect time for exploring the Yosemite Valley floor by bike. Tour the valley's iconic landmarks on your own time and without the stress of summer car traffic. If you're a climber, then you already know that fall is one of the best times to climb in the valley. Daytime temperatures are generally mild, and you won't encounter lines, as can sometimes happen in summer, to climb the valley classics. By mid fall, even the odds of getting a campsite within Yosemite Valley without planning months in advance are in your favor. Upper Pines Campground, which remains open year round, typically has spots available upon arrival this time of year. Walk-in Camp 4 is less crowded, too. We'd still recommend stopping by the campground reservations office on the earlier side of the day to ensure you get a spot, but cold valley nights typically mean fewer Yosemite campers. Just make sure to bring plenty of firewood to keep warm. A crew soaks up the view along the Four Mile Trail (Photo by Taylor Stitch) Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point Glacier Point via the Four Mile Trail undoubtedly ranks as one of the top day hikes beginning from Yosemite Valley. Climbing 3,200 feet from the valley floor to Yosemite's most famous viewpoint on the edge of the south rim, the trail provides inspiring views of Yosemite's most notable landmarks and an aerial vantage on the valley floor that culminates with the sweeping vista at Glacier Point. PROS: Iconic Yosemite Valley and Half Dome views. CONS: Glacier Point can draw a crowd. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass TOTAL DISTANCE: 9.20 mi (14.81 km) TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 7,214 ft (2,199 m) TRAIL USES:Hiking, Horseback TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No A cyclist enjoys the towering view of El Cap on a Yosemite Valley bike lap (Photo by Aron Bosworth) Yosemite Vally Bicycle Loop Exploring Yosemite Valley by bicycle opens a world of possibilities that aren't afforded by car. In addition to having an endless supply of bike parking (you can pull off just about anywhere), you have the open air freedom to take in the scenery while cruising and can stop on a whim to tour an a magnificent meadow, gaze up at granite monoliths, or warm up in front of a fire at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel. PROS: Great way to sightsee and cover the valley landmarks. Don't have to deal with parking. PROS: Great way to sightsee and cover the valley landmarks. Don't have to deal with parking. CONS: Bike path network is limited. Must share roads with cars. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass TOTAL DISTANCE: 20.50 mi (32.99 km) TERRAIN DIFFICULTY: GREEN TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 50 ft (15 m) TRAIL USES:Hiking, Biking TRAIL TYPE: Loop DOGS ALLOWED?: No Nevada Falls (Aron Bosworth) Nevada Falls via Giant Staircase Loop Upon first viewing Yosemite's Giant Staircase, one can imagine how this section of the Merced River Canyon got its name. The Giant Staircase refers to a pair of immense granite steps that create a 2,000-foot drop between Little Yosemite Valley and the main Yosemite Valley floor. Adding to this dramatic landscape, the Merced River plummets over the ledges and creates two spectacular waterfalls: the lower 317-foot Vernal Fall and upper 594-foot Nevada Fall. PROS: Multiple waterfalls. Phenomonal veiws of Yosemite's glacial domes. PROS: Multiple waterfalls. Phenomonal veiws of Yosemite's glacial domes. CONS: Lower section of trail can get crowded. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass TOTAL DISTANCE: 6.30 mi (10.14 km) TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 1,090 ft (332 m) TRAIL USES:Hiking, HorsebackT RAIL TYPE: There-and-back/Loop DOGS ALLOWED: No An elevated view of Yosemite Valley from Columbia Rock Photo by Tyson Gillard Columbia Rock Hike Departing from the north edge of Yosemite Valley, the hike up to Columbia Rock ends at the ideal location to sit, catch your breath, unwind from the day, and take in the impressive views of the valley at sunset. PROS: Panoramic views of Yosemite Valley. CONS: Arduous and steep switchback trail. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: High PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass TOTAL DISTANCE: 3.00 mi (4.83 km) TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 3,967 ft (1,209 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 1,000 ft (305 m) TRAIL USES: Hiking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No The Ahwahnee Hotel The Ahwahnee Hotel (happily no longer called the Majestic Yosemite Hotel) in Yosemite National Park is often called the queen of national park lodges. Named after the Miwok Native Americans that inhabited Yosemite Valley ("Ahwahnee" means place of gaping mouth), the hotel is arguably the grandest representation of America's parkitecture style that is so pervasive among flagship national park structures built in the early 20th century. While the hotel itself is an architectural marvel, it is the combination of the hotel's majestic Yosemite setting and the nature-inspired architecture that set it apart. PROS: Impressive lodge architecture. Lodging. CONS: Difficult to parking during peak season. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: High PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass POINTS OF INTEREST: Historical landmark, Viewpoint DOGS ALLOWED: No Fall colors below Yosemite Falls Photo by Aron Bosworth Lower Yosemite Falls Lower Yosemite Falls makes up the final drop of the impressively massive Yosemite Falls, the tallest waterfall in the United States. While the upper portion of the waterfall, Upper Yosemite Falls, receives the majority of attention (understandably so with a drop of 1,430 feet), it's little brother is nothing to scoff at with a 320-foot plummet top to bottom. PROS: Easy waterfall access. Impressive view of Half Dome from the base of the waterfall. CONS: Crowds. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: High PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: National Park Pass POINTS OF INTEREST: Viewpoint, Old growth forest, Waterfall DOGS ALLOWED: No (Aron Bosworth) Mirror Lake Loop Located in the far eastern corner of Yosemite Valley near the mouth of Tenaya Canyon, Mirror Lake is formed by a shallow lake bed in which the waters of Tenaya Creek flow. The flat loop trail that circumnavigates the lake and continues east into Tenaya Canyon gives visitors an opportunity to explore this quiet and serene corner of the park. PROS: Rich in wildlife. Flat hike. PROS: Rich in wildlife. Flat hike. CONS: None. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass TOTAL DISTANCE: 4.20 mi (6.76 km) TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 100 ft (30 m) TRAIL USES:Hiking TRAIL TYPE: Loop DOGS ALLOWED: No Upper Pines Campground Upper Pines Campground is one of two campgrounds located in Yosemite Valley proper that remain open year-round. It is the only winter option that is open to car, trailer, and RV camping; Camp 4 is open through the winter, but it is a walk-in, tent-only campground. Upper Pines consists of 238 sites spread among six loops, all of which sit under a canopy of ponderosa pine and incense cedar. The trees are beautiful, but they do obstruct views of the stunning surrounding granite. The campground is located near to some of the valley's best hiking trails, and it is only a walk away from the Happy Isles Trailhead and access to Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall. PROS: Open in winter. Within walking distance to multiple Yosemite trailheads. CONS: Campsites are huddled close together. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: High PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall CAMPING FEE: $20.00 DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass TENT/CAR SITES: 238 PICNIC TABLES: Yes DOGS ALLOWED: Yes (Aron Bosworth) After Six After Six is a six-pitch 5.7 Yosemite classic that has long been a favorite among the less time-committing group of free climbs in Yosemite Valley. Located on the western end of Manure Pile Buttress, the climb is popular with those looking for one of the easier Yosemite routes (it's a good introduction to Yosemite 5.7 multi-pitch traditional climbing) or for a climb that takes less than a full day's commitment. The route ascends 600 feet up the granite slabs of Manure Pile Buttress in a series of low angle cracks and face sections. Large belay ledges are frequent throughout and offer plenty of spots to break for a snack and enjoy the spectacular Yosemite Valley view. PROS: Half-day 5.7 free climb. Easy walk-off descent. CONS: Potential for line to form at base on crowded weekends. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 600 ft (183 m) TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT:Harness, Rope, Anchors, Other MOST TECHNICAL PITCH: Class IV Tunnel View Perhaps made most famous by Ansel Adams*, the vantage of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View is recognizable world round, regardless of whether you have ever stepped foot in Yosemite National Park. PROS: Iconic Yosemite Valley viewpoint. CONS: Crowds. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: High PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass POINTS OF INTEREST:Viewpoint DOGS ALLOWED: Yes Hiking below Nevada Falls. (Aron Bosworth) Taft Point With less notoriety and fewer visitors than nearby Glacier Point, Taft Point is the other vista precipice that sits on Yosemite's south rim. Rising 3,500 feet above the valley floor, Taft Point is actually 300 feet taller than Glacier Point. The absence of guardrails gives this granite promontory more of a wild and exposed feeling than its counterpart located a couple miles east down Glacier Point Road. PROS: Hike along the edge of the south rim. The Fissures. Thrilling vista. CONS: Exposure may be problematic for some. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass TOTAL DISTANCE: 2.20 mi (3.54 km) TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 7,740 ft (2,359 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 230 ft (70 m) TRAIL USES:Hiking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No Glacier Point Chances are you've heard of Glacier Point. It's one of the most photographed vistas and better known viewpoints in the country. President Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir had a famous photograph made from the point on the President's trip to Yosemite in 1903. This trip resulted in Yosemite Valley being incorporated from state control into the National Park system and receiving greater protection. PROS: One of the best views of Half Dome and eastern Yosemite Valley. Easy access when the road is open. Family friendly. PROS: One of the best views of Half Dome and eastern Yosemite Valley. Easy access when the road is open. Family friendly. CONS: Crowds. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: High PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass POINTS OF INTEREST:Viewpoint DOGS ALLOWED: No Sentinel Rock reflects in a clear Merced River. (Aron Bosworth) Vernal Falls Hike via Mist Trail The lower of the two steps that make up the Giant Staircase, Vernal Falls via the Mist Trail explores a stretch of the Merced River Canyon as it rises off of the valley floor and up to the top of Vernal Falls. The hike is a nice there-and-back option if you are limited on time or are interested in a warm-up prior to setting out on a higher elevation hike such as Glacier Point via the 4-Mile Trail and Yosemite Falls Trail. PROS: Waterfalls. Can be combined with a longer loop hike to Nevada Falls. CONS: Lots of people on the lower section of Mist Trail. REGION: Yosemite + Central Sierra, CA CONGESTION: High PREFERABLE SEASON(S):Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED:National Park Pass TOTAL DISTANCE: 2.70 mi (4.35 km) TRAILHEAD ELEV.: 4,000 ft (1,219 m) NET ELEV. GAIN: 1,055 ft (322 m) TRAIL USES:Hiking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No Up until 14 years ago, delivering mail to the village of Gasadalur was a strenuous, uphill business. Tucked into a valley hugged by steep mountains, the remote Faroese village on the island of Vagar had no road access, forcing hardy postmen to trek over a clifftop path three times week. "At that time, it was the only form of connectivity," recalls guide and mountaineer Johannus Hansen, whose grandmother was one of the 'Goose Valley's' 13 residents. "There were only two phones in the village when I was a kid." Even now, one old woman - Petra - refuses to have electricity installed. Up until recently, she used a pet cow in her basement to generate heat. The arrival of a multi-million-pound mountain tunnel in 2006 revolutionised life, adding to a warren of rocky burrows that link the 17 inhabited islands of this volcanic archipelago, sculpted by powerful waves from the Atlantic Ocean and Norwegian Sea. But although the Faroe Islands, a self-governing territory belonging to the kingdom of Denmark, are only 330km north of Scotland (there's a direct flight from Edinburgh to the airport on Vagar) - they occupy another time and place. Slow-paced and considered, life couldn't be more removed. For a brief, blissful three-month period, the islands were even Covid-free, until guests attending a wedding in capital Torshavn sparked a wildfire of cases. It was quickly brought under control by an effective track and trace system, partially delivered by word of mouth. Now every person entering the country - tourists and residents - must take a Covid test at the airport (from 50 for foreigners as of Thursday past), self-isolating at their hotels or homes for 12-24 hours until results come through. Anyone staying more than six days will be required to take another test. Expand Close Mulafossur waterfall in Gasadalur Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mulafossur waterfall in Gasadalur Fewer tourists than usual have gathered to witness the Mulafossur waterfall in Gasadalur, where a wisp of white water plunges as elegantly as a flashy bartender's high pour. At the cliff edge, fulmars circle around the slim cascade, while puffins clumsily crash land onto ledges above old harbour steps crumbing into the sea. For a destination which 'closes for maintenance' three days a year to keep the beast of over-tourism at bay, a lull in visitors must surely have been a relief? But Johannus assures me most people are eager for visitors to return. "We're very welcoming people," he smiles. I have a chance to sample that hospitality - known as heimablidni - in the company of Anna and Oli Rubeksen, ninth generation sheep farmers who open their sea-view home for supper clubs. Skerpikj0t - wind-dried mutton - is a speciality here. Left to hang in a ventilated shed for up to nine months, it's essentially rotten flesh, but when Anna serves the dish, it's too rude to refuse. A luxuriant starter of codfish and egg bathed in silky butter gives me enough faith to trust anything the self-taught kitchen whizz prepares. And as it turns out, the tender, slow-cooked meat is surprisingly palatable, although its vinegary, pickled flavour is one I think I'll leave the locals to enjoy. Expand Close Kallurin lighthouse in Kalsoy island. Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kallurin lighthouse in Kalsoy island. If days can be bright, local legends are almost always dark. From tales of eagles swiping babies, to myths of suicidal humans disguised in zip-up seal suits, no story has a conventional happy ending. Both didactic and dark-humoured, they are nevertheless regaled with entertaining vigour. "The islands are full of 'hidden people'," insists Rani, as we climb a narrow, vertiginous path to the island's Kallurin lighthouse. Beneath the soaring arc of a bird-clustered cliff, the setting has become an Instagram hit for photographers seeking to capture ever-changing light and shade. Out here, in this exposed landscape, there doesn't seem to be many places for people to hide. "They look grey, but they are among us," explains Rani. Proving the point, Rani takes a detour on our way back to the ferry terminal. Swerving left in a mountain tunnel, he follows a rough-hewn exit to a U-shaped valley above the sea. The secret route was originally built for farmers to access the land, but Rani brings people here to listen to what he refers to as the "diamond sound" - a soothing, melancholic chime of dripping water, gusting wind and guttural raven calls. "This is what the islands sounded like when Irish monks first arrived here in the sixth century," he whispers. At a time when everything around the globe feels so discordant, it's a welcome harmony. How to plan your trip Discover the World (01737 886 131; discover-the-world.com) offers a range of holidays to the Faroe Islands, including self-drives, island hopping and a Torshavn city break, plus a full tailor-made service. Prices start from 280pp for a three-night Torshavn city break, including B&B accommodation. Excludes flights, which start from around 200pp. Departures April-October 2021. For more information on the destination, go to visitfaroeislands.com. Researchers used national database to study impact of language barriers in women of recommended screening age CHICAGO: Limited English-language proficiency (LEP) is a risk factor for getting potentially lifesaving screening mammograms less often, according to new study results using national data. These findings, from women aged 40 and older living in the United States, are presented at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2020. "Spanish-only speakers appear to have a 27 percent less likelihood of having a screening mammogram than English speakers," said lead study investigator Jose L. Cataneo, MD, a general surgery resident at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)/Metropolitan Group Hospitals. "The impact of language barriers on screening mammography was previously unknown from a national database," Dr. Cataneo said. "It is important because approximately 67 million people in the United States speak a language other than English, and 41 million of those speak Spanish." He cited recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Mammograms have well-known benefits, the study's senior investigator, Celeste Cruz, MD, a breast surgeon at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, said. "Mammography screening overall really reduces the rate of advanced and fatal breast cancers by finding cancers when they are at earlier stages and highly treatable," Dr. Cruz said. Limited English proficiency common The researchers defined LEP as speaking only or mostly a language besides English. For their study, they used a nationally representative database, the National Health Interview Survey, which is an annual survey of U.S. civilian, noninstitutionalized residents. Using the 2015 survey data, the research team included women between 40 and 75 years old--the age range usually recommended for screening mammography--who answered which language they primarily speak. Among 9,653 women included in the study, 1,040 had LEP, according to the most recent study data reported at the Clinical Congress. Most of those women (756) spoke only Spanish, Dr. Cataneo said. In 936 LEP group members who provided mammogram information, the overall rate of screening mammograms was reportedly 12 percent less than for proficient English speakers: 78 versus 90 percent. Women with LEP who reported never having received a screening mammogram numbered 209. When Dr. Cataneo extrapolated that number, using statistical software, to the entire U.S. female population in the age range of 40 to 75, he estimated it would equal 450,000 women in the country who are eligible for a screening mammogram but may not have had one. Because U.S. mammography screening guidelines vary by age, the researchers examined participants in different age groups: 40 to 50, 45 to 75, and 50 to 75. "In all three groups, we found that those with limited English proficiency had less frequency of getting a screening mammogram," he said. The American Cancer Society recommends that women at average risk of breast cancer begin getting yearly mammograms at age 45, with the option to get one beginning at age 40.2 The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that most women get screening mammograms every other year from ages 50 to 74, and women in their 40s may choose to get a mammogram every two years.3 To standardize the LEP and English-speaking groups, the researchers used a statistical method of matching them by age, race-ethnicity, insurance status, family income, and other factors. After this propensity score matching, speaking only Spanish predicted a significantly lower probability of getting a screening mammogram, with an odds ratio of 0.73, Dr. Cataneo stated. Thus, for every 100 English-speaking women who get a screening mammogram in the United States,73 Spanish-only speakers will get one. Interventions needed Many reasons probably exist why low English proficiency is linked to reduced mammography screening rates, Dr. Cruz said. In their study, women with LEP were more likely than others to be poor and lack health insurance. These women also may have fears surrounding mammography, she suggested. Dr. Cruz said health care providers must dispel myths and focus on the importance of early detection of breast cancer. Although breast cancer occurs in Hispanics at lower rates than non-Hispanic whites, it remains the leading cause of cancer-related death for Hispanic women, the American Cancer Society reports.4 Regardless of ethnicity or language proficiency, many women mistakenly believe they are not at risk of breast cancer because they have no family history of the disease, Dr. Cruz said. In fact, only 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers are hereditary.5 To address the language-based disparity in mammography screening rates, she said her hospital is increasing educational efforts about breast health, the importance of screening, and advances in breast cancer treatment. Now being done virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, this education includes seminars in Spanish for community members. Dr. Cruz also lectures through community organizations for health care providers and employers that seek to promote breast health and screening. Additionally, she said the hospital is working to make online mammography scheduling available in languages other than English. ### The other study authors were O. Andreea Raicu, MD, Klara Schwarzova, MD, and Hanna Meidl, MD, UIC/Metropolitan Group Hospitals. The authors report no disclosures related to this research. Citation: Disparities in Screening for Breast Cancer Based on Limited Language Proficiency. A Retrospective Cohort Propensity Score Matched Study. Scientific Forum, American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020, October 3-7, 2020. 1 U.S. Census Bureau. Selected social characteristics in the United States. 2016 American Community Survey 1-year estimates. Table. Accessed September 9, 2020. Available at: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=ACSDP1Y2018.DP02%20United%20States&g=0100000US&tid=ACSDP1Y2018.DP02&hidePreview=true. 2 Mendes E. Task force releases new breast cancer screening recommendations. American Cancer Society; January 11, 2016. Accessed September 9, 2020. Available at: https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/task-force-releasesnewbreastcancerscreeningrecommendations.html#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20Preventive%20Services,from%20ages%2050%20to%2074. 3 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Breast cancer: screening. Final recommendation statement. January 11, 2016. Accessed September 9, 2020. Available at: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/breast-cancer-screening. 4 American Cancer Society. Cancer facts & figures for Hispanics/Latinos. 2018-2020. 2018. Accessed September 9, 2020. Available at: https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/cancer-facts-and-figures-for-hispanics-and-latinos/cancer-facts-and-figures-for-hispanics-and-latinos-2018-2020.pdf. 5 Nixon C, Cottrell P, contributors. Genetics. Accessed September 16, 2020. Available at: https://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/genetics. About the American College of Surgeons The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 82,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org. Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-03 17:05:43|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KHARTOUM, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan on Saturday expressed wishes of a speedy recovery for U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife from COVID-19. "On behalf of the government and people of Sudan, we express our sincere wishes and prayers of speedy recovery for the U.S. President Donald Trump and the first lady Melania after their infection with the coronavirus," said al-Burhan in a statement issued by the council. On Friday, Trump announced on his Twitter account that he and Melania have tested positive with coronavirus, where he was then flown to a military hospital to receive treatment. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Trump, 74, remains in good spirits and he will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days. Enditem Police and forensic officers at the scene of the murder investigation Two men have appeared in court charged with the murder of Donald Fraser-Rennie in Ballymena. They are Samuel Hugh John Atcheson (33) and Stephen Arthur Hunter (29), both from the town. Mr Fraser-Rennie (33) was found dead at a flat in the Ballykeel estate on Wednesday. Both men were brought before Belfast Magistrates Court on Saturday via videolink from police custody. They are each charged with a single count of murder on a date unknown between September 28 and 30. A barrister for Hunter, of Lanntara in Ballymena, told the court a second autopsy on the alleged victims body has been requested. He said Hunter is being treated as a vulnerable adult and had an appropriate adult with him during police interviews. The barrister added that a psychiatric assessment on his survivability in prison given his mental health issues has also been requested. A solicitor for Atcheson, of Crebilly Road in the town, told the court that after police received a report of a dead man they attended the scene and interviewed his client. He was then arrested and taken to a police station where he was interviewed again, this time with an appropriate adult and an intermediary. No bail applications were made for either man and District Judge George Conner adjourned the case until October 29. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, October 3 2020 Two prison officers at the Tangerang Penitentiary in Banten have been suspended following the escape of Cai Changpan, a Chinese drug convict on death row, on Sept. 14. Law and Human Rights Ministry Corrections Directorate General spokesperson Rika Aprianti confirmed the move. "The head of security and the commander of the guard team when the incident occurred are temporarily dismissed from the Tangerang penitentiary and have been transferred to the Banten Law and Human Rights Regional Office," Rika said on Thursday as quoted by tempo.co, while adding that both would still go through an investigation despite the transfer. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login NSW recorded its eighth consecutive day of zero recent coronavirus cases linked to community transmission on Saturday, as warm weather prompted authorities to keep a close eye on long weekend crowds at popular beaches and attractions. One new case of COVID-19 was detected in a returned overseas traveller in hotel quarantine on Saturday, bringing the number of cases being treated to 51. Two people are in intensive care; neither are ventilated. Bronte Beach was packed on Saturday afternoon. Credit:Steven Siewert NSW Health urged people to stay home from the beach if they felt unwell and to get tested if they had any coronavirus symptoms, as temperatures reached 25 degrees on Sydney's coast and 31 degrees in the west. The sunny spell was among the first tests for beachgoers and local authorities who are grappling with how to balance large crowds over summer with physical distancing requirements due to the pandemic. Advertisement White House staffers appeared publicly wearing masks, many for the first time, on Friday as they waited for President Donald Trump to board Marine One for airlift to Walter Reed Medical Center. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was among the aides wearing face coverings in a dramatic shift for the administration, just days after Trump demeaned Joe Biden for wearing a mask 'every time you see him.' Even hours earlier, as the bombshell news of Trump's coronavirus diagnosis reverberated around the world, his senior staff walked maskless around the White House. Trump himself had long eschewed wearing a mask, doing so in public view only a handful of times, but on Friday he walked out to Marine One with a cloth face covering. It appeared to mark a strict new standard both for his administration and campaign. Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien sent an email to staff on Friday urging staff to wear masks and saying the campaign office would remain open. White House staffers including Kayleigh McEnany (center in blue) appeared publicly wearing masks, many for the first time, on Friday as they waited for President Donald Trump to board Marine One for airlift to Walter Reed Medical Center 'Any campaign staff member who has had exposure to someone testing positive should immediately begin self-quarantine,' Stepien wrote, according to CNN, which obtained a copy. 'While we do not believe anyone else without symptoms needs to self-quarantine at this time, it is on all of us to continue to exercise the smart judgement and practices the campaign has long encouraged: wear a mask, wash you hands, socially distance.' Meanwhile, a top body language expert says that White House staffers appeared 'fearful' and shocked' as they gathered outside the White House to wait for Trump's departure. Patti Wood, body language expert and author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, analyzed two photographs for DailyMail.com on Friday. She said the staffers standing outside the White House waiting for Trump to leave appear to be a united group of people who are genuinely shocked about the presidents diagnosis and fearful about what is doing to happen. They are gathering close together, they are not fearing for themselves even in this situation, there is unity in this group, she said. I feel that they care, are worried and both sad and fearful. Wood said the most telling body language in the photos is the way their feet are positioned, describing it as a freeze stress response which is triggered when fight or flight is not an option The most honest part of the body is the feet. All of that is very telling, she explained. Normally their feet would be further apart and pointing where Trump would be coming from. We are not seeing that Wood said the most telling body language in the photos is the way their feet are positioned, describing it as a freeze stress response which is triggered when fight or flight is not an option when people are faced with actual or perceived dangerous and threatening situations. American women typically stand with their feet 4 to 6 inches apart, while men in a position of power will stand with their feet 9 to 10 inches apart. In this photo, both men and women are standing with their feet closer together, indicating this freeze stress response. The most honest part of the body is the feet. All of that is very telling, she explained. Normally their feet would be further apart and pointing where Trump would be coming from. We are not seeing that. Wood said the stance of the woman standing third from right in a black dress tells her a lot. She has her hands behind her back and her body is highly asymmetrical which indicates something is not right, the body language expert said. Wood says although the temperature may have something to do with the way the other women are standing in the photo and how sharp and angular their posture is rather than rounded as it would be if they were cold, it could also indicate the way they are feeling. Wood said the stance of the woman standing third from right in a black dress tells her a lot. She has her hands behind her back and her body is highly asymmetrical which indicates something is not right The woman in the skirt and black top has her arms tense, tight and close to her body and her feet together, and the woman wearing polka dots has both her legs and arms crossed and her shoulders hunched. The latter also has shock and fear in her eyes. She said White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany seems extremely tense and believes she has her arms crossed inside with thumbs up because of this tension rather than the cold. The temperature in Washington DC was around 64F at the time. Despite wearing a coat, the woman in blue is hunched, is holding her own hand and is folded over in an exaggerated position. Wood describes all of this as the closing of major body windows. This is to block out something you fear or to keep in your emotional state it can also be a combination, she said. Wood said of the two men on the right of the group photo, one has fear and the other has sadness in their eyes. The president gave a thumbs up as he walked from the White House to Marine One to be airlifted to hospital on Friday evening. He waved to reporters on the South Lawn but didnt speak as he walked to Marine One. He walked on his own with no help. The president gave a thumbs up as he walked from the White House to Marine One to be airlifted to Walter Reed Secret Service agents wearing protective face masks standby as Trump departs from the South Lawn of the White House on Marine One to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be treated for Covid-19 White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, left, looks on, while Trump arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was with him, also wearing a mask. Several senior White House staffers, including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, were on the lawn to watch the presidents departure. They were also wearing masks, an unusual image for the Trump White House. An adviser to President Donald Trump revealed there is 'reason for concern' after the president had 'trouble breathing' as he was admitted to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on Friday evening following his positive coronavirus test. 'This is serious,' the source told CNN, stating that Trump was 'very tired, very fatigued'. The White House has stayed mute on the severity of Trump's symptoms and continued to say that the president will be fine yet officials told CNN that his condition was much more severe than First Lady Melania Trump. Trump walked slowly down the stairs of Marine One when he arrived on the hospital grounds after the 15-minute journey holding on to the handrail as he descended. He got into a waiting motorcade for the short ride to the hospital, where he was admitted into the presidential suite. The White House said he was being admitted for tests out of an abundance of caution after he developed a fever, congestion and a cough. He is expected to remain in hospital for a few days where he will continue working, they added. In a video message posted to Twitter, the President thanked the American people for their support following his diagnosis. I want to thank everyone for the tremendous support. Im going to Walter Reed hospital, I think Im doing well, but were going to make sure things work out,' he said in the 18-second clip. 'The First Lady is doing very well. So, thank you very much, I appreciate it. I will never forget it. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 3) A student who just returned to Solomon Islands from the Philippines ended the Oceania countrys coronavirus-free status. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare announced the countrys first COVID-19 case on Saturday, a student that came on a repatriation flight from the Philippines. "This student was quarantined in Manila before he boarded the flight to come back home. He tested negative for the three tests that weve done in Manila which was a compulsory requirement, Sogavare said in an online briefing. He said contact-tracing is ongoing, and all the frontline staff who came in contact with the infected student will be quarantined and tested. He said officials are also working on informing authorities in the Philippines so all the necessary precautions can be taken. While the Solomon Islands government is aware of the risks of repatriating students stuck in other countries amid the pandemic, bringing them home was the humane thing to do, Sogavare said. He, however, announced that repatriation flights are temporarily suspended for assessment and review. The prime minister expressed confidence the government can contain the coronavirus, which has infected more than 34 million people worldwide since it was discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The preparedness and response measures taken by the government over the past eight months have now been activated and are now in full operation," Sogavare said. While Solomon Islands had prevented the entry of the coronavirus disease in the country, the Philippines has recorded more than 319,000 infections, with 5,678 deaths. The Philippines is among the top 20 countries with the most COVID-19 cases, but local officials say the number of currently ill patients are only around 58,000 as over 255,000 patients have already recovered from the viral disease. Texas Democrats and voting rights organisations have sued the governor to halt his order closing mail-in ballot drop-off boxes, limiting drop-off locations to just one per county in the second largest state in the US. With November elections already underway and thousands of ballots cast during early voting across the US, plaintiffs argued forcing such new burdens on voters who relied on a different set of election rules to make their voting plan, is unreasonable, unfair, and unconstitutional. The lawsuit from the states Democratic party, League of United Latin American Citizens and the League of Women Voters Texas also includes lead plaintiffs Ralph Edelbach and Barbara Mason, two senior Texas residents who would be forced to make long drives to drop off their ballots under Greg Abbotts order, issued on Thursday. In Travis County, which holds the states capital of Austin, officials had opened four satellite locations for voters to hand-deliver their mail-in ballots. The county of 1.2 million people includes more than 800,000 registered voters, all within a county thats more than 1,000 square miles. Harris County, one of the largest counties in the US, had 12 satellite offices, covering the greater Houston area. The county covers more than 1,700 square miles, with more than 2.4 million registered voters. Mr Edelbach, 82, would have to drive 36 miles away to the single designated drop-off office in Harris County, under the governors order. Austin resident Ms Mason, 71, would have to make an hour-long round-trip to deposit her ballot under the new rules, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims: For Texas absentee voters including those who had already requested or received their absentee ballot with the expectation that they would be able to use one of many drop-off locations offered by their county the effect of the [order] is to unreasonably burden their ability to vote. Voters who choose to drop off their mail-ballots rather than risk delays at the beleaguered US Postal Service or crowded polls on Election Day will have to travel further distances, face longer waits, and risk exposure to Covid-19, in order to use the single ballot return location in their county, according to the lawsuit, filed in US District Court on Thursday. If they are unwilling or unable to face these new burdens, they will have to rely on a hobbled postal mail system that has expressed a lack of confidence in its own ability to timely deliver the mail and hope that their ballot will be delivered in time to be counted, according to the plaintiffs. Inevitably, for some absentee voters, their hope will be misplaced, and their ballot will not be counted. The lawsuit also alleges that order will disproportionately impact black and Latino voters in the statess heavily populated counties. Governor Abbott, a Republican, said election security and Covid-19 concerns prompted the order, though Texas Democrats argued that its a last-minute attempt to suppress votes despite court rulings that have determined its too late to change election rules, with only a month to Election Day on 3 November. State election officials expanded vote-by-mail efforts in the state, bracing for a greater demand for absentee ballots during the pandemic to prevent crowding in-person polling locations on Election Day. Texas has a voter suppression problem, not a ballot security problem, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas said in a statement. "We are dismayed that the governor of Texas decided to curtail the ability of Texans to cast their ballots safely in the middle of a pandemic by limiting the number of drop-off sites per county. Democratic US Rep Lloyd Doggett, whose district spans a significantly gerrymandered stretch of Texas that includes San Antonio and Austin, called the order an outrageous act of voter suppression" that echoes Donald Trumps baseless attacks against vote-by-mail efforts. Abbott shows his real concern is not drop boxes, but more and more voters dropping Trump and his enablers, Congressman Doggett said in a statement to The Independent. Trump attacks mailboxes; Abbott attacks drop boxes," he said. "Just as he previously ignored medical science, overruling local leaders and exposing Texans to virus dangers, he is now restricting an opportunity to vote safely. Afraid of accountability relentlessly suppressing the vote this move will backfire as more voters are determined to be heard. This sabotage is not about election security; it is about Republican political insecurity. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the illegal activities of slain gangster Mohammed Nayeemuddin alias Nayeem has given a clean chit to 25 Telangana police officials in connection with the case. The Forum for Good Governance obtained this information from the police through an RTI. Of the 25 police officials, two are of Additional SP rank, seven are of SP rank and 12 are Inspectors. In the RTI reply, SIT chief and Inspector General of Police Y Nagi Reddy said that they registered a total 173 cases with regard to Nayeem's illegal activities. All the cases are pending before a court of law. Of the 173 cases, eight have been withdrawn. Giving a clean chit to police officials, the SIT chief said that no case was registered against any of them. Following the information, the Forum for Good Governance secretary M Padmanabha Reddy wrote to the Governor seeking action against police officers having links with Nayeem. Earlier, there were allegations of police officers having a nexus with the gangster. A diary at Nayeem's residence that was seized by the investigating authorities had revealed that Nayeem was in touch with some police officers. Nayeem was killed in an encounter with the police in 2016. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Ethiopia's largest ethnic group holds scaled-back thanksgiving festival People in traditional clothing march during the celebration of the Oromo people's annual thanksgiving holiday, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Members of Ethiopia's largest ethnic group gathered Saturday under heavy security in Addis Ababa for a scaled-back version of their annual thanksgiving festival against a backdrop of unrest and political division. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government said it was restricting attendance for the Oromo group's Irreecha festival to around 5,000 people to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, just as it did for an Orthodox Christian holiday last week. But some Irreecha attendees said the regulations were designed to prevent anti-government protests at a time when Oromo opposition politicians are behind bars and security forces stand accused of using heavy-handed tactics against civilians in the Oromo region surrounding the capital. "When people get together they may reflect on what is going wrong in the country. For fear of that they have restricted us," said Jatani Bonaya, a 26-year-old student. "What the government is doing is not right," he added. Irreecha marks the end of the rainy season and the start of the harvest season. It is traditionally held in the city of Bishoftu, located in Oromia some 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa. In 2016 the use of tear gas and firearms by security forces sparked a stampede in Bishoftu that killed dozens, some of whom drowned in a nearby lake. The government put the death toll at 55, though Human Rights Watch later said it could have been in the hundreds. The following year Irreecha turned into an anti-government protest, part of a broader movement that brought Abiy, Ethiopia's first Oromo ruler, to power in 2018. Last year Abiy allowed a separate Irreecha celebration to take place for the first time in Addis Ababa and hundreds of thousands turned out. On Saturday a much smaller crowd led by chanting Oromo traditional leaders gathered at pools of water in central Addis Ababa, where they dipped flowers and sprayed themselves in a gesture symbolising gratitude and renewal. Story continues -Pop star's killing- Tensions between Abiy and Oromo nationalists have been on the rise in recent months following the June killing of Hachalu Hundessa, a pop star who gave voice to Oromo feelings of marginalisation. More than 160 people were killed in ensuing violence, and more than 9,000 people were caught up in subsequent mass arrests including journalists and prominent Oromo opposition politicians. Chaltu Lemma, a 22-year-old cousin of Hachalu's, attended Saturday's ceremony and said she hoped it would not be tainted with politics. "This is our culture, and our culture is independent of religion and politics," she said. "We are sad as a family and as a nation that Hachalu was killed. He shouldn't have died. But human beings are born and die... This government will also pass, but Irreecha will outlive all of us." Abiy's government was clearly worried about security this year. On Wednesday police staged a military-style parade at which Abiy, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, declared Ethiopia "will not kneel to any enemy in its quest for prosperity". And on Thursday police announced the arrest of 503 people "intending to cause harm to Irreecha festival-goers", saying they had confiscated more than 100 weapons including grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Saturday's ceremony appeared to unfold peacefully. A larger Irreecha ceremony is expected Sunday in Bishoftu. rcb/fb/lc Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said in a statement Friday evening that he tested positive for the coronavirus, writing: "Im following the recommendations of my doctor. Thankfully, I have no symptoms and feel well." Why it matters: Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was at the White House last Saturday to watch President Trump introduce federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Tillis also met with Barrett at the Capitol on Sept. 30. What they're saying: "COVID is a very contagious virus. If you were exposed or start to display symptoms, please call your doctor, self-isolate, and get tested," Tillis said. The big picture: Tillis is the second GOP senator and second member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who was in attendance at the nomination ceremony Saturday and later tested positive for the virus. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also tested positive on Friday. Tillis is in the throes of a hotly contested race in North Carolina against Democrat Cal Cunningham. The candidates debated in-person Thursday night. I'm wishing [Tillis] a quick recovery following his positive COVID-19 test, and am thinking of him and his family," Cunningham said, adding that he would get tested for the virus. The senator is also facing a compressed timeline to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Senate Republicans have said they intend to get Barrett on the Supreme Court by Election Day, though it is unclear how Tillis and Lee's diagnoses will affect the confirmation process. Richmond Times-Dispatch RICHMOND Thousands of Virginians behind on their utility bills soon could face disconnection under a decision from state regulators Thursday that amps up pressure on state lawmakers to resolve their differences on how to offer relief. Lawmakers remain divided on how much debt forgiveness will be offered to indebted customers and who will pay for it, according to the spending plans approved by the Senate on Thursday and the House on Tuesday. Its unlikely those differences will be resolved by Monday, when a moratorium on utility disconnections expires. Gov. Ralph Northam sought to extend the moratorium by seven weeks to allow state lawmakers to wrap up ongoing legislative work during the special session a request the State Corporation Commission denied Thursday. The decision came just hours before Senate lawmakers approved the chambers revisions to the state budget, teeing up a reconciliation fight between the Democratic-controlled House and Senate. The clock is ticking on a number of other issues that have divided the chambers, including evictions relief and spending on police reforms. Varying approaches from the House and Senate in response to protests over police brutality and systemic racism have resulted in disparate spending plans: The Senate allocated $11.2 million for the issue while the House has budgeted $28.4 million. The special session convened to address COVID-19 has dragged on into the fall, with no end in sight, as the fraught relationship between House and Senate leaders yields little in the way of coordination. Before an eventual adjournment, lawmakers are expected to resolve differences between overlapping legislation and the states spending plan. State regulators have estimated Virginians owed more than $184 million in past-due utility bills, including $137.4 million in electric bills, according to a preliminary survey that only took into account debt incurred before July 1 from a sampling of utilities. That has almost certainly ballooned in the months since, and advocates say the ongoing challenges of COVID-19 could prompt a disconnections crisis if lawmakers dont offer relief. The SCC tried to be very clear when they extended the moratorium to Oct. 5 that they would not extend it again. They needed a policy decision, said Dana Wiggins of the Virginia Poverty Law Center. There is relief to be had. People deserve it now, especially as were about to head into the colder months. Lawmakers in both chambers have agreed on the need for relief, including extending the moratorium through the states emergency declaration. But key differences have yet to yield a final plan. For customers of Dominion Energy, the Senate has proposed using a portion of the $366.8 million in overearnings that the company has collected in recent years to offer debt forgiveness. That forgiveness would apply to all bills that are 30 days past due as of Sept. 30. The House version also directs Dominion to use overearnings, but covers all bills that are 60 days past due as of Aug. 31. The House also offers $120 million in federal funds to cover some of the utility debt. Dominion, the states largest utility at 2.4 million customers, said Thursday it does not plan to disconnect customers until state lawmakers come to a resolution. Dominion still may recoup some losses by increasing customer bills. We support the General Assemblys proposed approach to extending the moratorium on disconnects and will not disconnect any Virginia customers for nonpayment while waiting for the General Assemblys final actions to take effect, spokesman Rayhan Daudani said. Its not immediately clear what will happen to customers served by other utilities. Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky said customers cant be disconnected as long as they are on a payment plan. Customers have until Monday to join the payment plan secured by the SCC, which allows for a 12-month repayment period. Todays SCC action heightens the urgency to act, and [the governor] renews his call for legislators to move quickly, Yarmosky said. Kenneth Gilliam of the group New Virginia Majority said lawmakers solution should come quickly, and not at the cost of all customers. Virginians are counting on our state lawmakers to include much needed relief efforts in our state budget to help Virginia families keep their lights on and the water running, while holding utility companies like Dominion Energy accountable for overcharging rate payers, he said.